BOOKS Comments turned off

The Builder’s Stone: How Jews and Christians Built the West—and Why Only They Can Save It – January 13, 2025 by Melanie Phillips

Posted By on February 14th, 2025

As the West struggles against attempts to destroy it from within and without, key lessons in resilience from its Jewish parent can enable both Christianity and civilization to survive.

Western civilization is facing a critical moment. Foreign enemies sensing its weakness are circling. Internally, the West is being consumed by division, decadence, and demoralization. The October 7 attack on Israel presented it with a choice between civilization and barbarism—a challenge the West has failed. But this damaged society is far from lost if it takes advice from an unexpected source. Western culture is based upon Christianity, whose own foundations in turn lie in Judaism. The unique survival of the Jewish people offers both the West and its struggling Christian church, as well as secular people who shun religion, priceless lessons in resilience that they must learn if their culture is to survive.

BOOKS Comments turned off

Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson September 12, 2023

Posted By on February 14th, 2025

https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1982181281?

The #1 New York Times and global bestseller from Walter Isaacson—the acclaimed author of Steve Jobs, Einstein: His Life and World, Benjamin Franklin, and Leonardo da Vinci—is the astonishingly intimate story of the most fascinating, controversial innovator of modern times. For two years, Isaacson shadowed Elon Musk as he executed his vision for electric vehicles at Tesla, space exploration with SpaceX, the AI revolution, and the takeover of Twitter and its conversion to X. The result is the definitive portrait of the mercurial pioneer that offers clues to his political instincts, future ambitions, and overall worldview.

When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.

His father’s impact on his psyche would linger. He developed into a tough yet vulnerable man-child, prone to abrupt Jekyll-and-Hyde mood swings, with an exceedingly high tolerance for risk, a craving for drama, an epic sense of mission, and a maniacal intensity that was callous and at times destructive.

At the beginning of 2022—after a year marked by SpaceX launching thirty-one rockets into orbit, Tesla selling a million cars, and him becoming the richest man on earth—Musk spoke ruefully about his compulsion to stir up dramas. “I need to shift my mindset away from being in crisis mode, which it has been for about fourteen years now, or arguably most of my life,” he said.

It was a wistful comment, not a New Year’s resolution. Even as he said it, he was secretly buying up shares of Twitter, the world’s ultimate playground. Over the years, whenever he was in a dark place, his mind went back to being bullied on the playground. Now he had the chance to own the playground.

For two years, Isaacson shadowed Musk, attended his meetings, walked his factories with him, and spent hours interviewing him, his family, friends, coworkers, and adversaries. The result is the revealing inside story, filled with amazing tales of triumphs and turmoil, that addresses the question: are the demons that drive Musk also what it takes to drive innovation and progress?

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Rory Stewart, Turquoise Mountain and the fall of woke colonialism Why were American workers funding a British charity that taught Afghan women about Marcel Duchamp? Brendan O’Neill

Posted By on February 14th, 2025

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/02/13/rory-stewart-turquoise-mountain-and-the-fall-of-woke-colonialism/

Oh no, how will the women of Afghanistan cope without lectures about Marcel Duchamp’s urinal? They’ll have to find a way. For it’s been revealed that Turquoise Mountain, a batty British charity that has lectured Afghan women about the wonders of conceptual art, has had its USAID funding slashed. I hope you’re happy now, Donald Trump and Elon Musk – no more will the tyrannised women of Afghanistan enjoy the sweet relief of a plummy Brit telling them about the time Duchamp put a porcelain piss station in an art gallery.

This is the heartbreaking news that the NGO founded by King Charles and run by Rory Stewart’s wife, Shoshana, has had its USAID handout of a million dollars slashed. It was Rory who broke the story. Looking even soppier than normal in his weekly conflab with Alastair Campbell on their surreally successful podcast, The Rest Is Politics, he said USAID funding for Turquoise Mountain ‘just stopped’. It had a contract with USAID, and it ‘had another million dollars to go’, and yet mad, bad Trump pulled the plug, Rory almost sobbed.

And what urgent work does Turquoise Mountain do? It promotes craft-making in Afghanistan. You can buy its ‘hand-knotted rugs’ made by ‘talented weavers’ – a must-have for every virtuous home in the West’s turbo-smug boroughs.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

EXCLUSIVE: A High Schooler Graduated with a 3.4 GPA. He Couldn’t Even Read.Frannie Block

Posted By on February 14th, 2025

https://www.thefp.com/p/high-schooler-graduates-illiterate-sues-tennessee-school?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Now, the Tennessee teen is suing his school district.

When William graduated high school in 2024 in Clarksville, Tennessee, he couldn’t read the words on his diploma. Despite ending the school year with a 3.4 GPA, he couldn’t even spell his own name.

That’s why William sued his school district, claiming it had left him “illiterate” and that he was denied the “free appropriate public education” guaranteed to all students by federal law.

On February 3, a federal appeals court sided with William, concluding that he was “capable of learning to read,” and agreeing with his claim that his lack of education had caused him “broad irreparable harm.”

William, whose last name is listed only as A. in the suit, first enrolled in the Clarksville-Montgomery County school district in 2016 when he was in the fifth grade. For the next seven years, he scored mostly in the bottom first, second, or third percentiles of his reading fluency assessment tests compared to national standards. In 2019 and 2020, he scored in the bottom ninth and sixth percentiles, respectively. But, a year before he graduated, his reading had regressed so much he was scoring below the first percentile.

That same year, William took a simple writing test asking him to spell 31 words in three minutes. According to his suit, he couldn’t spell half of them, including the word school, which he wrote as shcool.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Facebook, Google, et al., And DEI: Let’s Not Forget Their Insufferable Sanctimony Francis Menton

Posted By on February 14th, 2025

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2025-2-12-facebook-google-et-al-and-dei-lets-not-forget-their-insufferable-sanctimony

A few days ago, Google announced that it had abandoned its targets for “diversity, equity and inclusion” for its workforce. Here is the February 5 New York Times article covering the announcement. According to the Times, Google attributed the change of policy to its need “as a federal contractor . . . to comply with President Trump’s executive orders opposing diversity, equity and inclusion policies.” Google’s announcement came about a month after Facebook parent Meta had (formally) made the same change of policy. (See CNBC’s January 10 piece here covering the Meta announcement.). Google and Facebook are now two leaders in what has become a full-on parade of corporate giants making the same sudden 180 degree reversal of what had previously been broadcast as fundamental corporate policy. Among others in this group are Amazon, Goldman Sachs, McDonald’s, and even Disney.

Was the commitment to DEI of Corporate America, and particularly of the tech giants, really this shallow, that they would all reverse course completely and suddenly and in unison and without a peep of objection?

The truth is that these companies are all breathing a huge sigh of relief at having finally been let off the DEI hook. Their DEI promises were always a ludicrous fantasy. And they were all quickly running into an impossible situation where the promises they had made could not be continued.

Meanwhile DEI had become an increasingly militant and desperate racial spoils regime. As further progress toward its goals became less and less possible, maintaining the regime inevitably required ever more enforced agreement and silencing of dissent. The end of this mess is something we should all welcome. And I do welcome its end, which I certainly hope is permanent.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Flaws in a Recent Lancet Study on Phone Use in Schools Five problems that call into question the authors’ conclusion that phone restrictions don’t improve mental health or academic performance Jon Haidt, Zach Rausch, and Alec McClean

Posted By on February 14th, 2025

https://www.afterbabel.com/p/lancet-study-flaws?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_

In this post, we show why the recent Lancet study’s assertions that restrictive phone policies in schools yield no benefits are unfounded. For example, the phone-policies in the ‘permissive’ vs ‘restrictive’ schools did not differ very much, their measure of academic performance was crude, and their measures of screen time were unreliable.

A recent study published in The Lancet (Goodyear et al., 2025) has generated news headlines suggesting that restricting phone use in schools has no effect on the wellbeing or academic performance of students. This contradicts several previous studies that did find such benefits.

In this post, we lay out several flaws in the design and interpretation of the Lancet study, and several oddities in the data that we believe render its “no benefit” conclusion unjustified.

The authors of the study claimed to have

[E]valuated the impact of school phone policies by comparing outcomes in adolescents who attended schools that restrict and permit phone use.

The word “impact” implies the ability to discern causality. The authors then assert that,

[T]here is no evidence that restrictive school policies are associated with overall phone and social media use or better mental wellbeing in adolescents

and conclude that

[T]here is no evidence to support that restrictive school phone policies, in their current forms, have a beneficial effect on adolescents’ mental health and wellbeing or related outcomes, indicating that the intentions of these policies to improve adolescent health, wellbeing, and educational engagement are not realised.

The authors note that they do find substantial associations between time spent using phones or social media and worsened mental health and wellbeing, physical activity and sleep, and attainment and disruptive behavior:

[T]he negative associations found between increasing time spent on phones/social media and worsened mental health and wellbeing do provide evidence on the need to address phone and social media use in adolescents, and school policies should be developed as part of a more holistic approach.

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Jordanian top lawyer poses while trampling Israeli flag Occurring amid a surge in hatred of the Jewish state, the incident prompted an official protest by the foreign ministry in Jerusalem.

Posted By on February 14th, 2025

https://www.jns.org/jordanian-top-lawyer-poses-while-trampling-israeli-flag/?utm_campaign=Daily%20Syndicate%20

The deputy head of the Jordan Bar Association posed for photographs while standing on a sidewalk painting of the Israeli flag, triggering a protest by Jerusalem on Wednesday.

Walid Al-Adwan made the gesture in Amman during the inauguration of the Bar Association’s new offices on Monday, the Andalou news agency reported.

“Placing the Israeli flag on the entrance floor and declaring that ‘anyone entering must step on it’ is an act of incitement that is inconsistent with the spirit of the peace agreement between the two countries,” Oren Marmorstein, the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson, wrote on X.

Israel, Marmorstein added, “expects the Jordanian government to condemn the incident and take measures to prevent such actions from recurring. The lack of condemnation from the Jordanian authorities is concerning.”

Israel’s foreign ministry conveyed “an official protest to the Jordanian embassy in Israel, emphasizing the need to ensure that such incidents do not happen again in the future,” Marmorstein wrote.

The outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, has stoked hatred of Israel in Jordan.

An Israeli flag has been on display on the floor of the Professional Associations Complex in Amman for years, Andalou noted.

Jordan, whose population is at least 70% Palestinian, signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994. Often described as a cold peace, the relations between the two countries have failed to take off on a cultural level, remaining centered on the transport of goods and water, trade and security coordination.

ANTI-SEMITISM, ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Australian Parliament member: Never been a more important time to support Israel Australia is facing an “antisemitism crisis,” said lawmaker Andrew Wallace. Etgar Lefkovits

Posted By on February 14th, 2025

https://www.jns.org/australian-mp-there-has-never-been-a-more-important-time-to-support-israel/?utm_campaign=Daily%20Syndicate%20Emails&utm_

Australian lawmaker Andrew Wallace said on Wednesday that there has never been a more important time to support Israel and the Australian Jewish community.

Addressing the Australia-Israel Allies Caucus, which he chairs, at Parliament House in Canberra, Wallace said: “Australia is facing an antisemitism crisis, and it is incumbent upon all Australians—and especially those elected to lead the country—that we stand up, speak up and show up for Israel and the Jewish people.”

The remarks come after video footage emerged on Wednesday of two Australians nurses threatening to murder any Israelis under their care, and claiming to have already done so. Australia has seen a surge in antisemitic incidents over the last year, including the torching of two synagogues and vandalism of homes, vehicles and a childcare center.

“The world is watching—allies and competitors alike,” the lawmaker continued. “We must have each other’s backs in the fight against antisemitism.”

Jewish community leaders in Australia have attributed the sharp rise in antisemitic incidents amid Israel’s 15-month war with Hamas in Gaza to inaction or hostility on the part of the Labor-led government.

“The vast majority of Australians support Israel and are dismayed by the actions of the present Labor government in both their voting pattern in the United Nations, their public statements and their lack of action to quell the resurgence of antisemitism by criminal minorities in the country, ” Danny Lamm, former president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, told JNS on Thursday.

Wallace, who is part of a network of more than four dozen faith-based Israel caucuses in parliaments around the globe, said that it is “for such a time as this” that such alliances are needed.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Halftime at the Super Bowl I failed to understand all but a few words. by Larry Elder

Posted By on February 14th, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/halftime-at-the-super-bowl/

President Donald Trump became the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl, and his presence was flashed on the jumbo screen. It’s always a crapshoot when a politician attends a spectacle like this. Attendees will let him or her know exactly how they feel. When the big screen showed him, fans cheered. But when the big screen showed the hyper-woke Trump critic Taylor Swift, fans booed.

So far, so good.

What to say about the halftime show performed by the popular rapper Kendrick Lamar? USA Today wrote: “The Grammy-winning rapper took the stage … for an exhilarating medley performance that paid homage to the Compton emcee’s eclectic catalog.”

“Exhilarating medley performance”? OK, call me biased, and I’m certainly not in his age demo. “Artists” like Lamar could not care less what I think. But I lean toward performers who can sing, dance, play an instrument or, heavens, do all three.

Nearly 50% of voters in a poll conducted by Darren Rovell gave the performance an F.

My nephew, Eric, loves rap. While driving and listening to a popular “song,” I said, “Eric, I don’t understand a word.” He proceeded to translate each line as it was recited.

“How many times did you have to listen before you were able to figure it out?” I said.

“Figure what out?” he said.

“The lyrics.”

“Once.”

So maybe it’s me. During Lamar’s performance, I failed to understand all but a few words. Before the game started, a couple of songs were performed before the national anthem. A beautiful, well-dressed woman used sign language for the hearing impaired. Where was she during Lamar’s performance for those of us who suffer from rap lyric comprehension impairment?

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Why Elon Musk and DOGE Terrify Democrats And what their absolute meltdown tells you about the Left. by Derek Hunter

Posted By on February 14th, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/why-elon-musk-and-doge-terrify-democrats/

You may have noticed the absolute meltdown of the left over the existence of Elon Musk and the DOGE team doing exactly what Donald Trump was elected to do. I phrased it that way because that’s exactly what is happening – someone is finally going through the government’s books and records to figure out what people do, how much it costs, where the rest of the money is going and whether or not we can live without it since we’re more than $36 trillion in debt. Why would anyone meltdown over that? There’s a very simple reason: Democrats cannot afford for the American people realizing how much government they can live without. More than that, they can’t have the public recognize how much the government was actually getting in their way and impeding their success. The public doing either of those two things would be the end of the Democratic Party.

Not one single person in the Democratic Party, either elected or in journalism, has commented positively on anything the Department of Government Efficiency has uncovered and ended so far, nothing. No matter how wasteful, no matter how absurd, no matter how insane or stupid, Democrats are angry that DOGE exists, not that we taxpayers are being ripped off. That tells you something.

The most amazing part of all of it is how these people, who’ve spent decades milking taxpayers for their pet causes, for money to fund organizations that employ their children and fund their campaigns, that hire and pay them exorbitant amounts of money for no-show or symbolic jobs when they retire, that use insider information that make them more successful at stock trading than people who do it for a living, have the audacity to refer to what Musk and the crew are doing as somehow motivated by “greed.”

Under what circumstances would the richest man in the world risk prison for a little more? He’s not Mr. Burns, he’s an OCD kind of guy obsessed with determining what is absolutely essential to the operations of something and eliminating everything else involved in its creation and production. Read Walter Isaacson’s biography of him, for crying out loud.

The “kids,” as the left likes to belittlingly call them, who work with him are not in it for the money, either. Most have founded companies, won massive investments in their ideas, and don’t need anything to be more successful than anyone whining about them. What they want, what they crave is a challenge.