For decades now, we’ve been force-fed the dogma that American higher-education is the epitome of “woke”–a fully-owned subsidiary of “the Left.” I spent three years working for the National Association of Scholars, an outfit dedicated to manufacturing and marketing propaganda of this kind. I spent twenty-six years in higher education, teaching at a dozen institutions on two continents. I happen to live in a college town, Princeton, have lived here for fifteen years, am walking distance from Princeton University, and spend time on campus just about every day. I happen to work near another college town, New Brunswick, home to Rutgers University, and spend time on campus there about once a week. And I have friends and colleagues in higher education across the United States and Canada. So I’m no stranger to higher education or to controversies about it.
Continue readingThe Neo-Nazis and the Permit Raj
Princeton Patch has now confirmed that a white supremacist rally did in fact take place in Princeton this past Saturday afternoon, August 29th. Don’t miss the neo-Nazi video embedded in the article, “Youth in Revolt.” Apparently, the spirit of Leni Riefenstahl never quite died.
Unfortunately, the rally is (like so many things) increasingly being seen as a law enforcement matter, and the police, fixated by definition on matters of law enforcement, are now pursuing the thought that the people participating in the rally lacked a permit to march down the street or through Monument Park, and should have had one. Law enforcement’s idea of a solution to the rise of neo-Nazism in Princeton is to set up a Permit Raj: demand that activists get permits to exercise the privilege of assembling, marching, chanting, or holding signs. And make sure to demote those activities to the status of privileges in the process.
Continue reading“Keep New Jersey White” (take 2)
I posted this yesterday but pulled it after I started to doubt the provenance of the photo. The photo seemed real enough, but I wasn’t sure exactly when the event had happened, and was worried that it was old footage recently unearthed but misleadingly described as recent.
I’ve now traced the source of the photo to my own satisfaction, and am convinced both that the photo is real and that the event it depicts really did take place this past weekend–on Saturday, August 29th. The original eyewitness source appears to be one Andrea Christo of East Windsor, New Jersey, who filmed the demonstration as she drove by, and then either took a still of the scene below or screenshotted her own video. Here’s a link to her Facebook post, and here’s a link to her video. I’m grateful to Ms Christo for documenting this event, and hope that it finds its way into the local press.
People have been telling me for fifteen years that my worries about the rise of fascism and neo-Nazi racism are overblown. Well, here’s a photo of the corner of Nassau and Stockton Streets, taken on August 29th in the supposedly woke college town of Princeton, New Jersey. “Keep New Jersey White.” Since New Jersey isn’t white, their point, obviously, is that it has to be made white at gunpoint. Any guesses how?
(ht: Zellie Imani and Rev Erich Kussman; photo credit: Andrea Christo)
Continue reading“Keep New Jersey White” Mystery Photo
UPDATE: See my August 31 update to this post.
I originally posted this with a critique of the message involved, but about an hour after I posted it, got skeptical that the photo was either real or genuinely depicted an event that took place on August 29th, as is being alleged online. So I’ve deleted the original post pending verification that the photo depicts a demonstration that took place at Nassau and Stockton in Princeton on the afternoon of August 29, 2026.
(ht: Zellie Imani and Rev Erich Kussman)
Continue readingPrinceton in the Service of Empire
“Organized activity”–aka, peaceful political activity–has been banned at Princeton University’s Cannon Green since the enforced closure of Gaza Solidarity Encampment in May 2024, a first since the British Army’s occupation of Princeton in 1777.
There’s one notable exception: ROTC. That’s what you’re looking at just above. I took the photo last Friday morning. It’s Princeton’s Army ROTC unit using Cannon Green for military training.
Continue readingThe Human Shields of West Palm Beach
The New York Times ran an article the other day that’s notable both for how ordinary and how extraordinary it is. The facts are extraordinary, the attitudes taken to it predictably complacent. It’s yet another addition to my running series here on the use of “Human Shields,” not in Gaza or Southern Lebanon, but right here at home. “The U.S. Start-Up Making Low-Cost Interceptors for the Iran War,” it’s called, describing a military start-up based in downtown West Palm Beach, Florida. Here’s the beginning:
Continue readingFor Florida-based Powerus, becoming a global supplier of counterdrone technology has meant involving the Trumps, a golf course and a new way of doing business.
In a small warehouse in the United Arab Emirates, workers spend up to 12 hours a day snapping together 3-D printed components to make interceptors capable of knocking Iranian drones out of the sky at speeds of up to 200 miles per hour.
The facility, which came online last month, is being used by Powerus, a start-up in West Palm Beach, Fla., to make inexpensive interceptors.
The factory is the company’s first foray into the Middle East, and part of its plan to become a global supplier. Factories affiliated with Powerus make roughly 3,000 drone interceptors a month, a spokesman said, and the company is trying to establish a network of factories that will increase production to 15,000 a month worldwide by mid-2027. It would not publicly disclose the identities of its customers or contract manufacturer in the Emirates.
Notes on Lolita (1)
I’ve been re-reading Nabokov’s Lolita in preparation for a “class” I’m “teaching” on it–more precisely, a seminar I’m leading on it –this October, so you’re periodically going to see some posts here on Lolita amidst the usual cheerful fare on war, ethnic cleansing, and mass deportation. It’s tempting to think that as a “book on pedophilia,” Lolita is continuous with all that, but it is and isn’t. It’s a book about pedophilia, and it isn’t. It serves as a depiction of naked evil (so to speak), and it doesn’t. It’s hard to capture what it is and does except by experiencing it.
Continue readingWhose Whatabouting? Which Controversy?
More on the Jason Arday Controversy
Whenever I discuss the Jason Arday case, I get accused of “whataboutism.” As I’ve argued at some length, I find this an unimpressive criticism, but there’s a simpler and more obvious way of putting things than I previously did. The fact is that there is no way to avoid whataboutism when discussing the Arday case, and no one is in fact avoiding it. The people accusing people like me of whataboutism are simply blind to their own engagement in it. The issue is not whether to engage in whataboutism, but which whataboutism to engage in. About what should we be whatabout-ing?
Circling Back to Roundabouts
I’m grateful for the many off-line responses to my roundabouts post, particularly those from decision-makers at Princeton Municipal Council. I thought I’d re-visit the issue to respond to some of what was said.
One set of comments suggested that I over-complicated a simple issue: roundabouts are safer than right-angle intersections, so that’s that. But it’s not that simple. “Safer” is equivocal as between safer at the intersection and safer all things considered, and it’s not clear that roundabouts are safer all things considered.
Continue readingWake Up
True to form, Bret Stephens has an essay in yesterday’s New York Times in which, following AOC’s claims that “Woke 1.0” was “crazy,” he reiterates her point, then offers up a list of nine of Woke 1.0’s victims, and demands restitution for them. The common denominator of all of these victims is that they’re writers or intellectuals of centrist to conservative views, all of whom unjustly lost their jobs (or so we’re told) to the forces of Wokedom.
Continue reading
Policy of Truth 