Greetings, my fellow port swillers!
As first reported to Ol’ Robbo by the Elder Gels, there was trouble at Indiana University yesterday as the police moved in and arrested a bunch of pro-Hamas protesters who refused to take down their tent city.
Thank Heaven the Gels are graduating next week. I hope there won’t be any trouble. And also thank Heaven that all three appear to have come through their formal “education” without having been brainwashed by all the nihilist/gnostic/Maoist garbage which passes as fashionable thought these days.
The tent city biznay reminds Ol’ Robbo of his own skool daze at the People’s Glorious Soviet of Middletown, CT. Back then, the fashionable cause was South African apartheid and the demand for University divestment, and at one point some students set up a “shanty town” along one of the campus walks. As they weren’t doing anybody any harm, the University let them be.
In those ancient times, such protests were not nearly so well organized as they are now, nor were they funded by deep pockets, so the “shanties” looked exactly like what you’d imagine seemed a good idea to a stoned hipster-doofus on the spur of the moment: flabby cardboard and a few scrounged sticks, with hand-lettered signs hanging here and there. (I suppose one could argue that was the point. But I guarantee you that if a kid these days were to time-travel back to join up, he’d take his brand-new Soros-funded nylon puptent with him.)
Ol’ Robbo still has a fond memory of passing one in the pouring rain one day, some kid sitting on the ground in front of it in silent, soggy, muddy protest.*
“Idiot,” was my thought then.** And now.
* I think he was on a hunger-strike, too. Ol’ Robbo has never understood the psychology of hunger-strikes. They seem to me the equivalent of threatening to hold one’s breath until one dies. “Sure, whatever,” is my general response.
** In case you’re wondering, of course Ol’ Robbo thought apartheid was evil. The Boers were always beastly folk. But I also thought bringing about the collapse of the South African government and letting the African National Congress get its claws on the machinery would end up being worse for everybody. I wasn’t wrong.
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April 26, 2024 at 8:37 am
profmondo
One advantage to working at a non-“elite” college is that our kids are too busy building careers and lives (and yes, sports teams) to engage in political theater. As was once said of Atlanta, Mondoville is “too busy to hate.”
April 26, 2024 at 9:05 am
Robbo
Yep. I certainly wouldn’t have paid for it had one of the Gels decided on an “elite” school. It’s worrisome that this sort of thing is creeping into the state systems now as well.
April 26, 2024 at 12:29 pm
rbj1
This year’s begging appeal from my prep school alma mater has the usual “direct my donation” check list. But now they include “community service” (um, ok I guess,) “environment and sustainability” (er, Goebbel Warmening is not a thing,) and “diversity, equity & inclusion” OK, they don’t need nor want my donations anymore.
New England prep schools are infected.