Chick-fil-A iPhone

BACKLASH: Chick-Fil-A Faces Heat For Caving To Leftists, Cutting Ties With Christian Orgs

Chick-fil-A

Homosexuality

LGBT

Political Correctness

As The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/report-chick-fil-a-to-stop-donating-to-christian-charities-branded-anti-lgbt">reports</a> today, Chick-fil-A, one of the last remaining large companies to stand in defiance of the P.C. police and the LGBT rage mob, has suddenly and inexplicably caved. Chick-fil-A President and Chief Operating Officer Tim Tassopoulos announced in an <a href="https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/retail/exclusive-amid-global-expansion-and-lgbt-pushback-chick-fil-a-changes-charitable-giving-structure-101818">interview</a> that the company will no longer donate to certain Christian charities that the aforementioned rage mob has deemed &#8220;anti-LGBT.&#8221; Tassopoulos says that as the company goes into &#8220;new markets,&#8221; he wants &#8220;to be clear about who we are.&#8221; And &#8220;who [they] are&#8221; appears to confirm the old maxim about becoming what you eat — or, in this case, what you serve.
As Bisnow <a href="https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/retail/exclusive-amid-global-expansion-and-lgbt-pushback-chick-fil-a-changes-charitable-giving-structure-101818">explains</a>:
<blockquote>“Beginning next year, Chick-fil-A will move away from its current philanthropic structure, Bisnow has learned. After donating to more than 300 charitable organizations this year, the Atlanta-based fast-food chain will instead focus on three initiatives with one accompanying charity each: education, homelessness and hunger.&#8221;</blockquote>
And which charities will lose out, now that Chick-fil-A has shifted focus to education, homelessness, and hunger? The company confirms that it will be breaking ties with Salvation Army, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and the Paul Anderson Youth Home. In other words, it will stop donating to charities that help with education, homelessness, and hunger, in order to focus more on education, homelessness, and hunger.
Of course, the real sin of these unfortunate organizations is not that they fail to help exactly the people Chick-fil-A says it wants to help, but that they are all Christian. And, as LGBT protestors have been screaming ever since Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy defended biblical marriage in an interview seven years ago, the fact that they are Christian automatically makes them anti-LGBT. Just last week, pop singer Ellie Goulding <a href="https://relevantmagazine.com/culture/ellie-goulding-will-perform-halftime-show-after-debate-over-salvation-armys-lgbt-stance/">threatened</a> to pull out of her halftime performance during the Dallas Cowboys&#8217; Thanksgiving game because of the NFL&#8217;s association with the Salvation Army. Goulding relented on her threat (though every football fan would prefer if she&#8217;d stuck to her guns), only for Chick-fil-A to jump on the dog pile a few days later.
The change of heart is somewhat confounding. Yes, they&#8217;ve been boycotted on and off for the past seven years. Yes, LGBT activists were prone to lashing out at the restaurant&#8217;s &#8220;hate chicken.&#8221; But none of this appeared to be negatively affecting the company&#8217;s bottom line. Indeed, the opposite was the case. The initial boycott in 2012 gave rise to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2012/08/01/us/chick-fil-a-appreciation/index.html">Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day</a>, where fans of the restaurant waited in lines wrapped around the block to show their support in the form of eating their delicious chicken. The enthusiasm never died. Chick-fil-A <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/boycott-backfire-new-rankings-show-chick-fil-amanda-prestigiacomo">rose in popularity</a> during the intervening years, tripling its sales and becoming one of the top three restaurant chains in the country.
This capitulation will not stop the bleeding, because there was no bleeding. Now that might change. This move is much more likely to alienate Chick-fil-A&#8217;s supporters than to appease its critics. Surrendering to political correctness almost never pays off, and Chick-fil-A isn&#8217;t likely to be an exception. Personally, I don&#8217;t care what charities a chicken restaurant does or does not support. That is their affair and their decision to make. I am not going to boycott. Their chicken sandwiches are still delicious, which is my primary concern when I&#8217;m in the drive-thru. But it is disappointing and somewhat bewildering to see them cave like this. Their refusal, until now, was important for reasons that have nothing to do with gay marriage or homosexuality. It was good to have at least one major company with the stones to defy the Rage Mob. Regardless of the reason for the defiance, or the issue at the center of the controversy, the defiance itself was the point. Their surrender, on the other hand, has no point.
This is what Chick-fil-A will now learn the hard way, as have so many before them: You cannot appease the mob. It doesn&#8217;t matter if you give them what they want. It doesn&#8217;t matter if you fall to your feet, confess your sins, and beg forgiveness. All your self-abdication will do is empower and encourage your critics. They will not forgive you (not that Chick-fil-A needed forgiveness). This is an age of scalp-claiming, not mercy. Now they will happily take yours, celebrate the victory, and move on to the next target. You aren&#8217;t their friend now, or their ally. You&#8217;re just a trophy on their shelf. Congratulations, Chick-fil-A.
Oh well. Popeyes is better anyway.

Chick-fil-A logo on football field

WALSH: Chick-Fil-A Just Caved To The Rage Mob. They’re About To Learn The Hard Way That Surrendering Never Pays Off.

Christianity

Religion

Same-Sex Marriage

Traditional Marriage

As the Left insists on forcing its sociopolitical ideas down everybody’s throats through various mediums including film, television, and art, James Baldwin’s essay, <a href="http://faculty.gordonstate.edu/lsanders-senu/Everybody's%20Protest%20Novel%20by%20James%20Baldwin.pdf">Everybody’s Protest Novel</a>, is as relevant today as ever.
Penned in 1955, Baldwin’s essay takes aim at the famous protest novel, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Son">Native Son</a>, written by his friend and former mentor, Richard Wright. Suffused with communist ideals, most of Native Son amounts to didactic slop, as Baldwin rightly points out.
Wright’s zeal to infest his work with overt political tropes effectively ruins the novel. Characters lack dimension and the plot stumbles toward the absurd. Most importantly, it’s bereft of any real sense of humanity. The novel reads more like a political pamphlet or a fictional exercise in communism than a piece of genuine literature.
Baldwin elaborates:
<blockquote>“The failure of the protest novel lies in its rejection of life, the human being, the denial of his beauty, dread, power, in its insistence that it is his categorization which is real and cannot be transcended.” </blockquote>
Baldwin’s reductive, limiting notion of categorization is what the Left forcefully asserts on all of us these days. The decidedly superficial aspects of ourselves are what must inherently define us now according to the Left — be it our skin color, ethnicity, or sexual preference. We are stripped of the deeper, more essential qualities of our collective humanity.
Worse, these categories exist in a nebulous hierarchy. Only the most fringe are crowned to preside over the rest of us as gatekeepers of what is allowable, particularly in the arts. The evidence is increasingly clear.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/glaad-we-want-20-of-series-regular-characters-to-be-lgbtq-by-2025">GLAAD demands that 20 percent</a> of series regulars on shows be from the LGBTQ community by 2025. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test">The Bechdel test</a>is now a common feminist metric to coerce filmmakers and novelists into artificially representing women in their works. The progressive pull of these groups in Hollywood and elsewhere is staggering in scope and continually evidenced by the films, shows, and novels being thrown at us ad nauseam.
Certainly, if any artist attempts to stray from these measures the specter of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/shapiro-no-leftists-critics-of-cancel-culture-dont-hate-democracy">Cancel Culture</a> looms over them. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dave-chappelles-rotten-tomato-standup-reviews-are-amanda-prestigiacomo">Rotten Tomatoes</a> certainly tried to undermine Dave Chapelle’s recent comedy special, Sticks and Stones, by only allowing for negative reviews from supposed critics.
Baldwin’s essay foreshadows the nefarious impact such sociopolitical strictures like virtue signaling and Cancel Culture have not only on artistry but on truth and the very notion of freedom itself.
<blockquote>“Let us say, then, that truth…is meant to imply a devotion to the human being, his freedom and fulfillment; freedom which cannot be legislated…This is the prime concern, the frame of reference; it is not to be confused with…devotion to a Cause…Causes, as we know, are notoriously bloodthirsty.” </blockquote>
Of course, given the nature of higher education these days, it’s doubtful many are even aware of Baldwin’s eloquent and prescient essay. Over the last thirty years, pedagogy has given way to progressive demagoguery on college campuses all across America. Healthy critical thinking is at a premium in academia and beyond.
I’d be remiss though if I didn’t note some information about Baldwin himself. Not only was he a great, complex American writer, he was black. And gay. How about them apples, progressives?

Dave Chappelle

Cancel Culture&#8217;s Failure: James Baldwin’s Famous Essay Exposes The Left&#8217;s Flawed Logic

Iconic Canadian broadcaster Don Cherry was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-don-cherry-fired-for-telling-immigrants-to-honor-fallen-vets-responds-to-backlash">fired</a> from his job with Sportsnet this week after using his “Coach’s Corner” segment to encourage immigrants to honor fallen troops. Cherry was apparently upset that a diminishing number of people in the Toronto area wear the traditional poppy pins to commemorate Canada’s Remembrance Day. He (not unreasonably) connected this drop off in traditional observance to the increasing number of immigrants in the area. Here’s how he put it:
<blockquote>“You people love — you, that come here, whatever it is — you love our way of life, you love our milk and honey. At least you could pay a couple of bucks for poppies or something like that. These guys paid for your way of life, that you enjoy in Canada.”</blockquote>
The worst thing you could possibly say about these comments is that they’re a little bit gruff. But Don Cherry is 85 years old and 85-year-old men have earned the right to be gruff. Other than this lack of diplomacy, there is nothing remotely offensive or bigoted in his point of view on this issue. He isn’t telling immigrants not to come to Canada. He isn’t saying they are inferior to, or less than, himself. He certainly isn&#8217;t saying anything &#8220;<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nhl/2019/11/11/don-cherry-fired-racist-anti-immigrant-comment/2566800001/">racist</a>,&#8221; as USA Today matter-of-factly put it. He doesn&#8217;t mention race at all and could just as easily be talking about immigrants from a mostly white country. His only point, it seems to me, is to lament a perceived deficit of patriotism and gratitude.
Of course, we live in a time when the only thing more lacking than patriotism is fortitude, so everyone associated with Cherry immediately threw him under the bus and prostrated themselves before the outrage mob. The president of Sportsnet, Bart Yablsey (a fitting name, somehow), announced Cherry’s firing while publicly scolding him for &#8220;divisive remarks&#8221; that &#8220;do not represent our values.&#8221;
The NHL chimed in with its own bit of finger-wagging, accusing Cherry of saying things &#8220;that are in direct conflict with the values of diversity and inclusion that we embrace as pillars of the sport.&#8221; Hockey used to be a game where rough men got their teeth knocked out. Now the National Hockey League delivers lectures on &#8220;inclusion.&#8221; We are truly living in &#8220;Idiocracy,&#8221; except everyone has lost their spines as well as their brains.
<iframe title="Media and Hollywood Rally Behind Convicted Rapist and Murderer | The Matt Walsh Show Ep. 369" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BlehMV5yg8U?start=1366&#038;feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Speaking of spineless, Cherry’s longtime co-host, Ron MacLean, who sat and nodded while Cherry was making these comments, tried desperately to keep his job by knifing his friend in the back. MacLean, doing his best to pretend that he understands why people are upset about this nonsense, called Cherry’s remarks &#8220;hurtful, discriminatory&#8221; and &#8220;flat-out wrong.&#8221; He even thanked the whiney masses for &#8220;calling Don and me on that&#8221; and teaching them a &#8220;great lesson.&#8221; Then his skin turned translucent and he morphed into a literal jellyfish on live TV.
I think there are two points to be made about all of this.
First, Don Cherry was correct. It is indeed important to inculcate patriotism and gratitude in all citizens. As for immigrants, it is their responsibility to assimilate themselves to their new country and show a proper respect for the traditions of their adopted home. Cherry’s point is a good one: If you’re immigrating to a country in order to enjoy its freedoms and luxuries, you should appreciate that many people had to die in order to provide you that opportunity. If there is not enough appreciation for that fact, who should we be scolding — Don Cherry, or the people who made his comments necessary in the first place?
Second, let’s pretend for a moment that Don Cherry’s comments really were &#8220;hurtful&#8221; and &#8220;discriminatory,&#8221; like his aquatic broadcasting partner claims. Could they possibly be more hurtful and discriminatory than a blackface costume? And if they don’t &#8220;represent the values&#8221; of Canadians, then does a man who <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/blackface-photo-justin-trudeau-surfaces-trudeau-ryan-saavedra">wore blackface multiple times</a> represent them?
The hypocrisy is so blatant that it probably doesn’t need to be pointed out, but I will anyway. There was so much outrage in Canada over opinions expressed by a television host that the host was fired. Yet the prime minister of the country wore blackface and still won re-election. Of course, we Americans have no room to gloat. Megyn Kelly was fired from her job at NBC just for talking about blackface.
It just goes to show that these faux-racism outrages are political and performative. Calling the outrage mob &#8220;sensitive&#8221; or &#8220;snowflakes&#8221; misses the point and gives them too much credit. They aren’t sensitive — they’re just frauds.

Don Cherry

WALSH: Legendary Canadian Broadcaster Fired For ‘Racist’ Comments. But Blackface-Wearing Trudeau Remains In Office.

Canada

Immigration

Military

Sports

Austen Fletcher of &#8220;Fleccas Talks&#8221; went to Stanford University last Thursday to check out the big left-wing protest of Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro, who was speaking on campus that evening as part of the Young America’s Foundation’s Fred Allen Lecture Series.
Though Shapiro would ultimately spend a majority of his speech denouncing the &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-shapiro-dismantles-the-alt-right-and-radical-lefts-dangerous-game">dangerous game</a>&#8221; being played by the Alt-Right, left-wing protesters were out en masse ahead of the speech to denounce Shapiro&#8217;s supposedly &#8220;hateful&#8221; rhetoric. But, as Fletcher&#8217;s footage of his interactions with protesters shows (below), when asked to give some specifics about things Shapiro has said that are worthy of such an emphatic response, many of the protesters struggled to come up with anything at all.
One of the people who joined the protest admits to Fletcher that he has no idea who Shapiro is. Another protester says vaguely that Shapiro says &#8220;some f***ed up sh**&#8221; and made &#8220;statements that I don&#8217;t really agree with.&#8221;
&#8220;Nothing he has to say is true,&#8221; says a more committed protester, who agrees with the notion that the mainstream conservative author and commentator is an &#8220;extremist.&#8221;
Asked specifically what Shapiro has said that he disagrees with, another protester only manages to answer, &#8220;Well, uh, there&#8217;s a whole slew of things. I think just generally what he stands for.&#8221;
&#8220;Because I identify as LatinX,&#8221; says another in response to the question. &#8220;And there are a bunch of marginalized people that Ben Shapiro is against,&#8221; he adds, offering no evidence for the broad accusation. &#8220;Before the talk, I didn&#8217;t know much about him,&#8221; the student admits. &#8220;&#8230;I knew that he was labeled as like this really bad person with the people I get along with, which are other people who identify as LatinX or African American.&#8221;
Asked why he&#8217;s protesting Shapiro, another participant of the rally struggles to answer, at which point one of the apparent organizers of the event, who is wearing giant hoop earrings, intervenes, telling the other protester that he doesn&#8217;t have to talk to Fletcher. &#8220;He&#8217;s an adult,&#8221; says Fletcher, who has experienced this same policing of speech by protest organizers in the past, as The Daily Wire has reported.
When Fletcher gets a chance to ask the &#8220;adult&#8221; protester what specifically Shapiro has said that &#8220;can be viewed as hate speech,&#8221; the guy says, &#8220;Nothing specifically, I just think he says a lot of stuff that obviously hurts communities. If it didn&#8217;t, people wouldn&#8217;t be out here.&#8221;
Given the chance to give a message directly to Shapiro, one protester who doesn&#8217;t want to show his face to the camera says only, &#8220;F*** Trump!&#8221; Shapiro, as anyone familiar with his work knows, has gotten flak from the Right for at times being critical of Trump.
The hoop earring-wearing protester who intervened eventually helps lead a chant that is presumably supposed to &#8220;resist&#8221; Shapiro: &#8220;The People United Will Never Be Divided!&#8221; Another chant that got going at the event: &#8220;No Cops! No KKK! Ben Shapiro, Go Away!&#8221;
Fletcher informed The Daily Wire that he was &#8220;borderline harassed&#8221; at many points in the evening by the very protesters who were claiming that they felt &#8220;attacked&#8221; by the rhetoric of Shapiro and the presence of his conservative supporters.
Fletcher&#8217;s video below:
<iframe title="Bitter Stanford Protesters Want to Shut Down Ben Shapiro for No Reason" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TF4fH9w5OSI?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/see-it-stanford-activists-compare-ben-shapiro-to-insect-while-condemning-dehumanizing-speech">The Daily Wire</a> reported ahead of the event, the organizers behind what was billed as a &#8220;Silent Rally&#8221; in protest of Shapiro accused him of espousing &#8220;dehumanizing ideas,&#8221; yet those same organizers created a flyer promoting their rally that featured an insect spray bottle with Shapiro&#8217;s face between images of insects, suggesting that he is a bug in need of extermination.
The majority of Shapiro&#8217;s speech was dedicated to dismantling the racist and anti-conservative arguments of the Alt-Right. Despite Shapiro spending most of the night &#8220;bashing the living sh** out of Nazis,&#8221; however, left-wing protesters attempted to disrupt the event anyhow, at one point chanting “Hey Hey! Ho Ho! Ben Shapiro Has Got To Go!”
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-hecklers-disrupt-shapiro-speech-he-points-out-their-terrible-timing">WATCH: Protesters Disrupt Shapiro Speech; He Points Out Their Terrible Timing</a>

Ben Shapiro

WATCH: Ben Shapiro Protesters At Stanford Asked Why Exactly They&#8217;re Protesting Him

Free Speech

Stanford

This week I delivered a speech at Boston College. The subject was the way in which leftists manipulate people’s minds. They teach them that disagreement is hatred so that they will not listen to the opposition. Thus they transform those who follow them into raging idiots — raging because they see hate-filled enemies everywhere, idiots because they never have to test their ideas in honest discussion with those who see things differently.
As I spoke, a mob — the police told me there were over a hundred people — gathered outside, pounding on the walls and screaming slogans. When the protestors tried to storm the door, I caught glimpses of their faces, twisted in white-eyed rage. They were trying to disrupt my talk but in fact they were illustrating it, proving my point.
This is a terrible thing the academic left does to our young people: transforming them into the zombie enforcers of their fierce miscreed. And what the left does to them, it would do to all of us. They are using their virtual monopoly on the means of communication — the news, social and entertainment media along with the academies — to assault our minds. And their weapon of choice is words.
My trollish young friend and colleague Michael Knowles sometimes gives a speech called “A Man is Not A Woman.” The protestors show up for that too and rage at him too. But of course a man is not a woman. A man can never be a woman, because man is a word and woman is a word and the words refer to two different things. Different things can’t be the same because different is a word and same is a word and they have opposite meanings.
The mob at my speech was incited by a newspaper article that called me Islamophobic.  But phobic is a word meaning beset by irrational fear. I have no irrational fear of Islam. I have questions about whether some tenets of Islamic thought have led to the oppression and violence rampant in the Islamic world today. There is nothing irrational — or hateful — about that.
I believe it is a good thing that gay people can now live their lives unafraid of the law and I encourage them to engage in long-term, committed, faithful relationships. But do I think that’s marriage? No, because marriage is a word, it has a meaning, and that’s not what it is.
This may seem like some abstruse, obscure theoretical consideration, but is it? The Supreme Court is now considering a number of cases in which plaintiffs are seeking to redefine the word sex in anti-discrimination law to include homosexuality and transgenderism. But if the court can redefine words to mean something other than what they meant to the legislators who made the law, what power do the legislators have? If the court can change the meaning of so basic a word as sex, it can redefine anything to mean anything and no law is safe from being rewritten to suit elite prejudices.
Likewise, those who seek to force us through law or social shame or censorship to use the pronouns they prefer are really seeking to force us to describe reality as they wish it were, rather than as we see it to be. Anyone who has that power over you has turned you into his mental slave.
The freedom we have, the justice we seek, are based on concepts that were handed down to us by our founders — written down for us in words. In order to continue free, in order to become more just, we must continue to reason within those traditions. In order to reason and communicate our reasoning, we must use words — words with agreed-upon meanings.
And yet whenever we try to describe the world as it is, the left cries out that such language is violence. It’s not though — because language is a word and violence is a word and they do not mean the same thing.
The left’s war on the west is a war of words and a war on words. Our best weapon in such a war is the truth. We must speak it plainly.

Protest in City

KLAVAN: We Are In A War Of Words

Education

According to the screenwriter for the BBC’s new version of H.G. Wells classic novel, “The War of the Worlds,” the three-part series will give a whole new woke perspective that trashes religion, the idea of nationalism, and contains modern climate-change rhetoric as well as creating a female lead for what was a peripheral character in the original novel.
As <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/10293190/pc-bbc-hg-wells-woke-drama/">The Sun</a> reports, “Poldark” star Eleanor Tomlinson, playing Amy, not only gets a much-inflated part but also gets to read the classic introduction that was originally written for one of the two main male characters. That introduction has been read in different versions of the novel by three protean actors: Orson Welles, Richard Burton and Morgan Freeman.
Tomlinson boasted, “It’s time for a woman to do it. I mean, come on!”
Peter Harness, the writer who adapted the new three-part series, said the environmental damage inflicted by Martians in the novel was exaggerated in the new version and had an modern “resonances.” He added, “It was the zenith of the British Empire but also where the cracks start to show — now here we are 120 years later still trying to define what it means to be British. And religion is pretty roundly rubbished. Religion and militarism and these notions of nationhood in Wells’s book and in this adaptation, they just wither in the face of these aliens.”
<a href="https://www.slashfilm.com/the-war-of-the-worlds-review/">Slashfilm</a>, reviewing the series, noted approvingly:
<blockquote>&#8230; it also heavily deviates from the source material. The War of the Worlds uses flash-forwards to explore the time after the so-called “war,” a time where the survivors turn to religion for a solution to their new toxic Earth where nothing ever grows and red weed covers the world, and the elders don’t listen to rational solutions to their problems. While the cast in general does a fine job with their roles, the show is definitely more interested in Tomlinson’s Amy, who becomes the real protagonist of the story and is quick to offer explanations and find ways to survive.</blockquote>
In the original novel, the classic introduction stated:
<blockquote>No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man&#8217;s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same.
No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.</blockquote>
“The War of the Worlds” has dramatically affected the world in numerous ways; the father of modern rocketry, Robert Goddard, spent two years bedridden during high school, during which he read the novel and was inspired to invent rockets. He became the first person to develop a rocket motor using liquid fuels in 1926. He also “patented the first practical automatic steering apparatus for rockets, developed step rockets designed to gain great altitudes and other components for an engine designed for space exploration,” as <a href="https://www.nationalaviation.org/our-enshrinees/goddard-robert/">nationalaviation.org</a> has noted.
In 1938, Orson Welles narrated a famous radio broadcast of the novel which elicited some panic among listeners who did not know it was a work of fiction. <a href="http://www.war-of-the-worlds.org/Radio/Newspapers/Oct31/NYT.html">The New York Times</a> reported:
<blockquote>A wave of mass hysteria seized thousands of radio listeners between 8:15 and 9:30 o&#8217;clock last night when a broadcast of a dramatization of H. G. Wells&#8217;s fantasy, “The War of the Worlds,&#8221; led thousands to believe that an interplanetary conflict had started with invading Martians spreading wide death and destruction in New Jersey and New York. The broadcast, which disrupted households, interrupted religious services, created traffic jams and clogged communications systems, was made by Orson Welles, who as the radio character, &#8220;The Shadow,&#8221; used to give &#8220;the creeps&#8221; to countless child listeners. This time at least a score of adults required medical treatment for shock and hysteria.</blockquote>
Hearst-owned papers called on broadcasters to police themselves because the government might get involved; Iowa Senator <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde_L._Herring">Clyde L. Herring</a> <a href="https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1226&amp;context=fclj">proposed a bill</a> forcing all programming to be reviewed by the FCC prior to broadcast. FCC Chairman Frank R. McNinch received twelve formal protests against the radio program the day after it aired.

war of the worlds

BBC Allegedly Wrecks Classic ‘The War Of The Worlds’ With New Woke Version

On Tuesday’s episode of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” the Daily Wire editor-in-chief talks about a freelance writer who published a column in The Washington Post critical of people who are against “Cancel Culture.” Video and partial transcript below:
[There’s a person, Aaron Freedman], writing for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/10/28/critics-cancel-culture-really-just-hate-democracy/">The Washington Post</a>, who says “Critics of ‘Cancel Culture’ really just hate democracy.” So in other words, if you oppose the Cancel Culture — which [doesn’t attempt to say], I&#8217;m not going to go see the show, or I&#8217;m not gonna listen to the show, or I&#8217;m not gonna listen to this website or something. …
It&#8217;s not about that, it&#8217;s really more about, “Are you going to go after people&#8217;s advertisers and livelihood?” The answer for that on the Left is a resounding “Yes.” They want to do that. Cancel Culture is not about [saying], “You know what, I don&#8217;t like what Louis CK did so I&#8217;m not going to the show anymore, and maybe other people shouldn&#8217;t go to this show.” It&#8217;s not about that. It&#8217;s about [saying] if you go to Louis CK’s show, I won&#8217;t have dinner with you. If you go to Louis CK’s show, this makes you a bad person. If you listen to that Dave Chappelle special — man, no one should listen to Dave Chappelle, and Netflix should be ashamed for even green-lighting [it]. 
It&#8217;s about the lower-downs at Netflix going to their boss and being like, “How could you possibly green-light that Dave Chappelle special?” Probably shouldn&#8217;t do it next time. Cancel Culture is about canceling, it&#8217;s not about you not wanting to participate in patronage of some artist. Everybody does that all the time. That is merely called &#8230; making a decision. We do that every single day. There are certain things I like to watch, certain things you like to watch, and they may not match. Cancel Culture is about the mobilization of fake [Twitter] armies, who don&#8217;t actually care about these issues, to bother people in order to ruin their businesses simply because you don&#8217;t like what they have to say. But Aaron Freedman says, No, this is called democracy.
<iframe title="The Biden Conundrum | The Ben Shapiro Show Ep. 885" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2sEXso6lM6g?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
There&#8217;s some pretty funny aspects of this particular column. He says 
<blockquote>But cancel culture is best understood through its critics, from social media pundits such as Ben Shapiro and Claire Lehmann to a growing chorus of mainstream writers like Barry Weiss and Bret Stephens. There you&#8217;ll find a familiar line of argument: Once upon a time, Americans tolerated, and even embraced, uncomfortable views and ‘problematic’ people. But, now, when someone is ratioed on Twitter or protested at a panel discussion or booed during a comedy set, it supposedly offers evidence that people are afraid of ideas that challenge them. In casting out those they disagree with, cancel culture’s critics argue, the public is excluding the very ideas it needs most.
Strip away this intellectual gauze and the critics of cancel culture have a pretty simple argument, as Yascha Monk recently endorsed in the Atlantic: &#8216;If everyone always agrees with you, you&#8217;re doing it wrong.’ In other words, don&#8217;t trust your own opinions! Unless you reflexively heed those who you dislike, no matter how good reason you have for shunning them, you&#8217;re doomed to live as an intellectual sheep. 
This sentiment is more than just petty contrarianism. Apply it in the real world, and it becomes clear that contempt for cancel culture is little more than contempt for democracy.</blockquote>
So just to get this straight, according to this columnist for The Washington Post, if I take the position [that] you shouldn&#8217;t be so sure of your own opinion, and you should listen to other people&#8217;s opinions, that&#8217;s called contempt for democracy. If I say that you should patronize whatever business you want, but it is an act of bad to try and destroy somebody’s livelihood based on you disagreeing with them, that is contempt for democracy. Democracy, you see, can only work if you try to mobilize people to destroy your neighbor&#8217;s business. That&#8217;s how democracy is supposed to work, according to this columnist for The Washington Post. 
By the way, I would venture to guess that many of the mainstream Democratic presidential candidates agree with this. This columnist says, “While our society rightly values protest and free expression, the critics of cancel culture turn this virtue into a vise, contemptuously dismissing those who collectively express their disapproval.”
No, if you want to collectively express your disapproval, I have — by the way, if you go to my lectures, I have overtly thanked protesters who come to my protest, who come to my lectures and said they&#8217;re expressing their freedom of speech. They may be wrong, I may think they&#8217;re stupid, but they&#8217;re expressing their freedom of speech, good for them. That&#8217;s not the problem. The problem is when you fake an outrage wave and then go after someone to ruin their career. Protest as much as you want, say you don&#8217;t want people listening to my show as much as you want, [but] going after advertisers who have nothing to do with the show other than they want access to audiences. [Going] after my audience and call them a bunch of alt-right white supremacists, [and] suggest I should be taken off the air, that&#8217;s a different thing. That&#8217;s Cancel Culture, and that&#8217;s what so many people are kicking back against. 
That&#8217;s where Trump&#8217;s culture warrior status really benefits him, because all the Democrats had to do was not be crazy, and they just couldn&#8217;t do it. The ones who are not as crazy, like Joe Biden, who&#8217;s slightly less crazy than most of the other Democrats, are weak. So you got the crazy and you got the weak, and those are the people we are supposed to throw Trump over for? Why, because Trump doesn&#8217;t understand his way around the White House and blunders a lot, and stumbles into things like a bull in a china shop and says bad stuff on occasion?
I&#8217;m sorry, but no. I&#8217;m not turning over the levers of the most powerful government in the history of the world to people who actively want to destroy every priority I believe in because you have some qualms about President Trump saying bad stuff on Twitter. 
<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ben-shapiro-show/id1047335260">Listen to full episodes of “The Ben Shapiro Show” on iTunes. </a>
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-ben-shapiro-show">Watch “The Ben Shapiro Show” on-demand!</a>

Hand pressing cancel button

SHAPIRO: No Leftists, Critics Of Cancel Culture Don’t ‘Hate Democracy’

Cancel culture

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Monday that Speech First, an organization that promotes free speech on college campuses, can continue with a lawsuit challenging The University of Michigan&#8217;s broad speech codes after a district court had previously denied them injunctive relief, as reported by <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/09/24/appeals-court-u-michigan-bias-team-could-chill-free-speech">Inside HigherEd</a>.
According to the <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/378629941/Speech-First-v-U-Michigan-Complaint">original complaint</a> filed by Speech First, officials at the University of Michigan had created &#8220;an elaborate investigatory and disciplinary apparatus to suppress and punish&#8221; any speech that students may deem offensive.
&#8220;Under this regime, the most sensitive student on campus effectively dictates the terms under which others may speak,&#8221; reads the complaint. &#8220;The universities expansive and amorphous prohibitions on &#8216;harassment,&#8217; &#8216;bullying&#8217; and &#8216;bias-related misconduct&#8217; are having — and will continue to have — a profound chilling effect on protected expression.&#8221;
In addition to breathing new life into the lawsuit, the court noted that &#8220;even if an official lacks actual power to punish, the threat of punishment from a public official who appears to have punitive authority can be enough to produce an objective chill.&#8221; The court also agreed with Speech First&#8217;s claim that the University of Michigan Bias Response Team acts &#8220;by way of implicit threat of punishment and intimidation to quell speech.&#8221;
Bias Response Teams similar to the subject of the complaint have been instituted at universities across the country. In 2016, <a href="https://reason.com/2016/05/10/the-university-of-oregons-thought-police">Reason</a> published an analysis of the 85 complaints reported at the University of Oregon and found Bias Response Teams to be &#8220;essentially an administrative thoughtpolice that routinely intervenes in situations where one students&#8217; constitutionally protected speech has offended another student.&#8221;
In one incident, a student reported a party that had a &#8220;culturally appropriate theme,&#8221; which led to a bias response team case manager meeting with a student involved in the party. In another incident, &#8220;an anonymous staff member reported that another staff member asked a coworker inappropriate questions and did not refer to them correctly,&#8221; prompting the university to open a &#8216;gender identity/expression&#8221; investigation and meet with the individual who was deemed offensive.
Free speech protections have been a subject of interest for the Trump administration, which had filed a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-files-statement-interest-michigan-free-speech-case">statement of interest</a> in the lawsuit against the University of Michigan last summer, arguing that bias response team &#8220;chills protected speech.&#8221;
Earlier this year, President Trump signed an executive order tying the protection of free speech on college campuses to government grants, according to the <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/435183-trump-signs-executive-order-aimed-at-protecting-free-speech-on">Hill.</a>
At a signing ceremony, Trump said &#8220;under the guise of speech codes, and safe spaces, and trigger warnings, these universities have tried to restrict free thought, impose total conformity and shut down the voices of great young Americans,&#8221; reports the news agency.
&#8220;All of that changes, starting right now,&#8221; Trump continued. &#8220;We&#8217;re dealing with billions and billions and billions of dollars.&#8221;

um.jpg

Appeals Court Deals Blow To University of Michigan’s ‘Bias Response Team’

University of Michigan

U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Dr. Ben Carson has defended his promoted policy of barring transgender men from lodging at battered women&#8217;s shelters.
Last week, Democrats unilaterally blasted Ben Carson when HUD staffers revealed he said during a private meeting that &#8220;transgender people should get the same rights as everyone else, but they don’t get to change things for everybody else.&#8221; Carson also said that shelter leaders and women&#8217;s groups said they do not want &#8220;big, hairy men&#8221; staying at the shelters. Democrats were so incensed by Carson&#8217;s comments that they immediately began calling for him to be removed as HUD secretary.
&#8220;Shameful. These derogatory comments by Secretary Carson are part of a long pattern that shows his disregard for the transgender community. It’s simply unacceptable,&#8221; said Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA).
Speaking to Tucker Carlson on his Fox News program Friday night, Carson said that he never meant to imply that transgender men have no rights — only that they do not get special rights.
&#8220;I simply pointed out the fact that, you know, we have to have policies that take into consideration everybody’s rights,&#8221; Carson said, as reported by <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/nobody-gets-extra-rights-carson-defends-protecting-women-in-shelters-from-gender-confused-men">LifeSiteNews</a>. &#8220;I say everybody has equal rights; nobody gets extra rights.&#8221;
Carson added that his assertions were in line with some women&#8217;s groups that have expressed concern with having transgender men lodge in those shelters.
&#8220;I talked about some of the women&#8217;s groups who have come to me, and I’ve had many in my office, and they say they are uncomfortable with the policy in existence, which says you must accept a person&#8217;s designation of their gender regardless of their physical characteristics,&#8221; Carson continued. &#8220;What we&#8217;ve decided to do, first of all we’ve upheld the 2012 equal access law; we have no intention of changing that, but in terms of that broad definition of gender being whatever you say it is, we said we&#8217;re going to leave that to the local jurisdictions.&#8221;
The Obama administration originally put in place the policy that says battered women&#8217;s shelters must accept transgender men without regard to appearance, anatomy, or the &#8220;complaints of other shelter residents.&#8221; Carson told Carlson on Friday that the federal government has no business telling people who run shelters for battered women how to conduct themselves.
&#8220;If you have a women&#8217;s shelter and you’ve been operating well, you get to decide how you&#8217;re going to run it, the federal government doesn&#8217;t need to be telling people who is a man and who is a woman,&#8221; said Carson. &#8220;That&#8217;s a decision they can make by themselves.&#8221;
&#8220;And I quoted a group that came to me, and they were very upset, and they said, you know, a big hairy man came in here and he says he’s a woman, and that upsets us because many of us are trying to escape that,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;But the political correctness says you have to say what we want you to say, and that will destroy freedom of speech. And I’ve offered transgender groups the opportunity to let me know what their solution would be so that everybody’s rights are observed. I haven’t heard one peep.&#8221;

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Ben Carson Defends Position On Barring Transgender Men From Battered Women&#8217;s Shelters

Ben Carson

Transgender

Tucker Carlson

Apparently, &#8220;Saturday Night Live&#8221; (SNL) hired comedian Shane Gillis in order to rebut charges of liberal bias. Of course, that was before SNL fired him for making racist statements about Asian people on a podcast nearly one year ago.
According to a report in <a href="https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/snl-conservative-shane-gillis-hire-1203339723/">Variety</a>, sources with NBC say that Gillis was hired to appeal to conservative viewers and help confront charges of anti-conservative bias.
&#8220;According to sources, the long-running NBC comedy show and series mastermind Lorne Michaels were actively looking to cast a comedian for its new season who would appeal to more conservative viewers,&#8221; reports Variety. &#8220;This was meant to counteract the appearance of a liberal bias on the show, given that it has seen a major resurgence in popularity in recent years with Alec Baldwin regularly portraying President Donald Trump while other cast members and guest stars have played members of his administration and those in his orbit.&#8221;
Sources claim that the Gillis fiasco will likely lead to a more extensive vetting process and actually presents a challenge to SNL in the near future. Previously, all &#8220;SNL&#8221; had to vet in a prospectively hired comedian&#8217;s past were statements, stand-up routines, and videos. Now, in the age of the internet, comedians regularly host podcasts and visit podcasts as guests, which means the show will need to do more digging before making a cast member official. Variety provided a rundown of the many racist, homophobic, and misogynistic statements he made in the past:
<blockquote>In a separate podcast, &#8220;Ep 144 — A.I. is Racist,&#8221; Gillis and McCusker make fun of Asian accents about 22 minutes and 20 seconds in, referring to the video game &#8220;Clash of Clans&#8221; as &#8220;Crash of Crans&#8221; in a mock Chinese accent.
A little more than 21 minutes into &#8220;Ep 146 — Live from Shane’s Parent’s Basement,&#8221; while talking about the Battle of Gettysburg, Gillis refers to soldiers yelling as &#8220;so gay.&#8221; About 29 minutes into the podcast, Gillis uses the word &#8220;retard,&#8221; and &#8220;f-ggot,&#8221; and shortly afterward he and McCusker joke about &#8220;hot Southern boys&#8221; being raped during the Civil War, comparing it to &#8220;having gay sex in jail.&#8221;
Gillis, in describing women who disguised themselves as men to fight in the war, refers to them as &#8220;flat chested f***ing b****[es].” He issued a statement last Thursday addressing the situation, writing in part, &#8220;My intention is never to hurt anyone but I am trying to be the best comedian I can be and sometimes that requires risks.&#8221;</blockquote>
While Gillis apologized and pledged to do better, &#8220;SNL&#8221; still fired him, causing a split in the comedy community — some of whom feel that his departure is yet another example of cancel culture.
&#8220;As a former SNL cast member, I am sorry that you had the misfortune of being a cast member during this era of cultural unforgiveness where comedic misfires are subject to the intolerable inquisition of those who never risked bombing on stage themselves,&#8221; said comedian <a href="https://uproxx.com/tv/rob-schneider-norm-macdonald-shane-gillis/">Rob Schneider</a>.
2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang also expressed forgiveness toward Gillis and stated that he did not want Gillis to be fired from SNL.

Shane Gillis

REPORT: ‘SNL’ Hired Shane Gillis To Address Liberal Bias

Andrew Yang

Hollywood

Saturday Night Live

I am told that the revealed blackface photos of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are “<a href="https://www.citynews1130.com/2019/09/18/insulting-shocking-troubling-party-leaders-react-to-photo-of-trudeau-in-brownface/">shocking</a>.” I can think of several different words to describe them — “hilarious” certainly being one — but I would not personally call them shocking. Anyone who has been paying attention cannot be shocked that the wokest white boy this side of the Atlantic has this sort of thing in his past. And when you consider his widely recognized penchant for dressing in <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4037948/trudeau-family-criticized-for-indian-outfits/">ethnic attire</a> — as Trudeau himself said last night, he has “more enthusiasm for costumes than is sometimes appropriate” — it would, if anything, be shocking if the man had never once donned blackface.
But is it racist? So far, we know that Trudeau adjusted his complexion for an Aladdin costume (in a remake that was at least better than Will Smith’s, we have to admit), and to perform a Jamaican song at a talent show, and in at least one other as-yet-unclear context. Objectively, none of this is necessarily racist. Stupid? Yes. Insensitive? Perhaps. But it doesn’t compare to the explicitly dehumanizing blackface worn by minstrel show performers in the early 20th century. This kind of blackface is a joke. Maybe even a tribute. It is not automatically racist, and, all things being equal, it doesn’t matter what dumb costume a dumb guy wore 20 years ago.
And yet, all things are not equal. This blackface stuff is irrelevant and un-racist only by the objective standard of reasonable, sincere people. That is to say, it is relevant and certainly racist by the absurd standard of unreasonable and insincere people like Justin Trudeau. Leftists deserve to be held to their own standards for a change. What makes Trudeau’s blackface scandalous is not that it is bigoted, but that it directly contradicts his carefully curated brand as a racially enlightened progressive. This is a hypocrisy scandal, not a racism scandal. And on that level, he ought to be raked over the coals.
Consider the leftist argument against men like Mark Sanford and Larry Craig. They say that they — the leftists — don’t much care if a man has an affair in his personal life, or solicits gay sex in a restroom, but it’s an outrage in the case of conservative Republicans because of their “family values” brand. These Republicans are the very people — so the argument goes — who trumpet their Christian virtue and attack others for falling short in that regard. It is the height of hypocrisy for them, of all people, to be doing the toe-tap in a bathroom stall. I don’t necessarily disagree with this logic. And it’s this exact logic that should be applied to leftist public figures who have racially insensitive skeletons in their closets. In the name of consistency, and for the sake of punishing hypocrisy, they ought to be treated exactly as they would treat anyone else who has done the same thing.
And how, precisely, does the Left treat such people? Well, consider what happened to Megyn Kelly when she merely talked about blackface on her NBC show. All she did was argue that sometimes blackface isn’t racist — sometimes it’s meant as a tribute, not an insult — and for that, she was pilloried, attacked, and eventually fired. The Left demanded Kelly’s head on a platter for defending exactly the thing that Trudeau actually did. So how should it treat Trudeau? Should we not insist on consistency? If the Left wants to give Trudeau a pass, like they gave Virginia Governor Ralph Northam a pass, then they must be similarly generous with anyone and everyone who has done or said racially inappropriate things in the past. This seems like a perfectly fair demand. One standard — not two.

Justin Trudeau

WALSH: The Left Tore Megyn Kelly Apart Just For Talking About Blackface. Justin Trudeau Deserves The Same Treatment.

Megan Crowley

Race

On Monday, &#8220;Saturdy Night Live&#8221; announced that they were firing comedian Shane Gillis over past comments the producers of the decades-old show deemed &#8220;offensive, hurtful, and unacceptable.&#8221; The move has inspired several fellow high-profile figures to come to the defense of Gillis, including former SNL cast member Norm Macdonald and anti-&#8220;cancel culture&#8221; comedian Bill Burr. The firing of Gillis has also revived an old sketch starring the comedian in which his character suffers a hilariously/tragically parallel fate.
In a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=180&amp;v=DECqrt9p5SA">video</a> that&#8217;s begun to make the rounds online, including over at Reddit, Gillis plays a fireman who just heroically saved a Latino family only to have the media gleefully burn down his promising firefighting career. Below is the video posted on YouTube in August 2018 by Victor Dweck, who plays the shameless newsman who ruins the life of a should-be hero:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DECqrt9p5SA" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></div>
NBC&#8217;s &#8220;Saturday Night Live&#8221; followed the &#8220;cancel culture&#8221; script to a tee on Monday by caving to pressure to shun Gillis over past comments.
&#8220;After talking with Shane Gillis, we have decided that he will not be joining &#8216;SNL,'&#8221; an &#8220;SNL&#8221; spokesperson said in a <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/51852/canceled-shane-gillis-fired-snl-over-past-amanda-prestigiacomo">statement</a> Monday. &#8220;We want &#8216;SNL&#8217; to have a variety of voices and points of view within the show, and we hired Shane on the strength of his talent as comedian and his impressive audition for &#8216;SNL.'&#8221;
But, the producers said, they were &#8220;not aware&#8221; of his prior remarks which recently surfaced. &#8220;The language he used is offensive, hurtful, and unacceptable,&#8221; the spokesman said. &#8220;We are sorry that we did not see these clips earlier, and that our vetting process was not up to our standard.&#8221;
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51852/canceled-shane-gillis-fired-snl-over-past-amanda-prestigiacomo">The Daily Wire</a> reported, the comments deemed &#8220;unacceptable&#8221; by &#8220;SNL&#8221; were dug up by a journalist — much like the muckraking reporter in the skit. On a podcast he produced with fellow comedian Matt McCusker, &#8220;<a href="https://mattandshanessecret.libsyn.com/">Matthew and Shane&#8217;s Secret Podcast</a>,&#8221; Gillis &#8220;used a stereotypical mocking Asian voice and made fun of Democratic candidate and tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang, referring to him as a &#8216;Jew chink.'&#8221;
As detailed by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/13/arts/shane-gillis-snl-racial-slur.html">The New York Times</a>, Gillis also &#8220;used homophobic slurs to describe Judd Apatow, the comedy filmmaker and producer, and the comedian Chris Gethard.&#8221;
Gillis responded to the calls for him to be &#8220;cancelled&#8221; last week by noting that he was simply &#8220;playing a character&#8221; and that he didn&#8217;t actually think of Chinese people in the way expressed in the podcast.
&#8220;I&#8217;m a comedian who pushes boundaries. I sometimes miss,&#8221; Gillis said in a statement he posted online Friday. &#8220;If you go through my 10 years of comedy, most of it bad, you&#8217;re going to find a lot of bad misses. I&#8217;m happy to apologize to anyone who&#8217;s actually offended by anything I&#8217;ve said. My intention is never to hurt anyone, but I am trying to be the best comedian I can be and sometimes that requires risks.&#8221;
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><a href="https://t.co/fw7QJHLFdi">pic.twitter.com/fw7QJHLFdi</a>
— Shane Gillis (@Shanemgillis) <a href="https://twitter.com/Shanemgillis/status/1172340437752807424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 13, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang partly defended Gillis, saying he does not think he should &#8220;lose his job&#8221; over the comments. &#8220;I think we have, as a society, become excessively punitive and vindictive concerning people&#8217;s statements and expressions we disagree with or find offensive,&#8221; Yang tweeted Monday. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think people should be losing jobs unless it&#8217;s truly beyond the pale and egregious.&#8221; Yang later said Gillis reached out to him and the two were going to sit down and chat.
In response to getting &#8220;canceled,&#8221; Gillis tweeted Monday that while it &#8220;feels ridiculous for comedians to be making serious public statements,&#8221; he wanted to respond. &#8220;I&#8217;m a comedian who was funny enough to get &#8216;SNL.&#8217; That can&#8217;t be taken away,&#8221; he said in a statement he posted on Twitter. &#8220;Of course I wanted an opportunity to prove myself at &#8216;SNL,&#8217; but I understand it would be too much of a distraction. I respect the decision they made. I’m honestly grateful for the opportunity.&#8221;
&#8220;I was always a [&#8216;Mad TV&#8217;] guy anyway,&#8221; he added.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><a href="https://t.co/vN0htGMBVg">pic.twitter.com/vN0htGMBVg</a>
— Shane Gillis (@Shanemgillis) <a href="https://twitter.com/Shanemgillis/status/1173690932832505856?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 16, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Related: 
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51858/former-snl-star-norm-macdonald-reacts-firing-shane-amanda-prestigiacomo">Former ‘SNL’ Star Norm MacDonald Reacts To Firing Of Shane Gillis: ‘This Means WAR’</a>
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51900/watch-bill-burr-reacts-snl-firing-shane-gillis-amanda-prestigiacomo">WATCH: Bill Burr, Jim Jefferies React To ‘SNL’ Firing Shane Gillis, Blast ‘Cancel Culture’</a>

shane_gillis_gi.jpg

WATCH: Comedian Fired By ‘SNL’ For Offensive Comments Starred In Skit About Being Fired For Offensive Comments

Last week, pop artist Sam Smith made a stunning revelation: He is plural. The Sam Smiths announced that their new pronouns are “they/them.” No longer are they just one Sam Smith, with trite and outmoded pronouns denoting a single male individual. “He” and “him” are the pronouns of the unenlightened; the pronouns our primitive ancestors etched onto their cave walls because they didn’t have a hieroglyphic to communicate higher concepts like pansexuality and gender fluidity. The Sam Smiths have evolved beyond that.
They <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51757/singer-sam-smith-i-am-changing-my-pronouns-paul-bois">explained</a> their pronoun swap this way:
<blockquote>I’ve decided I am changing my pronouns to THEY/THEM after a lifetime of being at war with my gender I’ve decided to embrace myself for who I am, inside and out. I’m so excited and privileged to be surrounded by people that support me in this decision but I’ve been very nervous about announcing this because I care too much about what people think but f**k it! I understand there will be many mistakes and mis gendering but all I ask is you please please try. I hope you can see me like I see myself now.</blockquote>
Tragically, we still live in a world where most people are satisfied to consign themselves to “grammatically correct” pronouns. Rather than treating language like a toy that can be owned and manipulated and played with, these unthinking drones are stuck in the last century — when language was thought to be a method of communication that depended on certain set structures, rules, and conventions. The Sam Smiths are far too smart and interesting for that kind of barbarity. They have looked within themselves and discovered that the standard English language just cannot properly convey the depth and beauty of their inner experience. Some would say that he is just enormously pretentious. But that&#8217;s outrageous. They are enormously pretentious — but nonetheless courageous.
Inspired by their courage, I would like to share a very personal announcement of my own: I am changing my pronouns to “we/us/our.” You see, I — or rather we — identify not just as myself but as all selves. We identify as me, but also you and everyone else. You might protest that you are not me, to which we would agree. You are not me because there is no me. You are us, we are you, yours is ours. This isn’t difficult to understand.
For too long we — the universal we, not the me we — have thought of pronouns as simple grammatical constructs, but this has only led to our — I mean our referring to me, which is us — further alienation and oppression. We — universal we — must accept that we — me we — have an identity that goes beyond and transcends grammar. If this makes you — by which I mean just you, not me, which would be we — uncomfortable, that’s your problem.
And we must take one step further. If we are already reaching into the dictionary and taking ownership of a certain set of pronouns, claiming it as ours and instructing everyone to acquiesce, we might as well select our own verbs, prepositions, nouns, and adverbs while we’re at it. On that note, our personal verb is “swim,” our personal preposition is “in,” our personal noun is “Indian Ocean,” and our personal adverb is “elegantly.”
It would obviously be highly offensive and traumatizing for you to use any other pronoun, verb, preposition, noun, or adverb in relation to us. No matter what we happened to actually be doing, the only thing you are allowed to say to describe it is: “We are elegantly swimming in the Indian Ocean.” That is how we identify. Those are the words that speak most intimately to our inner experience. That, therefore, is the one and only sentence you are ever allowed to say to us, about us, or around us. That is our sentence. Go get your own sentence. This one is ours. This is how language works now. Or how it doesn’t work, as the case may be. Please cooperate or we will be forced to destroy your life. And by that I mean we will elegantly swim in the Indian Ocean.
Editor&#8217;s Note: Because the internet is filled with foolish and utterly dishonest people, the editors of The Daily Wire wish to note that this column utilizes a literary device called sarcasm.

dictionary language.jpg

WALSH: A Very Important Personal Announcement

Leftism

Progressivism

You may think there are two genders, male and female. After all, there are just two bathrooms and just two choices on official forms.
But apparently you&#8217;d be wrong — way wrong.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has released a series of educational videos targeting school children aged 9-12. In the series, the network instructs kids that there are more than 100 &#8220;gender identities.&#8221; People who disagree with that, the BBC tells children, &#8220;just don&#8217;t know any better yet&#8221; — and could go to jail.
The videos feature young children asking questions to teachers on a variety of subjects, including human sexuality, gender, and relationships.
In one episode titled &#8220;Understanding Sexual and Gender Identities,&#8221; the BBC says gender is not a biological assignment, but rather reflects &#8220;who you are inside.&#8221;
&#8220;There are so many gender identities,&#8221; one teacher tells the young children. &#8220;So we know we&#8217;ve got male and female, but there are over 100, if not more, gender identities now,&#8221; noting that &#8220;you’ve got some people who might call themselves gender queer, who are just like, &#8216;I don’t really want to be anything in particular, I’m just going to be me.'&#8221;
The video includes Leo Lardie, a transgender activist born female but who now identifies as male, who tells the children about her transition — including some talk about her own genitalia. She also tells the children that the only way to happiness for her was to be &#8220;true about who I was, and let other people in on this.&#8221;
Elsewhere in the series, called &#8220;The Big Talk,&#8221; a teacher tells children that they can be jailed if they are found to be &#8220;disrespecting or being hateful to people because of a difference that person perceives.&#8221;
Another episode features a head teacher who is married to someone of the same sex. She suggests to the children that you &#8220;might be gay&#8221; if you like someone of the same sex &#8220;in a slightly different way than you do normally to your friends.&#8221;
The new series has caused a stir in Britain.
Stephanie Davies-Arai, founder of Transgender Trend, which represents parents concerned about children and transgenderism, told the Sunday Times: &#8220;This is made-up nonsense. People are free to identify as anything they like, but this does not change the reality that there are only two sexes.&#8221;
Former CNN host Piers Morgan also criticized the new series. Now the host of &#8220;Good Morning Britain,&#8221; Morgan got into a tiff with journalist Benjamin Butterworth, a gay man who sought to defend the BBC films.
Butterworth said he assumed Morgan was a &#8220;cis-man&#8221; — a biological male who actually identifies as a man.
“Listen, I’m not a cis-man, you keep calling me a cis-man, I’m a man,&#8221; said Morgan.
&#8220;Well that’s fine,&#8221; said Butterworth. &#8220;And that’s how you can identify.&#8221;
&#8220;Stop calling me it!&#8221; Morgan said. &#8220;I feel insulted and offended that you keep calling me a cis-man when actually I’m a man. You see how this works? When you get into the offence business right, when you get into the offence business when everyone is offended by all these terminology, I’m offended by you calling me a cis-man.&#8221;
Morgan later asked, &#8220;Can I identify as a a penguin at the Sealife Aquarium in London, that is currently being reared as gender-neutral, apparently has gay parents. Let me just say this, can I under this new world of self-identification, can I identify as a two-spirit, neutrois penguin?&#8221;
Butterworth said, &#8220;Well, you’re not a penguin, use some common sense. That’s not a thing that happens.&#8221;
But Morgan shot back: &#8220;How dare you tell me I can’t identify as that! How dare you offend me! Do you see how it works, Benjamin?&#8221;

peng.jpg

BBC Tells School Children Aged 9-12 That There Are More Than 100 Genders

Gender

Piers Morgan

Among the fascinating phenomena of America’s most prominent Muslim activist organizations is how they decide which Muslims to lift up and which to ignore. Compare two recent comedy specials. One, Dave Chappelle’s newest Netflix special “Sticks &amp; Stones,” which is <a href="https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2019/08/dave-chappelle-review-netflix.html">generating intense reactions</a> given its choice of material — including abortion, #MeToo, Transgenderism, “the alphabet people” (referring to the expanding acronym LGBTQIA+), and the implications of the “cancel culture,” which seeks to silence all who do not adhere to the “woke” doctrines of political correctness.
Thinking about this hilariously offensive special brought to mind another recent comedy special that challenged different cultural taboos: Millennial Ramy Youssef’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-PSx-lf_kU">Feelings</a>,” released on HBO on June 29.
Both comedians are American Muslims, a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJobAaaxUcM">fact often forgotten</a> about Chappelle — perhaps since he is a convert who generally shuns public discussion of his faith. But Youssef, the son of Egyptian immigrants, emphasizes Muslimness as central to his comedy, TV show, and identity.
In fact, <a href="https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/facebook-and-disney-sponsor-islamist-group-mpacs-media-awards-honoring-dead-anti-semitic-activist-jamal-khashoggi/">Islamist organization the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC)</a> — a group co-founded by Hassan Hathout, who described himself as a “<a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2012/08/history-mpac-andrew-c-mccarthy/">close disciple</a>” of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna and whose current director Salam al-Marayati <a href="https://freebeacon.com/national-security/muslim-leader-who-called-israel-a-suspect-after-911-meets-with-biden-at-white-house/">suggested</a> Israel as a suspect of the 9/11 attacks — and its “Hollywood bureau chief” <a href="https://twitter.com/SueObeidi">Sue Obeidi</a> is <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/emmys-ramy-patriot-act-hasan-minhaj-muslim-portrayal-tv/">eager to promote</a> Youssef. On the contrary, MPAC does not generally even acknowledge the successes of Muslims not in line with its Islamist ideology.
One of the differences between Chappelle’s and Youssef’s styles of comedy is that the latter is more clearly playing essentially himself. And while his ideas may provoke some shocks, they do not do so in the same way as Chappelle’s over-the-top fictional character — a character who intentionally pushes ideological buttons. At times, Youssef goes fairly deep into faith, sexuality, and 9/11. While there are some exaggerations, it’s clear he’s providing what the title suggests: His “feelings.”
Youssef devotes significant time in both his special and fictional show to advancing a bizarre subject: Cousin marriage and why it should be acceptable. Youssef gets not one but two chances at the same time on prominent, hip, corporate television and this is where he places all of his chips? Obeidi and MPAC go through all this trouble to lift him up, only for the big ask of America to more readily permit … cousin marriage?
From minutes 48 – 51, Youssef asks, “You ever have that cousin growing up you kind of have a vibe with?” Then telling a story of his cousin’s wedding in Egypt and jealousy toward her husband, he asks, “Have I been in love with my cousin this whole time? &#8230; It’s only weird if you don’t have a hot cousin. If you think it’s weird, you just have an ugly family. I’m sorry … Why can’t we be with our cousins?”
He then asks the audience for, “like, a real reason?” Captain Obvious in the audience brings up genetics. “That’s propaganda … I looked into it … The rate doubles &#8230; It goes from 1.4 to 2.8% chance that something could happen.” Then he pauses for effect and says, “Like, when did 2.8% ever stop you from doing f***ing anything?” People applaud.
Then he ups the ante: “We’ve been brainwashed. This s*** started in America. They said being with your cousin would f*** up the kids because they didn’t want immigrant populations to grow … That’s racist! That’s why I’m not upset about like, the ‘Muslim ban’ and stuff. I’m still thinking about the ‘cousin ban.’”
In fact, Youssef vastly understates the potential negative impact of cousin marriages, as demonstrated by recent cases in the U.K: While British Pakistanis make up 3% of all births, their children accounted for <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/children/11723308/First-cousin-marriages-in-Pakistani-communities-leading-to-appalling-disabilities-among-children.html">30% of genetic illnesses</a> due to cousin marriage, and in 2017 the London neighborhood of Redbridge released a startling report that <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/london-borough-child-deaths-redbridge-parents-related-cousins-pakistani-families-council-report-a7741146.html">19% of the child deaths</a> in its borough were from cousin couples — 9% of whom were Pakistani.
Next, Youssef baits his P.C.-incubated audience: “It’s just so disappointing because I’m in this crowd of people who are like ‘woke’ or whatever, but you’re not. Like … I saw some of you when I was saying some s*** … I’m sharing a sexual feeling and you shut down … I’ll stand up for the gay community, the trans community … And I’m like yeah, I get that, cause I don’t identify as being her cousin. Gender’s a construct, so is family, like all this is just … it’s what we say it is.”
Funny? That’s not playing a character, it’s a comedian setting aside several minutes in his HBO comedy special to earnestly argue for cousin marriage on the grounds that opposing it is racist.
There is a huge difference between Chapelle, who pokes fun at hot-button controversies to generate laughs, and Youssef, who uses his jokes in a clumsy effort to shoehorn the culture of Islamist society, grafting it onto the intersectionalist arguments that people have come to expect — even when it doesn’t actually fit. The fights for gay marriage and transgender acceptance are somehow comparable to doubling one’s chances of having children with birth defects?
MPAC wants a Muslim (actually Islamist) comedian, not a comedian who happens to be a Muslim. This is significant because it further illustrates MPAC’s Islamist purpose. MPAC doesn’t want to suggest that American Muslims are just like other Americans, with similar issues. Rather, they want to keep American Muslims apart and to force Islamist sentiment down all Americans’ throats.
While it may seem counterintuitive that MPAC would promote Muslims with extreme views rather than all-American Muslim success stories, this is actually a feature and not a bug for organizations with roots in the Muslim Brotherhood. This movement is committed to Islamist values and culture overcoming American and Western values. Pushing the ideological boundaries of respectability is the goal and any tools at hand, whether it be LGBTQ sympathies, postmodernism, or the stand-up comedy traditions of provocation are fair game.
David M. Swindle is the Southern California associate of the <a href="https://counterislamist.org/">Counter-Islamist Grid</a> and a fellow for <a href="https://www.meforum.org/islamist-watch/">Islamist Watch</a>. He also works as the Director of Research for <a href="https://theisraelgroup.org/">The Israel Group</a>. Follow him on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/daveswindle">@DaveSwindle</a>.

Dave Chappelle.jpg

SWINDLE: Islamist Organizations Only Elevate The ‘Right’ Muslims

Islam

Muslims

Matt Stone, co-creator of &#8220;South Park,&#8221; lamented the &#8220;cancel culture&#8221; climate in an interview with <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/as-south-park-gets-renewed-2022-matt-stone-trey-parker-have-new-movie-ideas-1238778?utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_source=t.co&amp;utm_medium=referral">The Hollywood Reporter</a> (THR), wherein he accused critics of lying about their dislike of Dave Chappelle&#8217;s recent Netflix comedy special &#8220;Sticks &amp; Stones&#8221; in order to stay in the good graces of the woke crowd.
&#8220;It&#8217;s new,&#8221; Stone said of cancel culture. &#8220;I don&#8217;t want to say it&#8217;s the same as it&#8217;s always been. The kids are f***ing different than us. There&#8217;s a generational thing going on.&#8221;
&#8220;South Park&#8221; has been hit by cancel culture on many occasions, with various parenting advocacy groups working to have the show pulled off the air for nearly two decades. When it comes to Dave Chappelle, Stone doesn&#8217;t believe the comedian will be canceled anytime soon — but he did lament how critics trashed his Netflix special.
&#8220;I know some people have been canceled for genuinely, like, personal behavior, but Dave is not getting canceled anytime soon,&#8221; Stone told THR. &#8220;I feel bad for television critics and cultural critics. They may have laughed like hell at that, and then they went home and they kn[e]w what they ha[d] to write to keep their job. So when I read TV reviews or cultural reviews, I think of someone in prison, writing. I think about somebody writing a hostage note. This is not what they think. This is what they have to do to keep their job in a social media world. So I don&#8217;t hold it against them.&#8221;
In the same interview, Stone said that he and Trey Parker now feel bad for trashing Al Gore with the &#8220;ManBearPig&#8221; episode, which was an extended metaphor for climate change. To apparently &#8220;atone&#8221; for this sin, the pair recently produced a politically correct apology episode in which Gore was actually right about ManBearPig.
&#8220;We just felt like, of all of our episodes, that one has not aged very well,&#8221; Stone said. &#8220;And we came up with a funny idea how to use ManBearPig as a parable. I always felt like if we were going to rewrite that or comment on it or atone, whatever you want to call it, it&#8217;s in kind. In other words, we didn&#8217;t want to say in some interview, &#8216;Well, we don&#8217;t feel so great about that episode.&#8217; It doesn&#8217;t feel as good as &#8216;F**k that, we&#8217;ll do a whole two-parter.&#8217; And it is not just atoning. We beat ourselves up pretty good.&#8221;
That being said, Stone and co-creator Trey Parker said that they were glad to steer the show away from trashing Donald Trump, which it did for nearly all of last season, and plan to explore more fertile comedy territory.
&#8220;It was nice for us,&#8221; Parker said. &#8220;It was nice to not come in and talk about Donald Trump. And I think it was nice for people to watch and go, &#8216;Oh, yeah, there is still comedy outside of f**king Donald Trump. There is still funny sh*t as the world goes on.&#8217; And you can get your Trump comedy on so many other shows.&#8221;
&#8220;We can make a funnier show with Garrison and that whole story, but there is other stuff that is more fun,&#8221; Stone added. &#8220;But then again, if we came up with something tomorrow, we&#8217;d do it. We don&#8217;t have any rules.&#8221;

mattstone

‘South Park’ Co-Creator Matt Stone Explains Why Critics Trashed Dave Chappelle: ‘To Keep Their Jobs’

Hollywood Reporter

South Park

If you are a Democrat, you should be profoundly embarrassed by last night&#8217;s debate. For the rest of us, it was thoroughly entertaining. Bernie Sanders screamed and flailed his arms like he was conducting an orchestra. Kamala Harris burst out into fits of inappropriate laughter like your drunk aunt on Thanksgiving. Julian Castro called Joe Biden an old fart, in so many words, and Andrew Yang openly bribed the audience. And this is to say nothing of the actual policy ideas put forward — ideas that include Bernie&#8217;s magical free health care for all and O&#8217;Rourke&#8217;s nationwide gun confiscation program. One wonders how O&#8217;Rourke plans to enact this program while working as a shift supervisor at Home Depot. He certainly isn&#8217;t going to win the presidency, after all, and he won&#8217;t get elected to office in Texas again now that he&#8217;s come out as a dyed-in-the-wool gun grabber.
The ABC moderators were almost as incompetent as the people they were moderating. Aside from the complete lack of follow-up questions, they also allotted absurd stretches of time for softball questions. For example, the candidates were allowed to spend the last half hour of the debate trading flattering stories about themselves. At another point, they were given the opportunity to &#8220;<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/democrats-tackle-racism-mass-incarceration-debate-stage/story?id=65583080">tackle racism</a>.&#8221; It seems that all ten contenders agree that racism is bad. They all took a bold anti-racism stance and were given ample time to elaborate on it.
White men Beto O&#8217;Rourke and Pete Buttigieg were not going to let the pandering opportunity go to waste. O&#8217;Rourke said that racism is &#8220;endemic&#8221; and &#8220;foundational&#8221; in our country. Buttigieg — who, we should note, managed to make it through the entire debate and only mention Mike Pence once — declared that our nation is plagued by &#8220;systemic racism.&#8221; Buttigieg assures us that he has &#8220;the most comprehensive vision&#8221; to defeat this scourge once and for all.
But this all raises an awkward question. If racism is &#8220;systemic,&#8221; &#8220;endemic,&#8221; and &#8220;foundational,&#8221; and if the system is fundamentally structured so as to keep the black man down and the white man up, then why are O&#8217;Rourke and Buttigieg (and Biden and Sanders) even in the race at all? Indeed, how can Buttigieg claim to have &#8220;the most comprehensive vision&#8221; for combating racism while he shares the stage with ethnic and racial minorities like Kamala Harris, Julian Castro, Andrew Yang, Cory Booker, and the Native American Elizabeth Warren? Isn&#8217;t it rather presumptuous, arrogant, and even bigoted to claim that you, as a white man, are more equipped to slay the dragon of systemic racism than a black woman or a Latino man?
The Left&#8217;s racism doctrine states very plainly that white people are inherently racist. Only white people can be racist — because only they have institutional power, or some such nonsense — and only people of color can experience racism. I doubt very much that O&#8217;Rourke and Buttigieg would disagree with this creedal statement. Yet they remain in the race. They, as inherently racist, privileged white men who have benefited from an intrinsically prejudiced system established by slave-owning misogynists, have the gall to put themselves forward as the ones most equipped to resist the very system they inherenty perpetuate. If the whole goal of the racist system is to prevent people of color from attaining wealth and power, then aren&#8217;t O&#8217;Rourke and Buttigieg only reinforcing that very system by taking votes from candidates of color? If they really wanted to strike a blow to systemic racism, wouldn&#8217;t it best be struck by their immediate withdrawl from the race?
The same contradiction arises when male candidates<a href="https://www.apnews.com/e30ec6768ce9400ea936c0ec386bece0"> like Joe Biden</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/apr/24/swalwell-admits-im-white-man-pledges-run-woman/">Eric Swalwell</a> (may his candidacy rest in peace) pledge to pick a female vice president. If it is so important to have a female in the White House, why must she come in second place? Why wouldn&#8217;t you offer your services as a female president&#8217;s vice president, rather than the other way around? Isn&#8217;t this like saying, &#8220;I think a woman should have power — but not too much power, let&#8217;s not carried away now?&#8221;
This is what happens when you play the identity politics game. You can&#8217;t win. At least not as a white man.

Pete Buttigieg.jpg

WALSH: If Buttigieg And O’Rourke Really Wanted To Fight ‘Systemic Racism,’ They Would Drop Out Of The Race

2020 Election

Beto O'Rourke

Democratic Party

Pete Buttigieg

Racism

Many people across the planet are celebrating after the (completely real, I&#8217;m serious) news broke that a London aquarium has recently hatched the <a href="https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/worlds-first-gender-neutral-penguin-raised-by-same-sex-parents-at-londons-aquarium-2306619.html">world&#8217;s first gender-neutral penguin</a>. To make matters woker, the hatchling is being raised by a pair of lesbian Gentoo penguins, who were finally able to start a family after England lifted its archaic ban on same-sex penguin adoption.
The general manager at Sea Life London, Graham McGrath, explained why this event is so historic:
<blockquote>&#8220;While the decision may ruffle a few feathers, gender neutrality in humans has only recently become a widespread topic of conversation, however, it is completely natural for penguins to develop gender-less identities as they grow into mature adults.
&#8220;What makes us really proud at the aquarium is the success of Sea Life London&#8217;s Gentoo breeding programme and the amazing job of same sex penguins Rocky and Marama, who took the chick under their wing and raised it as their own.&#8221;</blockquote>
Apparently, the gender-neutral designation means that the little Gentoo will be given a purple band rather than the oppressive and socionormative pink and blue bands usually assigned. Free from those color-coded restraints, it is hoped that the penguin will be able to embark on an internal voyage of psychological discovery, exploring its own self-identity and ultimately becoming whatever it dreams of being.
Now, this is all fine and good — and certainly a vast improvement over the barbaric practice of identifying an animal&#8217;s sex according to its reproductive organs — but I&#8217;m not sure we should throw a parade just yet. The above-cited quote from the Sea Life manager reveals some deeply problematic tendencies, even in an institution that lies at the very forefront of avian gender theory.
For one thing, McGrath calls the animal a &#8220;ch**k,&#8221; which is a derogatory slur so loaded with the baggage of historical misogyny that I now have PTSD just from reading it. And I&#8217;m not even a woman today. It&#8217;s no use claiming that the C-word is definitionally correct, in this case. Definitions are a patriarchal construct, as everyone knows.
But more to the point, how have we decided that it&#8217;s a penguin in the first place? Who has decided this? There is no use in letting the creature choose its own gender if we are cutting the chains of the gender binary only to lock it in the cage of pre-determined species. It has been labeled &#8220;penguin&#8221; just because it has feathers, a beak, and was conceived by penguins. But if we are using these obsolete, reductionist methods to determine genus and species, then we might as well use the same sorts of methods to determine sex. In the end, we are back right where we started. We think we are woke when really we are still asleep.
For all we know, this genderless, species-less animal might really be a three-toed sloth, a tarantula, a Mexican honey wasp, a middle-aged Korean man. How do we know it wants to be waddling about like a penguin and not galloping across the African plain like a gazelle? How do we know it wants to swim in chilly water rather than eat leaves from the top of 20-foot trees with other giraffes? It has not been given the chance to make these decisions for itself. Its constitutional rights of self-determination are still being infringed upon.
Indeed, by raising it genderless while putting a gun to its head and forcing it to be a penguin, the alt-right extremists at Sea Life London are only lending credence to the backwards, bigoted myth that identity is objective and biological — rather than amorphous and arbitrary. Remember: The ultimate goal is to establish a society where there is no way to reliably distinguish between one living entity and another, as we all melt into one writhing, wiggling, indiscernible mass of flesh and bones and feathers. News out of Sea Life London would seem to be moving us towards that glorious goal. But, in truth, it has only put one more barrier in the way.
Editor&#8217;s Note: Because the internet is filled with foolish and utterly dishonest people, the editors of The Daily Wire wish to note that this column utilizes a literary device called sarcasm.

Asahiyama Zoo Penguins

WALSH: An Aquarium Is Raising The World&#8217;s First Gender-Neutral Penguin. But They Are Still Bigots.

Sexuality

The Hollywood Reporter recently asked former James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan whether he thinks Bond should be portrayed by a female in future films. Brosnan&#8217;s response is the best bit of acting he&#8217;s done since &#8220;Mrs. Doubtfire&#8221;:
<blockquote>&#8220;Yes! I think we&#8217;ve watched the guys do it for the last 40 years. Get out of the way, guys, and put a woman up there. I think it would be exhilarating, it would be exciting.&#8221;</blockquote>
This is, of course, the only answer Brosnan is allowed to give. Does he really find the prospect of a politically correct, gender-swapped James Bond &#8220;exhilarating?&#8221; I tend to doubt it. But he had a metaphorical gun to his head, and, sadly, he was not as courageous under fire as he was in &#8220;GoldenEye.&#8221; One can only imagine the spasms of feminist outrage that would have ensued if Brosnan had sighed in exasperation and told women to go make their own damned spy franchise. He said what he had to say in order to escape with his career and reputation intact.
But, really, women should go make their own damned spy franchise. James Bond should not be a female. And they shouldn&#8217;t replace him with a female 007, either, as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49759/first-black-bond-girl-criticizes-casting-lashana-paul-bois">appears to be the plan</a> for the upcoming James Bond film. The protagonist of the Bond franchise has always been a man and should always be a man.
Please note: I am not &#8220;outraged&#8221; by the prospect of a female Bond. I am not participating in a &#8220;backlash&#8221; of any kind. They could reimagine Bond as a transgendered lesbian dyslexic vegan with ADHD and it wouldn&#8217;t provoke anything approaching outrage from me. I would merely find it stupid, just as I find this idea stupid.
Leftists understand the arguments against a female Bond, even if they pretend otherwise. After all, these are the same people who react with sincere anger when Asian, Arab, or black characters are portrayed by white people. And if an iconic female character were ever played by a man, we all know the outrage would be of nuclear proportions. I suspect feminists would be ready for armed revolution if Dorothy became Derek in a &#8220;Wizard of Oz&#8221; remake, or Lara Croft morphed into Larry Croft for the next &#8220;Tomb Raider.&#8221; So they can scoff and go into their &#8220;what&#8217;s the big deal?&#8221; routine whenever anyone objects to male characters being made female, or white characters being made black, but their act is transparent. They know what the &#8220;big deal&#8221; is, and they wouldn&#8217;t hesitate to tell us all about it if the switch were made in the reverse.
As it happens, I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s a big deal. I think it&#8217;s a small but still annoying deal. There have been slightly different versions of James Bond through the decades, but two demographic details remain essential to the character: His sex and his nationality. James Bond must be a Brit, and he must be male. Both his Britishness and his maleness are defining facets of his personality and screen presence. Bond is a dapper, charming, resourceful, somewhat chauvinistic man. That&#8217;s the whole point of the character. It&#8217;s what makes him iconic.
Sure, you could make James Bond enlightened and feminist, just as you could make Indiana Jones morbidly obese and Darth Vader sensitive and in touch with his feelings. But these wouldn&#8217;t be changes to the characters so much as they would be creations of entirely new characters. And that&#8217;s fine. Go ahead and create new characters. Hollywood could use a few of those. But new characters need to build their own fanbases and excite the interest of the public themselves. If a female character has to borrow relevance and relatability from the male characters she replaced, that&#8217;s a good sign that she&#8217;s too weak and bland to justify the switch in the first place.
If some screenwriter has an idea for a truly compelling female spy character, let that film be made. But don&#8217;t attach it like a barnacle onto the Bond ship. Let it float or sink on its own merits. James Bond has earned the right to continue existing because he — notice, he — continues to engage the audience and attract fans new and old alike. Perhaps a lady secret agent could do the same. Let her do it on her own merits.

Daniel Craig

WALSH: No, James Bond Definitely Should Not Be A Woman

Feminism

James Bond

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