SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:56 P.M. ET: 

WE ARE SAVED – From Campus Reform:  "It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas—except at the University of Maine.  UMaine faculty and staff received an email on Monday forbidding candy canes, Christmas trees, Christmas presents, Menorahs, and wreaths in public areas on campus.  'What is allowed our [sic] winter themes, snowmen, plain trees without presents underneath, decorative lights, but not on trees, snow flakes, [sic] etc.  Just wanted to remind everyone that Aux Services is not to decorate any public areas with Christmas or any other religious themed decorations,' the email states. 'Winter holiday decorations are fine but we need to not display any decoration that could be perceived as religious.  This includes xmas trees, wreaths, xmas presents, menorahs, candy canes, etc.,' the email says. 'What is allowed our [sic] winter themes, snowmen, plain trees without presents underneath, decorative lights, but not on trees, snow flakes, [sic] etc.'  According to a statement from the university, UMaine's holiday decorations decision was made to better promote diversity on campus."  Yeah, right.  We get diversity by banning Christmas.  I'll sleep better tonight knowing that Maine students are protected from candy canes. 

WHAT A JERK – From Campus Reform:  "In a Dec. 5 op-ed, the president of California State University (CSU) claimed if you are 'light skinned' you have 'significant unearned privilege' and routinely think less of those who are different than yourself.  In her piece, 'Privilege at The Beach,' – referencing the Long Beach area where the school resides—Jane Close Conoley, a white woman herself, asserts that 'light skin color and high income levels may attract significant unearned privilege.' Those who qualify for such privilege, often unknowingly exert distrust and 'lower expectations of behavior' on those of another skin color.  'Those who are less affluent with darker skin or from other cultures can be targets of micro to macro aggressions, distrust, and low expectations for behavior.  This privilege can manifest itself in numerous ways that afford automatic trust, deference, and security,' writes Conoley, in the piece first noticed by the Pundit Press."  Don't you love living in the 1960s?  Someone should remind this bozo "educator" that people from India are also people of color, and they go right to the top.  Hard work.  Education.  Family.  Sense of responsibility.  The unbeatable combination.

SO SENSITIVE – From National Review:  "Greenpeace activists who trespassed and set up pro-renewable-energy banners on ancient grounds may have irreparably scarred the Nazca Lines World Heritage Site, says the Peruvian government.  As the Wall Street Journal reports, 'The Nazca Lines are one of South America’s most famous archaeological wonders, a mysterious series of huge animal, imaginary human and plant symbols etched into the ground between 500 B.C. and A.D. 500.'  So fragile is the ground that Peru hasn’t even allowed presidents and other top officials to tread where the Greenpeace activists went; Jaime Castillo, the deputy culture minister, told the BBC, 'You walk there, and the footprint is going to last hundreds or thousands of years.' Visitors generally view the site aerially, or, on rare occasions, wearing special booties.  But as Lima hosted the UN climate conference, Greenpeace activists sneaked into the restricted area and installed bright yellow banners, proclaiming: 'Time for change! The future is renewable.' A Greenpeace spokesperson claims the demonstrators, who wore sneakers in the photos, were 'absolutely careful to protect the Nazca Lines.'"  Yeah, in the same way that they're careful about "climate change" claims.  They just don't care.  They're interested only in themselves."

December 11, 2014