Being, as you obviously are, a crowd with your boots on, and all collaring the jive, you’ll want to lamp Cab Calloway’s 1939 Hepster Dictionary. 

By all means slide your jib in the comments.

Via Obnoxio. 

Time, I think, for a little test of musical discernment. So, Korean or Hasidic? 

Glenn Reynolds on when crime doesn’t count: 

Black Lives Matter might more accurately be named White Killers Matter, because it only seems to care about black lives that are ended by white people. And that, of course, is because Black Lives Matter isn’t about justice, but about racial agitation.

Heather Mac Donald on the conceits and inversions of modern academia: 

If ever there were a narrative worthy of being subjected to “stubborn scepticism,” in [Yale president, Peter] Salovey’s words, the claim [by Salovey] that Yale was the home of “hatred and discrimination” is it… Yale has been obsessed with what the academy calls “diversity,” trying to admit and hire as many “underrepresented minorities” as it possibly can without totally eviscerating academic standards. There has never been a more tolerant social environment in human history than Yale (and every other American college) — at least if you don’t challenge the reigning political orthodoxies.

And utterly unrelated to anything above: 

Harvard senior submits rap album as thesis, gets an A.

It would appear that Harvard’s English department is now intersecting with the even loftier department of hip-hop racial caricatures. The thrillingly original opus in question – which can be savoured here – is “a dark and moody take on what it means to be black in America… tackling topics ranging from police violence to slavery.” But of course.

As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.

Dicentra thinks you should see this. And frankly, you deserve no less.

You see, Ms Rachel Bloom is dropping knowledge. With her sex junk.

Here’s yet another example of leftist student protest bearing a remarkable resemblance to opportunist spite:   

The Whiffenpoofs, “one of the most prestigious a cappella groups in the United States,” last November chose to remain exclusively male.

I’m sure you can see where this one is headed. This male-only line-up has been both a musical aesthetic and the group’s identity for over a century. Whatever the prevailing politics on campus, male and female voices are, by and large, not entirely interchangeable, and I’d imagine that, say, close-harmony work, a signature of the group, is probably easier if the voices are in the same range. However, 

As the Yale Daily News notes, this did not thwart females and “nonmales” from protesting that policy during their auditions.

Specifically,

Student Sydney Garick used her try-out time to criticise the group’s male-only tradition.

And,

A gender nonbinary student… told the News that four Whiffs walked out in the middle of the audition as the student stood in silent protest rather than performing a solo.

Well, given the imposition on others’ time, and the limited number of audition slots available, stage hogging in silent protest is fairly dull to watch, to say nothing of being selfish and insulting.

And because a cake needs icing, 

Before auditioning for the Whiffs, students are required to sign a contract committing to the group’s demanding travel schedule. The student told the News they signed the contract with the pronouns “they/them/their” rather than a name.

But of course. Because pissing about with the paperwork and refusing even to give a name shows everyone just how serious you are, how genuine in your interest, and how terribly radical. For some people it’s just politics über alles. Imagine the fun on tour. Oh, and do note that the protest, the petitions, and the hectoring about inclusivity were aimed only at the university’s all-male singing group. The university’s all-female singing group, which doesn’t admit male singers, was strangely exempt from similar fuss and umbrage.