Victor Davis Hanson on borders and the lack thereof: 

Among elites, borderlessness has taken its place among the politically correct positions of our age — and, as with other such ideas, it has shaped the language we use. The descriptive term “illegal alien” has given way to the nebulous “unlawful immigrant.” This, in turn, has given way to “undocumented immigrant,” “immigrant,” or the entirely neutral “migrant” — a noun that obscures whether the individual in question is entering or leaving. […]

What we might call post-borderism argues that boundaries even between distinct nations are mere artificial constructs, methods of marginalisation designed by those in power, mostly to stigmatise and oppress the “other”… “Where borders are drawn, power is exercised,” as one European scholar put it. This view assumes that where borders are not drawn, power is not exercised — as if a million Middle Eastern immigrants pouring into Germany do not wield considerable power by their sheer numbers and adroit manipulation of Western notions of victimisation and grievance politics. Indeed, Western leftists seek political empowerment by encouraging the arrival of millions of impoverished migrants.

Inevitably, the issue of naked, often comical hypocrisy becomes hard to avoid:

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg offers another case study. The multibillionaire advocates for a fluid southern border and lax immigration enforcement, but he has also stealthily spent $30 million to buy up four homes surrounding his Palo Alto estate. They form a sort of no-man’s-land defence outside his own Maginot Line fence, presumably designed against hoi polloi who might not share Zuckerberg’s taste or sense of privacy. Zuckerberg’s other estate in San Francisco is prompting neighbours’ complaints because his security team takes up all the best parking spaces. Walls and border security seem dear to the heart of the open-borders multibillionaire — when it’s his wall, his border security.

See also, Simon Schama Syndrome. 

Or, Feel My Pain, Now Do As I Say. 

This is not a grand battle against institutionalised injustice. This is an addiction to indignation.

Below the fold, a short film by Rob Montz on the vanities, hysteria and clown-shoe politics of campus protest culture:

I need you to try to learn to love the lush overgrowth of your body. Let it grow wild and untamed as a garden you loved as a child. Love it for the way it sustains you, keeps you warm, goes to such lengths not to let you get hurt. Its only job is to care for you. I need you to try to love it if you intend to love me.

In the pages of Everyday Feminism, an anonymous woman of girth, a size 26, wants other people to stop trying to lose weight and to stop acknowledging their own fatness, except in flattering terms, as this makes her – our anonymous, rather demanding woman of girth – feel bad about herself: 

Every discussion about bodies  —  whether in the media or amongst friends   — is about how to avoid the horrible fate of looking like me… When you say that you shouldn’t have eaten that lunch or dessert, or when you announce your new year’s resolution to lose 5, 10, 25 pounds, you are saying that you don’t want your body to end up like mine.

Well, at risk of being indelicate, yes.

I know that all of us are impacted by body shaming, and that everyone has real, valid, deep, hard feelings about our bodies. I still need you to stop perpetuating it, especially when talking about yourself. No amount of caveats or prologues make it hurt me less. I need you to know that I’m taking it personally because it is personal.

So if any readers are planning to drop a few pounds by cycling, or jogging, or walking the dog, or just eating less, this makes you complicit in the sin of body shaming, and therefore an oppressor of those with surplus flesh.

Because of my race, I can eat at a fancy restaurant without the wait staff expecting me to steal the silverware. 

The psychological abuse of children by leftist educators continues: 

The video of the 14-year-old student’s slam poem at his school has gone viral in the midst of heated national discussions regarding race and privilege. Performed at a slam poetry competition in May at The Paideia School in Atlanta, Royce Mann’s winning poem offers a reflection on the privilege he feels he has been automatically awarded as a result of his being white and male… Royce said that he knew about white and male privilege for most of his life, but never knew how prevalent it was in society until he attended a class called “Race, Class and Gender” that opened his eyes.

Because when a credulous 14-year-old is encouraged to declare that all white males are “scared of what it would be like if… I didn’t have my white boy privilege safety blankie,” this is now an aesthetic and political triumph. And when that same child says, “It is embarrassing that we still live in a world in which we judge another person’s character by… the colour of their skin,” while judging millions of people by the colour of their skin, and doing it proudly, this is something to applaud as both brave and insightful. Behold the makings of a morally corrected citizen.

The poem in question can be heard in full below:  

Menstruation is universally referred to as your “moon time”; there is a Moon Lodge with a “Moon Blood Earth Altar” where we are encouraged to offer our “Holy Menstrual Blood to Mother Earth” with prayers and intentions. 

Marisa Meltzer ventures into the sisterly world of braiding circles, “water healing,” and ayurvedic breast massage:

“We have created — and are creating — a community of mothers, sisters, daughters, grandmothers,” Spirit Weavers’ founder and trademark owner, Amy Woodruff, says into a microphone. She has long brown hair and a deep tan. In 2011, a photo of her doing a naked headstand while simultaneously breastfeeding her daughter Naia went viral. (“I was just doin’ my daily flow when the little sweet pea came to sneak a suckle,” Woodroff wrote at the time on her blog, Daughter of the Sun, where she also sells juice cleanses, incense, and “organic baby bootie balm.”) A Kundalini yoga teacher, Woodruff used her newfound fame to pivot into a kind of nexus for the sort of women who are drawn to water births and food-fermenting workshops. 

Oh, there’s more. Much more. And yes, there is a photo.

Via Alice.