João Glama Ströberle, Allegory of the 1755 Earthquake, 18th Century, Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon

Recent links of note:

The Enigma of Germany
Victor Davis Hanson, National Review
There is something darkly comical about the fact that Germany is now the European country most welcoming of those who are said to not share its values. As Victor Davis Hanson tells it, Germany now finds itself acting as “the most recklessly postmodern of all Western nations in order to reassure the world, 77 years after the outbreak of World War II, that [it is] no longer the most recklessly nationalistic.” Alas, there’s nothing funny about the chaos that has emerged as a consequence of Chancellor Merkel’s ecumenical fixations. Germany has asserted its will on the European continent again, this time by coercing its neighbors to open their borders; the truth is, of course, often stranger than fiction.

Larry Summers: “Creeping Totalitarianism” on College Campus
Daniel Halper, The Weekly Standard
This week, The Weekly Standard has a revelatory interview with Larry Summers, the former president of Harvard and director of the National Economic Council. While Summers’s views may not always align with ours, he can’t be accused of holding his tongue. Who can forget his hysterical departure from Harvard? In the conversation with Bill Kristol, Summers laments the tenor of debate on college campuses, saying “whether it is attacks on very reasonable free speech having to do with adults’ right to choose their own Halloween costumes at Yale . . . there is a great deal of absurd political correctness . . . it seems that there is a kind of creeping totalitarianism in terms of what kind of ideas are acceptable and debateable on college campuses. . . . I think the answer to bad speech is different speech. The answer to bad speech is not shutting down speech.” Well said.

Rauner to the Rescue
Steven Malanga, City Journal
Illinois politics have long been a mess. Corruption pervades every level of government. The old joke goes that the state prison has a governor’s wing. And no town is messier than Chicago. Think back to 2012, when Rahm Emanuel, the newly elected mayor “asked the teachers’ union for concessions to help bolster the budget and improve students’ academic performance. Instead, teachers went on strike for seven days.” So let us be thankful that an adult has now entered the room. Bruce Rauner, the Republican governor of Illinois, has proposed the state assume control of the continually failing Chicago public schools. The Democratic legislature, protecting the Chicago Teachers Union, will undoubtedly block the attempt. But at the very least Rauner may have spurred a debate that has taken far too long to arise.

George Weidenfeld, R.I.P.
David Pryce-Jones, National Review
Over at National Review David Pryce-Jones remembers his publisher George Weidenfeld, who died this week at the age of ninety-six. Weidenfeld was a legendary figure in the world of English publishing, a man whose “combination of flair, curiosity, and courage turned him from a teenage refugee escaping Hitler’s Vienna into a successful promoter of everything humane.” Rest in Peace.

From our pages:

Lisbon's narrow fate
Henrik Bering
On the great earthquake of 1755.

 

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