Major & Minor

Here are highlights from an op-ed piece by Andy Ngo at nypost.com, edited by yours truly: The day after the 2016 election a student at Bowling Green State U in Ohio said she was attacked by white Trump supporters, who threw rocks at her. Police concluded she had fabricated the story… That same day a University of Minnesota student claimed in a viral social-media post that she’d been detained by police after she fought a racist man who had attacked her. Campus and local police said they’d had no contact with her… Again that day, a Muslim student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette made up a story about being attacked and robbed by Trump supporters, who supposedly ripped off her hijab… In May 2017 mass “anti-racism” protests roiled St. Olaf College in Minnesota, causing classes to be canceled. Authorities discovered that a black student activist had left a racist threat on her own car… In September of that year five black students at the Air Force Academy Preparatory School found racial slurs written on their doors. An investigation later found that one of the targeted students was responsible… In November 2018 students at Goucher College in Maryland demanded social-justice training and safe spaces after “I’m gonna kill all [n — — — — s]” was discovered written in a dorm bathroom. A black student was responsible for the hoax… That same month thousands of students at Drake University in Iowa protested after racist notes turned up on campus. An Indian-American student admitted to targeting herself and others in the hoax. She pled guilty to making a false report to a public entity… And there are dozens of other examples.
Disinformation Science must now be a major.

There are human interests stories and then there’s this, which would touch even those with no interest in sport. From Yahoo Sports, edited by yt: Nate Lashley has been a golf pro for 15 years. The 36-year-old journeyman, ranked 353rd in the world, got into the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit as an alternate when someone dropped out. He won by six strokes, his first PGA victory. He’d had only one top ten finish in his career. Not only did he earn one million plus, he now has a two-year exemption, a spot in next month’s British Open, as well as in next year’s Masters. There’s a lot more to the story, of which a recent knee injury seems minor. When Lashley was a college junior, his parents and girlfriend were on their way home after having watched him play when the single-engine Cessna his dad was piloting crashed, killing all three. No wonder he was in tears walking up the 18th fairway. Kudos. Here he is celebrating with his girlfriend and sister:

Imagine the fawning if Obama had been the first president ever to have set foot in North Korea.

Business was decent on this picture perfect day. My thanks to the young woman who bought The Body Farm by Patricia Cornwell, and to the other who selected The Lost Angel by Javier Sierra , and to the woman who purchased a huge two volume bio of a Russian opera singer of the late 19th and 20th century, and to Amalia’s home attendant, who chose a Barron’s book on the Algebra regents for her daughter, and to the Quiet Man, who opted for two thrillers from the Charlaine Harris Suki Stackhouse vampire series, and who then surprised me by initiating a conversation about the author’s other works, which, unfortunately, left me tongue tied, as I’m completely unfamiliar with them.

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