The admissions policies of elite schools are under attack, including in court, for discriminating against Asian-American applicants.  In the Harvard case, awaiting decision in a federal district court in Boston, the document that paints a thousand pictures is one from a Harvard admissions officer commenting that a first in class Asian applicant with perfect SAT scores is “the proverbial picket fence.”  The applicant was not admitted.  De facto quotas imposed on these minority applicants from “communities of color” are ironically rationalized with the goal of diversity and inclusion. […]

Possibly you are a fan of tennis but did not go to Flushing Meadows for more than 100 hours of the recently concluded U.S. Open, as HL did.  If so, this post is for you. Among the things prominent tennis press and commentators uniformly stated pre-tournament was that the Open would be: […]

HL has recently asked himself “self, how can lefties like you beatify lawyers who represent Gitmo prisoners pro bono but sneer at other sisters and brothers at the bar (sometimes they are the same) for taking money from Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Cosby, Kevin Spacey and Asia Argento to defend them. […]

How many times have we heard Republican candidates for elective office invoke Ronald Reagan as their hero, inspiration and justification for a policy that Reagan never backed, would not have supported, or clearly had opposed? […]

HL 73 “Reparations in the Theatre World” commented on current conventions and unwritten but ignored, at peril, Rules that prevail in the legitimate theatrical and cinema worlds.  The Rules, de facto, constitute an informal regime of reparations for discrimination and other injustice done to racial minorities in those industries. […]

Results of the first NBC/WSJ national poll of Americans who say they will vote in next year’s primary elections confirm that Democrats in all 50 states have learned what New Yorkers have known for quite awhile: Kirsten Gillibrand and Bill de Blasio are zeroes.  They each failed to gain one percent support in the poll where Biden, Warren, Sanders, Harris and Buttigieg registered 26%, 19%, 13%, 13% and 7% respectively. […]

The June 11, 2019 edition of the PBS “Nightly Business Report” was startling because the 1, 2, 3, 4 top stories were all antitrust.  Here be it and see it. Uno: Ten state attorneys general sue to block the Sprint/T-Mobile merger. Dos: A federal judge may unscramble the CVS/Aetna merger consummated in 2018. Tres: Trump wonders aloud about the competitive effects of the proposed merger of United Technologies and Raytheon. Cuatro: The House Judiciary Committee began its much-heralded antitrust oversight hearings, squarely targeting Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. […]

In HL’s Grand Central Station neighborhood hipster-doofi line up for five buck Matcha Wellness Lattes at cashless Bluestone Lane kiosks and Birkenstock-shod elder hippies tender $20 – plastic only – for a snack size soup and avocado toast at the Great Northern Deli.  While on line with them HL suppresses an impulse to lecture and instead waits his turn, places an order and refuses it when the proffer of cash is rejected.  Our own private uncivil disobedience.  A variation has HL offer the “cards” in his phone and watch digital wallets – also not accepted – but that only demonstrates that these particular cashless merchants are also clueless.  […]

Abigail Disney, Walt’s great niece and Roy’s granddaughter, stole the show last weekend, topping even Disney Studio’s Avengers: Endgame $1.2 billion box office for favorable mentions.  Her criticism of Disney’s 2018 compensation of $65 million to CEO Bob Iger, because that was “1424 times the median pay of a Disney worker” also earned her another rare trifecta (see HL 70) of leading stories in the Washington Post, New York Times and Wall Street Journal. […]

“Biden is Running for President, After Months of Hesitation.”  Not HL’s words, but those from The New York Times’ headline and first spin, crudely letting us know that they are not thrilled. The paper of record that used to keep its “opinions” on those pages now places its thumb on the scale by thumbing its nose at the old wall between news and its’ editorial board’s desires.  There, formally announcing candidacy 16 months before the nominating convention, is described as hesitation and equivocation.  Instead of the smart conduct of the leading contender for virtually every minute of the last several months, waiting while the 19 others in the Peanut Gallery announced. […]