SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET:

MADNESS – FROM LEGAL INSURRECTION:  Higher education’s crusade to eradicate masculine white men continues in the Ivy League. Since March, Princeton University recently filled an opening for a very particular position — Interpersonal Violence Clinician and Men’s Engagement Manager.  The position, which is part of the campus's SHARE office (Sexual Harassment/Assault Advising, Resources, and Education), “works closely with a network of campus and community partners to foster a University environment that is intolerant of abuse, responsive to needs of survivors, and holds perpetrators accountable for their actions. We aim to contribute to a campus culture in which interpersonal violence has no place and our distinctive community of learning is free to flourish.”  One of the most concerning aspects of the job is the provision that allows for punishing students (men) who’ve been accused, not found guilty or convicted, but simply accused of sexual misconduct under Title IX.  Princeton's historic mascot has been the Princeton tiger.  Maybe a pussycat would be better.

CAPITOL HILL CULTURE – FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER:  Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, apologized to Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, after she was caught on a hot mic making derogatory comments about Farenthold at the end of a Senate hearing Tuesday.  "Neither weapons nor inappropriate words are the right way to resolve legislative debates," Collins said in a statement Tuesday to CNN. "I received a handwritten apology from Rep. Farenthold late this morning. I accept his apology, and I offer him mine."  In a statement to the Washington Examiner earlier Tuesday, Farenthold had no comment on Collins's statements.  Collins issued her apology after she was heard telling Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., that Farenthold is "so unattractive it's unbelievable" after a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing Tuesday.  "Well, fat guy. He's huge," Collins told Reed. "He's so … he's so unattractive, it's unbelievable. Did you see the picture of him in his pajamas next to this bunny, this Playbook bunny?  Well at least she didn't call him Hitler, which is the gold standard for Washington epithets these days.

NEW HOUSING BOOM – FROM BLOOMBERG:   Business has never been better at Atlas Survival Shelters, which ships bunkers to customers around the world from its U.S. factories. Among the best sellers: the BombNado, with a starting price of $18,999.  The popularity of the company’s doomsday fortifications is no surprise, considering the state of the world in general and, specifically, Kim Jong-Un’s pursuit of a missile that can hit the continental U.S. Curiously, though, the most furious surge of interest isn’t in America but Japan, a country that’s long been within North Korea’s striking distance.  “Japan’s going hog wild right now,” said Ron Hubbard, owner of Atlas Survival. The Montebello, California-based company makes about a dozen different underground refuge models intended to be inhabitable for six months to a year, some outfitted with escape tunnels, decontamination rooms and bulletproof hatches.  I wonder when they'll be featured in Architectural Digest.  The boom in shelters isn't that surprising, given the inability of the laughably labeled "international community" to stop North Korea's nuclear program.

July 25, 2017