Friday roundup

Heather Wilhelm has a great essay at National Review on the implications of the gush-fest in which cultural observers have engaged over feminist super-hero movies:

Remember when an alarming number of movie critics simultaneously lost their minds over the sheer raw feminism of Wonder Woman, documenting how they cried at the theater and declaring that viewing Wonder Woman might have been the most powerful experience of their life, which should deeply worry us all if that is indeed really true?

It’s okay if you don’t remember: The Internet appears to be melting all of our brains. Anyway, I liked Wonder Woman, and I’m sure Captain Marvel is fine, despite the web of semi-hysterical press surrounding its release. The women in the film, intones one review at Forbes, “are pilots, they are scientists, they are warriors, and while some of the men around them might not understand that or accept it, the women don’t frankly need them to and aren’t going to wait around for the myopic men to catch up to the facts.”

Ah, yes! Those daft, myopic men, always fouling things up! But wait, there’s more: “That’s not to say, however, that Captain Marvel doesn’t remind us of the sorts of daily frustrations, struggles, and inequalities women face in society — being told to smile more . . .”

Wait. What? Let’s stop here, shall we? Out of the world’s massive crab bucket of problems, let us stop and consider the modern scourge among American women of being told to smile more. Has it been two seconds? Okay, that’s probably enough time — although if you google “Captain Marvel” and “smile more,” you will discover that many people fervently disagree.

For the record, I have never been told to smile more. This deeply worries me, because perhaps it means I am smiling too much. Truly, it keeps me up at night, brooding like a superhero in anguish! Just kidding. It doesn’t worry me at all, because it doesn’t matter. I don’t care, and neither should you, and nobody should be in a tizzy about this particular subject in general, because life is precious and very short.

With that in mind, here’s what does worry me a bit, even if it is a bit tangential: Captain Marvel, or at least the reception of it, might be a subtle indicator of how suffocating modern feminism has become.

At a base level, the very idea of a superhero is innately goofy or farcical, or at least it should be. But Captain Marvel, by most accounts, is almost perfect: Strong. Beautiful. Driven. Ultra-powerful. According to Slate, she is a “serious, stolid type whose steel will and laser-focused commitment to her mission make her a formidable foe even when her fists aren’t glowing orange with photon-blasting superpowers,” which is impressive indeed. 

The whole thing is that good.

Sally Pipes of the Pacific Research Institute provides a  grim look at how universal "health care" is not working out in the UK:

Vacancies for doctor and nurse positions have reached all-time highs. Patients are facing interminable waits for care as a result. This August, a record number of Britons languished more than 12 hours in emergency rooms. In July, the share of cancer patients who waited more than two months to receive treatment soared.

Why are the professionals leaving?

Consider one nurse’s letter explaining why she quit the profession. She described horrific working conditions. Medical professionals worked 12-hour shifts with little time for necessities like bathroom breaks or food. Managers felt they couldn’t do anything to change unsafe conditions created by overcrowded hospitals. “You cannot safely practice under such conditions,” she wrote. “Mistakes will be made and people will be harmed, some fatally.”

A Fred Barnes piece at The Washington Examiner entitled "None of This Is Normal."  A Whole lotta folks out there so obsessed with Donald Trump that it clouds their overall worldviews.

Huge nationwide blackout in Venezuela.

Jonathan Kay piece at Quillette entitled "The Rise and (Possible) Fall of Justin Trudeau Show the Perils of Woke Governance."

All governments eventually become enmeshed in some kind of scandal, of course. But Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are unlike their predecessors in one crucial respect: They have created the first national government anywhere that has explicitly presented itself as a political vessel of ultra-progressive social-justice mantras such as intersectionality and #MeToo. And there is evidence to suggest that this scandal has been all the more damaging to the Liberals precisely because their grubby treatment of a principled indigenous woman is so obviously at odds with the pious social-justice posturing that, until just a few weeks ago, often made the Liberals sound more like an activist organization or undergraduate student society than a G7 government.

This is delicious. Delicious. Poor Michelle Goldberg at the New York Times is all conflicted about how to process Ilhan Omar.  

The identity politics fiasco surrounding Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has been excruciating. Half of me is angry at her. The other half is furious for her.

Here, Michelle, lean over my glass so I can make a martini from your tears.