PolicyGuy

Friday, May 18, 2007


Isn't Mass Murder Chic?
As music critic and political columnist Jay Nordlinger often points out, Che Guevara is uncomfortably fashionable. Nothing like honoring a "revolutionary" thug by plastering his visage over t-shirts, watches, and other stuff.

Fairly disgusting, considering Guevara's murderous life, no?

I thought of Chic Che when I was perusing the trail map for a ski resort. I normally expect to see names of wildlife (ptarmigan), laborers in the old west (gandy dancer), vegetation (northwoods, larkspur), geologic features (couloir), and so forth.

The other day I was looking at the tail map of Big Sky Resort, Montana. Yeah, it's close to Memorial Day, what can I say.

I came across a portion of the resort called "Dakota Territory of the South Face." What do we have here? "Hanging Valley," "Bavarian Forest," "Rockville Bowl." Nothing too unusual in trail names.

Then I see it. Or rather,them. Stacked side-by-side, several portions of the mountain, labeled as follows: Marx, Lenin, 1st Dictator, 2A Dictator, 2B Dictator, Castros.

What a delightful way to spend your ski vacation. "Hey guys, what don't you see we head over there and see how Marx and Lenin are doing?" Thoughts of mass murder, anyone?

On the other hand, just over the ridge from Marx, Lenin, Castro, and the dictators is Liberty Bowl.

"Justice Louis D. Brandeis'?s metaphor of the states as "laboratories" for policy experiments ... had almost nothing to do with federalism and everything to do with his commitment to scientific socialism. .... To this day, it continues to inhibit a truly experimental, federalist politics." -- Michael S. Greve

Home
BlogMatrix