1) A Khmer Rouge witch is dead. I will quote from the obit in the New York Times: “Ieng Thirith, the sister-in-law and close collaborator of the genocidal Cambodian leader Pol Pot, died on Saturday in Pailin, Cambodia. She was 83.”

I will now quote from a piece I did in April 2013, on the international tribunal in Phnom Penh:

When the Khmer Rouge ruled, she was social-affairs minister. Like her husband, she had been a student in Paris — majoring in Shakespeare at the Sorbonne. She was excused from the trial last September on grounds of dementia. This happened at Nuremberg too. Gustav Krupp was excused, and he died at his castle in Blühnbach, Austria. As it happens, I had lunch there last summer. The current proprietor is an American and an improvement, to say the very least.

Yet another Khmer Rouge monster off the hook. They’re all dying comfortably in their beds. Sometimes that happens.

By the way, nice to see the Times refer to Pol Pot as “genocidal.” The infamous headline in that paper, when the government in South Vietnam fell and the Khmer Rouge took over in Cambodia, was, “Indochina without Americans: For Most a Better Life.”

Afterlife?

2) No one really writes an original column — there are five or six types of column, and we all perform variations on those types. Nothing is really different or novel. Everything under the sun is known (pretty much).

That said, I thought this was really interesting: a column by Caroline B. Glick. I don’t recall ever reading one quite like it. “When Jews stand up to anti-Semites, the anti-Semites back down.”

3) The headline over this piece was “Exterminating Christians in the Middle East.” The subheading was “Islamic State marks the houses of Christians with the Arabic letter ‘N’ for Nazarene.”

Does anyone give a rat’s butt? What if the victims were gay Muslims? (Actually, there are gay Muslims who are victims — of Arab or Persian or Islamist regimes. They are seldom reported on, because Khamenei, Abbas, et al. might look bad. We wouldn’t want to “whip up hatred,” you know. Or stereotype “the Other.”)

4) I greatly appreciated this column by Janet Daley. How to explain movements such as the Jeremy Corbyn movement in the Free West? People, especially young people, are just too damn bored. They have too much freedom, too much prosperity. They know so little about the world (which is far worse off than they). To fill their lives with meaning — with struggle — they latch on to anti-democratic, anti-capitalist movements like Corbyn’s.

Isn’t life tough enough? Do they have to invent struggle? Geesh.

5) As I said earlier on Twitter, I found this column by Matt Continetti delicious, if depressing. It’s about O and his pending post-presidency. (Better a post-presidency for him than a presidency, I know.)

I’d like to highlight one little point — a side point. Two billionaires are co-CEOs. Partners. One of them supports and gives to Obama. The other supports and gives to Ted Cruz. As Matt notes, the New York Times describes the Obama guy as a “technology entrepreneur.” And the Cruz guy as a “hedge-fund magnate”!

So, so typical. Aren’t these Timesmen ever embarrassed by themselves? (And if they ever want to match wits with Robert Mercer, the Cruz guy, about computers and technology — good luck to them. He was pioneering the field before they were born.)

6) I found Kevin Williamson’s post, below, rather depressing. Kids are starting school now? In the heat of August? It’s high summer! They should be allowed to play until at least Labor Day, I think!

Cripe.

7) Feel like a little music? Here is a review from the Salzburg Festival (published at The New Criterion). This one discusses the Vienna Philharmonic, under Daniel Barenboim, in the Mahler Ninth. See you later.