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Lovecraft, famous for his horror writing, was also known for his highly racist opinions, and this has created some controversy regarding the award that bears his likeness.

Can”€™t the damn puritans leave anything alone?

I have more than once quoted the first words of Lovecraft’s short story Arthur Jermyn as comprising one of the most arresting openings in English literature: “€œLife is a hideous thing …”€

Maybe so, but it is nothing like so hideous as the preening solipsism of PC commissars, who, not content with asserting their moral superiority over the rest of us, have to exhume long-dead writers and hang their corpses for sins against current orthodoxy.

(The best essay on Lovecraft was the one Sam Francis wrote for Chronicles, advertised by Tom Piatak at Taki’s Magazine, though the link seems no longer to work.)

No Hiding Place.  As a science geek from way back in childhood, I fondly think of the world of science”€”of rigorous empirical enquiry and peer-reviewed results”€”as a refuge from the general insanity of the social and political worlds: from, for example, the ludicrous and infantile cult of “€œdiversity.”€

How naïve of me! A special announcement from Nature, the flagship magazine of British science:

DIVERSITY: A NATURE & SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SPECIAL ISSUE

Greater diversity in science’s workforce and ideas is long overdue. Nature, in this special issue with Scientific American, explores connections between diversity and the rigour of research”€”including how marginalization affects study design”€”and discusses persistent, misguided assumptions. The message is clear: inclusive science is better science.

There is no escape from the madness, no hiding place. We are doomed, doomed.