Now that 2019 has ended with the impeachment of President Donald Trump, let’s push aside the memory of an accuser, who, like Harry Potter’s Voldemort, couldn’t be named, and who, in a rejection of justice dating back to Magna Carta, couldn’t be confronted by the accused. Let’s cast aside secret hearings, selective leaks, hearsay and hearsay about hearsay, years of media caterwauling, and high crimes that aren’t even knee-high to an impeached grasshopper. Being “woke” is now more important than fair play, so let’s look at a few of the woke folk of note of 2019.

A Politically Correct Reason to Be Overweight

America has an obesity problem. Cheap, abundant, tasty food combined with sedentary lifestyles produces millions of citizens who strain the chairs they sit upon. Medical professionals tell us that healthy eating and increased activity can save the chairs, but we find following that advice hard. We make excuses. We don’t have time to prepare healthful meals or exercise. High-calorie foods are impossible to resist. We may claim to be “big boned” or have a “gland problem.” In October, in an episode of Black Women OWN the Conversation, a program on the Oprah Winfrey Network, Brittney Cooper, a professor of gender studies at Rutgers University, declared there was another reason one portion of society is overweight: President Trump.

“We are living in the Trump era,” Cooper, who is African-American, said, “and look, those policies kill our people. You can’t get access to good health care, good insurance.” Not pausing to address the issue of Obamacare increasing health insurance costs, she insisted that stress caused by racism changed black women’s metabolisms, making it more difficult for them to lose weight. “I hate when people talk about black women being obese,” she said. “I hate it because it becomes a way to blame us for a set of conditions that we didn’t create.”

With apologies for an ungentlemanly observation, Professor Cooper is not elfin in form. It is possible that Trump has been following her around pushing food into her mouth but that is unlikely.

What Would Dudley Do-Right Do?

Canadian Jessica Yaniv, a man who identifies as a woman, filed over a dozen human rights complaints with the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal against salon workers who refused to wax her male genitals. She claimed the workers were transphobic and should pay damages. Instead, the tribunal rejected Yaniv’s claims and ordered her to pay damages, ruling she had been deceitful and had targeted ethnic women she considered anti-LGBTQ+ for financial gain. In December, Yaniv continued her pursuit for what she thinks of as justice by tweeting her outrage that a gynecologist would not take her on as a patient: “And me, being me, I’m shocked… and confused… and hurt. Are they allowed to do that, legally?” Gynecologists specialize in the health care of female reproductive organs. Yaniv does not possess such organs. No news as of this writing as to whether she’s found someone to wax what she has or a gynecologist to examine what she hasn’t.

During the waxing controversy, some to-and-fro between Yaniv and her critics occurred on YouTube, during which she displayed a Taser. She was arrested by the RCMP and charged with possession of a prohibited weapon. The RCMP, better known to Americans as the Mounties, proved that not only do they “always get their man,” they also can get men identifying as women.

Woke Reporters Report Earth-Shaking Shaker Scandal

On December 6, Business Insider reported that the salt and pepper shakers placed in front of President Trump at events in the White House are larger than those placed in front of others sharing his table. They noted that CBS News’ White House correspondent Mark Knoller had made the original observation in a tweet, which the Insider followed up with a 1000-word article illustrated with 23 photographs they had retrieved after searching through photo archives of Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. They did find a “few instances” where Trump’s shakers weren’t larger, but noted that in one of these, his shakers were positioned “far apart” while those of other diners were positioned close together (a shaker version of manspreading?).

The Insider didn’t allow comments on their report, but Knoller’s Twitter account did. In addition to tweets mocking Trump’s supposed Freudian problems, one sober commenter suggested that the Secret Service might want Trump’s shakers to be distinguishable so that tampering with them would be difficult. The Insider speculated that Trump was making a “power move.”

Live Woke or Die

Britain’s National Health Service is popular with the British people but it has significant shortcomings. Patients can wait for long periods for tests or surgeries. Delays can produce prolonged pain and unnecessary deaths. Fans counter that the care is free and doled out equally. That equality was placed in doubt in November when the North Bristol National Health Service Trust announced that it would withdraw treatment from patients it deems to be racist or sexist. They assured the public that this would only happen when it is clinically safe. Some wondered, however, how “safe” would be defined when being sent out of the hospital to the back of a long NHS treatment queue could prove fatal. What safeguards would prevent abuse of the policy? Who would determine what was racist and sexist? Proscribed behavior doesn’t just include actions but also includes “malicious allegations.” Would an anonymous allegation suffice? Would a politically incorrect remark, such as a long ago tweet, cause denial of treatment? Will practicing the wrong religion or being in a disapproved group cause you to be denied care? How about voting the wrong way?

In 2012 a couple in Rotherham Borough lost three foster children because they belonged to the UK Independence Party (UKIP). Rotherham Borough Council’s Strategic Director of Children and Young People’s Services claimed the party, to which millions of various ethnicities belong, was racist because it opposes unlimited immigration and that the foster parents were therefore unfit. The Council was controlled by the British Labour Party, a UKIP rival at the polls. Bureaucrats of one party officially designated members of another party racist and severely penalized them. It’s not hard to imagine an NHS bureaucrat doing the same but with deadly results.

They’ll Hex You J. K. R.

J. K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books and creator of the Voldemort guy mentioned above, has been a fountain of anti-Trump venom on social media, delighting those who venerate celebrity Trump bashers. The love she earned this way, however, proved insufficient to ward off a woke witch hunt when she dared defend Maya Forstater, a British tax expert who lost her position with the Centre for Global Development for tweeting that “men cannot change into women” and “it is unfair and unsafe for trans women to compete in women’s sport.”

Forstater filed a complaint under the British 2010 Equality Act, claiming she was being oppressed for her beliefs but it was rejected because her opinions were ruled “incompatible with human dignity and fundamental rights of others.” In response, Rowling tweeted: “Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real?” Supporters of transsexualism went to DEFCON 1.

Rowling was tagged a “TERF” or transgender exclusionary radical feminist. It is not a term of endearment in woke circles. The women so designated aren’t happy that men who transition into women or identify as women are intruding into areas they believe should be exclusive to women born female. One such area is sports. Athletes born female find themselves losing not just trophies but scholarships and commercial opportunities to transwomen who are simply bigger and stronger.

Not only TERFs are troubled by today’s gender jumble. Many women aren’t comfortable sharing a locker room, dormitory, women’s shelter, dressing room, or bathroom with someone identifying as female while possessing male genitals. Many parents are especially uncomfortable with their female children being forced to do so.

Rowling was roundly scolded for her TERF moment but has avoided any physical harm. Wokeness, however, is an unforgiving faith that brooks no dissent, and TERFs get rough treatment that can include physical attack, as happened at London’s Speakers Corner in 2017. It would be wise for Rowling to be cautious and remember that there be woke giants and woke dragons and other woke things out there that do more than go bump in the night. They smash muggle faces. She also might want to avoid North Bristol, for if she did need medical care, the NHS there might be reluctant to provide it.

Be Oh So Ashamed of That Holiday Treat

With the end of the holidays, Santa can rest at the North Pole and digest the million cookies kids left out for him, Rudolph can dim his nose, and Frosty the Snowman can just chill. We remember them and the other pleasantries of the joyous season with fondness, but one holiday delight, according to Gillian Brockell in the Washington Post, should be remembered with shame for its association with European imperialism. What holiday horror is the Post upset about? Pumpkin spice.

Nutmeg, key to pumpkin spice flavoring, was harvested by the Bandanese people of the Banda Islands who became wealthy trading spices with the Portuguese, English, and Dutch over 400 years ago. The Bandanese signed an agreement with the Dutch, giving them exclusive rights to the nutmeg, but went ahead and sold it to anyone who showed up on their shores. The Dutch considered this treachery. In response, they killed or enslaved all of the Bandanese in 1621. It was an awful thing to do, and they should have been ashamed, but you may wonder, as you consume some pumpkin spiced up treat, why you should be ashamed. You didn’t kill any Bandanese. But that’s because you don’t comprehend the quintessence of woke, which is the enjoyment and exploitation of guilt.

Finding something to feel guilty about makes the woke happy because they can feel superior to those who don’t feel guilty about that issue and who are therefore evil people. Scorning the shameless baddies absolves the woke of guilt, making them good people. Additionally, the woke get to rise above all guilt and enjoy throwing guilt heaped high with extra special scorn if they are, even distantly, part of the aggrieved in the guilt-related situation. So, if one of your great-great-ten times over great-ancestors happens to be a Bandanese who escaped the murderous Dutch four centuries ago, get ready for some fun in the next holiday season. You can with woke righteousness picket Starbucks to condemn pumpkin spice lattes or boycott Ben & Jerry’s pumpkin cheesecake ice cream. Those woke companies will surely understand.

Here’s to a New Year and, God willing, fewer woke jokers!