Princeton economics professor emeritus and Nobel laureate Angus Deaton has been running around making an extraordinary claim: “Being really poor in America is in some ways worse than being really poor in India or Africa," he recently told the National Association for Business Economics. Asked about those comments in an interview with the Atlantic, Deaton doubled down: "If you had to choose between living in a poor village in India and living in the Mississippi Delta or in a suburb of Milwaukee in a trailer park, I'm not sure who would have the better life."

This claim was qualified—Deaton is referring to those who live in extreme poverty. But The Scrapbook did once spend two months following around economists from

Who doesn’t like a story with a happy ending? In The Weekly Standard last week, in "Berkeley Goes Offline," Andrew Ferguson told the sad tale of disability-rights activists who had filed a complaint against the University of California, Berkeley, claiming that the thousands of hours of classroom lectures the university posted online (available to the general public, free) violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. Apparently the material hadn't been formatted to make all of it accessible for the deaf and the visually impaired. The Obama Justice Department agreed. It had threatened to sue UC Berkeley unless elaborate and expensive changes were made to the web videos. The school determined it couldn't afford to make them.

Barnard College in New York City isn’t a religious school—unless you count the usual genuflections at the altars of diversity, feminism, environmentalism, and the like. Nonetheless, The Scrapbook is proud to bestow upon Barnard—with all due fanfare—the first-ever Weekly Standard St. Augustine Award for Virtue Postponed.

Early this month, Barnard's board of trustees succumbed to student and faculty demands that the school divest from its $286 million endowment "fossil fuel companies that deny climate science or otherwise seek to thwart efforts to mitigate the impact of climate change."

Just not quite yet.

Newspapers aren’t just throwing Trumpoplectic fits, they're monetizing them. The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times have all rolled out clothing lines tweaking the new president. The most comic is found at the Post website, which features a T-shirt in rock-concert black emblazoned with the paper's infamously maudlin and self-aggrandizing new slogan: "Democracy Dies in Darkness." What makes it comedy gold is the disconnect between the dismal message of doom and the decidedly non-gloomy—chipper, even—presentation.

To sell the shirt, the Post has employed a hunky and handsomely hirsute young model. Mr.

Princeton economics professor emeritus and Nobel laureate Angus Deaton has been running around making an extraordinary claim: “Being really poor in America is in some ways worse than being really poor in India or Africa," he recently told the National Association for Business Economics. Asked about those comments in an interview with the Atlantic, Deaton doubled down: "If you had to choose between living in a poor village in India and living in the Mississippi Delta or in a suburb of Milwaukee in a trailer park, I'm not sure who would have the better life."

This claim was qualified—Deaton is referring to those who live in extreme poverty. But The Scrapbook did once spend two months following around economists from

Who doesn’t like a story with a happy ending? In The Weekly Standard last week, in "Berkeley Goes Offline," Andrew Ferguson told the sad tale of disability-rights activists who had filed a complaint against the University of California, Berkeley, claiming that the thousands of hours of classroom lectures the university posted online (available to the general public, free) violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. Apparently the material hadn't been formatted to make all of it accessible for the deaf and the visually impaired. The Obama Justice Department agreed. It had threatened to sue UC Berkeley unless elaborate and expensive changes were made to the web videos. The school determined it couldn't afford to make them.

The ironists among us—or maybe wiseacres would be a better term—have always taken macabre note of the premature deaths of health and fitness gurus. One such was Jim Fixx, author of The Complete Book of Running (1977), who suffered a fatal coronary at the appallingly young age of 52—while jogging, no less.

But now, a comforting counter-trend has emerged. As we noted in November, Jim Delligatti, inventor of the Big Mac, succumbed at the ripe old age of 98—after a lifetime regularly enjoying his 540-calorie legacy. Two days later, chef Peng Chang-kuei, the maestro behind General Tso's Chicken, died at—yes, 98. Now comes the sad news that Joseph Rogers Sr., cofounder of Waffle House, is dead at age 97.

As noted recently in these pages (“Nullifying Calhoun," Feb. 27), Yale University has decided to remove the name of alumnus John C. Calhoun from the "residential college"—Ivy-speak for "dormitory"—it has graced since the dorm was built in the 1930s. Calhoun, class of 1804, senator, vice president, and full-throated proponent of slavery and states' rights, was deemed a "white supremacist," a belief system that evidently flourished under his Yale education.

Left unmentioned was whether Yale has any plans to rename Morse College, the undergraduate dorm that honors Samuel F. B. Morse, class of 1810.

It’s tough to be a globalist these days. President Trump and his chief strategist denounce you. Alt-right websites ridicule you. The Brexit vote leaves your European plans in limbo.

But at least a major international hotel chain is now in your corner. The top tier of Hyatt's loyalty program has been renamed from "Diamond" to "Globalist."

What's it like to travel like a Globalist? No surprise here: "Enjoy the highest levels of luxury, and rewards and benefits that will exceed expectations," says Hyatt's website, which provides a "highlight of the benefits you'll receive as a Globalist." Hyatt Globalist perks include waived resort fees, complimentary suite upgrades, and club lounge access. After all, it's tough to plot

"Could Joe Biden have been the next Abraham Lincoln? That thought came to mind recently .  .  .

Once it was thought to be a meas­ure of an actor's skill that he or she might play roles at odds with his or her actual circumstances, race, or even gender (Shakespeare's women, after all, were once played by male youths). But the trend—disguised as a moral imperative—has been to demand that characters be played only by those with the correct characteristics. No more casting Charlton Heston as Mexican (as was done in Orson Welles's Touch of Evil) or Marlon Brando as Japanese (as was done in the excruciating Teahouse of the August Moon). The less said about Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tif­fany's, the better.

And of course, the politics of staging Othello have become daunting.

Non-Californians need not apply. That’s the message the University of California system sent last week, when it proposed to limit out-of-state residents to just 20 percent of student slots at its flagship schools. At UC campuses with higher rates of out-of-state students—at Berkeley, for example, nearly a quarter of students hail from somewhere other than California—out-of-state enrollment will be capped at their current highs.

The proposal strikes The Scrapbook as reasonable enough.

SeaWorld is drowning—in red ink. "As they reported continued declines in revenue and attendance," the Orlando Sentinel writes, "SeaWorld Entertainment executives vowed to push for improved financial performance through a combination of new attractions, cost cuts and pricing strategies."

SeaWorld cut its workforce by 320 people last year, and still posted a $12.5 million loss. Which isn't to say that SeaWorld lacks for strategies to turn things around. They want to make themselves a discount alternative to their rather more lavishly endowed competitors: "The customer we're going .  .  . after is more value-conscious than some of Disney and Universal's customers," said CEO Joel Manby.

The craft beer market continues to surge, and this being America, that means a burgeoning market for litigation. Among the lawsuits that have been brewing is a case filed last month accusing Walmart of peddling as “craft" beer the product of an industrial-scale brewer. Now comes another class-action writ, one accusing the Kona Brewing Co. of selling ostensibly Hawaiian-made beer—brews with names such as "Longboard Island Lager" and "Big Wave Golden Ale"—that are actually suds produced and bottled on the mainland.

If so, Kona joins a prestigious list of prominent beers that are not from where they appear. If you have a taste for Japanese beer, you've probably noticed that your can of Sapporo is made in Canada.

What’s the sound a bottle of soda makes when opened? If you're the government in Berkeley or Philadelphia, it's not ssfzzzt but cha-ching. These two towns—bedrocks of meddlesome nanny-state liberalism—now collect steep taxes on soft drinks and other sweetened beverages. The Philly soda-tariff took effect just this year. The early returns there suggest a financial pleasure for the city: The levy raised some $5.7 million in its first month, according to the mayor's office.

But don't count on the carbonated goose staying in the egg-laying business. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, supermarkets and distributors have reported a 30 to 50 percent drop in beverage sales.

Say this about the Trump presidency: It befuddles Democrats, who are racing to adjust their political positions to appease their angry constituents’ anti-Trump mood. Their latest contortion on immigration is leaving some in the party of resistance sounding like Rush Limbaugh.

A Politico report suggests Trump may have so alienated congressional Democrats that they won't support anything he proposes—not even an immigration overhaul that would allow some illegal immigrants to remain in the country legally. Trump expressed openness to such a large-scale reform and the Democratic response was swift: Politico quoted Rep. Luis Gutiérrez, Sen. Chuck Schumer, and immigration activist groups expressing deep skepticism

Villanova University in Radnor Township, Pennsylvania, is a Roman Catholic institution. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! But for some residents of Radnor, Villanova is kind of overdoing this whole Catholic thing.

Recently the university announced it would build a pedestrian bridge over a state road to connect the north side of campus with the south. Which is fine. Then the university unveiled a drawing of the proposed bridge. At each end stone pillars were topped with crosses.

Crosses! Right there in the open! Where the children might see them!

The bridge will be on school property and maintained by the university. Nevertheless, many in the community immediately raised vocal opposition to the crosses,

Is there nothing so louche that Trump supporters won’t indulge in it? According to the Washington Post, apparently not. So low have we been brought, the Post suggests, that in Donald Trump's capital there is a fad for that odious cinnamon-flavored sugar gargle that masquerades as whiskey, "Fireball."

The article took up most of the front page of the paper's Style section plus a jump to the inside pages. It started with a big picture of a bottle of Fireball and a display headline: "Is This the Spirit of Trumpism? Fireball whiskey's sales rise in D.C.; theories abound."

Of course theories are just theories, but the factual part of the headline is simple and unambiguous: "Fireball whiskey's sales rise in D.C.

A leading case in constitutional law it ain’t. But we now have a ruling: The Snuggie—"The Blanket That Has Sleeves!"—is indeed a blanket, the sleeves notwithstanding. So says Judge Mark A. Barnett of the United States Court of International Trade. And rightly so, as far as The Scrapbook can tell.

How did the Snuggie—that comical "as seen on TV" accessory for couch potatoes who want their hands free to drink beer and eat chips while otherwise swaddled on the sofa in polyester fleece—get to be an object of such gravity to warrant the judgment of a federal court?

It all has to do with the sort of differential in taxation that makes for full employment for Washington lobbyists.

Last week, the Washington Post unveiled a new slogan displayed just below the paper’s masthead: "Democracy dies in darkness." As Count Floyd might say, "Scary stuff, huh, kids?"

The Post's new slogan may be hilariously overwrought, but it does suggest a parallel motto: If democracy dies in darkness, journalism surely dies in self-aggrandizement.

For the last few weeks, the scribblers and prattlers of the press have been plumping themselves as civilization's last best hope. There they are, manning the barricades, militants of a movement. The New York Times no longer merely asks people to subscribe, it pleads with them to "SUPPORT OUR MISSION."

We don't dismiss Trump's attacks on the media lightly.

Berets—it's been some time since they were just for baguette-toting Frenchmen and elite members of the Army's Special Forces. In the summer of 2001, the Army changed longstanding policy and began to put berets on every head. The logic was simple—everyone should be made to feel special, not just Special Forces. It was the military-morale version of our infantile participation-trophy culture.

Soldiers knew silly p.c. antics when they saw them. The Army Times recently conducted a survey of soldiers regarding what they liked and didn't like about their uniforms. Overwhelmingly, they said get rid of the berets.

Up to now, The Scrapbook has looked skeptically at rankings of presidents by historians. They tend to be biased, trendy, superficial, and based on no little myth. The only thing worse than getting historians—liberals, for the most part—to do the ordering would be to ask sociologists. Yet we couldn't resist C-SPAN's newest version of its "Historians Survey of Presidential Leadership," as it marks the first time Barack Obama is included in the rankings.

He arrives as the twelfth-best president, right behind Woodrow Wilson and just ahead of James Monroe. That's a mite high. But it's just right so long as you think Obama was a better president than James Polk (14), William McKinley (16), James Madison (17), Andrew