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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 15, 2025

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Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor and Nuclear Physicist, Nuno Loureiro, was shot to death last night in his own home. Loureiro was reportedly Jewish and somewhat vocally pro-Israel. No suspect is in custody. I cannot help but think that this might be related to the shooting at Brown University last week. My knowledge of the geography of the northeast United States is limited, but I believe the two locations are at most a couple of hours apart. The shooting at Brown seems to have targeted the class of a professor of Israel-US relations.

I think we are are now approaching five left wing domestic terrorist attacks in as many months. When I suggested we were on the verge of slipping into another Days of Rage after the Israeli embassy attack, everyone here pooh-poohed the idea. But my concerns have only deepened since.

The shooting at Brown seems to have targeted the class of a professor of Israel-US relations.

I have to squint really hard to discern any kind of motive for the Brown shooting. The aforementioned professor was not present at the time since it was just a weekend study session led by a TA and not an actual class, and anyone who was specifically targeting her would have known this. Meanwhile, the two fatalities are a Christian student and a Muslim (-sounding) student. (Source: Wikipedia).

The woman killed, and according to some reports, targeted, was the VP of Brown's College Republicans (I suspect targeting, because there have got to be like five college republicans at Brown, and she was a good-looking young woman). Mukhammad Umurzokov, the other student killed, was Uzbek, so Muslim but not a visible minority. In my experience Uzbeks are generally culturally Muslim, but not pious in the Salafi/Deobandi sense we tend to associate with Islam, and tend to have a very strong sense of chivalry/responsibility, which checks out with reports that he was shot trying to shield her. Who knows whether any of these reports are correct yet, though.

Her name was Ella Cook, just to add.

Yes. RIP.

On a different note I’d argue that this was probably not politically motivated on grounds that people generally comprehend that women, especially young and pretty ones, make very poor targets of publicized political assassinations from a PR perspective.

On a different note I’d argue that this was probably not politically motivated on grounds that people generally comprehend that women, especially young and pretty ones, make very poor targets of publicized political assassinations from a PR perspective.

Anyway, if this was a targeted killing I think it's more likely that it was over romantic/sexual rejection than something political.

‘People generally comprehend’ /= ‘people who kill people comprehend’.

Has there ever been a politically motivated assassination of a young pretty white woman in the US?