For newcomers, three more items from the archives.

Ambient Truth.

Made-up facts will do just as well.

A 19-year-old freshman ransacked her own room and scrawled racial slurs across its walls before curling into a foetal ball, supposedly in shock. When this “hate crime” was revealed as a hoax, Otis Smith, a regional president of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, was remarkably untroubled. That the events had been staged and then lied about was, he said, “largely irrelevant.” He added, “It doesn’t matter to me whether she did it or not because of all the pressure these black students are under at these predominantly white schools. If this will highlight it, if it will bring it to the attention of the public, I have no problem with that.”

I’m Not Condoning Violence, But…

When “being heard” means being obeyed. A lesson in leftist euphemism.

Ms Allen tells us, “I was truly overwhelmed by the vast police presence… Feeling threatened in my own community is upsetting but the truth is people feel completely disempowered, and for some resorting to last night’s actions seems the only way people will listen.” Strangely, Ms Allen shows little concern for other local residents who had no choice but to listen and who may have been “upset” by the fruits of her campaign. Unless of course they found comfort in the smell of burning, the sound of windows being smashed and the territorial chant of “Whose street? Our street!” These things, presumably, are an acceptable cost – provided Ms Allen and her colleagues get what they want.

Meanwhile, in the Arts.

Liquidised carrots, moths and bras, and a fat, naked narcissist jumps around in talc.

Here’s Austrian artist and choreographer Doris Uhlich, whose “vigorous and critical” hour-long performance More Than Enough “takes ironic revenge on the standardisation of the body.” It’s a “bodily and textual discussion of flesh and opulence,” in which Uhlich “asks herself and her audience how the body can become a trademark and what this means.” This radical feat is achieved by reciting Baudelaire, throwing talcum powder around and making several phone calls: “I’m calling you because I’m fat…”

And by all means gorge yourselves on the updated greatest hits.

Fly Geyser, Hualapai Valley, Nevada. (h/t, MeFi) // Superconductor sorcery. (h/t, Nick Pullar) // Those public spending cuts. // The debt crisis illustrated. // Don’t aim your laser pointer at a police helicopter. // That’s some starboard firepower. // The Svalbard ‘doomsday’ seed vault. // Ants and spiders seen up close. // Age test. // The Avengers. // The robots are coming (slowly). // Tilting San Francisco. // Tube amplifier of note. // A pig for all your power needs. (h/t, Dr Westerhaus) // Envy and pride. // Lenticular clouds. // Wet koala. // William Shatner’s Bohemian Rhapsody. // After which, you’ll probably want need a glass of this.

Heather Mac Donald mingles with the protestors in Zuccotti Park, New York:

Henry, a delicate, doe-eyed anthropology and interdisciplinary-studies major from the University of Alabama, came up to New York a week ago with the blessings of his professors, who are undoubtedly celebrating the long-hoped-for revival of 1960s student activism. The chance that his courses are so demanding that his open-ended leave of absence will jeopardise his grades is zero. “It’s obvious that the good guys are fighting the bad guys,” he said. “It’s a question of good v. evil. Bad guys serve themselves, seeking individual gain; they’ve forgotten what it means to be a good guy. You can be rich, but you shouldn’t try to get richer, because you make people poor by getting richer.”

Remember, Henry is a student, one of tomorrow’s intellectuals.

Lexington Green visits a similar gathering in Chicago:

One young man got up and said the group needed to occupy “a field or warehouse” and create their “own space.” This was discussed seriously. I left after two hours, with the meeting still ongoing. […] 

I was struck by how this movement is replicating note for note the Left movements of the 1960s, but recreating it all over again from scratch. Rambling, poorly organised meetings, a requirement of unanimity to do anything, a repudiation of politics as usual, a vague call for some kind of deep social transformation, a desire for immersion in mass activity, a call for communal living. It is as if the last 50 years never happened and the past has no lessons at all.

And not entirely unrelated, Evan Maloney explains the story behind his film Indoctrinate U:

Academia today is focussed only on diversity of appearance… In an odd way, conservatives get a better education than anyone left of centre because their views are getting challenged. If I were a left of centre student, I could spend four years in a college and not once have any of my most basic assumptions challenged. 

As usual, feel free to add your own.

Or, I Know, Let’s Put These People in Charge.

Via Kate, and further to this and this, more radical wisdom from the “occupiers,” or would-be nomenklatura. This time in Oakland, California, where ideas tend to get tangled and obligatory terms, such as “fair” and “justice,” are invariably self-serving yet curiously undefined. With the result that running a successful business is is a sign of “domination” and deemed “obscene,” but communism – all history to the contrary – isn’t.

Remember, these bright young things have been educated. And so greed is bad but covetousness is good and entirely unrelated. And the solution to cronyism is more cronyism, albeit with different beneficiaries and an even more bloated and coercive state. “Social justice” will somehow save us all, especially from ourselves, even though “social justice,” as conceived by their predecessors, led directly to this. Which helped create the very problem the protestors now complain about. But hey, they, unlike you, the filthy bourgeoisie, have “decent impulses.”

The clip below comes via Darleen and is copied from the latest update to this extended post. But it captures one of those special moments and is possibly worth repeating. From Occupy Wall Street:

Because socialism is never, ever about being selfish or opportunist or exploitative. Or greedy. Ahem.

Update: