Heather Mac Donald on the assumptions and pathologies of a “racialised worldview”: 

According to the Supreme Court, the only reason why schools should be allowed to discriminate against more academically qualified applicants in favour of less qualified black and Hispanic applicants is that those “underrepresented” minorities will bring otherwise missing perspectives to the classroom and cafeteria. But if each individual is in fact sui generis, then there is no reason to believe that selection by skin colour will lead to a non-random introduction of additional viewpoints.

Ah, but race goons and “diversity” hustlers do seem to regard minorities not as individuals but more like spices. And all those exotic brown people taste the same, apparently.

Michael Totten on the glorious Havana that tourists never see: 

In the United States, we have a minimum wage; Cuba has a maximum wage — $20 a month for almost every job in the country… Even employees inside the quasi-capitalist bubble don’t get paid more. The government contracts with Spanish companies such as Meliá International to manage Havana’s hotels. Before accepting its contract, Meliá said that it wanted to pay workers a decent wage. The Cuban government said fine, so the company pays $8–$10 an hour. But Meliá doesn’t pay its employees directly. Instead, the firm gives the compensation to the government, which then pays the workers — but only after pocketing most of the money. I asked several Cubans in my hotel if that arrangement is really true. All confirmed that it is. The workers don’t get $8–$10 an hour; they get 67 cents a day — a child’s allowance.

And Tim Worstall on a certain Guardian columnist and his deep, deep guilt about “our pointless hyperconsumption”: 

Sadly, George Monbiot has gone off on one again. Decrying the fact that we neoliberals in the Anglo Saxon capitalist style world don’t feel guilty enough about despoiling Gaia. The poor in other places, being as they are not Anglo Saxon and also sanctified by their being poor, care a lot more. We are sinners as a result.

Tim goes on to note some important ways in which Mr Monbiot’s feelings are misplaced. And readers may wish to ponder George’s urge to romanticise poverty and pre-modern living, an urge perhaps best expressed in his claim that “we” should be more like the peasants of Southern Ethiopia, who “smile more often” than we do and whose fields “crackle with laughter.” These noble, laughing peasants may live in homes constructed from leaves and packing cases, and they may have Stone Age sanitation and alarming child mortality, but at least they’re not being “isolated” by sinful material trappings, like dentistry, double glazing and TV remote controls. Think I’m kidding? Think again.

The mighty headwear of Nihang Sikhs, Punjab, photographed by Mark Hartman.  

Via Mick Hartley.  

Three items, thematically related. First, the world of the arts, where some things just won’t be tolerated by those who know what’s best for us. Like artist and writer Bill Drummond: 

It not only offended me morally and aesthetically, it also went against everything that I feel political discourse should be about. Thus there was nothing for it.

And so vandalism ensued. Followed, obviously, by self-congratulation in the pages of the Guardian, where Mr Drummond conjures the obligatory post hoc ambiguity. Is it “a mere publicity stunt?” he asks, as if that were in doubt. “By doing this have I added to the political discourse in the country in any sort of positive way?” Apparently Mr Drummond is making us think, an activity impossible without his intervention, while saving us from the things we mustn’t be looking at. It’s a pattern we’ve seen before. 

Then academia, where talking, it turns out, is now considered violence: 

Lauren Steele, the Cambridge Student Union Women’s Officer who organised the protest, rejected these calls [for discussion]… A statement issued by the pro-choice protesters, derived from the text of the leaflets handed out to passers-by, argued that “Debate is a conversation of power, where the objective is to win: to overpower the other side. This is violence. It is not ‘discussion’.”

Because being contradicted is distressing for a narcissist. Imagine the indignity. Therefore words must be redefined, and redefined again, until talking equals violence and debate becomes impossible. And then, well, the rest of us must comply or risk being denounced as violent haters. Why, oh why, don’t you people CARE™ about the feelings of narcissists?

And finally, in case you missed it in the comments yesterday, there’s this rather passionate incident:  

GAAAAHH! WAHH! MMMEHHH! 

Evidently, when walking past a loon holding a placard about the post-mortem comeuppance of “masturbators, drunkards, fornicators and homosexuals,” the obvious thing to do is to suddenly assault the man, repeatedly, while braying like a donkey. And then screech with inexpressible outrage when further assaults are interrupted. Readers may wish to imagine how our somewhat inarticulate Social Justice Warrior might have behaved if a similar placard were being held by a bearded adherent of another religion.

With hat tips to Kate and Mr X.

When trees fight back. // Every kid wants Batman teeth. // Vibrating constipation pills. // Blood worm. // Crows and coat hangers, the great mystery of our time. // Perfect shots. // Portable swing. // A tempting offer. You go first. // At last, scorpion pizza. // The fire makes it go faster, right? // Max and Ralphee. // Fermented herring explosions last for six hours. // Lava meets surf. // Lost cities found by satellites. // Synopsis of note. // All of Bach, performed weekly. // A guide to rappers’ vocabulary. // The jogger’s bell. // Brothers. // They call them knobs. // Math or maths? // Minimal tweeting. // Made of sand. // This is one of these. (h/t, PootBlog) // And finally, a live feed from orbit. Can you see your house yet?

Ms Barlow describes herself as “a green and leftwing schoolteacher.”

In the comments Karen adds:

My grandfather would be surprised to hear that WWII was the Allies’ war against “the blood lust of unfettered capitalism.”

Quite. Though I suppose it pays to remember just how intellectually degraded teacher training can be. It’s progress, people. 

Via Christopher Snowdon.