Elsewhere (160)
George Will on the dysfunctions of academia:
What I want to talk to you about tonight is the amount of intellectual ingenuity that is now devoted to rationalising the disappearance of free speech… Today’s attack… is an attack on the theory of free speech. It is an attack on the desirability of free speech… What we have today is an attack on the very possibility of free speech. The belief is that the First Amendment is a mistake.
The bureaucratic farces and assorted psychodramas described by Mr Will may be familiar to regulars of this parish. Though it may be news to some that Texas Tech University, with an undergraduate enrolment of 28,000 people, now confines displays of WrongThought™ to a “free speech gazebo” some twenty feet wide.
Charles C W Cooke on the cultivated pretensions of student “radicals”:
Take a look at this farcical missive from the Oberlin Review, in which around 150 students at the college claim repeatedly that Christina Hoff Sommers was coming to campus to present not a viewpoint with which many of the students vehemently disagree but rather an actual threat to student safety. Sommers, the signatories contend, is not an academic sharing her work, but a participant “in violent movements” and an accessory to “threats of death and rape.” […] Held hostage by the twin evils of mawkishness and self-indulgence, [the protestors] have taken to masquerading as the martyrs of the piece. You will note, of course, that none of the outraged parties at Oberlin were obliged to attend Sommers’s talk, or even to be on campus while she was being hosted. Had they wished, they could have sat the whole thing out with nary a word. Indeed, it was quite by choice they injected themselves into the event at all.
Ah, but a sense of moral proportion is of no use whatsoever to an in-group of narcissists, poseurs and passive-aggressive harpies. The kind of would-be intellectuals who, instead of doing something else, turn up out of spite to jeer and interrupt – thereby drawing attention to themselves – while making theatrical displays of how “unsafe” they feel when confronted with information they do not like. The kind of would-be intellectuals who claim that theirs is a campus “laden with trauma and sexualized violence,” who pre-emptively slander those who disagree with them, and who respond to criticism with the words, “We could spend all of our time and energy explaining all of the ways she’s harmful. But why should we?”
And Darleen Click quotes the deep, deep wisdom of professor of anthropology and ostentatious male feminist, Melvin Konner:
In addition to women’s superiority in judgment, their trustworthiness, reliability, fairness, working and playing well with others, relative freedom from distracting sexual impulses, and lower levels of prejudice, bigotry, and violence, they live longer, have lower mortality at all ages, are more resistant to most categories of disease, and are much less likely to suffer brain disorders that lead to disruptive and even destructive behaviour. And, of course, they can produce new life from their own bodies, to which men add only the tiniest biological contribution — and one that soon could be done without… There is a birth defect… called maleness… To call being male a syndrome is not an arbitrary judgment.
Yes, “a birth defect… called maleness.” Thank goodness only the finest minds educate your children.
Yes, “a birth defect… called maleness.”
If he said that about women his job would be on the line.
Also, Johnathan Pearce on the strange durability of really, really crap ideas:
If he said that about women his job would be on the line.
Ah yes. The Patriarchy.
The kind of would-be intellectuals who claim that theirs is a campus “laden with trauma and sexualized violence,”
Some people just aren’t cut out for education.
“lower levels of prejudice, bigotry”
Lower levels of self-awareness.
Some people just aren’t cut out for education.
Or life in general. But apparently we’re supposed to believe that the insufferably ‘progressive’ Oberlin College is practically a rape factory, a place seething with sexual menace, albeit one hitherto unrecognised by alumni, donors and local police. Makes you wonder why Little Snowflake’s parents spent $50,000 to get her in and another $50,000 every year to keep her there, given all that “trauma and sexualised violence.”
Indeed. What kind of sadistic bastard would put their kids through Oberlin, a place that makes Fox River Penitentiary look like kindergarten and where every floppy haired male humanities student is in fact a Theodore Bagwell.
In addition to women’s superiority in judgment, their trustworthiness, reliability, fairness, working and playing well with others, relative freedom from distracting sexual impulses, and lower levels of prejudice, bigotry, and violence, they live longer, have lower mortality at all ages, are more resistant to most categories of disease, and are much less likely to suffer brain disorders that lead to disruptive and even destructive behaviour.
So essentially, women are more privileged than men?
Also, surely I can’t be the only one who reads the ramblings of Mr. Konner and cannot help thinking of the court eunuchs of old?
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qXX-GKrll2k/VRl-DRcg6lI/AAAAAAAAs34/WanbGOIRbkU/s1600/Male%2BFeminist.PNG
cannot help thinking of the court eunuchs of old
Perhaps Mr Konner thinks that if he pisses on himself, gnaws off his genitals and rolls into a ditch, the harpies will spare what’s left of him.
I would presume Konner writes such things because (1) he gets approbation from his peer group and (2) gets his peer group women to put out more. As you can see in so much else of this, facts are irrelevant, it doesn’t matter if what Konner writes is true or accurate, only its effect on him are relevant.
Feminists are all well balanced individuals.
https://twitter.com/Nero/status/592646224890716161
Feminists are all well balanced individuals.
Heavens. She’s a keeper.
Feminists are all well balanced individuals.
Bad attitude + Women’s Studies degree = Burger King badge.
Thank goodness only the finest minds educate your children.
There are places where one’s children can obtain a decent education, but it requires that parents to research and then be prepared to refuse to open the checkbook for institutions which have gone off the rails. (Helpful Hint: Read the English Department offerings in the course catalog first. Also, eliminate any institutions where the Freshman Orientation Week includes seminars on anything other than the inadvisability of putting cherry bombs in the toilets.)
Regarding that nice feminist lady: If that happened in Toronto, I’d put money on the police arresting the abortion protestors instead of her.
Bad attitude + Women’s Studies degree = Burger King badge.
Heh. Yes, there does seem to be a story there. It’s almost too perfect. Though I fear we’re being unfair to Burger King employees.
Replace “white” with “Aboriginal” and see if people continue to equivocate in your defense
Aussie TV sports commentator says things about ANZAC Day that are deliberately calculated to offend people; academics and other journalists shocked like Louis Renault that anybody would be offended. Here’s one of the tweets; you’ll see why I used the text I did for my link:
TWEET FROM SCOTT MCINTYRE: Wonder if the poorly-read, largely white, nationalist drinkers and gamblers pause today to consider the horror that all mankind suffered.
In addition to women’s superiority in judgment, their trustworthiness, reliability, fairness, working and playing well with others, relative freedom from distracting sexual impulses, and lower levels of prejudice, bigotry, and violence, they live longer, have lower mortality at all ages, are more resistant to most categories of to disruptive and even destructive behaviour.
And yet both genders prefer working for men.
University students mystified by dead white male.
Universities: petri dishes of puerile putridity
Kevin Williamson recently described them as “intellectual veal-pens.”
In addition to women’s superiority in judgment etc
You can tell a male feminist wrote this. Most feminists would just imply this nonsense without directly saying it. Takes a male feminist to boldly start saying things that can be verified or pooh-poohed with evidence.
This is an extreme case, but some teachers seem to teach with similar prejudices. They start with the somewhat tenuous but very right-on idea that boys & girls are psychologically very similar but for social conditioning. They proceed to teach in a way that suits very well the girls in their class – and ostentatiously wonder out loud why the boys are misbehaving.
Boys are thus treated like girls-gone-wrong. If the teacher acknowledges anything at all, it’s with a very Guardian-esque “Men are in crisis” sort of way. More points for feminism.
That’s one thing, then there’s the phenomenon of feminist teachers giving more praise to girls than to boys. Boys grow up with these ideas of male inferiority, and turn into messed up male feminists like Melvin Konner, to be blunt.
Crazy, but it’s happening.
Annoying Old Guy:
(2) gets his peer group women to put out more.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s his hope, but if you read what feminists say about Nice Guys, it’s pretty clear that they despise men who grovel before them even more than they despise men in general.
Henry:
If the teacher acknowledges anything at all, it’s with a very Guardian-esque “Men are in crisis” sort of way. More points for feminism.
Of course, the communities where men are most in crisis tend to be those with the highest number of divorces/single parent families, both of which feminists are all in favour of. Good luck getting them to even consider the possibility that their ideology might perhaps have contributed to the problem, though.
This is a beauty:
We have discarded Occam’s Razor (the explanation which uses the fewest assumptions is best) for Occam’s Nail File (if there is a gender difference that reflects unfavourably upon women, discrimination is the only allowable explanation).
– Ferox Ludum, commenting on Samizdata.
http://www.samizdata.net/2015/04/samizdata-quote-of-the-day-563/
…. is the fault of evil people, not the foreseeable result of interfering in the market.
I believe it was Stalin who first used this tactic, blaming any failures of the Five Year Plan on ‘wreckers’ and ‘saboteurs’.
Kevin Williamson recently described them as “intellectual veal-pens.”
Best coinage of 2015, thus far.
The original Mr. X:
“if you read what feminists say about Nice Guys, it’s pretty clear that they despise men who grovel before them even more than they despise men in general.”
Bingo!
In addition to women’s superiority in judgment, their trustworthiness, reliability, fairness, working and playing well with others …
Oh, really?
For more than 17 years, “The View” has been TV’s most dysfunctional family.
There have been the squabbling siblings (Rosie O’Donnell and Elisabeth Hasselbeck), the family troublemaker (Whoopi Goldberg, always ready to pick a fight), the wayward child (Star Jones, banished from the fold after she seemed to be caught in a lie about her sudden weight loss), the sister who never quite seemed to fit in (Debbie Matenopoulos, who came and went in a blink of an eye), the provocateur (Jenny McCarthy, with her campaign against childhood vaccinations), the wacky cousin (Sherri Shepherd, who once said that she didn’t know if the Earth was round or flat), the outspoken, wisecracking aunt (the comedian Joy Behar) and the responsible middle child (Meredith Vieira, the former “60 Minutes” correspondent, whose bizarre one-time revelation that she didn’t wear underpants didn’t undermine her news credentials and much-needed voice of reason when discussions veered off into cuckoo-land).
P.S.: AOG, husband of SWIPIAW, we meet again.
Forget it, Jake. It’s Oberlin…
Occam’s Nail File
The abrasive side is used to wear down any further opposition to the Established Truth and perhaps for sharpening the talons to present a more aggressive defensive posture.
Contrary to all received wisdom, women are more logical and less emotional than men.
Oh see, there’s the tell. It’s parody, scoring a 10 on the @GodfreyElfwick scale.
Perhaps an 11.
it’s pretty clear that they despise men who grovel before them even more than they despise men in general
Who DOESN’T despise grovelers? Sniveling little self-loathing lickspittles…
Twice I’ve had a boyfriend literally fling himself onto a sofa—out of the blue—and say, “tell me what to do.” We weren’t discussing anything in particular; I wasn’t making any demands, implied or otherwise. He just wanted me to run his life.
I also had a boyfriend who was terrified of me: didn’t dare express an opinion or make a decision in my presence.
All of them had domineering mothers.
…
Stop looking at me like that.
Melvin Konner
Heh.
I’m a believer in the idea that the name you give your child influences the sort of person he becomes. It’s why my kids are called Trillionaire and Aquaman. Or would have been, if my wife hadn’t threatened to run me over in her car.
Let us, then, pity the poor creature whose parents decided he would be forever known as Melvin. Couldn’t they have chosen a less ill-favoured name, like Adolf? Even Herbert, Chester, or Mongo would’ve been kinder than Melvin.
So it’s no wonder Melvin ended up writing stuff like this:
In addition to women’s superiority in judgment, their trustworthiness, reliability, fairness, working and playing well with others, relative freedom from distracting sexual impulses, and lower levels of prejudice, bigotry, and violence,
Melvin obviously hasn’t worked in an environment full of young women. I have, and it’s like Lord of the Flies meets The Devil Wears Prada.
they live longer, have lower mortality at all ages, are more resistant to most categories of disease,
Thanks to all those medical advances invented by men. You’re welcome, ladies. I accept tokens of your gratitude in the form of steak and compliments about my hair.
and are much less likely to suffer brain disorders that lead to disruptive and even destructive behavior
I’m not a fancy doctor or nuthin’, but that just isn’t true. Women suffer from more mental illnesses than men do. Unless Melvin thinks depression, anxiety, and borderline personality disorder aren’t disruptive or destructive.
And, of course, they can produce new life from their own bodies, to which men add only the tiniest biological contribution — and one that soon could be done without.
This is just embarrassing. It brings to mind some dweeby student radical from yesteryear, desperately trying to ingratiate himself with the womens libbers in the hopes of getting a pity-shag. “But women create life! Men can only destroy it! And have you heard the latest Joni Mitchell album?” Far out, man!
But Melvin is nearly 70 years old. As I said, embarrassing. Sort of like being called Melvin.
As a man, I would like my kind to stick around and stay useful
Well, how useful is Melvin? Let me see… he’s a Professor of Anthropology and of Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology.
Now, that sounds quite impressive, till you realise that:
Anthropology is the study of why people who live in mud huts made of animal poo are obviously superior to horrible, gaia-besmirching, capitalist nogoodniks in their so-called “cities” with their so-called “personal hygeine”.
Neuroscience – in this context – isn’t actually a science at all. It’s soft soap academia for the intellectual div kids who found maths too hard. It’s basically a fancier word for psychology – that favoured area of study for future Starbucks baristas everywhere. Same goes for “behavioural biology”.
We couldn’t live in a state of comfort and civilisation for very long without binmen, farm labourers, IT professionals, plumbers, dentists or bus drivers.
But Professors of Anthropology and of Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology? Sorry Melvin. And would you kindly take your seat on the B-Ark?
But the vast majority of women, and many men as well, want to see a world in which opportunities, responsibilities, and rewards are shared more equally between the two sexes.
No they don’t. Women want to be treated like godess-queens, feted with expensive shiny things, paid constant attention and praise, and fed delicious bon bons that don’t make them fat. No sane woman ever wanted equality. How would she lord it over other women?
My wife absolutely refuses to kill spiders (even though I am more cripplingly phobic of them than she is), take out the rubbish, get the Christmas tree out of the loft, mow the lawn, clear the gutters, unblock toilets, clean out Princess Fluffybottom’s Poop Palace, or get a job.
Women are also natural snobs and social climbers. How many men demand a new car/kitchen/patio because it’s important to them to keep up with their friends?
The answer is none. I could quite happily live in a shed with a Pot Noodle for dinner and a cat for company. But women demand nice things.
But — another objection goes — men have accomplished great things! Yes, although given that men have blocked women’s paths to greatness in all fields for thousands of years, it is hardly a fair comparison.
This is true. Women are clearly superior to men in every way, yet us inferior men have somehow managed to thwart their every innovation across the entire globe for thousands of years! Thanks for letting our Super-Secret Patriarchal Conspiracy out, Melvin! You’re worse than that gobby David Icke fellow who keeps telling people about the shapeshifting space lizards.
Why, just last week I had a young lass in my office come to me with the blueprints for an internal combustion engine that runs on water, and emits magic fairy dust that cures cancer.
Needless to say, after sexually harassing her for a while, I stole her idea, gave her a pay cut, and sent her running to the toilet for a cry. Me and Space Lord Reptilor had a good laugh about it afterwards over cigars. You should’ve been there.
Heh too.
On the other hand, as we know narcissistic personality disorders devalue those who cease to fill the NPD’s insatiable need to be supplied – to folks reading along that means NPDs must be constantly lied to about their magnificence so as to counter the fact they know they’re worms. We also know that leftist and feminist and whatnot are what we call personality disorders when they form co-ops and cabals and collectives and communes and universities who – whether collectively or individually – despise anyone who stoops low enough to supply them anyway – they being worms and all – and so it’s inevitable that no matter what you do you’ll be loathed by someone on the general PD/feminist/leftist/narc continuum. Because progressive.
Which is about half the urbanized Western world. I just count it an honor to be loathed by the dishonorable. Because progressive.
Taken as such, everything except the PD makes sense, although figuring it out makes for hard sledding in terms of your view of a sizable percentage of humanity and just about all of the PD/feminist/leftist/narc continuum.
And yes, pretty much all of them had at least domineering mothers.
It’s why my kids are called Trillionaire and Aquaman. Or would have been, if my wife hadn’t threatened to run me over in her car.
Aquaman? Really? Did you hate him that much?
Feckless: feeble; weak; ineffectual; irresponsible …
… possess feck!
Cheers
on housing prices… the main problem is that supply in the UK is artificially suppressed by planning laws
This is very likely true everywhere.
Feminist protestors at Christina Hoff Sommers lecture are upset that they were filmed while trying to get attention.
I’m not a fancy doctor or nuthin’, but that just isn’t true.
Very little in the article is. And Mr Konner’s counterfactual rimming of womanhood’s collective arse was published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, a journal for faculty and university administrators. It’s what passes for learned, intellectual content.
Dicentra: “I also had a boyfriend who was terrified of me”
The culture being the way it is, I’m surprised more men aren’t terrified of women. The message I got growing up was something like:
I shudder to think what messages boys growing up now are getting. Letting one woman down and being thought a bastard has been replaced by sexual harassment accusations, disciplinary procedures and social ostracism.
Imagine, for example, being a sensitive boy who lacks a bit of social confidence, and reading about Elevatorgate, in which an adult woman turning down an invitation for coffee by an adult man at an atheist conference got turned into an international diplomatic incident on the internet about misogyny and sexual harassment in the atheist movement. Getting turned down is bad enough without having to run that kind of humiliation gauntlet.
Most women, or course, are sane and don’t actually have these expectations of men. But it’s pretty easy for men to get the impression they do, and feel they have to live up to them.
The spam filter is feeling tired and emotional. If anyone has trouble with comments not appearing, email me and I’ll shake the thing by the shoulders.
Jason – Aquaman? Really? Did you hate him that much?
Why do you assume Aquaman is a boy? Check your privilege.
David – I never thought I’d come across a man who makes Ed Miliband seem like a raw hunk of testosterone-soaked masculinity by comparison. But Melvin does.
Patrick – my mother is a domineering narcissist, and I turned out amazingly brilliant.
I’m not afraid of women, but childbirth is disgusting and scary. I wanted to run out of that hospital screaming, but I was too high on gas and air. It was a 28 hour labour. I’ve no idea how I survived it.
Getting turned down is bad enough without having to run that kind of humiliation gauntlet.
See, this is where young chaps get it all wrong.
They should stop caring about being turned down. If you don’t make sales calls, you don’t get sales. Rejection is just part of the process. Move swiftly on to your next prospect.
I’m basically a white Hitch, or a less incomprehensible Shaggy, and I could teach these youngsters a thing or two about how to get with the ladies.
Step 1 – be handsome
Step 2 – respect women. Bitches love men who respect women.
Step 3 – know all the latest lingo so you can conversate. For example:
“Do you like the Playstation? Because I love the Playstation. Do you like the dubstep? I like the dubstep.”
Step 4 – be a mysterious bastard, like Mr Darcy. Or Tupac.
Step 5 – if all else fails, have insane levels of self confidence. Masculine confidence works on women like some sort of spooky Derren Brown mind-magic. You can look like Danny DeVito, but if you’ve got crazy self esteem women will react like a cat seeing a laser pointer. They don’t know why, but they’re intrigued.
For serious though, look at the men women go gaga for:
* Benedict Cumberbatch – he looks like a fish. But he plays an insanely confident mysterious bastard on TV. So women love him.
* The evil blond kid from Harry Potter.
* Angel from “Buffy”. Vampires in general, actually. Women love sexy danger. It’s why I never wear a seatbelt.
* The Governor from “The Walking Dead”. Or Darryl from “The Walking Dead”. Not Rick, the nice-guy hero. Not the Chinese guy. Women like the confident baddies or the tough-looking anti-heroes.
* Keith Lemon. Keith Lemon is moustachioed sex on legs. Why? Because he’s funny and rude.
If they put my teachings on the national curriculum, everybody would be much happier.
Patrick Brown:
Men are bastards who let women down. Your job as a man is to give a woman what she wants. She will not tell you what she wants, and you mustn’t ask her, because a man must be decisive. So you must determine what she wants from her body language, or by telepathy, or just guess. But if you decide wrong, you will have let her down, and you will be a bastard, just like all other men.
Also, men are evil and entitled and blame everything that goes wrong in their relationships on women. So, if you ever feel that a woman has treated you unfairly or unreasonably, that’s just a sign that you’re an evil misogynistic bastard.
The Class of 2015: Book Burners Afraid of Matches
You’ve probably seen Bill Whittle have a go at the delicate flowers and their enablers, but if you haven’t, it’s worth watching just to see a grown up getting angry at the ‘intentionally, spectacularly, catastrophically stupid!’
The original Mr. X – remember that book, “Men Are From Mars and Women are from that mad planet where Captain Kirk fought the Gorn”?
Load of bollocks it was.
Men are like dogs and women are like cats.
Men: reliable, dependable, boisterous. Would lick themselves if they could. Not too concerned about being scruffy. Easily amused. Give them a treat and they think you’re amazing.
Women: Beautiful. Mysterious. Deadly. Spend 12 hours a day in personal grooming. Attack when you least expect it. Give them a treat and they think they’re amazing.
Genetically, women are closer to cats than they are to men. There’s no actual evidence for it, but I read it in Chronicle of Higher Education, so it must be true.
When a dog wags his tail or a man tells he’s fine, you can rest assured everything is ok.
When a cat swishes her tail or a woman tells you she’s fine, RUN!
it’s worth watching just to see a grown up getting angry
There are plenty of reasons to be dismayed by modern academia, the Clown Quarter of it, anyway, where the Long March is well underway. When students seem to emerge from their education more narrow-minded, more dogmatic, more self-flattering and reactive – which is to say, more stupid – something has gone horribly wrong. And whether that kind of damage can be repaired isn’t at all clear.
Meanwhile in Baltimore . . .”.
R. Sherman Was he a smooth criminal?
‘Protestor’, huh?
Even the BBC have stopped calling them ‘protestors’ and started calling them ‘rioters’.
I see that to commemorate Freddie Gray’s death in custody the protestor have been helping themselves to electrical goods and luxury clothing from the local mall.
http://edition.cnn.com/videos/us/2015/04/27/erin-bpr-rioters-looting-baltimore-mall.cnn/video/playlists/riots-in-baltimore/#
This is becoming a traditional way if commemorating some deaths now, I guess (cf Mark Duggan). To the left it will be justifiable anger at The System (TM) or Teh Racialist Cops. Or something.
Even the BBC have stopped calling them ‘protestors’ and started calling them ‘rioters’.
Laurie Penny, she of The Deep Wisdom™, has been busy telling us that the rioting is “justified” and “America should listen.” I don’t think she’s yet commented on the particulars of the rioting that she finds so radical and thrilling – the beating and robbing of random people, the opportunist looting, or the people starting fires and then gleefully slashing firefighters’ hoses, preventing them from saving other people’s homes and livelihoods.
We’ve been here before, of course.
“There is a birth defect… called maleness…”
David, do you remember the sickening “Conscious Men” video, in which contemptible worms apologized to “sacred” women for the sin of being men?
R. Sherman – that young man is Bad, Dangerous, and Off The Wall.
If he wants to make the world a better place he should take a look at himself and make that change.
“Laurie Penny, she of The Deep Wisdom™, has been busy telling us that the rioting is ‘justified’ and ‘America should listen.’ “
How would she feel if, every time a black thug murdered a Korean grocer, thousands of Koreans rioted, burning black homes and businesses, and beating and killing blacks? Just wondering.
David, do you remember the sickening “Conscious Men” video…?
Doesn’t ring a bell. Am I missing some quality material?
pst314 – HOW DID I MISS THIS GENIUS?
I prefer the Will Ferrell version though.
@Steve 2
My dick shriveled up just watching that. Put this with the whole “Krankies Key Party” comment from months ago with the reasons I hate you.
🙂
A comment from Steve-a-roni’s link:
I was certain that was parody leading up to a punchline. I mean, come on…balls and energy? I feel violated in my disappointment.
… around 150 students at the college claim repeatedly that Christina Hoff Sommers was coming to campus to present not a viewpoint with which many of the students vehemently disagree but rather an actual threat to student safety.
Hmm. Now consider this – not simply the content, but the fact that Channel 4 presents this as if we should be somehow surprised:
@_UmmWaqqas is today revealed by Channel 4 News to have been set up and operated by Rawdah Abdisalaam, a twenty-something female believed to be from Seattle. She advocates mass emigration to Islamic State while seemingly enjoying the creature comforts of the American lifestyle, watching the Denver Broncos on a super-widescreen HDTV and tweeting pictures of double cheeseburgers.
Of course, I am duty-bound to point out (as C4 news does to give them their increasingly rare due of credit) that it has not been yet confirmed that the person using the account is the same person who initially set up the account, but nevertheless – just how surprised, really, are we supposed to be about this?
She will not tell you what she wants, and you mustn’t ask her, because a man must be decisive. So you must determine what she wants from her body language, or by telepathy, or just guess.
Thing is, WOMEN can tell what other women want. Ya’ll need to hire a female translator (an ugly one, of course) to relay what your wife/girlfriend is saying and not saying.
Save many a marriage, that would.
Angel from “Buffy”.
SPIKE, you fool! British accent! Hello?
Speaking of Baltimore, I had this enlightening exchange.
There was plenty of this same idiocy going around the Twitters: if you’re more worried about “insured property” than the dead guy with the severed spinal cord…
Well. We know what THAT means, don’t we?
These people, however, prolly deserved it.
Nothing sets me off more than smug, self-satisfied, sanctimonious sophistry.
And alliteration.
Speaking of Baltimore, I had this enlightening exchange.
Heh. What a cock. I notice that Mr Jesse Benn, the grad student “creative” and professional question-begger, chose to add irony quotes to the word riot. I wonder how that irony would hold up if he were living a little closer to the beating, burning and looting.
“Insured property”
Oh, so I’m paying for it then.
Here in St Louis, we protest police brutality (be it real or imaginary) by liberating liquor bottles and hair extensions from the evil clutches of The Man. Just how we roll.
R. Sherman – I regret nothing!
WTP – I kept expecting them to tell us about the comet that’s coming to take us all up to space, but only if we snip off our bits first.
Dicentra – Pfft. He’s no Cary Elwes.
@Jerry C
I’m still in my cups because the Blues had another first round exit from the playoffs. If I had hair extensions, I’d hang myself with them.
Oh well. Now I can concentrate on baseball.
Genetically, women are closer to cats than they are to men.
That explains why so many feminists seem to like cats. They recognise their own kind.
http://imgur.com/gallery/QVh32
News just in, don’t trust the news!
ac1, don’t trust the newsmakers. Those City Paper staffers should be ashamed and then drummed out of journalism. Ha! I crack myself up, thinking “journalism” has any standards of truth nowadays .
News just in, don’t trust the news!
When journalism is seen as a branch of activism, and is taught as such, it will attract certain kinds of people, and this will happen. Which is why professional journalists, schooled in the idea that reporting is a vehicle for “economic justice,” are telling us that “these children” aren’t rioting thugs but are in fact “communicating,” and that “burning police cars and destroying private property is a legitimate political strategy.”
and that “burning police cars and destroying private property is a legitimate political strategy.”
Said the fuckwit hack whose home isn’t on fire.
Said the fuckwit hack whose home isn’t on fire.
Absolutely. But this is a very common theme. It’s a staple of leftist posturing. It’s blatantly non-reciprocal, premised on coercion and titillated by violence. It’s the morality of a sociopath.
@ Dicentra
You shouldn’t feel defensive about my Tweet, then. Have you been speaking out against racialized police brutality routinely?
That passive-aggressive tone is fairly routine for leftists. They’re not making a case, they’re just trying to provoke you by implying that you’re a racist/ sexist/ homophobe/ crimethinker unless you agree with them.
It’s just political correctness. Just laugh it off. It will magically go away. That’s what my doctor told me 20 years ago after I related being kept after diversity training class for rolling my eyes at it. See how well that strategy has worked?
Bad attitude + Women’s Studies degree = Burger King badge.
By the looks of things, it could be a loyalty badge.
What’s truly maddening about what’s going on regarding the killing of Freddie Gray is how the people on the outside are deliberately staking out the same positions that are designed to ensure nothing gets solved.
On the one hand, we have a bunch of race hustlers who say that you’re only allowed to discuss killings like this in the context of race. (Never mind somebody obviously innocent like Bou Bou Phonesevanh.) When Rand Paul pointed out that we have too many petty laws and that enforcement of a law about taxes on cigarettes led New York cops to kill Eric Garner, the howling from the race-baiters was overwhelming.
On the other hand, we’ve got people who see a bunch of race-hustlers shrieking, and then the rioting, and think, “Rioting is wrong; therefore the original police action must have been 150% right,” with no justification for making that logical leap. If you read people like Radly Balko or the Photography Is Not a Crime blog, you’ll have seen more than enough examples that there’s a double standard in that cops, even if they do get charged, it will be for something far less severe than a non-cop would be charged with, and cops lie all the time.
Meanwhile, the power of the state to fuck up people’s lives grows apace.
http://www.itv.com/news/update/2015-04-28/man-charged-over-threat-to-behead-ukip-candidate/
ROPMA
Another thing regarding Baltimore that is bugging me and I don’t see much push back on…The rioting and such is supposedly a reaction to a reported incidence of police brutality that resulted in an unfortunate death. Why are so many tweets, discussions, and such piling economic issues on top of this? Putting aside the obvious fact that rioting, burning, and looting are significant disincentives for the economic investment many of those tying this to economic issues are calling for? It’s yet another ouroboros.
“On the other hand, we’ve got people who see a bunch of race-hustlers shrieking, and then the rioting, and think, “Rioting is wrong; therefore the original police action must have been 150% right,”
Eh, I think that’s mostly a strawman. I, for one, am perfectly willing to accept the possibility that the cops used excessive force on Freddie Gray and wrongfully caused his death. And if so, the cops who acted improperly ought to be punished, training and officer recruitment re-evaluated, etc.
So maybe the cops were in the wrong here. Let’s accept that as a given for the sake of argument, even though the facts of the case aren’t entirely clear yet.
I am just not sure that police brutality, in a jurisdiction like Baltimore, is a problem that can actually be solved. You do what you can to minimize it, but like crime itself, excessive use of force by police is not really something that can be eliminated. Baltimore has a huge amount of crime, hence a huge number of police-suspect interactions, and a huge number of opportunities for things to go wrong. It is possible that Baltimore cops are not of the highest quality, but that could be because Baltimore is an unappealing place for policemen to work. It’s dangerous, the locals resent you and it’s a poor city, so the pay probably isn’t that great. How do you change that equation?
The conventional solution for riots ostensibly having to do with police brutality is more liberalism and more blacks in positions of authority. But Baltimore is pretty much maxed out on both those counts, so they’ll have to think of something else this time.
Eh, this race rioting in America makes me sad.
A few decades ago, Black America produced a man who is still an example to us all. A man of peace who was unflinching in the face of violence. A role model for men of all races. A hero for the ages. A man whose likeness deserves to be carved into Mount Rushmore.
I’m talkin bout Shaft. Can you dig it?
@Steve
The late, great Isaac Hayes!.
@Steve
Dovetailing with The Patriarchy, recall that the only person who understood John Shaft was his (N.B. patriarchal possessiveness) woman.
Once a year, The Patriarchy has a Shaft Film Festival held at the fairgrounds in Bugtussle, Oklahoma. You should try to make it if you get the chance.
http://www.newsweek.com/nepal-earthquake-could-have-been-manmade-disaster-climate-change-brings-326017.html
So, since the earthquake in Nepal was clearly the result of climate change, should we not also assume that the Baltimore riots were caused by climate change as well?
I am just not sure that police brutality, in a jurisdiction like Baltimore, is a problem that can actually be solved.
The people who are in the best position to yank on the cops’ choke-chain are the people who hire them, i.e., Baltimore City gubmint. Those are elected officials, and who elected them?
Baltimore citizens. No doubt Baltimore politics is dominated by a Chicago-style political machine whose purpose is to make sure the citizens are properly fleeced and graft is properly distributed.
Don’t like the policing in your own town, Baltimore? Quit voting the same creeps into office.
Rioting is wrong; therefore the original police action must have been 150% right
I’m with JerryC: that’s a strawman. I haven’t seen that connection expressed anywhere. Any defense of the cops is not predicated on the wrongness of the rioting.
should we not also assume that the Baltimore riots were caused by climate change as well?
You think you’re being ironic.
If Ferguson, therefore Baltimore.
Said the fuckwit hack whose home isn’t on fire.
In addition to Occam’s Nailfile, we have the Marxoid Monkey Spanner™. This handy device can be used by Marxoids around the world and fits anything, anywhere, anytime. So- covering riots in Baltimore? Use the MMS; it means that you can safely conflate the actions of churchy middle-aged ladies with good intentions and home-made cardboard signs who obey the curfew with those of the feral thugs who exploit the situation as an opportunity for arson and looting. You, the hack; you are also personally absolved and so do not have to take any kind of moral position; they are all the oppressed and they are fighting the power and you are telling it like it is.
Closer to home- Facebook and Twitter SJWs with SWP backgrounds; concerned that somebody in Whitehall/Westminster wants to reform Britain’s welfare system? Get out your MMSs; one good thrutch* and off you go: anybody who is in receipt of benefits for any reason is a poor oppressed person suffering from the ravages of almighty Capital and Tory vested interests, so get going with those vile misanthropic rants about Ian Duncan Smith and the legacy of Thatcher and the inherent vileness of anyone who ever went to public school (unless they have seen the light and joined the SWP, UAF or whatever).
It’s exactly the same mindset the world over. The SJWs of whatever stripe react to any given situation by jumping to a simplistic conclusion (dialectical materialism in action) and then next thing they’re either doing that snotty passive-aggressive/sarcastic thing or being overtly aggressive, not even shying away from violence if they think they can get away with it.
*A Lancastrian term meaning inter alia to apply brute force to an object by means of a hand-held tool (See also: explosive devices, detonation of; and alleviating symptoms of an acute manifestation of a common personal hygiene problem, surreptitious wriggling of the perineal area by means of.
Marxoid Monkey Spanner™.
I may have to borrow that one.
Jerry and Dicentra:
There may be more violent crime in big cities than elsewhere, but one of the reasons I mentioned Eric Garner was to make the point that a lot of the “crime” that leads to interactions between the cops and the people they’re brutalizing is stuff that shouldn’t be crimes at all. (The War on Drugs is evil, and has led to all sorts of predations against the fourth amendment for one.)
I also mentioned Photography Is Not a Crime precisely becuase it’s fairly well established that here in the US, you can video/photograph cops doing their job in public, and yet cops still try to rough up people who record the cops, presumably to prevent the mateerial from becoming public. The cops like to say, “If you’ve done nothing wrong, you should have nothing to hide.” But their actions imply that this maxim shouldn’t apply to them.
And there are a lot of people who think you deserve whatever happens to you if you don’t obey cops’ every order, like if you don’t consent to an obviously illegal search you deserve to be waylaid by the side of the road while the police backup is incredibly slow in coming.
Oh, and regarding that double standard for cops:
Ignorance of the law is no excuse, unless of course you’re a cop, as the Supreme Court recently informed us in Heien v. North Carolina
The gist is that a man was pulled over by the cops for having onely one working brake light, even though this is legal in North Carolina. The cops searched the car and found drugs. The conviction was upheld, even though there was no valid reason for the cops to pull the guys over in the first place.
This is why it’s not unreasonable for anybody to be nervous when approached by the cops, and why you should never consent to a search.
Once a year, The Patriarchy has a Shaft Film Festival . . .
And also on the bill are I’m Gonna Git You Sucka and The Hebrew Hammer . . .
The cops like to say, “If you’ve done nothing wrong, you should have nothing to hide.” But their actions imply that this maxim shouldn’t apply to them.
Back around the Ferguson riots there was an east coastIsh police department that got sued for harassing someone who had done nothing more than record video of police in action . . . and a particular point of all the articles covering the new lawsuit was that the particular lot of uniform idjits had already just lost a different lawsuit addressing the same issue . . . .
@Hal,
Puhleeze. The Patriarchy prefers the classics.
Back around the Ferguson riots . . .
. . and a bit of Goglemancy states that Philadelphia seems to be cursed with the particular collection of idjits . . .
The Patriarchy prefers the classics.
Oh, that too, but while also noting the lineage and leadership well established by Marx.
“Most women, or course, are sane …”
Not really – each one, in her own particular, unique way, is absolutley nuts.
Oh, and more of what is going on at Oberlin.
http://popehat.com/2015/04/27/tumult-at-oberlin-in-wake-of-emotional-support-animal-companion-initiative/
Since we’re sharing movies, here’s one for Oberlin: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110759/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
And then for the rest of us: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057298/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_26
Hal:
The problem, of course, is that it’s the taxpayers that foot the bill for such judgments. I want to see a cop literally dragged out of his home at gunpoint while his children are being terrorized watching this as the home goes on the auction block to pay for the judgment.
Go ahead, call me hypocritical for saying this.
The problem, of course, is that it’s the taxpayers . . . .
Are you considering rather creative police funding to be a really, really, really—did I mention really?—-bad idea?
I do state that such is indeed totally and utterly devoid of, and the blatant, open, and utter opposite of To Protect And Serve . . . .
Come to think of them . . . two sets of notes on who can successfully demand occurrences and the joys of dousing fires with gasoline both started off as a single essay, and then once two parts took off in different directions it was just easier to make two copies and finish writing ’em out as separate items . . . . Both cite recent occurrences of 1992 because that’s when they were written—the 1996 at the bottom of each is merely when they went online.
Comment Is Free has been MUCH improved since I last browsed it.