Elsewhere (171)
Franklin Einspruch on the Great Boston Kimono Outrage of 2015:
Just when you think we’ve reached Peak Sensitivity, the scolds of social justice sprinkle more sand into their underpants… This incident — call it Kimonogate — demonstrates just how far the new puritans are willing to reach to impose their version of politics upon all of our pleasures. Watching Chinese and South Asians lump themselves into an aggregate for the sake of claiming offence on behalf of the Japanese, when that conflation of Asian identities is an established microaggression, is weird enough. Worrying that someone might touch a robe Orientalistically is out there in tinfoil-hat territory. Is that the kind of person you want deciding which activities you’re allowed to enjoy at the art museum?
Franklin also has a message for the modishly indignant.
Thomas Sowell on favoured narratives and unintended consequences:
To many on the left, the 1960s were the glory days of their movements, and for some the days of their youth as well. They have a heavy emotional investment and ego investment in the ideas, aspirations and policies of the 1960s. It might never occur to many of them to check their beliefs against some hard facts about what actually happened after their ideas and policies were put into effect. It certainly would not be pleasant to admit, even to yourself, that after promising progress toward “social justice,” what you actually delivered was a retrogression toward barbarism.
And Katherine Timpf reports from the throbbing edge of academic enquiry:
Sociology researchers are now insisting that we as a society start accepting people who choose to “identify as real vampires” – so that they can be open about the fact that they’re vampires without having to worry about facing discrimination from people who might think that that’s weird… Dr Williams [director of social work at Idaho State University] explained that no one should be bothered by a person wanting to drink another person’s blood because “it is generally expected within the community that vampires should act ethically and responsibly in feeding practices,” and it’s not their blood-drinking that’s the real problem here — it’s the fact that they have to worry that other people will judge them for their blood-drinking.
Feel free to share your own links and snippets in the comments. It’s what these posts are for.
Franklin Einspruch on the Great Boston Kimono Outrage of 2015
Hmmm. And then there was the time at the San Francisco Cherry Blossom Parade, where the Cherry Blossom Festival board of directors were riding a float while dressed up as feudal era daimyo, complete with samurai escort. Every once in awhile the float would stop and I would ceremonially serve sake to the BOD, and then go back to my place in the escort, while, yes, strapped into a set of samurai armour and swords.
Oh, by the way, aside from occurrences like the full blooded Japanese-American friend of mine who considers me to be Japanese, my DNA is Scottish, Scottish, Scottish, and British isles mutt . . . . . where I haven’t had anything to do with the parade in years, but even so, still no one raises a eyebrow as I continue to volunteer with the event . . . .
Franklin Einspruch on the Great Boston Kimono Outrage of 2015
“The MFA, apparently unwilling to die on this particular hill, apologized and canceled the event.”
Reward tantrums and you get more tantrums. Don’t any of the people running the museum have kids?
insisting that we as a society start accepting people who choose to “identify as real vampires”
insisting that we as a society start accepting people who choose to “identify as real vampires”
It seems to me the more obvious response would be to say, “You’re either, (a) insane, or more likely, (b) aggravatingly pretentious. Get a grip, sunshine. Or play somewhere else.”
“the full blooded Japanese-American friend of mine”
Careful, there. Such language might be “triggering” for vampires.
“You’re either, (a) insane, or more likely, (b) aggravatingly pretentious. Get a grip, sunshine. Or play somewhere else.”
Have you encountered the latest fashionable concept of “neurominorities”? You’re not crazy, you’re a neurominority. And while crazy people should get therapy and drugs to get them to function in society minorities are oppressed people who are just perfect the way they are and are entitled to tolerance and acceptance and affirmative action programs. Isn’t that cute?
“neurominorities”
All ideas are equally valid. Including crazy ones. Really, nothing new here they’re just stating it more explicitly.
You’re not crazy, you’re a neurominority.
It’s one thing to be accommodating of someone with a recognised condition. I don’t, though, feel obliged to indulge pretend vampires. “You are not Napoleon. You are not Spider-Man. You are not a vampire.”
“It’s one thing to be accommodating of someone with a recognised condition.”
Yes, out of basic human kindness. But I have been encountering people who use “neurominority” as an excuse to say that they do not need to learn how to conform to norms of civilized behavior. Rather, we must accept and welcome them as they are.
I trust those wish me to accept that they are vampires will, in turn, accept it when I pound a stake through their hearts around noonish.
it’s not their blood-drinking that’s the real problem here
*cough*
Hepatitis B
Hepatitis C
HIV
Prion diseases
Viral haemorrhaghic fevers
*cough*
it’s not their blood-drinking that’s the real problem here
While everyone has been wearing a condom round the clock for the last three decades, it’s good to know that lapping at someone else’s open wound is apparently just fine. Thank God the sociologists are showing us the way.
Presumably, Dr Williams and his colleagues want us to assume that these wannabe vampires all scrupulously observe the equivalent of a safe sex policy and somehow circumvent the obvious health concerns of imbibing someone else’s blood – sorry, their “subtle energy.” Though I don’t think it would be terribly wise to take the word of an absurdly pretentious, possibly delusional, Twilight-watching emo-teen.
Or for that matter, writers of articles for Critical Social Work.
It’s not their blood-drinking that’s the real problem here.
Leslie Nielsen is on the case.
Sociologists. I’d rather have vampires. Real, actual, supernatural vampires.
But I have been encountering people who use “neurominority” as an excuse to say that they do not need to learn how to conform to norms of civilized behavior.
Because reasons (don’t ask), borderline personality disorder/complex PTSD in women is an amateur field of study for me. I’ve noticed a marked increase in women with BPD claiming they have Asperger’s syndrome to explain their disordered behaviour (Penelope Trunk is merely the most famous example), along with the use of the term “neurotypical” as a pejorative. It’s interesting how quickly this population has gone from insisting it is perfectly normal to insisting that it has a Very Real But Tragically Misunderstood Mental Illness and that you should therefore feel sorry for them.
“Victimhood means never having to say you’re sorry” is a particularly pernicious social more.
. . . an absurdly pretentious, possibly delusional, Twilight-watching emo-teen.
Albeit I can never remember if the title is supposed to be Broken Down, or Breaking Wind . . .
Lessseeee . . . .
Visible in daylight.
Sparkles.
Continually obsessed with preadolescents.
That’s no vampire, that’s Tinker Bell.
While everyone has been wearing a condom round the clock for the last three decades, it’s good to know that lapping at someone else’s open wound is apparently just fine.
Unless it’s a bearded axe wound. Then, don’t forget the dental dams, ladies!
“throbbing edge”?
“throbbing edge”?
Or pulsing tip.
I have no problem with people identifying as vampire, as long as they recognize my right to drive a stake through their hearts and cut off their heads.
To do otherwise would seem intolerant.
I think the problem is not that these people were bullied at school but that they weren’t bullied enough.
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2015/jul/13/love-your-arts-job-it-doesnt-mean-you-shouldnt-be-properly-paid
Not sure who is supposed to be paying artists extra. Oh no, I am – it’s the taxpayer.
More from the world of theatre:
Man damages wall with an axe, marks it with graffiti and then signs it- but this is art, m’kay?
No, this is Manchester, so he was told: “Get yer hand in yer pocket”.
Damaging a wall with an axe and graffiti and then signing the result- if you’re going to be pompous you’d better go large.
accepting people who choose to “identify as real vampires”
I’m picturing an angry mob of Social Justice Warriors protesting outside Van Helsings house and starting #VampiresArePeopleToo.
Vampires. Why did it have to be vampires.