Reheated (45)
For newcomers, three items from the archives:
The Guardian’s Aisha Mirza bemoans the “psychic burden” of living among white people, which is worse than being mugged.
The more I think about it, the more this may exemplify a near-perfect Guardian article, the ideal to which all other Guardian columnists should aspire. It’s haughty and obnoxious, is ignorant of relevant subject matter, is frequently question-begging, and its imagined piety is premised on a rather obvious double standard. Specifically, Ms Mirza’s belief that people who leave London do so, secretly, because they don’t feel comfortable living among people with skin of a darker hue, which is racist and therefore bad, and her own simultaneous preference not to live among people whose skin is paler than hers, which is somehow not racist at all, and is in fact aired as the last word in righteousness.
Brace yourselves for some taxpayer-funded cultural improvement.
Those with a taste for even more daring and challenging work may prefer the theatrical stylings of Mr Ivo Dimchev, a “radical performer” acclaimed for his “gripping sensitivity” and whose performance piece I-ON “explores” the “provoking functionlessness” of various objects, before showing us “how to make contact with something that has no function.” Readers are advised that the aforementioned contact-making, which was performed as part of the 2011 Vienna International Dance Festival and is shown below, inevitably includes vigorous self-pleasure with what appears to be a wig.
In which socialists misremember a 1970s sitcom.
To seize on The Good Life as an affirmation of eco-noodling and a “non-greedy alternative” to modern life is unconvincing to say the least. The Goods only survive, and then just barely, because of their genuinely self-supporting neighbours – the use of Jerry’s car and chequebook being a running gag, along with convenient access to Margo’s social contacts and expensive possessions. And insofar as the series has a feel-good tone, it has little to do with championing ‘green’ lifestyles or “self-sufficiency.” It’s much more about the fact that, despite Tom and Barbara’s dramas and continual mooching, and despite Margo’s imperious snobbery, on which so much of the comedy hinges, the neighbours remain friends. If anything, the terribly bourgeois Margo and Jerry are the more plausible moral heroes, given all that they have to put up with and how often they, not Tom’s principles, save the day.
There’s more, should you want it, in the updated greatest hits.
The Guardian’s Aisha Mirza bemoans the “psychic burden” of living among white people, which is worse than being mugged.
Bloody hell. Missed that one. The photo says it all. 🙂
Bloody hell.
It’s quite remarkable, yet very much of a type. And Ms Mirza has around 1,000 online followers, including this delightful chap.
The photo says it all.
It’s the mugshot that Ms Mirza chose for her own Twitter account. Presumably, she feels it communicates something of her character.
I think she may be right.
The Good Life fulfilled an essential BBC remit of the time: it was cosy, entirely domestic and had, effectively, only four people in it and the minimum of sets needed (often only the Good kitchen and Margo and Jerry’s living room). The actual dramas in their lives weren’t shown but only talked about, and it had the utter necessity of a key figure that you never saw with the overarching shadow of — if memory serves — Mrs Doon-Patterson.
But pause and think what Al-Beeb would do with it now. With care and cultutal sensitivity, it might be just the sort of show that Aisha Mirza would watch.
vigorous self-pleasure with what appears to be a wig.
I think that was the longest three minutes of my life.
I think that was the longest three minutes of my life.
I do hope you’re not doubting the value and importance of the European Union’s Culture Programme, which, it says here, is “enhancing our shared heritage” with “intercultural dialogue.”
Tsk.
I expect the socialists of the time despised the Good Life and the Goods as “middle class wankers”.
Mr Ivo Dimchev
showing us “how to make contact with something that has no function.”
IE:
He is giving out his phone number.
Hetro-normative judge refuses to accept defendants preferred choice of gender pronoun.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/woman-posed-as-a-man-for-two-years-to-have-sex-with-a-female-friend-a2942881.html
she held her hand down over her face and said ‘it’s not what you think’.”
Cripes.
Wasn’t that essentially the plot of The Crying Game? It’s been a while, perhaps I misremember.
Wasn’t that essentially the plot of The Crying Game? It’s been a while, perhaps I misremember.
“Inevitably includes vigorous self-pleasure with what appears to be a wig.”
I’m avoiding the video lest I should go blind, but all I’m saying is that people have mistaken Pekenese dogs for wigs before.
#NotTheOnion
Homeopathy conference ends in chaos after delegates take hallucinogenic drug
Homeopathy conference ends in chaos after delegates take hallucinogenic drug
No, no, no, no, homeopathy is all about taking tiny quantities of one substance or another . . .
The patients, aged between 24 and 56, were found suffering from delusions, breathing problems, racing hearts and cramps, with some in a serious condition, Deutsche Welle reported.
Insert standard reference of politician of choice here. Besides, I thought Corbyn was older than that . . . .
so numerous were the readers’ objections and corrections, the paper’s editors had to quietly change the title of Ms Mirza’s article along with much of its content. Despite which, the author dismissed her readers en masse as ignorant and beneath contempt, while congratulating herself on not bothering to read any of their rebuttals. A conceit she excused by tweeting, “The only praise or criticism that matters is that from fellow people of colour.”
Does the Guardian now only hire ‘people of colour’ who are racist?
Does the Guardian now only hire ‘people of colour’ who are racist?
It does seem to attract them.
What I’ve noticed, though, is a trend for Guardian contributors to sneer at any readers who dare to correct them on some point of fact or logic. The first one I noticed was Joseph Harker, whose most famous thoughts are “all white people are racist” and “as a black man… I cannot be racist.” When readers pointed out obvious errors in a piece he’d commissioned, he dismissed those doing so as ignorant and cowardly, and of course racist – “bullies, boors and bigots.” And instead of addressing readers’ criticisms, he simply wished for a more exclusive, more compliant audience: “A new corner of cyberspace… where no stupid white man has gone before.”
See also Ms Casey Jenkins, she of the vaginal knitting, who regarded the near-universal derision of her blathering as proof of her radicalism and, in her words, “bravery.” And then there was Mike Power, whose railing against the barbecue patriarchy was met with an appropriate, i.e., deafening, level of mockery. Rather than engaging any of his critics, on any point at all, Mr Power simply congratulated himself on Twitter – “Anyone would think I touched a nerve,” said he, triumphantly. In his mind, the barrage of refutation and mockery was somehow a validation. Which suggests an extraordinary level of vanity and imperviousness.
“No, no, no, no, homeopathy is all about taking tiny quantities of one substance or another . . .”
Clearly, by their logic, they expected a large dose to have little or no effect.
And then there’s this: http://youtu.be/rMDTXUO3dYE
Cats heaving to techno, is what, and then they show the puke.
Sent to me by my dear baby sister.
Sent to me by my dear baby sister.
Have you tried shaking her, quite hard?
So cats and I have identical reactions to techno rock. Well that partially answers one question.
The Grauniad – the press community’s Village Idiot.
Have you tried shaking her, quite hard?
She’s taller than I am and is trained in the restraint of developmentally disabled adults who are having a “behavior.” She used to greet me by wrestling me quite handily to the floor.
So, no. No I haven’t.
OT, but I have to mention that you are leaving a mark in academia. This came across the wire from my daughter yesterday:
I was amazing in class today! I defended the Sad Puppies in front of a group of liberals! They probably smelled how I kind of sympathized with that poet guy who pretended to be Asian American to get published. (Which I totally read about on David Thompson about two hours before I got to class, so I sounded all knowledgeable and everything.) So they probably hate me now.
About which she is blissfully unconcerned.
Which I totally read about on David Thompson about two hours before I got to class, so I sounded all knowledgeable and everything
[ Leans back in chair, fondles amulet. ]
[ Leans back in chair, fondles amulet. ]
AHem!!!!
Amulet indeed . . . .
AHem!!!!
Allergies.
Allergies
I’m surprised. I had you down as a cat person; they seem to feature on this blog frequently enough.
I had you down as a cat person
I like them, aesthetically. Though I prefer dogs.
Allergies.
I have an allergy to cats, and consider my liking cats to be the allergy’s problem, not mine . . . But definitely admittedly, that’s my reaction . . .
Feds Spend $345,019 To Make Computers With ‘Gender Sensitive Designs’
Grant asserts that current designs ‘alienate women’
. . . . Apparently the PI is not seeing enough pink keyboards?
After all, if it works for Darth Vader . . .