Elsewhere (192)
Stephen Beard on women in STEM, absent males and the Great Diversity Hustle:
Most large organisations — certainly universities — now have Diversity Officers, Diversity Consultants and Women’s Officers. Many of these Officers and Consultants and the like have academic backgrounds in gender or women’s studies… Perhaps this is why diversity bosses have chosen to focus on the four areas in STEM [out of eight] where men still make up the majority, rather than education, where men make up less than 25% of undergraduate and post-graduate students. This is a much more alarming statistic, given that only one-in-four British primary schools have a single male teacher, and there are over a million children in the UK growing up without a father. With the possible detrimental effects of not having positive male role-models, this is a much more pressing issue than the concerns of middle-class academic women seeking special privileges in their career.
The STEM fields in which women outnumber men are, oddly enough, not deemed biased or bothersome.
Kyle Brooks on competitive outrage on campus:
The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater has been enmeshed in controversy over the last few weeks in the wake of its chancellor mistaking a photo of two white students donning beauty facial masks as blackface and falsely accusing the students of being “racist.” […] Since the incident – which one student activist labelled “Bloody Sunday” – the campus has hosted diversity forums at which students have accused the campus of being steeped in racism and suggested administrators are not doing enough about it. One Black Student Union member even told peers she missed several days of school because she was too distraught by the blackface picture to attend class.
Related, their failure to know stuff is entirely due to your racism:
Protesters interrupted the University of Wisconsin system’s Board of Regents meeting for a third time last week, demanding the end of “blatantly oppressive” standardised testing.
You see, the student protestors are ethereal beings of exquisite sensitivity, such that they are emotionally crushed by any hint of mockery – say, when laughed at for gathering in a “healing circle” – and are rendered tearful and distraught by any testing of their abilities. Such as they might be.*
And Andrew Follett on the “feminist glaciology” hokum recently doing the rounds:
The University of Oregon historian who wrote a study claiming glaciers are sexist said in an interview on Friday that the general public isn’t educated enough about feminism to understand his research. In the interview, Dr Mark Carey claims that when his studies are “described to non-specialists, the research can be misunderstood and potentially misrepresented.” […] The research was financially supported by taxpayer dollars. The National Science Foundation (NSF) gave Carey a five-year grant to write his “feminist glaciology” paper. He has received a total of $709,125 in grants from the NSF, according to his curriculum vitae. Carey did not address the huge sum of money he received in the interview.
Feel free to share your own links and snippets in the comments. It’s what these posts are for. [*Added via the comments.]
The pharmacist, who was obviously having to follow guidelines…
Visiting a pharmacy is now likely to result in being patronised, apparently on grounds that every single customer must be treated as if they were befuddled and incapable of reading.
[ Added: ]
In fairness, I should add that the friendly, knowledgeable staff at my local pharmacy – a small independent one – know me well enough to keep the boilerplate to a bare minimum. But a visit to a large chain pharmacy generally entails being treated as if you had learning difficulties and looked determined to self-harm.
“hiring more colored mental health professionals”
Well, that seems reasonable as they clearly need them.
When in a pharmacy just lie.
This is of course more dangerous, but H&S boxticking is never about health or Safety.
Sometimes that patronising attitude of pharmacists can result in rather delicious schadenfreude. I had to pick up a prescription for an anti-inflammatory, and while waiting, this chap was being given a lecture about the side effects of his medication. In the most supercilious manner, the pharmacist said; “You do know you can’t drink alcohol while on these tablets, don’t you, Sir”. His reply, “I don’t drink alcohol, as I’m a Muslim”, left the pharmacist with such a horrified “rabbit-in-the-headlights” expression on her face that I had to stifle a laugh.
Can’t drink on anti-inflammatories? What utter bullshit! Nothing better than french beer for washing down ibuprofen after a day’s skiing.
Dr Cromarty, I think you have misunderstood. To clarify, I was the one waiting for an anti-inflammatory, it was the other chap, (the Muslim) who was being given the medication (I don’t know what, I didn’t catch it) which one couldn’t drink alcohol while taking, and he was the one whose reply made the pharmacist go red as a beetroot.
AARGH. It should have been “ON which one couldn’t drink alcohol while taking.”
Ah ha! My apologies.
Re punishment, it’s perfectly consistent to observe that BME student protestors can be immune from consequences on campus and yet more likely to face harassment from the police in other situations.
One of the more bizarre conceits of identity politics is that such people are permanently, intrinsically and essentially ‘victims’ though. As a result, anyone pointing out the freedom from consequences they appear to enjoy at the University of Wisconsin would doubtless be greeted by a sneer about “how tough white men have it”.
Which is rather missing the point…
I think you’re missing a ‘not’.
damn…post fail again
AARGH.
If this sloppiness continues, I’m going to start deducting points.
When in a pharmacy just lie.
Sadly, this might become necessary.
A couple of months ago I had two very severe headaches within about a fortnight. It’s very unusual for me. And hasn’t happened for a long time. The only thing that helps is something with codeine in it. I don’t usually take painkillers for anything else. The next time I was in my local pharmacy I asked to buy a box of paracetamol and codeine so that I had some in the cupboard in case there were any more terrible headaches. The pharmacist was called over to inquire what, if any, medications I might be taking. I take a long-term prescription for something and told her what it was. I was then refused the preparation with codeine in it. I was told I could buy ordinary paracetamol, but ordinary paracetamol does nothing for that kind of headache. I left.
I live in a small town and don’t happen to have a car otherwise I could nip about ten miles up the road and go to another pharmacy.
The next day I asked a friend if they would mind buying me some paracetamol and codeine the next time they were in the pharmacy.
It’s bonkers.
It’s like when fourteen year-olds used to stand outside off-licences asking adults if they’d buy them some beer or cigarettes.
If this sloppiness continues, I’m going to start deducting points.
Perhaps if you turned off the “drinking lamp” every so often, we could learn to type properly and proofread.
It’s like when fourteen year-olds used to stand outside off-licences asking adults if they’d buy them some beer or cigarettes.
Went to a spring training game (baseball or what youz guyz on da udder side a da pond likes to call “rounderz”). Several years ago they essentially banned cigar smoking in the stadiums (something they for some reason banned even before banning cigarettes). Every year since, I go to a game and sit there thinking, “this used to be the perfect moment when I would light up a fine cigar” and get po’d at our own nanny state BS. Then it occurred to me, thanks to The Great Obama, I understand there is a place not too far away where I can now go to watch baseball, have a beer, and smoke a cigar. They call this fantastic place “Cuba”.
Go get more experience, dude.
Alas, even misogynist curmudgeons are mortal. And prone to hyperbole.
I am crying inconsolably and bleeding, just absolutely everywhere, out my lady cloaca.
This word… I do not think it means what you think it means. Barring close reptilian ancestry, of course.
“…this is an “exclusionary effect” and therefore unjust.”
And so the system must adapt to equalize outcome, of course.
Interesting black box – takes in wide-band input, outputs flat DC. Not very useful practically speaking, though, I would think.
A couple of weeks ago I was using the self-service check-out at my local Sainsburys and as I swiped various items over the scanner the snotty robot lady announced “APPROVAL NEEDED”, “APPROVAL NEEDED”.
When the real lady assistant turned up, she looked at my bottle of wine*, checked that I was over sixty-five and cleared the purchase.
I mentioned to her that I’d scanned some pills, (I had a cold and the remedy contained paracetemol).
“Oooh!” she said, “Pills and wine. Sounds like a fun evening.”
Incidentally, at Tescos the machines don’t nag you during the transaction and at the end, when you pay, a calm male voice says, “We just need to approve this.” Much less aggravating.
*(A very nice bottle of Aglianico del Vulture for six quid if I recall correctly.)
When the real lady assistant turned up, she looked at my bottle of wine*, checked that I was over sixty-five and cleared the purchase.
I’ve had that problem at the hardware store over here buying…hell, don’t recall what but I think it was WD-40 or something similar. I honestly could make no connection between the product and the need for ID until it was explained to me. At which point, it having made no logical sense in being much different from damn near anything in the store, I immediately must have forgotten what it was.
Further to the students who find standardised testing “blatantly oppressive,” this seems somewhat relevant:
Quite.
It’s downright unethical to get students to take on crippling student loans to pay for their education when almost half of them are going to drop out after the first year.
Further to the above, see this article from The Atlantic from a few years ago. The experience of “Professor X” in the Atlantic article is sadly the rule. My lovely spouse used to teach English comp at a community college and can provide a witness.
Bernie Sanders “free college for everyone” gambit is not going to solve that problem. It will only increase the number of unqualified students and the waste of public (and private) resources. The only solution is to institute an examination at the end of high school similar to the German Abitur to determine who is qualified for post-secondary education, and then concentrate the resources there. Alas, that won’t happen, because the SJWs won’t allow it.
Something I copied years ago from an article somewhere, which article I’ve forgotten:
Pertinent to the NAS article you mention.
There seems to be a rush to turn everything into “pathology” these days.
1) Asperger’s isn’t a pathology; it’s specific type of brain organization. Learn about it before you get all dismissive.
2) Asperger’s runs on a continuum: you don’t have to be a full-on Aspie to be on the spectrum. I have a few of the Aspie characteristics but not enough to have the superpowers. The ability to develop software requires a brain that has certain key Aspie characteristics BUT NOT ALL OF THEM.
Cripes. I love it when people refute something when they have only spotty or stereotypical information.
3) The vast majority of the guys in my company have managed to find mates and reproduce. They also have the Aspie characteristic of being: fascinated by software development, having a lively interest in systems, an insistence on details, perfectionism, and delight in comic-book heroes.
The Aspie tendency to ramble on about things other people find boring is not analogous to female bonding chatter. Aspies are communicating specific facts and information that they find so fascinating they can’t help but share. Women chatter on about nothing and everything as a way of (a) relieving stress as they complain and (b) bonding by sharing common experiences.
I am wholly unable to participate in female bonding chatter. Once I went to a baby shower for a receptionist at an IT company where I was newly hired. The other women chatted and gabbed and interacted for an hour or more while I sat there quietly, nothing to contribute. Then they opened the gift: a video baby monitor. As they passed the box around something caught my eye: “2400 Mhz FHSS.” I brightened right up.
“OMG YOU GUYS THAT’S FREQUENCY-HOPPING SPREAD SPECTRUM, WHICH WAS INVENTED BY ACTRESS HEDY LAMARR. I DIDN’T KNOW THEY WERE STILL USING THAT.”
Said the tech writer who’d developed a course on wireless technology for Intel.
Did that impress the ladies at the shower?
No. No, it did not.
But the guys I work with? They get it. They can totally relate.
As someone who straddles the line between Asperger’s and neurotypicals, I kinda know where the lines are, OK?
“hiring more colored mental health professionals”
This may be a stupid question. What’s colored mental health?
Developing software is something that only certain people can do: people whose brains fall somewhere on the Asperger/Autism scale.
Can totally relate to that. I once took a two-hour walk through Paris at night to think over a problem with a software program I had written and that didn’t do what it was supposed to do. Fixed it, too, but it’s a wonder that I didn’t get run over.
But then…
There are lots of pedantic men out there that can write software well.
Ok, yes, I’m a pedantic jackass, too. I think I have acknowledged that fact in these comments a little while ago.
So I’m not taking sides. And I don’t have an official diagnosis, either. But I don’t find it hard to believe there is a link between coding and Asperger’s.
I should note that I no longer write software. I seem to have moved beyond that, but sometimes I look back nostalgically at the pleasure of getting a dumb machine to do exactly what I want it to do. As opposed to getting a human (dumb or otherwise) to come up with an approximation.
Last year, when I was in UK, I went into a pharmacy with a friend I’ve known for 30-odd years. He had a bad headache and wanted a pack of 500mg Paracetamol. The pharmacist’s interrogation was so embarrassing that I felt obliged to intervene. I can buy packs of 500mg or 1000mg Paracetamol anywhere in Europe, without questions or problems. Aforesaid friend is a UK citizen and he speaks English. However, he’s brown and I am white. That incident taught me that there can be times when one’s colour may elicit a different response…
One more from academia:
Yes, heavily traumatised. Because that padded fun-time sumo suit is so problematic.
The vast sum of money being spent on administration isn’t just bloat. It’s a direct result of policies… that aim to foster more diverse campuses through the strategic recruitment of underrepresented, low-income minorities.
I tend to be a bit more cynical about this. I think universities have mainly become jobs programs for leftists. It’s a nice scam, really. Create a bunch of useless programs such as Hyphenated-American Studies or Gender Studies (anything, really, that ends in Studies) and enroll a bunch of people who really shouldn’t be in a university to begin with to matriculate in these programs. Fund the salaries of the “professors” in these useless programs by providing taxpayer-backed loans to students who would be better off acquiring a real skill in a vocational institution. Hire a bunch of administrators to help the newly-enrolled students to cope with their foreseeable inability to make it through their studies. And then, when it all goes pear-shaped for the students, come up with a debt forgiveness program so that the poor dears don’t have to suffer the consequences of their decisions.
Follow the money, as they say. Productive members of society pay taxes that go toward useless jobs provided to leftists who then give money to leftist political parties that promise to make sure that the gravy train keeps rolling along. The students are incidental to the process. They are as useless to the university staffs as the K-10 students are to the teachers’ unions.
@dicentra
I was replying to WTP, not you. Specifically, I agreed with his comment, “Regarding AS, while I agree there is a correlation, I disagree that non-AS men cannot develop software. Unless we take a very, very loose definition of AS as applying to all such.” To express reservations about your absolutist assertion made without citation to authority other than your own is not a personal attack.
As for the balance of your remarks regarding my use of the word “pathology” and your injunction to “learn something,” I should think my almost three decades of dealing and working with mental health professionals and their patients in various contexts sufficient for these purposes.
@ Dr Cromarty
“Genuinely don’t know any docs who smoke.”
They all go around the back of the bike-shed for furtive puffs.
They all go around the back of the bike-shed for furtive puffs
Wouldn’t put it past them, sneaky bastards
“sneaky bastards”
Yeah, taught them everything I know.
And so the system must adapt to equalize outcome, of course.
Interesting black box – takes in wide-band input, outputs flat DC. Not very useful practically speaking, though, I would think.
It’s a long time since I did any electronics, but isn’t such a device called a “rectifier”? I hope so, because it is a perfect label for so many of the SJWs whose antics are rightly parodied here.
This.
A “heavy-American”… FFS.
A “pisstaking chancer,” more like.
@dicentra Absolutely!
I speak as a software developer with 3 children, the eldest of whom has mild Asperger’s Syndrome (and is studying engineering). My wife works with special needs kids, many of whom are autistic, and is adamant that I have Aspie traits as well. (I’m not convinced, I just think I’m “male”).
Hedy Lamarr was a star in more ways than the obvious – she was also involved in the invention of proximity fuses. I love the comment she made about being “glamourous” – just “stand still and look stupid”. She really did combine brains and beauty. 🙂
isn’t such a device called a “rectifier”?
Well, except a rectifier takes in AC and outputs half-wave DC, which is why they use 2 or more.
Diode, rather.
Hedy Lamarr- that’s what I call a nice Jewish girl!
My wife works with special needs kids, many of whom are autistic, and is adamant that I have Aspie traits as well.
I have many of the traits of a successful business person. Focus, a desire to succeed in what I do, a head for numbers, intelligence and testicles*. That doesn’t make me a successful business person though. And I never will be, because I lack the key trait of valuing money.
I also have some traits of Asperger’s. Except the key one — having Asperger’s.
*testicles, because the key business traits are not associated with being male by the consequences of testosterone, but are kept that way by teh Patriarchy(TM). Just ask any SJW.
My wife works with special needs kids, many of whom are autistic, and is adamant that I have Aspie traits as well.
Wives always say that sort of stuff, just like husbands say that their wives have only he dimmest grasp of facts, reality and logic. It’s called “being married”.
Wives always say that sort of stuff
My wife doesn’t say that. She says I’m the smartest person she knows. Which means she’s the perfect wife, but she should get out more.
I think I’ve mentioned before she has a weird sense of humor, though. So maybe…?
“I tend to be a bit more cynical about this. I think universities have mainly become jobs programs for leftists. It’s a nice scam, really. Create a bunch of useless programs such as Hyphenated-American Studies or Gender Studies (anything, really, that ends in Studies) and enroll a bunch of people who really shouldn’t be in a university to begin with to matriculate in these programs. Fund the salaries of the “professors” in these useless programs by providing taxpayer-backed loans to students who would be better off acquiring a real skill in a vocational institution. Hire a bunch of administrators to help the newly-enrolled students to cope with their foreseeable inability to make it through their studies. And then, when it all goes pear-shaped for the students, come up with a debt forgiveness program so that the poor dears don’t have to suffer the consequences of their decisions.
Follow the money, as they say. Productive members of society pay taxes that go toward useless jobs provided to leftists who then give money to leftist political parties that promise to make sure that the gravy train keeps rolling along. The students are incidental to the process. They are as useless to the university staffs as the K-10 students are to the teachers’ unions.”
You have in fact just described pretty much the entirety of the public sector.
If you’ve ever suspected that Banksy, aka Robin Gunningham, is a bit of a prick, it turns out you were right.
…Banksy, aka Robin Gunningham, is a bit of a prick…
And this: A year-long investigation by the Mail on Sunday in 2008 had also concluded that Gunningham, a private-school boy from a comfortable home….
Why am I not surprised?
As G.K.Chesterton has one of his characters put it,
You’ve got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn’t; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.
Why am I not surprised?
In retrospect, Theodore Dalrymple’s piece on Banksy seems quite accurate.
Gotta love that, too:
One thing that upset all of the British lads [in Chiapas in Mexico] (…) was the presence of Coca-Cola for sale in every village but no access to clean drinking water.
Which leads the man to want to tear down the whole capitalist system.
Of course. The fact that the people of Chiapas’s only readily available beverage is provided by a capitalist enterprise, while access to clean drinking water, which is generally recognized to be something that the government should provide, is non-existent, of course means that it is the capitalist system that is failing these people. Not the government, oh no.
“The STEM fields in which women outnumber men are, oddly enough, not deemed biased or bothersome. ”
Understand feminism…nothing less than equality for women and nothing more than equality for men.
Understand feminism…nothing less than equality for women and nothing more than equality for men.
That seems to be the outcome, but I think the underlying motivation is much more basic than that. As for all leftist movements, it is always about exerting power. What Nietzsche calls der Wille zur Macht. So in areas where women are underrepresented they need to get more women in order to achieve power. In areas where women are overrepresented they already have achieved power, so there’s nothing that needs doing.
Um, speaking of notes elsewhere, so far, had anyone else spotted this one?
From the initial article I got pointed at;
“Hedy Lamarr- that’s what I call a nice Jewish girl!”
That’s HEDLEY.
“How he gonna get his money?”