Elsewhere (195)
College Fix on the attempted indoctrination of middle school 12-year-olds:
A Tampa, Florida, mother was livid after her seventh grade daughter brought home an assignment – from her Spanish class – asking about students’ so-called privilege.
Apparently, being a white-skinned child automatically means you’re “privileged” and by implication guilty. The teacher in question also felt that the 12-year-old children should announce whether they were intersex or “genderqueer.” Somewhat related, the second item here.
Peter Fricke finds the obligatory campus blather about “diversity” somewhat superficial:
Unable to prevent Ben Shapiro from speaking at Penn State despite aggressive chanting, student protestors vented their frustration by defacing flyers and throwing papers on the floor.
There’s more, but the self-righteous littering pretty much sums it up. Shapiro’s talk, video of which is here, was on what happens when “diversity” ideology and leftist censoriousness stifle free speech and intellectual pluralism. An irony that may have escaped the protesting students, who were busy feeling pleased with themselves while threatening violence if the talk didn’t stop and drawing swastikas on the face of a Jewish visitor.
And in entirely unrelated news, the Wall Street Journal reports:
More than 40% of Americans who borrowed from the government’s main student-loan program aren’t making payments or are behind on more than $200 billion owed, raising worries that millions of them may never repay.
Feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments. It’s what these posts are for.
Hal & Mojo; check the date on that article. Yes, that Guardian article was their April Fool’s joke, as pointed out by them here:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2016/apr/01/april-fools-day-2016-best-jokes
“We see it, we are feeling it, it is happening.”
Gee, that sounds familiar…now what was it? Oh yeah, I remember! That thing we never hear about, ‘Climate Change’!
The greatest political tool ever invented by the progressives. At least it is if we don’t count our Pennies and Naomies.
I was doing some….er…research……for a friend
From the article.
“Dr Kathleen Richardson, who is leading the fight, wants the development of robots that can be used for sex top be stopped. She says that such a use of the technology is unnecessary and undesirable”
One wonders why undesirable… Dr Richardson elaborates by saying that “the creation of such robots will contribute to detrimental relationships between men and women”.
Why? What’s her problem? A shift in the power balance between the sexes, perhaps? One that doesn’t 100% favour women?
As for unnecessary, is there anyone who thinks the inventor of the first sex-robot (that is indistinguishable from human form) won’t be an overnight billionaire?
Another example of tolerance and love of free speech on campus.
Harvey Fierstein is looking good for his age, but is he transitioning? If not, that white t-shirt wasn’t the smartest choice as there seems to be a touch of gynaecomastia.
A few years back there was a Broadway musical called Hamilton remagining the Founding Fathers as black.
Apparently, that’s not transgressive enough.
(I’d like to see a musical in which the part of Martin Luther King is played by a white guy. That’s transgressive, but I have a feeling it wouldn’t go over well….)
From Ted S’s link:
In March, writer Gene Demby, a huge fan of the musical, wondered on NPR’s Code Switch why its audience is so resoundingly white.
So, a musical about the Revolution casting black stars as the founding fathers is problematic because white people pay money to see it. Of course, if white people refused to see it, that would indicate systemic racism, as well.
Jeeze-Louise on a mountain bike, I cannot keep up with all this.
FYI, As a freshman I went to CSULA.
So, yeah, pretty much.
And these are the tactics that our leftist intellectual, our professor of sociology, finds righteous and exciting. You see, if you can’t get a free speech event cancelled by invoking pretentious victimhood and making pre-emptive threats of violence, you can always obstruct and barricade every entrance to the venue and physically intimidate and forcibly repel anyone who tries to get in. Say, by assaulting people and pushing them underfoot and then kicking them.
I read that (and watched the videos) then saw this: http://campusreform.org/?ID=7345
As our host says, ‘Rule #1. Lefties project’.
Shapiro’s version of freedom is actually a form of oppression…
Sometimes I wonder why Orwell ever bothered.
Cap’n Nemo: aren’t jokes supposed to be, y’know, funny?
Jaff: look on the bright side – could’ve been Riverside.
Jacob:
Projection is the first word I was thinking of as I read that quote. Damn your nimble fingers for beating me to the punch!
“Dr Kathleen Richardson, who is leading the fight, wants the development of robots that can be used for sex top be stopped. She says that such a use of the technology is unnecessary and undesirable”
The left’s puritan tendencies rear their ugly head again.
I’d actually find it incredibly funny if the resulting law was so broad that it accidentally banned vibrators.
Hal & Mojo; check the date on that article.. . . .
You beat me to it—My reply to Mojo, or whomever twitched, was going to be the final line of the article:
. . .but we’ve got time to iron things out between today – 1 April – and June.”
You beat me to it—. . .
Oh, right, and where I only spotted that article after a certain comment on a certain twit account . . .
Among other bits of commentary . . .
HRH Prince Philip @HRH_PrincePhil Apr 8
HRH Prince Philip Retweeted BBC Breaking News
As Shaggy once so famously said, “It wasn’t one”…..
HRH Prince Philip added,
BBC Breaking News @BBCBreaking
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby “completely surprised” after DNA test result reveals identity of real father “>http://bbc.in/1TGOJ4C
. . . .
HRH Prince Philip @HRH_PrincePhil Feb 24
Bieber has won Best International Male?
Sometimes, one is glad one is deaf…. #BRITs2016
. . . .
HRH Prince Philip @HRH_PrincePhil Feb 21
HRH Prince Philip Retweeted The Sun
See, one always knew Farage was nothing like Hitler. He’s a huge cock….. #EUreferendum
HRH Prince Philip added,
The Sun @TheSun
‘Adolf Hitler had a deformed micro-penis’ “>http://thesun.uk/6013BjBpW
This one is amused . . . !
Jeeze-Louise on a mountain bike, I cannot keep up with all this.
Actually, what to do in all this is quite easy. Given that There is a hipster born every minute., just don’t bother trying to keep up. When hoi polloi genuinely wish to genuinely communicate, keeping up remains their problem, not yours . . .
Apparently, #ResistCapitalism is trending again on Twitter. Thanks in part to the efforts of so-called educators like Dr Weide.
But I quite like this one.
Via Damian.
Hamilton started only six months or so ago on its Broadway run.
That Slate article is pretty hard to follow.
“The musical styles of the singing are not white styles. The dance is not white. It would be so appalling to audiences and the show would have just completely been a disaster if they had cast white people to play all of these roles. We would have been completely disgusted with the show, and it would be this weird cultural footnote that somebody tried to do that. So to suggest that it’s race-blind casting is really disingenuous.”
Race-blind casting? There is I think one ‘white’ lead part, who would suggest the casting is race-blind?
“I think that comes out really strongly with King George, who is the only major character who’s portrayed by a white actor [Jonathan Groff], and who sings Beatles-style songs,”
I know the music and – huh?? – Beatles-style?
“the female character who sings more Broadway-style ballads [Elizabeth Schuyler, played by Phillipa Soo] is Chinese American, but she definitely reads as white, and I think that is not a coincidence.”
Apart from the ballads being very much not like showtunes anyway, that’s a bizarre statement.
Broadway audiences are always predominantly white and probably always have been.
I also quite like this exchange between two students:
Sadly, and just as it was getting interesting, the conversation stopped.
Cap’n Nemo: aren’t jokes supposed to be, y’know, funny?
I take your point, Mojo. It’s not one of the Guardian’s best. Certainly not a patch on their San Serriffe hoax of the late 1970s.
You beat me to it…
Hal, my apologies. I wasn’t aware you were in on the joke, as it were.
Looks like the Leadership at Ohio State University has been reading Davids blog.
Top quote: ” We’re going to give you the opportunity to go to jail for your beliefs.”
Here’s their list of demands.
Looks like the Leadership at Ohio State University has been reading David’s blog.
I was tickled by the looks of astonishment as it was explained to them that, finally, belatedly, their delinquent and intimidating behaviour will have consequences, i.e., arrest and expulsion.
Shit just got real, bitches. As I believe the yoot say.
Shit just got real, bitches.
🙂
David, I’d like to propose Professor Realtalk (pbuh) in the video for associate membership of the Guild of Evil™. Or at least have him round for drinkies.
Or at least have him round for drinkies.
I’m shaking cocktails as I type.
I’m shaking cocktails as I type.
I’ll have a Stoli Gibson.
“I don’t want to have a civil discussion. I want to call you assholes.”
So we’re clear, the phrase “you’re not listening” means, “you refuse to do what we want.” And “I am triggered” means, “I have the emotional maturity and self-control of a toddler.”
Oh, and as far as the demands of the Ohio State (a public institution) are concerned, with respect to the budget and investments, may I refer them here, a website I found with a very minimal amount of “google-fu.”
Now, if they’re too stupid to understand the information received, perhaps they could substitute “Finance 101” for one of the myriad of grievance studies courses which clog their schedules.
“I don’t want to have a civil discussion. I want to call you assholes.”
I do hope we’re in the eye of this social justice storm and that things are not going to get any worse. I’m not sure I want to meet one of these creatures in person as I might not cover myself in glory.
Trevor
An earlier manifestation would be “Chanty Binx”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvYyGTmcP80
Cheers
The female student featured in the video is Sarah O’Donnell, a senior studying creative writing and environmental studies
All that an her mouth, too.
The model employee for a Fortune 500 business.
yee haw
The female student featured in the video is Sarah O’Donnell, a senior studying creative writing and environmental studies
And she’s so charming with it. Even though we’ve seen this kind of thing many times, it’s still quite odd to watch someone who’s basically a walking caricature of haughty, ignorant self-satisfaction. And so, when her belligerence, non sequitur, begged questions and obnoxious racial comments are questioned, politely, Ms O’Donnell avoids any attempt at explanation and instead resorts to theatrical sighs, eye-rolling and airy dismissal, and further gratuitous insults, as if disdaining white men for being, well, male and white were some kind of moral full stop.
The thing is, when Ms O’Donnell says, “I don’t want to have a civil discussion, I want to call you assholes,” I think that’s a moment of inadvertent truthfulness. She does want to abuse people, especially those whose thinking is clearer than hers. The rest is pretext, a rickety attempt to justify being an obnoxious bitch. If you assume a malign personality as the starting point, the incoherent politics starts to make a kind of sense, if only as a vehicle for indulging that personality and giving it an excuse to be what it is.
Chanty Binx
I’m not really one for the fillums, but doesn’t that bring to mind some intergalactic denizen of a bar on Mars?
And these people who can stand out on the street for hours recycling air either have the most enviable time-management skills or skirting-boards rife with dust. Mother would be appalled.
skirting-boards rife with dust.
Heh.
Here’s their list of demands.
I love this:
We demand complete, comprehensive and detailed access to the Ohio State budget and investments immediately, as well as personnel to aid students in understanding this information.
Please give us this information, but as we’re too thick to understand it you must also give us people to explain it to us. I can’t believe somebody actually wrote that without feeling embarrassed.
I can’t believe somebody actually wrote that without feeling embarrassed.
Embarrassment implies a level of self-awareness. These are narcissists we’re talking about.
Super news shocker:
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-friday-edition-1.3527125/artisanal-pencil-sharpener-calls-it-quits-1.3527129
Cheers
If you assume a malign personality as the starting point, the incoherent politics starts to make a kind of sense, if only as a vehicle for indulging that personality and giving it an excuse to be what it is.
That.
That.
I suppose you have to ask what kind of personality would seek out and embrace a dogma that, while logically feeble and factually absurd, offers endless opportunities to berate and abuse strangers, based only on their most trivial and generic attributes. A dogma that obliges you to do this. What kind of person would want to spend time – lots of it – ostentatiously scolding white males for being white and male? What kind of psychological misfit would choose to harangue a passing stranger for having the ‘wrong’ kind of hairstyle? What kind of person spends their afternoon thwarting random strangers who are trying to hear a lecture, to the extent of pushing people underfoot, kicking them repeatedly, and then lying about it?
These are not good people. They’re seeking out opportunities for bullying and malice without the usual risk of pushback.
I think Ms O’Donnell’s lesson in loveliness deserves a post of its own.
“I do hope we’re in the eye of this social justice storm and that things are not going to get any worse.”
I think the eye is a calm place and it’s the eye wall that gets you. There are two eye walls. /pedantry
We demand complete, comprehensive and detailed access to the Ohio State budget and investments immediately, as well as personnel to aid students in understanding this information.
We want to run your business for you but you will have to provide businessmen to us to run the business for us for you.
/pedantry
Appreciated. *hangs head in moronic shame*
[ Does British Rail tannoy voice: ]
“Would Trevor please report to the shaming carousel?”
“Would Trevor please report to the shaming carousel?”
I’ll get my coat.