Elsewhere (202)
Thomas Sowell on dubious graduation messages:
Two themes seem to dominate Commencement speeches. One is shameless self-advertising by people in government, or in related organisations supported by the taxpayers or donors, saying how much nobler it is to be in “public service” than working in business or other “selfish” activities. In other words, the message is that it is morally superior to be in organisations consuming output produced by others than to be in organisations which produce that output. Moreover, being morally one-up is where it’s at. The second theme of many Commencement speakers, besides flattering themselves that they are in morally superior careers, is to flatter the graduates that they are now equipped to go out into the world as “leaders” who can prescribe how other people should live. In other words, young people, who in most cases have never had the sobering responsibility and experience of being self-supporting adults, are to tell other people — who have had that responsibility and that experience for years — how they should live their lives.
Michael Strickland learns that interracial smiling can be a sign of “white fragility” and therefore proof of racism, at least when people of pallor do it:
They continue to ponder if they are racist for crossing the street the wrong way, or when they smile at people of colour. “Am I doing the ‘white guy smile’?” asks one of the students.
Robert Tracinski on the vanity and incompetence of Mrs Bernie Sanders:
While her husband has been out promising everyone free college, [Mrs Sanders] used to run a $25,000-per-year private college — which just announced it will be closing down due to the crushing weight of debt it incurred under her leadership. The debt was backed by fraudulent claims about millions of dollars in pledged donations. The case of Burlington College is a nice little microcosm of what we can expect from her husband’s economic agenda: grandiose schemes for expansion and improvement and lavish benefits offered to everyone — based on lies and financed by reckless, unsustainable borrowing, resulting in eventual collapse. It’s a microcosm of socialism in one other respect, too, which is that Jane Sanders and her friends and family did pretty well skimming the gravy off the top of the system while she ran it into the ground.
And Katherine Timpf on what that student debt is getting you:
A professor at Santa Monica College took a group of students on an “EcoSexual Sextravaganza” trip earlier this month, during which they “married the ocean”… The students were specifically instructed to think of this marriage as one involving sex, and encouraged to “consummate” the marriage and “make love to the water” by sticking parts of their bodies into it.
Feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.
In other words, young people, who in most cases have never had the sobering responsibility and experience of being self-supporting adults, are to tell other people — who have had that responsibility and that experience for years — how they should live their lives.
Sounds like every leftist I’ve ever met.
This comment, by Andrew Z over at Tim’s, is quite good. On identity politics and its corrupting effects.
On the basis of mail-order Ph.D. in “leadership studies,” whatever that means, Mrs. Sanders got a $160,000 a year job as president of Burlington College.
I’ll have to try that one myself.
I’ll have to try that one myself.
Note also the reference to Gawker’s Matt Bruenig, whom Salon describes as an “incisive poverty analyst and combative Twitter personality,” and who was mentioned here previously for his curiously non-reciprocal principles. Among which, a belief that one mustn’t disapprove of rioting and people behaving like thugs because smashing and burning other people’s property and terrorising entire neighbourhoods is a good thing, a revolutionary act, and a way to chastise the police. Presumably, Mr Bruenig doesn’t expect himself ever to be on the receiving end of the violence, looting and acts of random malice that he so happily endorses.
Interesting comment from Andrew Z.
I was recently speaking to a man who bemoaned the current state of affairs. He feared to be seen speaking to a child, feared being alone with a woman, feared approaching women in pubs, feared being accused of etc etc. This neatly turns the perceived oppressing males into victims and the self declared victims into oppressors.
I can’t but help feeling sorry for the younger generations in this impoverished world.
And further to this eye-widening saga, an update:
Must be all that “white privilege” we hear so much about.
Should a male obtain consent from the ocean before “entering” the water?
Interesting comment from Andrew Z.
It does rather capture the essence of the thing.
the vanity and incompetence of Mrs Bernie Sanders
I think ‘incompetence’ is a euphemism.
The Andrew Z comment is spot on.
“The students were specifically instructed to think of this marriage as one involving sex, and encouraged to “consummate” the marriage and “make love to the water” by sticking parts of their bodies into it.”
I’m married to my love doll cos I stick a part of my body into it?….Gawwwd…
http://esexdolls.com/?gclid=CMr1lJHzg80CFYKYvAodEV4L6Q
Go on……you would, wouldn’t you?……
They can be contacted at 410 Peachtree Parkway, Cumming, 30041, USA.
Really.
In other words, young people, who in most cases have never had the sobering responsibility and experience of being self-supporting adults, are to tell other people — who have had that responsibility and that experience for years — how they should live their lives.
Exhibit A:
“An influential students’ group has called for prisons to be abolished because they are ‘sexist and racist’ in the latest in a series of far-Left interventions by the student movement.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3616041/Students-call-prisons-banned-NUS-group-says-criminals-freed.html
An influential students’ group has called for prisons to be abolished because they are ‘sexist and racist’
I’m not sure which is the more grimly comical. The arrogance and vanity, the inevitable anti-Semitism, or the fact that these would-be intellectuals are either unwilling or unable to do elementary research.
SJWs to the rescue; gorilla killed to save kid’s life because of white privilege.
Oops.
Interracial smiling: I certainly don’t partake any longer unless it’s a known acquaintance. The risk/reward equation these days is way out of kilter.
Then again, I learned 20 years ago to stop smiling at children as well. Apparently that marks you as a potential pervert/abductor/molester here in the States if you’re a middle-aged man. Again, nothing to be gained by merely being polite.
“The prison-industrial complex”
If they end it, where are we going to get our number plates made and mailbags sewn?
Farnsworth, no disrespect to our host’s selection this morning, but those two links you provided me with a substantial amount of happiness with my AM coffee.
The Andrew Z comment is spot on.
I agree. We have a saying here: “You need to get your head screwed on straight.” In addition to preventing cross-threading, it’s good advice that leftists seem incapable of.
An influential students’ group has called for prisons to be abolished because they are ‘sexist and racist’
1. Rape culture is endemic.
2. Abolish all prisons so rapists can run free.
#FeministLogic
An influential students’ group has called for prisons to be abolished because they are ‘sexist and racist’
It’s been noted here many times that calls for leniency in sentencing – to say nothing of abolishing prisons altogether – are an insult to the lives and property of just about everyone and especially to people who live in crime-ridden areas, whose expectations of basic lawfulness are casually dismissed as unimportant. People who, incidentally, are typically much poorer (and often darker skinned) that those signalling their imagined sophistication by demanding leniency or abolition.
For instance, readers may recall a Guardian interview with Clive Stafford Smith, who airily dismissed burglary as “really quite inconsequential,” thereby implying that the wellbeing of burglars is more important than the wellbeing of their numerous, often very poor, victims. For the lofty Mr Stafford Smith and Guardian columnist Decca Aitkenhead, for whom such things are largely theoretical and not a routine fact of life, anger at being burgled and the subsequent sense of violation are somehow plebeian and unsophisticated.
As Theodore Dalrymple said in response to the middle-class leftist China Miéville, “Leniency toward criminals is not a form of sympathy for the poor, but a failure to take either their lives or their property seriously.”
[ Edited. ]
Pointing out inconsistencies in social justice warriors leads you into bizarre logical Möbius strip thought patterns.
One. Prisons should be abolished because they are sexist and racist.
Two. There is a rape epidemic in society generally, and further education specifically.
Three. The conviction rate for rapists is appallingly low. It needs to be increased.
Four. More rapists (men) should therefore be arrested, charged, convicted and –
Five.. What? Oh yes. I forgot. We closed the prisons.
Six. We should reopen all the prisons…
“They then go on to define ‘whiteness’.”
Because they aren’t racists.
“Leniency toward criminals is not a form of sympathy for the poor, but a failure to take either their lives or their property seriously.”
That.
That
And variations of the same moral contortion are a Guardian staple.
Some of you may recall Zoe Williams gushing with fake compassion for so-called ‘problem families’ – the kind of malevolent, verminous trash who abuse their neighbours for no reason, who let their kids run wild, who blast out loud music at 3am, and who throw pets from tenth floor windows. And Zoe did this while not giving a shit, or even the hint of a shit, about the families who are forced to live next door to them. Because for Zoe and her ilk, the obnoxious and dysfunctional poor are more deserving of fake solidarity and fake compassion than the functional and law-abiding poor.
I have a theoretical notion.
You start a website asking for input from members of the public. Please post a picture and full address (with postcode and Google map geolocation) of the homes of any of the following individuals. You then list every bleedingheart social justice warrior who has ever campaigned in favour of property crime, open borders – or housing unlimited refugees, or excused the violent sexual crimes of our favourite religious culture.
You then disseminate and promote the website as widely as possible across the Internet.
I’m assuming that George and Amal Clooney would be only too thrilled to have 750 young Syrian men between the ages of 16 and 25 turning up at their property. They’d obviously let them in immediately, instructing the armed security guards to open the wall around their premises. I mean, it’s not like they’d have a wall around their house to keep people out like Donald Trump is proposing.
You then list every bleedingheart social justice warrior who has ever campaigned in favour of property crime, open borders – or housing unlimited refugees, or excused the violent sexual crimes of our favourite religious culture.
Be sure to include the ludicrous hypocrite Simon Schama, whose genteel domestic bliss in Westchester County is unlikely to be disturbed by any rough-looking Eritrean youths.
What Stuck-Record said.
Worth watching.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07czw5k/last-whites-of-the-east-end
Apparently, Richard Dawkins thinks that the problems at Universities are being caused by sending stupid people there. Who’d ‘a thunk it?
Simon Schama, whose genteel domestic bliss in Westchester County is unlikely to be disturbed by any rough-looking Eritrean youths.
Do they get many rape gangs in Briarcliff Manor, Westchester?
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/03/04/scared-sweden-almost-half-of-women-afraid-to-be-out-after-dark-in-europes-rape-capital/
Do they get many rape gangs in Briarcliff Manor, Westchester?
I shouldn’t think so, no. Of course, Briarcliff Manor is desirable in large part because of its cultural homogeneity, the shared values and standards of behaviour. I.e., the things that Mr Schama enjoys at home but thinks other, poorer people shouldn’t want, and shouldn’t complain about losing.
problems at Universities are being caused by sending stupid people there. Who’d ‘a thunk it?
Oh, I don’t know. Dawkins is an academic himself. Don’t know this for sure but given his background and his age (boomer) I suspect he is responsible for a good number of stupid people getting university degrees. And many of those people are now themselves teaching at these universities, taking in raw talent and making it stupid regardless of the quality of the inputs. But then given some of the more extreme things he has said, I’m probably one of the kind of people Dawkins considers stupid. And it’s Dunning-Kruger all the way down.
Simon Schama – a man that goes to a debate on politics and reads poetry.
To be fair to the Santa Monica students, there is a precedent. As part of his investiture, the incoming Doge underwent a marriage ceremony with the sea, Venice being a maritime state. It involved casting a gold ring into the waters.
Thankfully he never had to consummate the marriage.
I turned my recent comments on here into a full post: When an Engineer meets an Artsy Type.
<p>I turned my recent comments on here into a full post: <a rel=”nofollow”>When an Engineer meets an Artsy Type</a>.</p></span></p>
Not so much…
I like cats and I still think this should be killed with fire.
Just say no.
Not so much…
Yeah, Googlemancy is of no use, where prolly that title has not been online long enough to get noticed, and even Posted by: Tim Newman | June 01, 2016 at 02:02 leads to http://www.deserteun.co.uk/ and does also get Server not found, Firefox can’t find the server at http://www.deserteun.co.uk.
Then again, noting possibilities, and doing what seems to be a rather obvious bit of educated guessing, there can be results.
Sam Duncan: “They then go on to define ‘whiteness’.”
Because they aren’t racists.
Hmm, yeah. Remember who else was obsessed with ‘definitions of colour’..?
Oh, dammit! Here’s the link.
This whole marrying the sea thing. Does it mean King Cnut was raped? I think I’ve been triggered.
Link fixed. Morning all.
When an Engineer meets an Artsy Type
Ah yes . . .
I know some of the people who started Burning Man—I don’t know all, I have only a vague memory of the historical details I’ve run across, and there rather prolly certainly is plenty of commentary online to tell the history. From knowing several such Burning Man founders, and granting some degree of variance of them, a safe blanket observation of that founding generation is that in contrast to “Angela” and hipsters of that ilk, that founding generation does not attend Burning Man.
In fact, at the point that I first heard of Burning Man, some quite a few years ago, the fairly uniform assessment with that bunch of the people I was hanging out with at the time was already a matter-of-fact; It just hasn’t been the same since they banned the drive by shooting range
I’ve never been to Burning Man, where when I first heard of it, my overall reaction was that the operational logistics were going to be a bit past me at that point, where by more years along and these days, my distinct reaction is much more rather Ehhhhhhn, nevermind.
Ah, yes, Santacon, also originally known as Santarchy.
Santacon is a creation of The Cacophony Society. And one of these days I really need to get around to reading my copy of The Book, also available in the UK. The idea for Santarchy is very simple. Just when you thought you thought you were at your limits with the massed and ravening whordes of frantic and insistent Christmas shoppers all demanding that you also must get dragged into the unending deluge of dayglo red and green decorations and blaring Christmas muzak, then what should you encounter but a screaming mob of two-hundred-fifty instances of Santa Claus, all cheerfully bellowing HOHOHO as they perambulate through a pretty much set sequence of about fifteen bars, starting in Oakland—California—near the Jack London Square waterfront, wandering onto one of the transbay ferries, and then finishing the tour through some part of San Francisco that’s within strolling range of the Ferry Building that the ferries drop off at.
Two hundred fifty instances of Santa Claus. One set of two cities. Only two hundred fifty, or so, plus or minus . . . .
As you may have guessed, the Cacophony Society doesn’t do Santarchy. In fact, when John Law gives another one of his history talks these days, he makes it extremely clear that he has nothing to do with the masses of drunken hipsters that Tim has run into or has references of . . .
These days, the actual artists of the Cacophony Society and related and varied offshoots are indeed still around and still doing stuff, where you’ll find ’em at the Saint Stupid’s Day Parade of the First Church of the Last Laugh, you’ll find ’em at occurrences of Last Gasp Books, you’ll find ’em at occurrences of Survival Research Laboratories.
But y’won’t find ’em at Burning Man, you won’t find ’em at Santarchy, you won’t find ’em at any instance of masses of hipsters.
I like cats and I still think this should be killed with fire.
Hmmm! Cats? Oh.
. . . as a grown man — complete with beard — puts the brush in his mouth . . .
No, this isn’t a cat thing, it’s just a hipster thing. The givaway is having to specify the claim of grown, underlined by specifying that there is a beard.
In fact, at the point that I first heard of Burning Man, some quite a few years ago, the fairly uniform assessment with that bunch of the people I was hanging out with at the time was already a matter-of-fact; It just hasn’t been the same since they banned the drive by shooting range
Funny you should mention that: as part of her (vain) efforts to get me interested in going with her, “Angela” did mention that the original founders were of a sort of libertarian bent which I might find common cause with, part of which was firing guns and blowing shit up in the desert. Like most of these things, I’m sure the original founders give it a wide berth these days.
From Tim’s piece:
Yes, it’s interesting how voluntary support, given willingly, is viewed as a kind of moral contamination, something to shun ostentatiously. But taking funds that have been confiscated from strangers, from people who may not wish to support your project, and who may find it worthless and absurd, somehow this signals the purest of motives, a higher moral plane.
I see Milo has been on campus again.
gorilla killed to save kid’s life because of white privilege
Did the SJWs in question just compare gorillas to bl–…
…did they just say that?
(I confess I’m a little stunned.)
I see Milo has been on campus again.
I find her arguments compelling and wish to subscribe to her newsletter.