Elsewhere (211)
Heather Mac Donald on race hustlers and riots:
For the last two years, President Barack Obama has seized every opportunity to advise blacks that they are the victims of a racist criminal justice system. We should not be surprised when that belief, so constantly inflamed, erupts into violence. Even in his remarks at the memorial service for the five murdered Dallas cops, Obama had the gall to trot out his usual racial vendetta against the police, even though he was fully on notice that cops were being killed because of it… Obama’s indictment ignored, as usual, the astronomically higher rates of black crime that fully explain racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Meanwhile, Obama hasn’t uttered a word in condemnation of the lawless behaviour in Milwaukee, two days into the events. […]
And as important as the political stoking of that hatred is the academic race industry that keeps black victimology at a fever pitch. The 2015–2016 school year saw an outbreak of delusional self-pity among black college students across the country. They claimed to be discriminated against by faculty, administrators, fellow students, and academic standards. Never mind that many allegedly disparaged students were attending the colleges in question only because of racial preferences, despite having test scores that would automatically disqualify white or Asian applicants. Never mind that nearly every waking hour of a college administrator is devoted to the cultivation of a separatist racial consciousness among black students and to dreaming up new racial sinecures for faculty and other administrators.
For an example of that victimology, and the behaviour being excused by faculty and staff, see this surreal episode. Note the impunity and inversion of reality. And note the description, by the university’s vice provost for student affairs, of blatant racial thuggery as “a wonderful, beautiful thing.”
Thomas Sowell on charter schools and their opponents:
What makes [their success] all the more amazing is that these charter schools are typically located in the same ghettos or barrios where other blacks or Hispanics are failing miserably on the same tests. More than that, successful charter schools are often physically housed in the very same buildings as the unsuccessful public schools. In other words, minority kids from the same neighbourhood, going to school in classes across the hall from each other, or on different floors, are scoring far above average and far below average on the same tests. More than 43,000 families are on waiting lists to get their children into charter schools. But admission is by lottery, and far more have to be turned away than can be admitted. Why? Because the teachers’ unions are opposed to charter schools – and they give big bucks to politicians, who in turn put obstacles and restrictions on the expansion of charter schools. These include politicians like New York’s “progressive” mayor Bill de Blasio, who poses as a friend of blacks by denigrating the police, while standing alongside Al Sharpton.
And Anthony Gockowski on the thrilling world of radical librarians:
At this year’s National Diversity in Libraries Conference… many of the nation’s most inclusive librarians gathered to discuss how they can “contend with the oppressors within.” This year’s conference lasted four days and featured more than 50 different lectures on the relationship between libraries and diversity, including “Library Diversification and Transgender Bodies: A Metaspatial Approach” and “Macro Impact of Microaggression: Exploring Microaggressions in Librarianship.”
50 lectures on “diversity.” I bet the time just flew.
Feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments. It’s what these posts are for.
I took it upon myself, well actually at the wife’s recommendation of one of many books she thought I might like, to read Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Without the “help” of proper academic instruction, I came away with the impression that the Anna in the story was a pathetic woman, one not to be admired. I was at first taken aback to see that to so many people, feminist leaning women especially, view her as heroic.
I’m so glad to hear you say that, I had a similar experience. I read the book at my own volition a few years ago (when I used to measure my self-worth by the fancy books I would try to read) and also found Anna to be at best tragically naive (so much that she was not sympathetic, especially given her savvy-ness in other areas) or at worst, self-indulgent and willfully ignorant of consequences. Upon hearing the ‘right’ interpretation, I assumed I misunderstood the book…
Wasn’t it just last year that some academic spewed an opinion to the effect that reading to one’s own kids was an oppressive act against the children of parents who didn’t read to their kids?
Yes.
The feminist interpretation of ‘Anna Karenina’ is risible. Tolstoy’s clear intention was to portray Anna’s moral and mental disintegration, following her adultery and desertion of her husband, as an avoidable tragedy. He contrasts her immorality and imprudence with the wholesome courtship of Levin and Princess Kitty.
Anna Karenina is one of a number of similar novels which have been given a feminist makeover in recent years. See, e.g. Effi Briest. In all of them, a woman makes a complete hash out of her life, but is somehow viewed as a heroine. If the novels were to be written today, the protagonists would be playing out their neuroses on Tumblr.
Yes.
From your link …people bedeviled by totalitarian fantasies and insatiable spite…
Of all the helpless electrons whose lives have been spent by people trying concisely to explain the main malfunction of the left, that is a proverbial mic drop.
Meanwhile, the New York Times shows why they are a titan of journalism.
Twitter readers rebut.
David, the clause in your link which jumped out at me is, “If the family is this source of unfairness in society…” This where the premise is that healthy, stable, loving families lead to greater success for offspring. (Well, duh.) With a deft sleight of hand, that success–wholly the product of individual responsibility, mind you–is declared to be unfair with no proof, philosophical or otherwise, to back it up. Insatiable spite and envy, indeed.
race hustlers and riots
“Calling for peace”
http://kaching.tumblr.com/post/149054690833/therevenantrising-calling-for-peace-get
“Calling for peace”
Imagine my surprise.
Via Milo,
http://www.autostraddle.com/we-messed-up-348709/
I couldn’t workout what a lesbian taco was, the realised its about an animated movie where the characters are items of food. I imagine they also hate Speedy Gonzales (the fastest mouse in all of Mehico!)
“For those into counting, Milwaukee city is majority black”
Not quite, according to the 2010 Census, which reports 40% black and 36% white. But that’s about twice what it was when I last lived there and helps explain the serious and obvious social decay.
/I denounce myself for noticing Politically Incorrect facts.
Regarding I Sneeze’s link, let me post the following excerpt. (I suggest reading it in the voice of Sir Laurence Olivier to get the full effect.)
We heard from readers who were upset that we labeled the taco a lesbian when it seems more likely that she was bisexual. We heard from readers who questioned the consent of the sexual encounter between the taco and the hot dog bun. We heard from readers who found the taco to be a damaging portrayal of a predatory queer woman.
We heard from readers who found the taco to be a damaging portrayal of a predatory queer woman.
This isn’t how, as a child, I imagined the twenty-first century.
This isn’t how, as a child, I imagined the twenty-first century.
But it’s a lesbian taco and a bloody hot dog bun, dammit! Grab the swagger stick and have the batman tell the bugler to call “stand to!” It’s time to man the parapets!
…our Trans Editor Mey Rude…
OK, I know what and editor is, so is a trans editor someone who takes good copy and screws it up, an editor who is confused about the contents of his or her (as the case may be) shorts, an editor who just edits about “trans” nonsense (isomers excepted), or all three ?
Honest question – having read the article and googled Mey Rude [take this as a warning – do not] it is unclear in the extreme.
Ben Shapiro on the nexus between riots and the left.
Ben Shapiro on the nexus between riots and the left.
The word shakedown comes to mind.
The word shakedown comes to mind.

A problem identified long ago.
A problem identified long ago.
For the more deranged wing of the left, it’s practically a tradition, and a credential. What’s remarkable is how explicit the threats can be.
re Booker T…given the number of misattributed quotes that float around the ‘net, I had to look that up as it sounded almost too spot-on. Well if we can trust Wikiquote, it is accurate. On that very page where that quote is found, a few more sentences had been excerpted from the original source that I thought were spot-on as well:
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Booker_T._Washington#My_Larger_Education.2C_Being_Chapters_from_My_Experience_.281911.29
I found this rather a good aphorism:
‘Speech the Left Hates is Violence. Violence the Left Likes is Speech’
via: John Rivers
wtp,
That Booker T Washington meme has been passed around on Facebook, Twitter and right-leaning blogs for quite some time, and I had doubted its authenticity myself. Curiously, for something so widely disseminated, there’s not a peep about it at Snopes.
Maybe not so curiously, considering Snopes’ generally left-wing bias when it comes to political matters.
“Booker T. Washington”
Showing why the Left has denigrated him for so long.
This isn’t how, as a child, I imagined the twenty-first century.
Let me guess: you imagined everybody in the 21st century wearing Martin Landau and Barbara Bain-style jumpsuits.
wearing Martin Landau and Barbara Bain-style jumpsuits.
Heh. Actually, I remember making one of those ‘n’-shaped stun guns out of Lego.
Let me guess: you imagined everybody in the 21st century wearing Martin Landau and Barbara Bain-style jumpsuits.
Speaking of space, the learned sciency types at The Atlantic have determined that the Constellations are sexist.
The authoress of this insightful piece runs a web site called Lady Science which you will be surprised to learn is staffed with wxymxn of great sciency learnings. The authoress, one Miss Lelia McNeil,
I am sure the world is a better place for her research into women’s ways of knowing in Imperial Germany – we had the Wiemar Republic all doped out, but Imperial Germany – whoa, I thought that was unfathomable.
Of course she is.
Curiously, for something so widely disseminated, there’s not a peep about it at Snopes.
Yes, it is amusing what appears and disappears and never appears at Snopes. I got curious after having to repeatedly explain to people what EXACTLY was presented at trial in the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case, given the tremendous amount of misinformation as to what occurred, who did what, what the evidence clearly showed. With considerable searching, I could find muchmuchmuch about George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin that either occurred years/months before or years/months after that event that was tangential to the main issue, I could not find anything addressing the facts as presented in court. As urban legends and misinformation go, seems like something right up their alley. Pity.
I was a snopes email discussion list member for many years (this was before their current web-based discussion forums) and left when they seemed to fall for all the ClimateChange™ hype and alarmism and started ridiculing people who had questions.
This isn’t how, as a child, I imagined the twenty-first century.
This is how I imagined hell
From Instapundit … I got about one third in and realized this is NOT parody.
for bonus points in masochism, give the comments a whirl.
[holy mary, mother of god]
…and realized this is NOT parody.
Comedy gold.
Someone commented somewhere else, didn’t find this one on m’own . . .
10 Things White People Already Know But Will Never Tell Us
. . . . . Distant memory??!?!?! I’ve been to a number of powwows at one time or another. Pretty awfully loud and complicated and busy for a “distant memory” . . .
To this day, astronomy remains one of the only scientific fields that relies so heavily on ancient Greek and Roman mythology for its naming conventions.
Yeah, I remember being SHOCKED to my BONES when I heard that the first quasar ever identified bore the nasty name “3C 273”.
3C 273 = the 273rd object (ordered by right ascension) of the Third Cambridge Catalog of Radio Sources (3C), published in 1959.
Of course, Cambridge, the notorious hotbed of misogynistic science, could not conceal its evil intent, which rings out loud and clear in that quasar’s evil name!
(Increases afternoon dosage by 6.8 percent…)
@Darleen – The apology is more than 2,500 words long! The comments make me fear for Western Civilisation. Luckily, Autostraddle probably has an audience of a couple of thousand of the US’s most PC-crippled idiots.
@Hal – that list is the work of a deranged, deeply paranoid mind. But not the only such mind judging by the comments…
I saw a morbid point the other day that’s been nagging at me.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Russians didn’t restore the House of Romanov, nor did they have experiments in innovating new forms of government. No, they turned to copying the West, and it seems not unreasonable to say that the West was an obvious schelling point: everyone knew about it, it had long been presented as The Alternative.
Similarly, if the US implodes, the Americans don’t seem likely to restore either the Stuarts, the Hanovers or the Windsors. No, what gets presented as The Alternative in America is that if you’re not on board with the latest and greatest progressive plan, you must be Hitler! Trump is Hitler! Romney was Hitler! Bush was Hitler! Everyone to the right of Mao is a HIT LURE KNOT SEA!! There’s no external rival like the Soviets that America can surrender to. You will not find a serious alternative to americanist democracy advertised anywhere from Singapore to South Africa, only minor tweaks like count of parliamentary representation. And the progs keep burning the legitimacy of this form of government…
Wouldn’t it be cartoonishly absurd if future neo-Nazis wound up having America fall into their hands by default, since so few can envision an alternative other than a few secessionist splinter states?
I wonder if this might count as a feel-good story of the day.
off topic: this is comedy gold:
https://reason.com/blog/2016/08/17/autostraddles-apologizes-for-favorably-r
Oops, sorry, please delete my comment up there, the article in question had already been posted by Darleen…
Oh, I think we’ll leave it there as a cautionary tale. 🙂
Oh, I think we’ll leave it there as a cautionary tale. 🙂
Fair enough.
Actually, I remember making one of those ‘n’-shaped stun guns out of Lego.
My embarrassing 70s memory was trying to color people in coloring books as wearing plaid pants.
My embarrassing 70s memory was trying to colour people in colouring books as wearing plaid pants.
As a wee seedling, I used to enjoy colouring in my collection of Mighty World of Marvel comics, which were basically monochrome reprints of Marvel’s American titles, with colour used very sparingly. (I remember an awful lot of pale green.) However, while felt tip pens added some much-needed vibrancy, they tended to soak through the cheap paper and ruin the other side, rendering it all but illegible.
Such were the dilemmas of childhood.
After the manner of Saturn, the revolution always devours its own children:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/sheridanwatson/people-are-calling-ellen-degeneres-racist?utm_term=.ifzZq7wgY#.vqRr2kJLn
Consider Hal’s post from Negressomethingorother…
So that’s…let’s see…items 1, 5, 6, 8, and 10 seem to count. Throw in a half point for item 9 and we’re over 50%. Not bad for a deranged, deeply paranoid mind.
Yeah, I remember being SHOCKED to my BONES when I heard that the first quasar ever identified bore the nasty name “3C 273”.
It seems you don’t have the proper keys in your Shitlord Decoder Ring. It is clear that if read that upside down and swap the letters and numerals into Greek you get εζΖϚε, which transliterated into English is Eze Zuse, who, as everyone who has a passing knowledge of mythology knows, was a minor diety of chamberpots which, of course, had no lids to put down, thus causing patriarchal oppression of ancient women.
…a minor diety of chamberpots which, of course, had no lids to put down…
If I recall my Edith Hamilton correctly, said minor deity was ultimately vanquished by the simple expedient of adding a second chamber pot. This, of course, led us to today where there is a separate WC & shower attached to the well-appointed man cave in the basement, tastefully equipped with several years worth of Maxim, Sports Illustrated and Motor Trend magazines.
Memo to self: For the love of god, will you please stop doing HTML before you’ve finished your second cup of coffee.
Meanwhile, at the Smith College School for Social Work, noticing the alarmingly low standard of student work can result in you being accused of using “violent, racist rhetoric” and being a “white supremacist.”
If police pull back, those neighborhoods will essentially become reservations.
More like free-fire zones. If cops really wanted blacks to die in job lots, they’d just stop patrolling black neighborhoods (the Ferguson Effect) and let culture take its course.