Indignation And Its Perks
In progressive academia, you must watch what you say, even in jest:
“I decided I’d try something a little different, but maybe it was a little too outside… I apologise if I offended anyone, that certainly wasn’t my intention,” [café operator Sandor] Dosman said. “I wouldn’t have done it if I knew this was going to happen. I have no job now.”
The details of Mr Dosman’s unforgivable transgression can be found here.
Readers may wonder whether Mr Dosman’s sudden unemployment was the result of students actually being offended on account of their improbably delicate sensibilities. Or more to do with the thrill of exerting power over an easy target, and the kinds of personalities attracted to such things.
Via RTW.
Here’s a screengrab of the offending item:
He is literally Hitler.
An item in the university newspaper gives no further details, or in fact any details, and the Graduate Students Association, which fired Mr Dosman, is apparently declining invitations to comment on their decision. But I haven’t seen any challenge to Mr Dosman’s account of what happened. Based on the information available, if anyone has “injured the reputation” of Wilfred Laurier University, it seems to have been the students themselves.
This is actually in my backyard. On the local news Mr. Dosman was very contrite and to his credit, there was a brave ethics professor who blasted the GSA for how they dealt with this. No doubt he will be dealt with harshly very soon.
These snowflakes KNOW that the ad was a joke, they KNOW that Mr. Dosman is sorry, they KNOW they’ve put 11 of their fellow students out of work – and yet they leap to action because they have a pathological need to flex their muscles. It’s narcissism and a complete absence of empathy, despite their claims to fly the flag of “caring”. It reminds me of the Louis CK bit from years ago where he discusses the disconnect young people grow up with, and now we’re reaping the rewards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbYScltf1c
He wrote “your” instead of “you’re”. That’s obviously the real reason he got fired. But if they gave the real reason, he’d sue for ableist discrimination. Hence the window dressing.
He’s lucky to have escaped the firing squad. Oh, wait… never mind.
Anyway, that’s my theory, and I’m sticking to it.
It’s about time this piss-boiling fuckwittery attracted an appropriately brutal and decisive response, but the nominal adults charged with running universities are probably beaming with pride.
This is my Alma Mater. When I attended, back in the mid 90’s, every year a pro life campus group (yes, you read that correctly) staged a small protest against abortion. They even displayed pictures of aborted fetuses. This was actually allowed, and back then we had no safe spaces to run to. As a matter of fact, none of the students seemed to be that bothered by it, even the majority who were undoubtedly pro choice. These types of things were accepted as part of life on university. Much has changed. (Was I supposed to issue a trigger warning before the aborted fetuses thing?)
The U admin is quietly pleased that their junior waffen are keeping their skills up. They’ll be invaluable when the real purges begin.
If there’s nearby real estate available, he should re-open at a new location just off campus. Maybe start a GoFundMe drive to finance it. Then name his new business the “Slave Driver Cafe”.
If there’s . . .
Oooh. Nice one.
“Slave Driver Cafe”
A bit too obvious. He’d never get the necessary permits through the bureaucracy. Though I’d be willing to bet he could get away with calling it Legree’s. For a little while, at least.
*triggering intensifies*
Once again, we run hard into the Slave Ur-myth: No societies other than the US have ever conducted slavery, no slavery existed before or since, and any reference to any kind of slavery has magical disempowering and disenfranchising “killing word” powers explicitly toward any People of any Color whatsoever, so long as they are currently using the “PoC” magic sigil.
A new day, same old magical thinking complete with incantations, curses, sympathetic alignment, and possibly crystals.
Pretentious self-aggrandizement always (trigger ahead) trumps reason. I’m sure the students involved have the same facial expression as a three year old who’s just orchestrated his first by-himself poop on the pot.
Certainly the president doesn’t seem to want like publicity. Her twitter feed is blocked. I wonder why? What embarrassing stuff is she saying, I wonder?
Somebody start an online fund drive for the guy using a popular crowdfunder. This is fascism. Turn it into a marketable opportunity to show it as such.
Seriously. He’ll make ten times what he lost.
Whoo! This story actually made the CBC!
In a turnaround from the usual, a university professor is actually telling people not to be so “terminally thin-skinned and self-righteous”
Is there any kind of registry for these tyrannical SJW types? It would be very handy for prospective employers to have a one-stop shop where they could look up Samantha Deeming and see that she is definitely someone that you would never, ever want to hire.
Saw Rogue One.
No political content—the rumors of a reshoot to insert anti-Trump material are bogus.
It’s a great story with a perfect amount of tie-in to the original series instead of being a retread of Episode IV.
In fact, Rogue One should have been the first reboot instead of The Force Awakens.
And you’ll want to know ahead of time that Alan Tudyk is the robot.
Based on the information available, if anyone has “injured the reputation” of Wilfred Laurier University, it seems to have been the students themselves.
I went to high school with Sandor and he is a FOAF. I attended the University of Waterloo and it is not for nothing that WLU is referred to as “the high school down the road”. They didn’t have a reputation that was injurable.
Saw Rogue One. No political content—the rumors of a reshoot to insert anti-Trump material are bogus.
Ah, so you missed the part where the writers explicitly cast the Rebellion as Middle Eastern terrorists fighting nobly against the occupying military Empire who are all corporatist old white men.
Apparently also every scene that screamed “Hey! Hey! Remember that scene from Episode IV/V/VI? It was cool, huh? Here’s one just like it! See? See?”
FOAF…
You made me look that up. I remember when the only acronyms I needed to know was VHS and WWF. Man, I feel old. WTF happened…
jkrank,
You looked it up, but didn’t inform the rest of the un-hip what you found.
Had to look it up myself.
Friend of a friend.
Just in case.
Saw Rogue One.
—Twitch—
Saw a review headline, decided to take a look to see just how bad the fiasco is. . . . . .
Oy. _)*&$_)*&#$^(*@^#$. Vey.
This unfortunate turkey is even worse than Abrams’ attempt at a Star Wars movie.
By the second half of the movie, and exponentially more so as things continue, all one notices is the video game designers in the back of the production office ticking off that Here will be this bit on a video game level, There will be the main focus of the next video game level, Yes, There, there and there we can put in the extra additional bits for That video game level—Huh?
Movie? Movie??!!?!?! You think we have the slightest interest in plausible set design and storytelling?!?!?!? You think we’re here to make a mere, trite, useless little Movie?!?!!!
Silly little child, No one cares about some stupid little movie, we must have large scale marketing for an ever expandable and online and mobile capable series of gaming platforms!!!!!
Oh, and character dolls. Mustn’t forget the character dolls.
There’s a little more here:
Actually, I doubt the leftist students are actually that delicate. The theatrical display of thin skin is almost always just that, a pretence, an excuse. In fact, the words that come to mind are vindictive and malevolent. And so, their appeal to “inclusiveness,” propriety and “social justice” takes the form of needlessly making a dozen people unemployed just before Christmas.
Rogue One?
After suffering through The Force Awakens, I’ll make do with Mr. Plinkett’s review, when it comes out.
Says Laurier ethics professor Byron Williston:
“Perhaps you should direct your moral outrage at some of the many real problems in the world rather than behaving like petty bullies.”
Williston may need to look further afield because he ought to realise that petty bullying, intolerance and a willingness to resort to any punitive behaviour available is just business as usual. For example:
Above all, there was a climate of fear in the city – to a degree which it is difficult for outsiders to understand.
The city in question is Liverpool in the middle of the 1980s, which at that time had a nominally Labour run city council – except that it wasn’t Labour run at all as both Labour and Unions had in fact been successfully infiltrated by a Trotskyist revolutionary socialist group by the name of Militant (or the Militant Tendency as it was often also known):
While politicians and council officials would privately complain of what was occurring, few would ever give details in public. They were frightened of losing their political positions or losing their jobs.
Does this sound familiar to anyone from a perspective of the last few years?
Militant was also using the council to employ more and more of its own people. In John Hamilton’s words: ‘You can’t get a job here unless you are a Militant. The promise of a job was held out to young people to get them to join Militant, while people who had been given posts were put under pressure to join the tendency.
I’m quoting from journalist Michael Crick’s book on the subject. It’s certainly very enlightening for anyone, like me, who was a child when this going on and so vaguely aware that something had happened in Liverpool, but not entirely sure what.
What may be less surprising to discover is that Militant’s strategy – as Trotskyist revolutionary socialists – was to run the city into the ground (something they did very successfully by the way).
… belief that in the end the government would have to step in and do something – either in the form of more money to the city, or taking it over with commissioners. The former would be hailed as a victory, the latter was just the kind of highly charged, potentially revolutionary, situation Militant wanted.
So in other words they were deliberately trying to goad and provoke the then government (under Thatcher) into capitulating to their ever-increasing demands or else be forced into proving themselves the kind of soulless reactionaries hell-bent on the destruction and oppression of the working class that Militant spent all of its time painting them as.
Again, does this sound familiar to anyone from a perspective of the last few years?
In fact, the words that come to mind are vindictive and malevolent.
Crick again:
At times, Militant seemed to be pursuing policies out of sheer vindictiveness against individuals who disagreed with it. One group of gardeners – the Harthill Six – who had refused to take part in a day of action, were demoted to menial jobs. The six went to court to get their old jobs back. When they won the council decided to could no longer afford to maintain the greenhouses where they worked, and the city’s prize orchid collection, which they had maintained, was dispersed.
Astounding that one of the favourite words of such people as those in the Graduate School Association at Wilfrid Laurier University is ‘Fascist.’
OT
I would also like to recommend this YouTube video. Whatever one might think of this producer’s other output, which is probably not much, I think this particular one is actually worth giving the time to.
Astounding that one of the favourite words of such people… is ‘Fascist.’
If there’s one thing that I hope this blog has illustrated over the last decade or so, it’s that leftist piety is often both camouflage and platform for malign intent. And when someone feels a need to ostentatiously profess their virtue, emphatically, incongruously, all but daily, then one really ought to consider what kind of personality would choose to do that, and why.
Fascism
“All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”
Benito Mussolini
Obviously against the left’s free-speech small-government low-tax policies
And the larger and more intrusive you make the state, the more you weaponise it, the more heated and hysterical elections will be.
Like a peacock fanning its tail this is just an expression of dominance. For the peacock the dominance leads to sex. I wonder if similar rewards await the SJW’s here?
Nikw211, long video and a bit creepy with the kangaroo head which distracts from the gravity of the point but well worth watching. How the MSM and left and such can make so much noise about this silly Ping Pong Pizza thing and yet ignore the impact of fake news like this Young Turks channel is an indication, similar to what David says above about the left’s virtue signaling, of their projection. Such people ignore the damage done by BLM and similar to the families and friends of these numerous slain police officers. I don’t see how the credibility of the MSM can get much lower without our society breaking into serious violence. To some degree it already has.
Also, cute to me how the main talking head on that channel is described as a “comedian”. Funny stuff, eh?
“leftist piety is often both camouflage and platform for malign intent”
Well, luckily schools are educating youth so tha… oh, wait.
OK, then, the “media” is at least asking the correct questions and pointing out wher… oh, wait.
I suppose calling Ms. Deeming “a slave to mind-numbingly imbecilic political correctness” would be a thought-crime, too.
So I’ll just nominate her for the 2016 Asshole of the Year award. She’s definitely a finalist.
@WTP
a bit creepy with the kangaroo head … cute to me how the main talking head on that channel is described as a “comedian”. Funny stuff, eh?
Well, yes, neither one of those points had escaped my notice either. To be fair, I did say (emphasis added):
Whatever one might think of this producer’s other output, which is probably not much
as a kind of heads up as to the nature of the content.
However, if you’re anything like me, at least in this regard, I think the video is worth its weight in gold for this one extract of ‘comedian’ (what?) Jimmy Dore if nothing else (09:17 – 09:45 in the video):
Congratulations, you became a cop – you’re an official piece of shit.
Cops are fucking liars; they’re criminals; they’re brutal maniacs – that’s why they’re cops.
Get that through your head. Those cops aren’t out there to do good.
They’re not out there to protect the constitution. They’re not out there to protect anybody. They’re out there to get their jollies inflicting harm on people brutally. ‘Cos that’s why they’re cops. If they wanted to help people, they would help those people. But they don’t want to help people. They get they’re rocks off by doing this shit.
Even on a generous interpretation, one which acknowledges that Dore made this statement within a segment on The Young Turks which actually goes by the title of Aggressive Progressives (which by the way, I had first taken to be something added by the video producer – I was quite appalled to discover that this is actually a feature proudly created and supported by The Young Turks themselves and not by one of their detractors!); and one which also acknowledges that this might be taken out of its original context … it is actually really quite difficult to see how e.g.
Cops are fucking liars; they’re criminals; they’re brutal maniacs – that’s why they’re cops.
could be justified – or justifiable – by removing it from whatever context it originally came from.
I suppose, just, that, at a pinch, it could be claimed he was having a bad day or it was a one-off rant he regrets etc. – which might be both reasonable as well as generous.
However, that quite forgets the context made crystal clear by the talking kangaroo in the lengthy segment starting from 24:29 and going through pretty much to the end about 10 minutes later, but especially in the part that goes from 28:39 where the kangaroo begins (at first echoing the words of The Young Turks co-host, Anna Kasparian):
‘Again, and again, and again’ Well, you know what happens ‘again and again’? I just typed in ‘cop’ into The Young Turks YoutTube channel, and here are the videos that came up. And I wonder if the message is clear. If you watch this channel, like I do, and like Gavin Long did [Gavin Long is the man who shot dead three policemen in Baton Rouge an allegedly racially motivated ambush], you’ll notice a theme. You’ll notice the repetition of a singular message – and it’s not unclear – and that message is ‘Fuck the cops! The cops are brutalizing you; the cops are criminal, savage – they’re evil – and we must fight against them.’
A kangaroo he may be, but he is far from wrong on this point. As he goes on to say just before the end of the video:
The hideous bullshit that that channel pumps out is not only false and dense, and restarded, it promotes vi0lence. This is just the anti-cop rhetoric that we’re talking about. You want to talk about promoting violence? They are full-fledged promoting a race war. Talk about the tension between blacks and whites in America – these people are dumping gasoline on that. Every. Day. And they do it for their own interests.
While I differ from the kangaroo in the extent to which it is possible to pin the responsibility for the actions of person A (especially when person A is a murderer) on the things that person B once said, I nevertheless think he makes a strong case for hypocrisy – especially as he goes to great lengths to point out how hard The Young Turks channel (thought not Dore himself) tried to pin the responsibility for the murder of late-term abortion doctor, George Tiller, on Bill O’Reilly.
The Young Turks simply should not be allowed to have it both ways. And in that, I think the kangaroo is absolutely right.
If Mr. Dosman had written “wage slave” instead, he’d probably be golden.
You know, in the real world, where I spent decades doing tech development with foreign partners, I acquired a skill. To communicate effectively without ambiguity with people who were not native English speakers. The main things you need for that are humbleness and patience.
Such as we see in the members of the GSA.
Ah Laurier,
There is a STEM heavy University in the same city. Those who go there commonly referred to Laurier as the “high school up the street”.
@David: “If there’s one thing that I hope this blog has illustrated over the last decade or so, it’s that leftist piety is often both camouflage and platform for malign intent.”
Mission accomplished!
This was somewhat telling too:
“He says he tried to have some fun with the help wanted ad after posting multiple ads that drew little response. It worked — he got dozens of applications from people who wanted the job.”
‘A boss with a sense of humour’, people must have thought. ‘Wow! That’s so rare in this town’
Mission accomplished!
Whew.
[ Slumps across desk, emotionally exhausted. ]
Here, David.
(What? You really need to ask? Laphroig, neat, what else?)
“the high school up the street”
gotta forward that one to my favorite MIT grad so she can stop saying “that place up the river”
I only have limited sympathy with Mr Dosman, which is based on his being naive. Adults and business owners trying to get down wiv da kidz rarely ends well, and had he conducted himself like a serious adult none of this would have happened. Yes, he was making some light-hearted humour but the whole point of being a serious adult in matters pertaining to business is that you put yourself on a different level to the sort of adolescents that complained about him. The trouble with stooping to their level to try to fit in is you then have to fight on their territory when things go wrong. The best response to dealing with SJWs is to tell them firmly once and then ignore them; if ignoring them isn’t an option then either hit them hard with a lawsuit or simply respond with bemused indifference which shows that under no circumstances will you take them seriously. Under no circumstances should he apologise, backtrack, or engage with these people seriously: but by attempting to engage with them on their level in the first place, he left himself open.
In short: be an adult and don’t engage with the spoiled brats on any level, ever. Make it about “them” and “us”.
I am (genuinely!) offended that Mr Dosman felt the need to apologise. For crying out loud! The man is (or was) trying to run a business. His tactic had succeeded: unlike the previous adverts, his last one was very successful, with multiple applicants. Obviously none of the hopefuls was ‘offended’ at his style. For Mr Dosman and the pernicious little crab apples alike, I hope that Christmas and the New Year bring them everything they deserve.
Ok, you first.
Ok, you first.
Not entirely unrelated, this is the kind of person deemed suitable for employment as a spokeswoman for the public schools of Washington DC. Because smug, racist misandry – specifically, “wanting to get rid of” white men – is apparently a credential now. A badge of having the right views.
Because smug, racist misandry – specifically, “wanting to get rid of” white men – is apparently a credential now. A badge of having the right views.
It’s especially amusing how it never occurs to these poeople that there are actual real white supremacists out there (not the ones designated as such for simply disagreeing with leftist identity politics) who sound exactly like they do, with just a few nouns switched out.
Mr Dosman was not trying to “get down wiv da kidz”. (Da kidz — and especially SJWs — do not understand concepts like humour, irony or sarcasm.) Dosman was using humour in the hopes that it would net him a better response, which it did. Humour was once considered a perfectly acceptable marketing tool!
Should Dosman’s response have been to tell “them firmly once and then ignore them”, or “hit them hard with a lawsuit”? Neither were viable options. The former would’ve seen him similarly damned. The latter would’ve cost Dosman money and time which he cannot afford.
I do agree that caving in to the perpetually-offended is a slipperly slope. Every time that happens, the perpetually-offended will find something else to object to. But small businesses are in no position to fight back.
“Whoo! This story actually made the CBC!”
I think I got this link from the comments to that article:
http://www.wlugsa.ca/management-team/
Nicely diverse group, innit?
OK, you first
As I commented WRT something L Penny or a colleague said (I won’t do business with White Men), I’ll believe them when they post this on their door.
So they don’t accidentally do business with any white male plumbers, electricians, garbage men, policemen, water system operators, electric power plant operators, doctors, Apple engineers, Google engineers, linemen, firemen, ambulance drivers, road construction workers, auto factory workers, startup company investors.
Hell, hit them where it hurts – They should stop doing business with white male taxpayers.
Hell, hit them where it hurts – They should stop doing business with white male taxpayers.
Bigot!
White taxpayers should just be greatful that their dollars are being spent on vital, life saving research.
We should be proud that our great British students lead the world in thin-skinned f*ck-wittery: http://bit.ly/29a8oXL Bless ’em…
You guys are weird: You’re rebutting my ACTUALLY HAVING SEEN THE MOVIE with Other People’s Reviews.
It’s the story of how the plans for the Death Star were obtained, and it finishes only a few hours before Episode IV starts.
ERGO, several characters in Episode IV feature in Rogue One, and they did some nice casting to make up for Ep IV having been filmed in 1977.
It’s entertaining enough–and it’s not saturated with refs to Eps IV, V, VI as The Force Awakens was.
As for this: “all one notices is the video game designers in the back of the production office ticking off that Here will be this bit on a video game level,”
I didn’t notice that at all, for the simple reason that I don’t play video games. So if that was actually the subtext it didn’t hurt the storytelling.
Again, WTF with rebutting my brief review with someone else’s? Go see it yourself; then disagree if you must.
As for this: “all one notices is the video game designers in the back of the production office ticking off that Here will be this bit on a video game level,”
I didn’t notice that at all, for the simple reason that I don’t play video games. So if that was actually the subtext it didn’t hurt the storytelling.
Stating things vaguely, for the benefit of those who haven’t seen and want to learn for themselves . . .
The antenna controls are not at the base of the antenna, they are out at the end of a tiny little catwalk that itself just extends out from the side of a skyscraper.
A system override console related to a building is not at that building, it’s out in the open in an area littered with assorted random debris that snipers can hide behind.
Ship A) has clamps that are extending to and holding ship B). The two ships are docked together, where if those clamps are screwed with, things could rip apart, people could get killed. There will be very particular procedures, with warning signs about the dangers of using this equipment, sequences that announce Do you really want to do this, Etc. Instead, one finds out that on ship B) there is a near random lever with no particular indicators, which is sitting out in the open on some near random bulkhead, where yanking on that lever disengages the clamps.—Yes, ship _A_ has the clamps, ship _B_ has the clamp controls.
Etc.
For the handiest contrasts that come to mind, there was one of the Avengers, or Captain America or so movies, where Rogers and someone are strolling around an old base trying to deduce where something might have been hidden sixty or seventy years earlier. Rogers does a doubletake at a bunker and basically states, No, that placement is wrong for very specific and logical operational reasons, therefore that building can’t be what it claims to be, let’s go in there.
There is a story of the US Navy being quite fascinated by the console designs in the original series Star Trek, because everything was laid out in arm’s reach for best operation.
The issue is, simply, what would be a reasonable design, architectural layout, system of operation, because real people have to do real stuff with this equipment.
Now, aside from the production failures, I do think that Peter Cushing did an absolutely first rate returning portrayal of Tarkin . . . especially considering Cushing’s been dead since ’94 . . . !
Oh, and quite contrasting with Cushing, and my being someone who did see the movie, that was a truly alarming looking waxworks figure at the very end.
The antenna controls are not at the base of the antenna, they are out at the end of a tiny little catwalk that itself just extends out from the side of a skyscraper.
Impractical architecture that forces the heroes into further danger is standard Star Wars fare, if not standard sci-fi fare, as parodied in Galaxy Quest. Note also the Infinite Chasm separating the heroes from their MacGuffin, because every architect past 2200 AD will be compelled to design Hazardous Spaces for dramatic purposes.
See also Indiana Jones going after the Holy Grail. The Tenth Doctor aboard the space-Titanic. Peter’s Evil Overlord List #5 states “The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.” Many other items in the list address the obvious logistical flaws that dominate adventure stories.
It’s movie and novel stuff, first; gamers just adopted it.
There is a story of the US Navy being quite fascinated by the console designs in the original series Star Trek, because everything was laid out in arm’s reach for best operation.
There’s also the single point of entry onto the bridge, a mechanical LIFT fer the sake of Pete, which NCC-1701-D wisely remedied with multiple points of egress.
And yes, I did notice the waxworks figure at the end. I didn’t get that effect from Cushing. Both actors are listed rather low in the credits on IMDb: you have to go way down below the fold to get there. Tells ya something.
I found the tie-ins rather delightful, because they were organically part of the story, not the painfully self-conscious repetitions that JJ Abrams used ad nauseum. I just about dropped my teeth when I saw Mon Mothma.
I’m not itching to see Rogue One again, but I did enjoy myself whilst I was there.
That’s all I ask.
Also, I was there with my fellow employees–software programmers and other related nerd-boys–and they loved it.
and it’s not saturated with refs to Eps IV, V, VI as The Force Awakens was.
Yes, it was. You just didn’t notice them (clearly). Not as many, and the entire film wasn’t a damn near shot-by-shot remake of Episode IV, but there were rather a lot of visual shoutouts that served no purpose beyond “hey, fanboys!”.