The Year Reheated
In which we glimpse the world through the eyes of our self-imagined betters.
The year began with news that living in Glasgow is now to be considered a work of art, according to Ellie Harrison, a taxpayer-funded artist who, coincidentally, lives in Glasgow. We also witnessed the talents of Sandrine Schaeffer, who teaches the subtleties of performance art to those less gifted than herself, and who unveiled “a series of research based actions in public spaces” – i.e., walking repeatedly past automatic doors. Gorged on art, our attention then turned to academic matters and the ruminations of Dr Riyad A Shahjahan, an exponent of “social justice theory” and “pedagogies of dissent.” Dr Shahjahan wished to impress on us that “the norms of neoliberal higher education” – specifically, expectations of punctuality and academic competence – are both racist and oppressive.
February saw a multi-million-dollar experiment in progressive crime prevention – a project that was as bold as it was unsuccessful – namely, bribing known criminals to not commit further crimes. And Ms Celia Edell, a “24-year-old feminist philosopher interested in social justice,” explored the thorny conundrum of whether feminism is compatible with the eating of bacon sandwiches.
In March, we beheld the artistic work of Sandrine Schaeffer’s students – feats that included drooling, doomed horticulture and masochistic thigh-scarring. And feminist “creative” Katherine Garcia attempted to justify her sub-optimal life choices. Ms Garcia, who describes herself as a “multi-dimensional creature” doing “enlightening work,” was shocked to discover that getting heavily into debt to pursue a grad school degree in Women and Gender Studies isn’t a sure-fire path to status and prosperity.
April was enlivened by the highly-wound students at Edinburgh University, whose meetings forbid expressions and gestures that “denote disagreement,” and where even quietly shaking one’s head is a scandalous transgression. In the pages of Everyday Feminism, Ms Kai Cheng Tom bemoaned the fact that “disorders like violent psychopathy” are “generally considered unlikeable,” and that “compassion for psychopaths, pathological liars, or narcissists” – people such as herself – is hard to come by. And over at the Guardian, Grayson Perry, a part-time transvestite and maker of unattractive pottery, disdained masculinity as “useless” and “counter-productive,” a mere “hangover” from more primitive, less Guardian-friendly times.
In May, the “social justice” juggernaut Hari Ziyad railed against conformism and idle stereotypes, while denouncing the “white supremacist cisheteropatriarchal capitalistic gaze,” and exhorting us to spend more time fretting about “gender non-conforming Indigenous people with disabilities.” And the no less non-conformist Laurie Penny announced that she “leans towards anarcho-communism,” which, rather conveniently, means that your money actually belongs to her.
Highlights of June included a visit to the MIX NYC Queer Experimental Film Festival, where Eames Armstrong and Matthew Ryan Rossetti revealed the full extent of their “emerging talents” by shedding items of clothing, chugging on beer and struggling half-heartedly with a distortion pedal. Laurie Penny returned to share her not-at-all-disastrous lifestyle advice, while listing the oppressions supposedly inherent to marriage, including the preparation of food – which unmarried people never have to do, of course – and the unpaid “emotional labour” of remembering birthdays.
In July, readers of the Guardian – a paper whose ongoing massive losses continue to mystify – were alerted to yet another alarming workplace hazard – namely, the dangers of free cake, which the paper’s columnists are apparently unable to resist or politely decline on account of all that feminist empowerment and mental independence. Days later, in the pages of Everyday Feminism, an anonymous feminist of girth explained to her readers that their not being fat makes them complicit in her oppression. You see, maintaining a body of practical proportions, such that one can be accommodated by the average cinema seat, constitutes “fat shaming” and is therefore a form of harassment.
Student activist and avowed “feminist killjoy” Josefin Hedlund turned heads in August, with her desire to correct our erotic preferences, which are unequally “distributed,” by steering us away from the “violent norms” of conventional attractiveness and agreeable personalities. Apparently, we should “resist” the “hetero- and cis-normative, patriarchal, capitalist, and hierarchical structures in society” by ogling porn featuring people we don’t fancy. Oh, and “menstrual activist” Iris Josephina Verstappen bled down her legs and waited to be applauded.
In September, we discovered that setting classmates’ hair on fire and punching teachers in the face is how black students “engage in learning.” Because, according to left-leaning educators, “African-American boys” are more “physical” and “demonstrative.” Thanks to students at DePauw University, we learned, in no uncertain terms, that there’s no way to please the competitively indignant. Such that, even if you signal your approval of their psychodrama and gratuitous disruption – say, by applauding it – this too will be deemed offensive, an insult to the protestors’ heroic struggle. We also marvelled at the mental contortions of Everyday Feminism editor Melissa Fabello, who dismissed the views of “cis, white, straight dudes” as invalid by default and unworthy of attention, and then demanded respect as “an intellectual being.”
Ms Fabello’s struggles with reciprocity and logic entertained us again in October, when she informed us that, irrespective of their behaviour, “all men” are “suspect in the eyes of feminism,” that the world “is divided into the oppressed and the oppressors,” and that the only possible salvation for an accursed male person is vicarious shame, round-the-clock anxiety, and continual deference to people like Ms Fabello. Meanwhile, at the University of California, Berkeley, leftwing students proved how not-at-all-racist they are by triumphantly abusing random white people. At the University of Cape Town, students displayed their radicalism by claiming that black Africans can throw lightning at their enemies. And Dr Jennifer Nash, an associate professor of African American Studies at Harvard, turned her mental cutting beam to the “understudied” subject of “the black female anus.”
In November, attention turned to DePaul University, where the official rationale for cancelling lectures by non-leftist speakers was that the university would be unable to protect either the speakers or their audience from disruption and thuggery by its own students. And “social justice” devotee Hannah Brooks Olsen wished to educate us about the poverty of “millennial college grads,” as experienced by herself, and which, she insisted, had nothing whatsoever to do with her own vanities and choices. Like spending $65,000 on a degree in English literature and rhetoric, and then describing herself to potential employers as “a political troublemaker.”
The year drew to a close with feminist Polly Dunning explaining how motherhood is an opportunity to berate and correct any male children. Ms Dunning, who “felt sick” at the thought of “something male” growing inside her, is now enthused by the prospect of pointing out her son’s sexism “at every turn.” And an entrepreneurial duo of “black femme freedom fighters” devised a way to exploit pretentious racial guilt by inviting white people to atone for their whiteness with monthly “reparations” of $100. People of pallor can thereby prove to their equally neurotic peers that, despite being white, they’re not like all those other awful white people.
And remember, they’re showing us the way.
I’ve been trying to forget all that mush, and now you’ve brought it up again. Huh. Happy New Year to you, too.
So much concentrated stupid. Don’t know if I should be laughing or depressed.
Have a great new year, David. Your tip jar has been hit.
Subscriber here.
Happy New Year to the captain of this creaky barge and its motley crew who do so much to amuse, divert and reassure me that I am not alone in the world in thinking like that.
Here’s to 2017, in which I predict that Laurie Penny will be appointed president of the Women’s Institute after The Guardian declines to print her article “Actually, This Lefty Stuff Is All Bollocks, Isn’t It?” and she resigns in a huff, Thomas Sowell will be awarded the inaugural Nobel Prize for Common Sense, and will also see the publication of Rocio Boliver’s “101 Useful Tricks You Can Do With A Courgette”, which will divide the art world as never before.
spending $65,000 on a degree in English literature and rhetoric, and then describing herself to potential employers as “a political troublemaker.”
Vanity costs.
Vanity costs.
And yet Ms Olsen insists that her difficulties in finding lucrative and glamorous employment were in no way related to her own, rather curious choices. Apparently, the job market should be crying out for a chippy, pronoun-policing “political troublemaker” who’s determined to “catalyse significant social change” by writing about “social justice issues.”
You forgot to include that insane SJW taxi meltdown. 🙂
https://thompsonblog.co.uk/2016/09/elsewhere-212.html
You forgot to include that insane SJW taxi meltdown. 🙂
Oh, yes. Ms Annaliese Nielson and her bobblehead drama. She was a piece of work.
You see, maintaining a body of practical proportions, such that one can be accommodated by the average cinema seat, constitutes “fat shaming” and is therefore a form of harassment.
Hmmm. In parallel, I’m currently enjoying a read and often reread of all the Nero Wolfe stories.
Of course Wolfe may not exactly relate; his demand is merely to have one chair that will fit him.
Beyond that, anyone and anything else can be whatever size works best . . .
“Continue reading “The Year Reheated” >>”
Uh, no… The original viewing was enough. I don’t think I could stand a rerun.
Dispirited because my wonderful cat died today.
Anyway, David, did you see that Steve Martin referred to Carrie Fisher as “beautiful and witty and bright” in his tribute to her, and the SJW assholes got all riled up because how dare he call her beautiful!!!! and of course he caved.
Meanwhile, we have to pretend the potato-shaped Lena Dunham and Amy Schumer are fucking fashion beasts.
Anyway, David, did you see that Steve Martin referred to Carrie Fisher as “beautiful and witty and bright” in his tribute to her, and the SJW assholes got all riled up because how dare he call her beautiful!!!! and of course he caved.
Yes, I saw. I suppose it’s possible that Mr Martin deleted the tweet because he didn’t want to make a scene, or more of a scene, or make the moment all about him and not Ms Fisher. Unlike the professionally indignant, who generally seem more than prepared to step on anyone’s moment and make everything about them and their hallucinatory feelings.
The dynamic was sort of foreshadowed a few days ago when Ms Fisher was rushed to hospital. As you’d imagine, lots of people were offering sympathetic and encouraging tweets, urging the actress and her family to be strong, etc., their feelings expressed in various ways. Laurie Penny promptly took exception to some of the language being used, regarding bravery and fighting illness. Because linguistic pedantry always helps at a time like that. Then, inevitably, Laurie steered the thread towards herself, and how she finds the language “upsetting” and “unhelpful.”
It’s done in the name of decency, yet it seems somewhat indecent.
Dispirited because my wonderful cat died today.
I recommend getting a new cat. Which, in turn, will become wonderful.
Re Steve Martin…
Man will never be free until the last journalist is strangled with the entrails of the last social justice warrior. You can quote me on that.
You can quote me on that.
Believe me, I’m going to do exactly that.
My highlight of 2016:
Which lead to massive amounts of:
That is all.
a body of practical proportions, such that one can be accommodated by the average cinema seat,
Will no one think of the mascots?
https://twitter.com/meakoopa/status/812718502528372737
‘And then he noticed the camera’.
https://twitter.com/lmaosimon/status/814754442105016320
I’m sure Laurie Penny must qualify for an “Idiot of the Year” award? Alas, she wasn’t included in the one below, but Triggly Puff and Annaliese Nielson were.
http://thecosmicbunnyhole.com/transgender-wins-top-wtf-award-2016/
Alas, she wasn’t included in the one below…
I think it goes to show that her influence and acclaim in the world is not as great as she thinks it is.
“Laurie steered the thread towards herself”
This is the essence. It is only occasionally tempered by a temporary diversion about hypothetical persons who might complain, if only they were as enlightened as the SJW doing the actual complaining.
But mostly it’s about themselves. Mostly.
Another 30 fake hate crimes…
http://lidblog.com/top-30-fake-hate-crimes/
I will acquire another kitty when it’s time.
I do have to say the hysteria of the progs re: trumpism has given me many fits of laughter lately.
That cosmicbunnyhole has 4 of the most worthless human beings now present on the planet featured. My late cat was worth more intellectually than all four smushed together into the whinefesting supertwat they would become.
Thank you for another year of entertainment and education. I’ve thrown some money at your tip jar. Please purchase the cheapest gin with it. That’s always worked for me.
Portuguese artist Rita Marcalo (whom David has reported on before) was awarded £9,931 by the taxpayer-funded Arts Council England to travel to Calais and dance with migrants attempting to illegally enter England. The dance workshop, set up at Calais’ The Jungle and she has been there for six months. Sounds like a failure as one of the dance workshop key goals was to ‘raise awareness’ and David had last wrote about Rita in 2009.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4077698/Portuguese-artist-handed-10-000-government-bizarre-project-saw-dance-migrants-Calais-Jungle.html
Rita Marcalo (whom David has reported on before) was awarded £9,931 by the taxpayer-funded Arts Council England to travel to Calais and dance with migrants attempting to illegally enter England.
Oh yes. For her last great work, even Ms Marcalo seemed unclear what she was doing or how to determine her success or failure. Apparently, it’s possible to “fast” while eating chocolate and drinking beer.
And the Arts Council’s enthusiasm for burning public money will be familiar to regular readers.
From Margaret E Jacobsen
Even though all too often I was uncomfortable hearing the jokes about black people, uncomfortable with the touching of my body and the backhanded compliments, I put the needs, comfort, and safety of white people above my own.
Of course you do !
Christopher Snowdon has another round-up of the year. And another glimpse into the worldview of our self-imagined betters.
Progressive fashion.
And the definitive trauma of 2016.
It puzzles me that anyone gives a rat’s patoot about the Twitter lynchmobs. For cryin’ out loud, it’s just a buch of twits! For the most part Twitter illustrates what happens when gonnoreaha develops sentience and obtains access to a computer.
Ran across this recently, which was written three years ago. Some here may find it interesting. What I find fascinating about it is how the author and many of the commenters almost get it. They are oh so close to understanding. And yet a miss is a miss…
http://postgradproblems.com/5-truths-about-millennials-4/
Yes, sweetie, you were lied to. The problem is you found the lie more acceptable than the truth. As long as you let the lie be your reality you will remain stuck in millennial hell. Or perhaps purgatory is the better word. But it has been three years and hopefully some of them have figured this out by now.
Heh…misplace my comment. The “a snippet” part at the end of the first quoted paragraph is me. Meant to put that above…
A happy new year to all the regulars, irregulars and assorted ne’er-do-wells who frequent this establishment.
Optimistic dog swiped from Ace.
Happy New Year, David and all!
For the most part Twitter illustrates what happens when gonnoreaha develops sentience and obtains access to a computer.
Gonorrhea? Ehn?
I’d think that Tourette’s would be rather more likely.
WTP @ 14:42:
Yes, sweetie, you were lied to.
Mainly by politicians and pundits who told them a prosperous society with a high standard of living could be obtained by spending rather than saving, by consuming more than was produced, and by focusing on the redistribution wealth rather than on its production.
Some great comment threads there too, David.
Happy new year to you and your irregulars. 🙂
Some great comment threads there too, David.
The threads are often much more interesting than the posts. I suppose that’s sort of the idea. I was re-reading the one following the post on ‘progressive’ crime prevention. I still like the idea of a “three-strikes-and-we-put-you-out-to-sea-on-a-fucking-raft” law.
A very happy New Year to David and all who sail aboard his well-found vessel.
Let’s hope 2017 is filled with leftist tears
that we can mock mercilesslyfor us to empathise with.Happy new year to David and all the commenters.
Dispirited because my wonderful cat died today.
It’s a bad few weeks for cats: Tom Cox lost The Bear recently, and I lost my 15-year-old kitty on Dec 26 to a fast-acting tumor.
I was going to put him down on Friday morning, before I drove to Idaho for Christmas. On Thursday night, I saw him creeping into my closet — where he never goes — to hide.
He knew what was coming. I totally lost it.
Then Friday morning I decided to let him enjoy his last bask in the winter sun. He sat placidly until the sunbeam had slid off him, then suddenly I couldn’t find him anymore. With the carrier set in the trunk of my car, I found him deep in a pile of boxes — again, where he never goes.
He knew what I was up to. I have no idea how he does it but he always knows when I’m fixin’ to take him to the vet.
I called the vet to say I was coming; no one answered, probably because it was after noon on the Friday before Christmas. I drove there anyway — or at least I got halfway there, then turned around. He wasn’t ready to go, yet, and I wasn’t going to send him before his time.
I sat on the kitchen floor assembling the 5-compartment automatic feeder — he had stopped eating kibble and I didn’t want other neighborhood cats eating his food — and he rubbed against me and purred in thanks. His appetite was still fully intact.
So I drove to Idaho, leaving him happy beside the feeder, and when I got home Tuesday night he was lying stiffly in the hall, gone. He had spared me the anguish of putting him down and spared himself the anguish of dying alone and afraid in the vet’s back room. Judging from the amount of food eaten, he passed away on Boxing Day.
He was only the size of a large shoe box, with legs and a tail, and he spent most of the time sleeping, and yet I’m surprised how empty the house is now that he’s gone.
“The great David Thompson…” 🙂
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/blogs/tim-blair/safe-spaces-election-races-shocked-faces/news-story/e4dca28a52e3713f169793494c380616
“The great David Thompson…” 🙂
Heh. Maybe I should wear a cape.
He was only the size of a large shoe box, with legs and a tail, and he spent most of the time sleeping,
Living With Cats.
Out of the mouth of . . . .
I’m so sorry, dicentra. I keep wanting to let my kitties die at home (like my little Sweetie did from her bad ticker) but I rush them to the vet, thinking the vet will “fix” them somehow, and then the vet tells me they’re incurable and too far gone…thing is they don’t hide from me, they become even closer to me and it’s like they are trying to comfort me beforehand, because they know what is happening and I, stupid human mommy, am too dense to see it….
Heh. Maybe I should wear a cape.
Troll Level: Inspired …
In July, readers of the Guardian – a paper whose ongoing massive losses continue to mystify – were alerted to yet another alarming workplace hazard – namely, the dangers of free cake…
According to the National Obesity Forum, cake should be replaced with hugs – a dreadful prospect but one that, blessedly, will never materialise because it would lead to countless sexual harassment suits.
Happy New Year.
Happy New Year.
Back at ya.
Troll Level: Inspired…
Fiendish and magnificent.