It was an educational outing. // Niche research. // Is there nothing trombones can’t do? // Miracle breakthrough in navel lint removal. // Previously, the incredible world of navel fluff and a 25-year collection of it, stored in jars, obviously. // Landmarks under construction. // Man builds own Scarlett Johansson robot. // Wagner with robot hats. // Wasp nest of note. // “The to-and-fro movement of the armchair knits hats for the winter.” // A Tumblr devoted to Rule 34. // Rise of the vegetation. // This. // MondriPong. // Jigsaw puzzle of note. // Japan at speed. // How to make Jenga more exciting. // Nicely done. // Accents of the British Isles. // Blek. // Bomber jackets. // Deconstructed garden. // Face. // And finally, via Damian, this must be one of the later Enid Blyton stories.

Laurie is doing her riot girl routine again:

And inches above, pinned as important, there’s this: 

Some thrilling developments at Edinburgh University:

Ms Imogen Wilson, 22, was subject to a “safe space complaint” over her supposedly “inappropriate hand gestures” during a student council meeting.

Thug life. No, wait. It wasn’t that kind of gesture.  

Ms Wilson said she raised her arm in disagreement.

And such reckless provocation simply will not do.

According to the association’s rules, student council meetings should be held in a “safe space environment,” defined as “a space which is welcoming and safe and includes the prohibition of discriminatory language and actions.” This includes “refraining from hand gestures which denote disagreement,” or “in any other way indicating disagreement with a point or points being made.”

Ah, the student left and its adorable tendencies.

According to the [students association] safe space rules, only gestures that indicate agreement are “permissible”.

And so,

A complaint was made against Ms Wilson, who was then subjected to a vote on whether she should be removed from the room.

I can’t help thinking these students are just a tad overwound. But at least things can’t get sillier.

Although the vote went in her favour, with 18 people voting to remove her and 33 voting for her to be allowed to remain, she was later threatened with another complaint after shaking her head while someone was speaking.

Burn the witch!

You know, I don’t think I can top this one today.

Update, via the comments:

The perils of identity politics, summarised in two-step Twitter form:

First: 

And then, 13 minutes later: 

There’s quite a lot going wrong in this 30-second video. (h/t, Damian) // She limbo-skates way better than you do. // Beef blunts. // Eye boogers explained. // One for granny, I think. // Nesting box of note. // Peacock feathers magnified. // Ping pong run. // Hairless guinea pig. // At last, an under-desk hammock. // Expensive smartphone versus 400-ton hydraulic press. Horror show ensues. // Mishap. // Murals. // It’s a Messerschmitt. // Long takes and storytelling. // We’re still speaking Shakespeare. // He carves pencils way better than you do. // Deadpool titles. // Does not compute. // Doomsday seed vault, Norway. // Nanny state index. // Fifth Avenue, 1905. // It all happens after dark, baby. // And finally, feel the pain of men trapped and abandoned in shopping mall hell.

In the pages of Everyday Feminism, creative colossus Katherine Garcia is attempting to justify her suboptimal life choices and their suboptimal consequences:

I am – and always have been – a daydreamer. There is proof of this in my school records, which contain copious notes from teachers, commenting on the disproportionate amount of time I spent looking out the window, compared to the amount of time I spent paying attention to their lectures. And to this day, I dread anything that gets in the way of my daydreaming.

Hey, I didn’t say she was doing it well. But in short, Ms Garcia regards work outside of her creative endeavours as “very distracting,” chiefly because,  

it doesn’t allow me to zone out like I need to in order to reach the level of mental creativity so necessary to my well-being.

A delicate flower in a cruel world.

My creativity has been criticised because it’s viewed as unnecessary, distracting, disrupting, and a waste of time.

Well, in part I suppose that depends on whether or not that creativity and extensive daydreaming – all that zoning out – pays the bills.

I know from experience that it’s damn near impossible to think straight, let alone get anything done, while worrying about how you’re going to pay your bills on an empty stomach.

Ah. Apparently, “society” is deterring life’s daydreamers from “pursuing creative fields – like fine art, film-making, writing, music, and dance.” And there’s an inexcusable “failure to acknowledge the contributions made by creative people in all sectors of society,” which makes said daydreamers feel guilty and inadequate, which is terribly oppressive.

Coming from a low-income family, it seemed more beneficial to pursue a career in business – something that would bring more immediate rewards that I could then transfer over to my family.

Not a trivial point. In financial terms, the lifetime return on an arts degree is very often negative and there’s something to be said for practicality, especially if your background is a modest one. Social mobility presupposes a certain realism, a pragmatism, and making choices accordingly – say, with regard to the costs and benefits of tertiary education, which is for most an expensive one-time opportunity. Perhaps now is a good time to glance at Ms Garcia’s biography:  

Katherine Garcia… is a recent college graduate with a BA in Radio, TV and Film, and soon-to-be graduate school student pursuing a Masters in Women and Gender Studies.

As I was saying, pragmatism. Ms Garcia, however, is determined to find fault elsewhere: 

Heather Mac Donald pokes at the ongoing rot of academia: 

Earlier this week, several dozen Emory students barged into the school’s administration building to demand protection from “Trump 2016” slogans that had been written in chalk on campus walkways. Acting out a by-now standardised psychodrama of oppression and vulnerability, the students claimed that seeing Trump’s name on the sidewalk confirmed that they were “unsafe” at Emory. College sophomore Jonathan Peraza led the allegedly traumatised students in a chant: “You are not listening! Come speak to us, we are in pain!” As the Emory protesters entered the administration building, they drew on the Communist Manifesto to express their pitiable plight: “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

Oddly, the chalk marks made by certain other groups did not induce similar fits of theatrical weeping. 

Glenn Reynolds on the same: 

When students at Emory University — annual cost of attendance, $63,058 per year — act so foolishly, and worse, are indulged by those who are supposed to supply adult guidance, it gives the appearance that higher education is largely a waste of societal resources. That’s not a good place to be, right now. 

Meanwhile, at the University of Virginia: 

Students are petitioning for the immediate removal of a conservative student representative who refused to vote in favour of a university-funded group for illegal immigrants.

The student in question dared to use the “offensive” and “xenophobic” factual description of illegal immigrants as, er, illegal. And so he must be punished.

And at Harvard: 

In a class I attended earlier this semester, a large portion of the first meeting was devoted to compiling a list of rules for class discussion. A student contended that as a woman, she would be unable to sit across from a student who declared that he was strongly against abortion, and the other students in the seminar vigorously defended this declaration.

Sitting across a room from someone with whom she disagrees is something that she, as an empowered modern woman, an intellectual, simply cannot do.

And at San Francisco State University, the latest thing, apparently, is identitarian hair policing.* 

Feel free to share your own links and snippets in the comments. It’s what these posts are for. *Added via the comments, thanks to RY. 

As I’m busy elsewhere, I’m afraid you’ll have to throw together your own pile of links in the comments. After nine years of Fridays I’m sure you know what to do. Indulge yourselves. I’ll set the ball rolling with an attempt to melt pennies with sunlight, some self-tightening trainers, a submarine surfacing in the Arctic Circle, the magnetic suit buttons you’ve always wanted but could only dream of, and an impressive display by Mr Smooth. 

Play nicely. I’ll be checking in later.

Oh dear. 

Previously, the thread following this. 

Heather Mac Donald on the myths of Black Lives Matter: 

Police officers —of all races— are disproportionately endangered by black assailants. Over the past decade, according to FBI data, 40% of cop killers have been black. Officers are killed by blacks at a rate 2.5 times higher than the rate at which blacks are killed by police. Some may find evidence of police bias in the fact that black people make up 26% of the police-shooting victims, compared with their 13% representation in the national population. But as residents of poor black neighbourhoods know too well, violent crimes are disproportionately committed by black people. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, blacks were charged with 62% of all robberies, 57% of murders and 45% of assaults in the 75 largest U.S. counties in 2009, though they made up roughly 15% of the population there. Such a concentration of criminal violence in minority communities means that officers will be disproportionately confronting armed and often resisting suspects in those communities, raising officers’ own risk of using lethal force.

College Fix reports on the importance of getting in that leftist indoctrination while minds are soft and yielding: 

Stef Bernal-Martinez, a self-described “radical queer progressive educator” at Central Park School for Children in Durham, North Carolina, took her entire first grade class to a local Black Lives Matter rally this past Thursday. Yes, during the school day… “The project that my class took on in this quarter was a study of the Black Lives Matter movement,” she says. “And so, we’ve been investigating and asking questions about the issues and the causes that people are fighting for, and my kids… were very excited to, sort of, join the movement themselves.” 

Parents of the children in her class were informed,

The students will be wearing Black Lives Matter t-shirts during the march on Thursday. 

No, don’t raise that eyebrow. When it comes to impressionable six-year-olds, progressive role models are important. Ms Bernal-Martinez is of course enthused by “social justice work” and tells us that she endures a life of oppression in a “White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy.” When not busy indoctrinating the small children left in her care, she spends her time “envisioning a world without physical or intangible borders.”