A Kinder, More Caring World
A telling exchange, one of many:
“It essentially sounded like you were being held hostage. If you wanted to go to the bathroom, you had to go with two escorts – is that true?”
“Erm, that’s what the students felt was true. I was going to go to the bathroom regardless and they wanted to escort me.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did they want to escort you to the bathroom?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you ask them?”
“No, of course not.”
From Michael Moynihan’s short film on events at Evergreen State College, where ‘progressive’ utopia is under construction.
Update:
In the thread below, several commenters note that the dramas at Evergreen – this Theatre of the Bedlamites™ – is merely an extension and enactment of the values being inculcated by the staff. After years of wearing away the customary moral and behavioural restraints, and after years of rewarding pathological vanities and delusions of persecution, the leftist bureaucrats and educators were caught off-guard by the speed and vehemence with which their own protégés turned on them, using mob force and well-practised spite, and merrily wielding baseball bats. Which reveals just how blinded by ideology, and how ludicrous, and unfit, those educators are.
And I think it would be unwise to file away this latest episode as merely specific to Evergreen Clown School. As we’ve seen, very similar patterns are evident elsewhere, with thuggery being excused and rewarded by faculty and staff, all in the name of progress and “social justice.” Readers will recall the mob delinquency at Middlebury, during which leftist students tried to push an elderly scholar to the ground and a leftist professor discovered that her “social justice” credentials didn’t spare her from being assaulted, indeed hospitalised, and subsequently made excuses for the thugs whose “righteous anger” had left her in a neck brace. At the time, I wrote:
Whether there are arrests and/or expulsions following this latest thuggish farce will tell us quite a bit about academia’s ongoing decay.
Needless to say, three months later, no-one has been arrested, no-one has been expelled. And until the campus Mao-lings experience the novelty of consequences – suitably severe ones – what we’re seeing, and seeing repeatedly, will only spread – and most likely escalate.
The maintenance team is busy working on the focusing array of the…
But I’ve said too much.
Hair… wilting.
Not a problem for some of us. I’m vacillating between smugness and envy.
“In other news, Guild of Evil HQ is experiencing its third day of 30° weather.”
That’s nothing. In Santa Clarita, CA, it’s 44 degrees celsius today.
In Santa Clarita, CA, it’s 44 degrees celsius today.
“In other news, Guild of Evil HQ is experiencing its third day of 30° weather”
Nothing better on a hot day than a nice glass of iced tea!
(Ducks under table)
For David: http://www.bluebell.com/IceCreamFlavor?fid=17
champ,
That’s nothing. In Santa Clarita, CA, it’s 44 degrees celsius today.
Damn. That’s Palm-Springs-level hot.
We only made it to 42°C today – and I live in the desert, not a Los Angeles suburb.
Otto Warmbier’s roommate offers information. It appears possible that he was framed by the Norks, in which case Ms. Sha’s op-ed referenced above is even more reprehensible.
Otto Warmbier has died.
Tomorrow it’s supposed to be 121f / 49.4c in Phoenix, Arizona. I don’t know how they do it.
—
Mundane thought on the baseball bat crew at TESC: Where did they get the bats? Did they raid the college athletic department? Did they purchase them at a sporting goods store? If option #2, I’d pay $10 to see the look on the face of anyone working there when that group came through the sliding doors.
Nothing better on a hot day than a nice glass of iced tea!
Nonsense, I say nonsense, son, pull up a chair here on the veranda and I’ll have Bonnie and Connie whip you up a fresh frosty mint julep.
… a fresh frosty mint julep
Be careful, that can lead to all sorts of shenanigans. Sarah Vaughan told me.
Sarah Vaughan told me.
The Clovers told me.
Serendipity or something, but those Mint Julep links brought this John Cleese bit up that I hadn’t seen before, bringing the subject back around to the, uh, subject…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z9CnkLAB1mw
The adults in the situation seem particularly gormless.
Is it really gormlessness? I look at that college president and see a weasel, a nasty little coward, rather than a harmless fool who doesn’t know what’s going on. We’ve all seen somebody like that in our lives, generally in the form of the mediocrity promoted beyond their limited skills who deals with their newfound incompetence and insecurity by trying to bully somebody lower than them on the totem pole.
…as a Brit, you can imagine the shock of it all.
Britain isn’t built for hot weather. Last time I went to London I was roasting like a suckling pig, but it was only thirty-odd degrees. I suppose that’s because everything is built to retain heat, and buildings tend not to have fans or air-conditioners.
As for modern phrases that irritate, I’d like to nominate “because [thing]”: the use of the word “because” without it being followed by a preposition or a definite article or some other piece of grammar. Although this particular affectation isn’t restricted to politically correct types, sadly.
“because [thing]”
Supposedly that started at Jalopnik with [racecar], but then of course others also glommed onto it and Jalopnik got bought by that Leftivist outlet Gawker.
Rancho Cucamonga got to 97F/36C today…
where ‘progressive’ utopia is under construction.
It’ll never get off the ground.
It’ll never get off the ground.
Well, no. The players in the drama don’t even seem able to admit the kind of motives they’ve unleashed and given decisive influence. Maybe they’re too dense to understand, or maybe they’re just lying – either way, it’s clearly not a recipe for anything savoury. Unless a world full of George Bridges, all asking for permission to pee, would be a utopian transformation. But a lot of damage can be done in the attempt; a lot of harm and degradation can be inflicted. And for some – quite a few, in fact – that’s at least half the fun.
Not a problem for some of us. I’m vacillating between smugness and envy.
I take it that you have no plans for a holiday in the North of Mozambique…
I take it that you have no plans for a holiday in the North of Mozambique…
… is the correct answer. I’m also so pale as – practically translucent – that I’d be considered top-notch muti.
“As for modern phrases that irritate, I’d like to nominate “because [thing]”: the use of the word “because” without it being followed by a preposition or a definite article or some other piece of grammar.”
No offence but this just means you are getting old. My grand-dad spent the last ten years of his life railing against singers on TV, and slang, and in particular was distressed by issues to do with prepositions. I religiously avoid grouching about grammar because it makes me sound like him.
Because language evolution.
😉
Because language evolution.
No offense, and I am inclined to agree, except at some point we approach a Tower of Babel … whatever the opposite of singularity is. With the explosion of participant media, social and otherwise, slang and idioms and such are expanding at a much greater rate just within the English language. At some point there’s a price to pay. Being an engineer and not being much of a language guy, I’m about the last person to have say on this but I don’t hear much from standard bearers.
I used to be with it, but then they changed what ‘it’ was, and now what I’m with isn’t it. And what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary to me.
-Grandpa Simpson
No offense …
It’s part of the relativist infestation of everything, isn’t it? Standards are judgemental, the Wise Ones tell us, and no one language/dialect/idiom/idiolect is superior to any other, for to rank them (even in one’s mind) would be hierarchical, which I believe is even more worser than being judgemental, internal contradictions notwithstanding. All I know is that should I find myself on an operating table drifting into oblivion, and the last thing I hear is the surgeon babbling in Jafaican or Multicultural London English or whatever it’s called this month, I wouldn’t bet much money on having blissful dreams, no matter what anaesthetic is used.
And what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary to me.
I’ve never been able to work out the nature of the it we are exhorted to ‘give up’ whenever some talent-free singist is about to lip-sync to a backing track of the latest melisma-fest.
I’ve never been able to work out the nature of the it we are exhorted to ‘give up’
I’m surrounded by curmudgeons and fuddy-duddies.
I’m surrounded by curmudgeons and fuddy-duddies.
You can’t lay on the most delicious cat-nip – and in such profusion – and then affect surprise when the odd moggie wanders in!
I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of my breakdancing.
Excuse me while I try to put my hands on an Afrika Bambaataa 12″.
I may be some time.
I’m surrounded by curmudgeons and fuddy-duddies.
Well seeing as we’re already down this path. Why does the word “threat” have an ‘a’ in it? And if it MUST have an ‘a’, due to some once-upon-a-time diphthong pronunciation, the ‘a’ should come before the ‘e’ as in “Aetna”. This from a guy who has to spell check “diphthong” and “pronunciation”. Now get off my lawn!
No offence but this just means you are getting old.
How dare you sir. I’ll have you know I am extremely young and cool.
“Because XXX” is an intentional ironic misusage.
As such, not a threat to grammar.
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it used by the PC – I see it used by the PinC to mock the incoherence of the former.