Elsewhere (236)
Anthony Gockowski glimpses the unhappy mind of a professional educator:
A professor at Connecticut’s Trinity College seemingly endorsed the idea that first responders to last week’s congressional shooting should have let the victims “fucking die” because they are white. “It is past time for the racially oppressed to do what people who believe themselves to be ‘white’ will not do, put [an] end to the vectors of their destructive mythology of whiteness and their white supremacy system. #LetThemFuckingDie,” Trinity College Professor Johnny Eric Williams wrote in a June 18 Facebook post.
Pretentious victimhood is quite a drug.
Noah Rothman on the late Otto Warmbier and the unsavoury pieties of “social justice”:
“Privilege” is how social-justice advocates describe those who they think should be found guilty under a Rawlsian ideal of distributive justice. So what made Warmbier so deserving of his captivity and mistreatment at the hands of a famously brutal Stalinist regime? Huffington Post blogger La Sha was direct… his heritage. Specifically, his “white male privilege.” “That kind of reckless gall is an unfortunate side effect of being socialised first as a white boy, and then as a white man in this country,” she wrote. In fact, it’s not rare for North Korea to take American citizens hostage, but they are often of Korean heritage. There are three Americans of Korean origin in Pyongyang’s clutches right now, in fact. The author of this deluded, bigoted rant makes no effort to understand the conditions in North Korea. Why should she? Her appeals to identity politics are enough for her baseless opinion to be taken seriously and published in a national political blog.
According to Ms Sha, being imprisoned in North Korea and sentenced to 15 years in a hard labour camp, for stealing a poster, then suffering extensive and mysterious brain injuries and being left in a persistent vegetative state, is not unlike being a middle-class black journalist who writes for the Huffington Post. Mr Warmbier, she wrote, was merely experiencing her own “daily reality.”
Tim Blair recounts a youthful parting of the ways with his leftist peer group:
Little moments like that kept adding up, incrementally nudging me away from leftism but not yet to full conversion. In 1988, watching a John Pilger documentary with lefty friends, another such moment occurred. Pilger, as usual, was complaining about colonialism and racism and Aboriginal injustice, so naturally we — uniformly white, urban and privileged — were lapping it up. The documentary then shifted to the former nuclear testing site at Maralinga in South Australia, where seven British bombs were detonated in the 1950s and 1960s. Pointing to a sign warning of radiation danger, Pilger observed mournfully that it was written in several languages — “but not in the Aboriginal language.”
Startled by this claim, I looked around the room. Everyone was silent, including a few who had studied Aboriginal history in considerable depth, and so must have known that Pilger’s line was completely wrong. So I just said it: “There is no single Aboriginal language. And no Aboriginal language has a written form.” I didn’t last long with that bunch of friends, either. Small note to self: my comrades will deny even their own knowledge if it runs counter to a preferred leftist version of events.
And at the University of Strathclyde, it’s apparently become necessary to ask students not to shit in the shower:
All bodily fluids, solids and toilet paper must be disposed of down the toilet. While I appreciate that the [student] population is multi-cultural and different countries have different practices, here in the UK the accepted practice is to use only the WC.
As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.
Kids are being taught sociology by someone who thinks white people are “inhuman assholes”.
#Progress
There are three Americans of Korean origin in Pyongyang’s clutches right now, in fact.
So Korean-Americans have “white privilege” now?
OMG, the Uni apologised for asking students to only pooh in the toilets! Apparently multiculturalism and an increased risk of contracting dysentery go hand in hand.
So Korean-Americans have “white privilege” now?
East Asian minorities tend to rather scupper the “privilege” narrative. But the author, Ms Sha, is someone who wants us to believe that being imprisoned in North Korea and sentenced to 15 years in a hard labour camp, for stealing a poster, then suffering extensive and mysterious brain injuries and being left in a persistent vegetative state… is not unlike being a middle-class black journalist who writes for the Huffington Post.
As noted earlier, Ms Sha denounces the nefarious, all-explaining “privilege” of people paler than herself, and does so in terms that suggest a deeply obnoxious personality. The irony being that unpleasant racial attitudes are more likely to be excused and actively indulged – say, with articles in fashionable publications – if the person airing them is, for instance, a black woman with leftist views.
I think a factor in things like this is that it’s difficult to look distinctive and contrarian, and therefore “woke,” if you react as many others will. This matters, quite a lot, if you’re a status-seeking ‘progressive’. And so you have to perform some quite involved contortions and arrive at unconvincing conclusions, regardless of evidence or common decency. (What comes to mind, oddly enough, is a scene from Downton Abbey, in which Violet reminds Mary that contrived callousness can be just as vulgar and unbecoming as theatrical sentiment.)
“So Korean-Americans have “white privilege” now?”
I wouldn’t be surprised if their average salaries are at the level of the white oppressors, so they must do. Only explanation, innit?
“mythology of whiteness” – well that’s a horrible idea. Loosely translating to “I hate you because of what I think your race thinks, on average, and because my race’s mythology isn’t competitive”
What comes to mind, oddly enough, is a scene from Downton Abbey,
You’re full of surprises, David. 🙂
You’re full of surprises, David. 🙂
Hey, I’m complicated, okay?
As I’m sure I’ve said before, one of the pleasures of Downton Abbey is its emphasis on stoicism and emotional self-possession, which now seems so unfashionable. That, and its ability to wring high drama from smudges, missing buttons and Mrs Patmore’s kitchen crises. The downstairs micro-dramas are often much more interesting than the deaths, wars and bankruptcies happening upstairs.
[ Added: ]
It’s also the only mainstream TV series I can recall that depicts a recurring socialist character, the schoolteacher, Miss Bunting, as both selfish and bigoted. Which is to say, with some psychological realism.
All bodily fluids, solids and toilet paper must be disposed of down the toilet. While I appreciate that the [student] population is multi-cultural and different countries have different practices, here in the UK the accepted practice is to use only the WC.
I’ve seen what the indigenous folk get up to in the shower and lavatory blocks in one of the infield campsites at the Le Mans 24 Hours and would suggest to the Strathclyde University caretaking staff that they have that notice translated into French.
Kids are being taught sociology by someone who thinks white people are “inhuman assholes”.
Also someone who thinks that drawing $130K/year plus benefits for sitting in a sinecure in the Angry Studies Department is being oppressed.
“So Korean-Americans have “white privilege” now?”
Anyone not explicitly a leftist is automatically a white male which explains why no feminists are celebrating the defeat of Osshoff, (whose only accomplishment seems to be apparently being the model for the new Ken dolls), by a woman in the Georgia District 6 special election.
So Korean-Americans have “white privilege” now?”
The Rodney King riots, and numerous smaller incidents, have shown that many black Americans hate Koreans, especially hard-working immigrants who are working long hours in tiny stores.
#LetThemFuckingDie
Well, he does have to play the part to keep his Angry Studies gravy train rolling. I’m sure this will boost his standing in his branch of academia.
Nonetheless, it’s quite a glimpse into his mindset. It’s downright Hutu-esque, if I’m allowed to draw a race-appropriate analogy.
And people wonder why so many Americans are so passionate about gun ownership rights.
It’s also the only mainstream TV series I can recall that depicts a recurring socialist character, the schoolteacher, Miss Bunting, as both selfish and bigoted. Which is to say, with some psychological realism.
That.
That.
She’s churlish, arrogant and dismissive – and much more prejudiced than the people she rails against and whose hospitality she abuses. It was refreshing to see socialism associated with unpleasant characteristics.
I dunno, I recall Meathead from All in the Family oftentimes being portrayed as just as much of an asshole as Archie was. In fact, I actually liked Archie more, since I recall him supporting a few things that weren’t good for him because of some sense of ethics, whereas Meathead was never really willing to make his own sacrifices, to the point of being a freeloader on Archies good will.
It has been a while since I’ve watched it though, so perhaps my memories are tainted by how I think things would have gone between a mild bigot and a socialist hippy.
Mr Warmbier, she wrote, was merely experiencing her own “daily reality.”
These people are insane.
These people are insane.
Well, it’s interesting just how often ‘progressive’ posturing can be difficult to distinguish from a mental health issue.
Most people did, which came as quite a shock to Norman Lear as Archie was to be the obvious object of derision as opposed to the guiding lights of his daughter and son-in-law. It turns out that most working and middle class people of the 1970s looked more favorably on a man who worked two jobs to support his family, even if he was rough around the edges, than on two freeloaders who didn’t know how good they had it.
Who’da thunk it.
It seems that everyone accepts that Otto Warmbier, in fact, stole the poster. I find the acceptance of this, without reservation, quite astonishing. Personally, I have always doubted that the theft, or attempted theft ever took place, for some reason I just don’t trust any information provided by the Norks. But, I’m White, so that’s probably just a product of my privilege.
Evabody queue up to buy Godfrey Elfwick’s album.
Tom,
middle class people of the 1970s looked more favorably on a man who worked two jobs to support his family, even if he was rough around the edges…
That was Carroll O’Connor’s influence. Even though O’Connor was a committed Leftist, he correctly surmised that a grouchy curmudgeon Archie would be much more realistic than the cartoonish bigot Lear imagined, and make for a much more successful show.
Deborah,
It seems that everyone accepts that Otto Warmbier, in fact, stole the poster. I find the acceptance of this, without reservation, quite astonishing.
The young Englishman Warmbier was with nearly every hour of the tour claims the “theft” never happened.
Evabody queue up to buy Godfrey Elfwick’s album.
“By gently slapping his penis against his thigh, he creates a delicate rhythm…”
I really love that guy, or gal, or intersex… whatever.
I believe you’re right Spiny, another actor might not have been nearly so likeably human in the role. It’s funny that the same thing happened with the Ron Swanson character in Parks and Recreation; created to be a libertarian clown, he became loved by the shows fans. They eventually turned him more squishy though, at least from what I understand as I’ve not watched the whole series.
From the Tim Blair story:
“If you’re a leftist, however, you always have to find a way around the facts, which is why combative lefties always sound like lawyers knowingly representing a guilty client.”
How very true.
And let’s face it, Archie had the best laugh lines.
Gloria: Do you know that 60 percent of all deaths in America are caused by guns? (Ed. note: an obvious untruth)
Archie Bunker: Would it make you feel any better if dey was pushed outta windows?
What’s not to love?
…I actually liked Archie more…
I may have mentioned this here before but a couple years back I ran across an episode of OITF where Mike and Gloria have decided not to have children because all the bad things that were inevitable. Mike goes on a rant about how by 1980 everything will be polluted, in x years this awful thing will happen, yadda-yadda-yadda. Archie then makes a few statements the have proven to be almost prescient. IIRC. As a result of watching this episode I had a bumper sticker made for my pickup truck with Archie’s picture and the phrase, “Deep down, you know he’s right”. To better explain said bumper sticker to a friend, I tried to look up this episode again on YouTube where I had then seen it, and couldn’t find it.
Or AITF. Was using the Edith pronunciation (still can’t spell that word) of “All”
Someone on Godfrey’s very amusing Twitter page mentioned this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbs7q5E5mHE
I can’t believe David hasn’t critiqued it, but in case he hasn’t, there it is.
I can’t believe David hasn’t critiqued it, but in case he hasn’t, there it is.
Egad! That’s “Yoko Ono” level of awfulness.
(It looks – sounds – familiar. I’m pretty sure it’s been linked here before.)
The Scots take showers? You learn something new every day.
The Feminist screech-fest reminds me of a passage of Schopenhauer’s of which I’ve just become aware:
I somehow doubt that the women on the stage represent “the most distinguished intellects among the whole sex”, but they certainly don’t undermine his case.
Fear not! Just in that the Evergreen College nutbars will be given a stern warning.
jabrwok
I have been re-reading Jane Austen, and he is wrong. Female writers lack what I would crudely term as ‘cock’: the ability to create compelling forward movement in a work of fiction, but what they lack there they can make up for in subtlety, and I can think of no novelist more subtle than Miss A. Defining ‘greatness’ in a writer is difficult, but I’m pretty sure she qualifies. She is at least as good as many male novelists about whom there is no disagreement.
Some of the best male writers have in fact been homosexual, like Mishima or Forster, who seem to have an insight that is absent in say, Hemingway (to take an extreme example) or even Greene.
… Evergreen College nutbars will be given a stern warning.
That’ll learn ’em.
given to the world any work of permanent value in any sphere
Hedy Lamarr invented frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology. Pretty much anything Wireless-G uses it.
I just learned that cock fighting involves chickens and gambling.
And Mexican food.
And bull fights, with stabby things.
I was a young boy, wearing a madator outfit with dancing girls. Then accordion lessons.
Did not seem very sanitary, but one works with what is given.
. . suffering extensive and mysterious brain injuries and being left in a persistent vegetative state, is not unlike being a middle-class black journalist who writes for the Huffington Post. Mr Warmbier, she wrote, was merely experiencing her own “daily reality.”
Hmmm. Perhaps if suffering extensive and mysterious brain injuries and being left in a persistent vegetative state, is . . . her own “daily reality.”, then that could explain what she’s writing.
Regarding Austen and Lamarr, even Schopenhauer admits that there are exceptions. His thesis appears to be that those are simply exceptions which prove (ie: test) the rule.
Regardless, I just found the synchronicity of having read the Schopenhauer quote shortly before seeing the Feminist Theatre too amusing not to share:-).
Well. This tidbit seems to hit upon nigh every topic here. In the far off Great White North, colleges are being “indigenized” because, actually I am not too sure of because other than the white man’s way is bad medicine – or something
Everything.
Yes, a read degree, one in Angry Indigenous Studies, not so much, unless they need baristas on the Indian Reserves (Canadian for Reservation).
Note to self – avoid Canadian bridges (vehicular or oral).
Ms. Sha’s comparison’s comparison of her daily life with that of the late Mr. Warmbier is quite correct in one aspect: her persistent vegetative state.
In other news:
Because self-induced hysteria is so exhausting.
Regarding Austen and Lamarr, even Schopenhauer admits that there are exceptions. His thesis appears to be that those are simply exceptions which prove (ie: test) the rule.
Well, if he does so it certainly doesn’t come across in the quote, with its ‘most distinguished’ and its ‘never’ and its ‘single’ and its ‘any’s… not the sort of language that suggests exceptions.
And its generally considered that the ‘prove = test’ explanation for the expression ‘the exception that proves the rule’ is incorrect. A better explanation – and one more in keeping with the original Roman legal precept – is that the fact that something is recognised to be an exception proves that there is a general rule from which it derogates.
And it’s generally considered… (That’s what comes from using ‘Preview’ just to check that you’ve closed off the italics!)
That’s what comes from using ‘Preview’ just to check that you’ve closed off the italics!
Or “doing the Lord’s work,” as we shall henceforth refer to it.
Amen.
[ Lovingly polishes enormous gold-framed notice above bar. ]
“Thou shalt.”
Well, if he does so it certainly doesn’t come across in the quote, with its ‘most distinguished’ and its ‘never’ and its ‘single’ and its ‘any’s… not the sort of language that suggests exceptions.
Yes, it’s further down in the linked essay. I prefer to not quote massive blocks of text if possible.
And its generally considered that the ‘prove = test’ explanation for the expression ‘the exception that proves the rule’ is incorrect. A better explanation – and one more in keeping with the original Roman legal precept – is that the fact that something is recognised to be an exception proves that there is a general rule from which it derogates.
I hadn’t heard of the Roman legal precept explanation, and the prima facie explanation of the saying, that an exception to the rule demonstrates the validity of the rule, never made any intuitive sense to me. The “proves = tests” interpretation makes sense in that a proving ground is a location whereat something is tested to see if it works, hence “proves = tests”. It’s not a matter to which I’ve dedicated a great deal of research time though, as it rarely arises.
That Roman legal precept may also be true, but you can also see some evidence for ‘test’ quite easily if you perform a small sound shift, one of the most historically common, still seen in a great many cognates in Germanic languages, and say for example: “The exception that probes the rule”.
In the Scandinavian languages, the word for “test” is… well, it’s mostly still “test”, but a common synonym is prøve (Norwegian, Danish) or prova (Swedish).
A couple of cognate correspondences for those wondering what I might be on about:
The English number “seven” is in German called sieben. A grave is called Grab, silver is silber, to die is sterben (from “starving”), and elvish things are elbisch.
I’m not a professional linguist, but it sure looks to me like “prove” is the anglified form of “probe” and the word got re-imported (as I hear happened to produce “guarantee” and “warranty”) a while later after the meaning of the first import drifted a bit.
To some people, this is nice because it adds nuance and precision to the language.
To other people, it’s a demonstration that English is even worse than popularly believed: not only does it famously mug other languages for their vocabulary, but often it then mutilates the stolen property and has to mug the poor victim a second time for a replacement!
[…] that an exception to the rule demonstrates the validity of the rule, never made any intuitive sense to me.
Well, yes, obviously, which is why the expression isn’t ‘exceptions prove rules’. Rather, it is used in very specific circumstances.
Take, for example, the conjugation of verbs in English. There are rules about this. There are also exceptions. But that’s why we talk about irregular verbs. We call them ‘irregular’ because we recognise that they are exceptions and they are of sufficiently limited number to prove the validity of the rules in general.
Or let’s say that we’re sitting around with a gang from work over lunch and somebody says “Men are taller than women”, then somebody else chips in with “What about Susie in accounts?” (said Susie being 6’2″) and everybody else then joins in with variants of “Yep, that Susie is pretty tall all right”. The simple fact that everybody has noticed that Susie is particularly tall (rather than being typical) doesn’t disprove the assertion that men are taller than women; on the contrary, it adds weight to the assertion (or height if you prefer). Many ‘rules’ refer to averages or norms (c.f. the expression ‘as a rule’ which means ‘usually but not invariably’).
And it’s also true that ‘prove’ (and cognates thereof in other languages) can mean ‘test’. But that just means that the incorrect explanation has a certain plausibility on the surface (and wasn’t pulled out of someone’s derrière without any thought). Exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis (the last bit has disappeared from the modern expression) is pretty unambiguous.
Really, I just like talking about cognates as an excuse to say elbisch. It sounds so incredibly fake-foreign, as though you don’t actually know any German and you’re just mispronouncing English a little. Or maybe you’re writing a shitty fantasy novel and your agent told you that nobody’s buying Tolkien ripoffs these days, so you quickly change your Elves and Dwarves into the definitely different Elbs and Dwarbs.
Speaking of the number seven, midgets, and minor linguistic drift:
In 1937, two cultural landmarks came out: Tolkien published the book The Hobbit, about a hobbit and a wizard and a gang of midgets looking for treasure, and Disney published the arguably similar film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, about a princess and a witch and a gang of midgets looking for treasure.
Tolkien would then proceed to dictate the future spelling of “Dwarves”.
I’d never realised that The Hobbit and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs came out in the same year. I’ve learned something interesting today.
Last year, the academic governing body agreed that all of the 17 colleges and schools, from dentistry to engineering, should include indigenous knowledge.
Because “dentistry” and “indigenous knowledge” go together so well.
Further to the charming, not-at-all-racist Professor Johnny Eric Williams, Daphne Patai on liars, morons and imaginary wrongs:
Some kinds of dumb you just can’t fix.
Note also Professor Patai’s comment, below the article, about the pressure to grade very leniently:
And by ‘leniently’ I mean unfairly.
Because “dentistry” and “indigenous knowledge” go together so well.
Groovy, baby! (we’re all indigenous to somewhere, after all…)
Because “dentistry” and “indigenous knowledge” go together so well.
Oil of cloves works when the dentist’s surgery is shut.
Because “dentistry” and “indigenous knowledge” go together so well.
Bad medicine?
Regarding Austen and Lamarr, even Schopenhauer admits that there are exceptions. His thesis appears to be that those are simply exceptions which prove (ie: test) the rule.
He’s not stating a general rule, he’s making a universal statement.
Any philosopher who fails to realize that a single exception is sufficient to disprove a universal statement isn’t very good at his job.
Note to self – avoid Canadian bridges (vehicular or oral).
In all fairness, nobody much regards Saskatchewan universities as shining beacons of academic achievement in the first place. My alma mater (one of the top three math, engineering and dentistry schools) had a significant number of out-of-province students from SK.
In all fairness, nobody much regards Saskatchewan universities as shining beacons of academic achievement in the first place.
I’ll take your word for it, but I don’t think their engineering graduates building steel girder bridges by tying the girders together with well chewed sinew instead or bolts, rivets, or welds, is going to enhance their reputation.
Apparently multiculturalism and an increased risk of contracting dysentery go hand in hand.
In the horn of Africa the toilet habits are only slightly stricter than you’d find in a herd of cows: human dung is left in the open, then people touch their faces and eyes with dirtied hands, thereby contracting an eye disease that turns the eyelids inside-out and causing blindness, not to mention considerable pain.
Right now, in the 21st century, this is happening. People have to be explicitly taught to defecate in privies and other designated areas instead of where they happen to be standing.
Human society is truly awful. Offal. Whatever.
Oil of cloves works when the dentist’s surgery is shut.
MDMA is much better. Does that count as indigenous knowledge?
Right now, in the 21st century, this is happening.
It’s easy to forget that, elsewhere, the Stone Age still exists.
Hedy Lamarr invented frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology. Pretty much anything Wireless-G uses it.
Wireless LAN uses DSSS (direct-sequence spread spectrum) because FHSS requires more radio agility. FHSS is used in baby monitors, I do happen to know. And other stuff.
Ada Lovelace (daughter of Lord Byron) is credited as the first computer programmer, devising algorithms for Charles Babbage’s analytical engine. The ADA programming language used to be the standard for U.S. DoD.
It’s always hilarious to point that out when feminists declare coding to be so unbearably masculine.
MDMA is much better.
I don’t think the chemist will sell me that.
I don’t think the chemist will sell me that.
No, there is that. But I can vouch for its effectiveness if you’re in a jam. I once had a wisdom tooth pushing up against an existing molar, resulting in intense, unrelenting pain, with no dentist to hand for 24 hours. In desperation, I took some Ecstasy, and in a few minutes the pain had been transformed into an equally persistent sensation, of comparable intensity, but which wasn’t at all disagreeable.
It was quite an evening, as I recall.
MDMA is much better.
If the problem is tooth decay, it is not. Oil of clove, mixed with zinc oxide, can be a temporary dental filling. MDMA treats the distress, not the cause of the distress.
MDMA treats the distress, not the cause of the distress.
I wasn’t recommending it as a long-term solution or an alternative to, you know, dentistry. But as a temporary relief from severe pain, the effect was quite interesting. The sensation, the information, was still there, same place, same vividness, just… not pain. As if it had, as it were, changed colour.
As if it had, as it were, changed colour.
My gut once exploded, and when the folks in the emergency room finally decided to shoot me up with some opiate, the pain was still there, but there was a veil between it and my pain receptors.
…the pain was still there, but there was a veil between it and my pain receptors.
Essentially. The method of action of opiates is both by inhibiting certain neurotransmitters, as well as making you not care that you hurt – or much of anything else, for that matter.
My gut once exploded, and when the folks in the emergency room finally decided to shoot me up with some opiate, the pain was still there, but there was a veil between it and my pain receptors.
A sensation I find worse than the pain itself.
I’d rather have a much milder painkiller than the disconnect that opiates bring.
In other news:
O frabjous day!
In other, other news.
It showed up in my Twitter feed (from a rational feminist who couldn’t believe it was real). It’s just so insane I couldn’t decide if it is parody or not. I assume David and the Guild of Evil minions can decipher it…
From the comments:
(If it has been posted already, please disregard, with my apologies.)
I’d rather have a much milder painkiller than the disconnect that opiates bring.
The opiate just got me to the emergency surgery that soon followed.
Thankfully, there is video footage of David’s improvised pain control:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QhHSl-bdpU
…the pain was still there, but there was a veil between it and my pain receptors.
Essentially. The method of action of opiates is both by inhibiting certain neurotransmitters, as well as making you not care that you hurt – or much of anything else, for that matter.
The first time I experienced the unique pleasure of passing a kidney stone, one of my colleagues at work delivered me to the nearest hospital, thinking I had appendicitis, where the lovely people in the emergency room shot me up full of morphine.
The pain and cramping was still there, but I was beyond caring – and I was too busy flirting with the nurses (one of whom was a former high school classmate, which made a class reunion about 2 years later slightly awkward…)
In other, other news.
The authoress of that screed describes herself, or theirself, or whatever:
Now I am not a Biblical scholar, but I am thinking abortion in general, and race specific abortion, is not included in “Topics Jesus Espoused”, but then I am not an intersectional feminist of color.
It appears she is also Asian (as in Oriental, not Mideast Asian) which in the US put zer among the most privileged, and in the world, I believe the majority, so what the bee in xer bonnet is, is not exactly clear. Maybe she hasn’t gotten over the Opium Wars.
The authoress of that screed describes herself…
Yeah, I’m calling BS on that entire article – it’s just some quality trolling. Not a single other article. Hell, the whole site might be a joke.
I’d rather have a much milder painkiller than the disconnect that opiates bring.
Opiates and opioids have their place. Hydrocodone (Vicodin/Vicoprophen/Norco) is the only pain med that has any effect at all when I have a recurrence of the damned stones.
Hell, the whole site might be a joke.
I have my suspicions as well. Poe’s Law in action…
Godfrey Elfwick, an screamingly obvious parody, still catches the unaware.
Also:
Not a single other article.
No surprise there. The whole “Medusa Magazine” site only went live earlier this month – another reason to be suspicious.
“recurrence of the damned stones”
I’ve heard that lots of people take drugs for the damned stones, usually at their concerts.
“In the horn of Africa the toilet habits are only slightly stricter than you’d find in a herd of cows”
My brother worked for a variety of aid agencies in a variety of African countries. If forget which country he was in, but they built a latrine block in a refugee camp, not much more than holes in the ground over a pit, with a roof over it. The refugees just shat all over the floor until someone had the idea of painting footprints on either side of the holes. Then they figured it out.
They keep pushing the date back but it seems as though humans have been civilized, in one form or another, for at least 10,000 years, 30,000 if you believe rudimentary flutes count as civilized and I do. How is it that people living on the continent where humanity quite literally became human have not figured out basic sanitation? That’s not rhetorical, really, why is this still a problem?
Is it the tribal nature of the culture? I’ve heard Kim du Toit, an American who was born and raised in South Africa, describe it as “Africa always wins.”, i.e. no matter what you do in a positive direction the culture will sabotage or overwhelm your actions.
Perhaps the final kick in Warmbier’s corpse courtesy of HuffPo and this ‘La Sha’ (if ever a name conjured up such a wealth of negative preconceptions so deservedly) character comes from the apparent fact that her original rant defiantly remains on the site.
Worse though is that they’ve allegedly ‘tinkered’ with it since his death in an optimistic attempt to portray ‘La Sha’ as slightly less sadistic than before…..yet crucially haven’t acknowledged said revisions. This of course gives the false impression to the unwary that the current article is in fact the original.
….And I don’t doubt for one minute that ‘La Sha’ and HuffPo’s editor immodestly regard themselves as anything less than peerlessly liberal, compassionate, tolerant people too. Lovely.
Tom, my amateur impression is that it’s very much a multi-factor feedback loop (and lack-of-feedback) of culture, biology, environment, and extra factors which could kinda be wedged into one of those but don’t really come to mind when one says those three words.
If you burn down your house in for example Finland and have to sleep in a cave, you probably die of the cold. If you burn down your house in Kenya and have to sleep in a cave, eh, it’s still warm. The Finnish environment thus functions as very harsh discipline: Keep things working or die.
And the flipside to that is seen in things like the Lowest Bidder Principle: “everything will be as shitty as it can get away with.” Making things less shitty consumes time and energy that could be spent having fun. Occasionally people internalize high standards and won’t let themselves get away with too shitty things, but more often they don’t.
Then a hundred other things from family structure to corporate structure to government structure get in on the act of things being the way they are partly for a hundred tiny reasons, and society is very complicated, and we wring our hands and throw money and gentle prods at the problem because major fixes by force have so often dealt terrible collateral damage.
An acquaintance of mine once proposed the formalization of that last observation into a rule: all effective intervention is unethical. Because an effective form of intervention, almost by definition, is something that can reliably be used to modify a person’s or a group’s behavior. And at the very least you get into definitely murky ethical territory when thinking about how to reliably modify a person’s behavior as though he were an object rather than a free-willed individual.
“all effective intervention is unethical”
The Prime Directive?
Ha. My impression is that the Prime Directive is more of a statement that all intervention is unethical, regardless of effectiveness, and in practice we’re going to do it anyway!
“all effective intervention is unethical”
The Prime Directive?
——
Ha. My impression is that the Prime Directive is more of a statement that all intervention is unethical, regardless of effectiveness, and in practice we’re going to do it anyway!
Nah.
If there was actually a formal statement that the Prime Directive had ever actually consisted of, that would be convenient. I was mainly remembering references to prewarp technology before doing that bit of Googlemancy.
A reality keeps being much more in the area of a combination of Keep things working or die. . . . everything will be as shitty as it can get away with . . . and society is very complicated . . . , and definitely different and far from all effective intervention is unethical—That latter being little more than Oh, why should we bother doing anything at all?
Taking the Finnish weather example, the answering reason to actually intervene starts with situations where intervention is required to assist some in the situation where some dying will cascade over in to all dying, therefore the issues of all overrule the issues of merely some . . . when that applies . . .
—and noting “everything will be as shitty as it can get away with.” I’m mildly amused to note that this morning’s collections of headlines include Republicans hoping to claim that Obamacare can be considered a failure because a couple of insurers have dropped out.
My first reaction when I first read of Anthem and whomever was exactly that if a company deliberately underbids to get some contract, and then realizes that underbidding was pointless and self damaging, then of course they’re going to drop out—and the fault remains with the inept bidders, not with the contract being bid for.
As Scott Adams is pointing out, among the reasons that Obamacare is and remains a success is a focus on . . . designing Obamacare to cover more people than before . . .
Going back to that friend of a friend story of the refugees and the latrine, that illustrates that the starting design for the improvised latrine was going to be . . . not much more than holes in the ground over a pit, with a roof over it.
As is noted, the more correct and complete design involved . . . the idea of painting footprints on either side of the holes . . .
So yes, when some variety of intervention is needed, do it, but attention to detail is required.—and that list of details will include the willingness to acknowledge that sometimes something will go bad, and the willingness to plan for that as well . . . .
Mere hand waving based on mere ideology or mere faith is never enough.
That was exactly my experience when I wound up in the ER with sciatica making it feel like someone had dipped my leg in acid. One shot and it was as if the pain was on the other side of a clear wall. I think it was Demerol they gave me, but I was pretty out of it.