I’m Sensing Unease

A prominent California social justice activist has been ruled insane and sentenced to 39 years in a psychiatric facility
Won’t be the last.

Won’t be the last.
As we’ve seen, repeatedly, “social justice” activism seems to attract a high concentration of people with quite serious mental health issues, including a range of antisocial personality disorders. Indeed, such activism – now thriving on any number of campuses – seems bent on excusing and indulging spiteful, thuggish and sociopathic behaviour, with campus staff even actively applauding it.
As Daniel noted, following this rather telling incident,

We have entire institutions dedicated to producing hordes of young people with a kind of artificial cluster B personality disorder.

If you continually tell teenagers, for years, that mainstream society is oppressing them at every turn, and tell them that unflattering facts are “violence,” and that any actual violence enacted by themselves is merely payback, and therefore righteous, and if you tell them that their life outcomes are entirely unrelated to personal choices and personal responsibility, and that any failure or shortcoming is always someone else’s fault, someone they should punish – if neurotic and unstable people are immersed in that soup – well. What can follow is not entirely surprising.

Lefty comedian picks wrong crowd to do ‘woke’ material.
Oh dear. I suppose it would help if Mr Kumar were actually, y’know, funny.

and cannot learn to avoid fines by returning books on time
Heh. Quite. And you can see that conceit across much of the “equity” and “social justice” industry.
[ Added: ]
The idea that some of the people being indulged with double standards might benefit from a change in their behaviour and attitude – and that being the kind of person who repeatedly fails to return library books on time, or at all, may not be entirely unrelated to why said person is poor – is seemingly unthinkable.

One assumes he’ll be let out early on “licence”.

short of societal collapse and mass death
Greta…calling Greta…..

Dr. Randomercam’s take on Kumar’s on stage destruction is worth a look, but the real fun of his video is the #TrollTheGuardian gems, such as:

and

Sam, Dr Randomercam’s video was his usual great take — and the #TrollingtheGuardian stuff Monday and yesterday was just hysterical — but the best part of the video was the ending “compare and contrast” of how to deal and how not to deal with a less-than-enthusiastic audience.
But then, as Sargon said in a comment to his own video about the Nish mish, er, miss, Bill Burr can get away with that kind of thing because he’s a “f***ing legend” and Kumar is not.

David’s link to the sjw who killed a woman notes that his preferred pronouns are they /them. And the journalist actually respects this, creating this gem along the way:
“Gomez then fled to Southern California, where they is from, but was arrested the next day.”

The idea that some of the people being indulged with double standards might benefit from a change in their behaviour and attitude – and that being the kind of person who repeatedly fails to return library books on time, or at all, may not be entirely unrelated to why said person is poor – is seemingly unthinkable.
I wouldn’t say we were poor, because as my granddad always said, we paid our own way, and we didn’t take charity, and taking charity was the benchmark for being poor, back in the day. But I would definitely say that when I was a child, my family was not well off, by any standard.
Punitive charges on things like overdue library books taught the valuable lesson of personal responsibility. Being told “sorry, you can’t have this week’s allowance, or next week’s, because that money went to pay to the library for the book you forgot to return for a week” is a lesson to remember to be more conscientious in the future. Parents could lecture you and scold you all they wanted to, but being unable to buy that Hot Wheels car you wanted hurt.
Today, the concept of personal responsibility is not only shunned, but actively fought against. I can think of no way to better keep people poor and dependent than to teach them that their actions are free of consequence and that they have no incentive whatsoever to improve themselves.

I can think of no way to better keep people poor and dependent than to teach them that their actions are free of consequence
That. Sparing people this rudimentary lesson, a lesson best learned early, seems pretty much the opposite of compassionate.

I recall, as a child, a two-mile trudge through snow to return some library book
Abe? Is that you?

Among the books that he read were the Bible, the Pilgrims Progress, and the poems of Robert Burns. One day he walked a long distance to borrow a book of a farmer. This book was Weems’s Life of Washington. He read as much as he could while walking home.
By that time it was dark, and so he sat down by the chimney and read by firelight until bedtime. Then he took the book to bed with him in the loft, and read by the light of a tallow candle.
In an hour the candle burned out. He laid the book in a crevice between two of the logs of the cabin, so that he might begin reading again as soon as it was daylight.
But in the night a storm came up. The rain was blown in, and the book was wet through and through.
In the morning, when Abraham awoke, he saw what had happened. He dried the leaves as well as he could, and then finished reading the book.
As soon as he had eaten his breakfast, he hurried to carry the book to its owner. He explained how the accident had happened.
“Mr. Crawford,” he said, “I am willing to pay you for the book. I have no money; but, if you will let me, I will work for you until I have made its price.”
Mr. Crawford thought that the book was worth seventy-five cents, and that Abraham’s work would be worth about twenty-five cents a day. And so the lad helped the farmer gather corn for three days, and thus became the owner of the delightful book.
He read the story of Washington many times over. He carried the book with him to the field, and read it while he was following the plow.
From that time, Washington was the one great hero whom he admired. Why could not he model his own life after that of Washington? Why could not he also be a doer of great things for his country?

Christmas is coming! Women hardest hit:

“If you’re a woman in a heterosexual relationship, chances are that you’re the one doing a disproportionate amount of the work this Christmas: shopping for presents, wrapping them, making up spare beds and decorating the tree, organising the cooking, clearing up the wrapping paper and discarded ribbons, cleaning the plates and storing the leftovers, and a thousand other physical chores in between.”

Whereas if you’re a man in a heterosexual relationship, chances are that you’ve learned that no gift you purchase is suitable, your corners are equally rubbish whether it’s gift wrap or bed sheets, your tree decorating is lopsided and ham-handed, and you always choose the wrong size and shape of Tupperware for the leftovers.

“A recent UK poll even suggested that British men will spend 11 hours over the Christmas period hiding away from their families.”

One struggles to understand how this could be.

I’ll admit that I teared up when I read about Ella, who has to pretend that she’s happy being single and childless at 40 while she’s visiting her sister’s happy home: “So every Christmas I allow myself a day or so to wallow in self-pity, then I try to get over it and go and have a great time.”
One cannot help but question whether Christmas is the only time that Ella indulges in this pattern of behavio(u)r. Also, one can’t help but notice the unstated assumption that the invisible man of the house expends zero emotional labo(u)r putting up with his wife’s neurotic sister for the holiday weekend.

Oh, and “relationship psychologist Susan Quilliam” can fuck right off with this nonsense: “Very early on, as soon as they can understand words and pick up non-verbal communication, men are being taught that they need not take care of their own emotions, but just fight through, and therefore that it’s not appropriate to be looking after other people either.” This woman shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a psychology clinic. I pity the poor bastard whose wife drags him into that dragon’s den.
Eleven hours away is the bare minimum, one should think.

Funny, but my wife gets me to do the tree etc by dragging out all the decorations around 8 pm and starting to bang them around. Then when I offer to bring in the tree and set it up, she’s like “I didn’t mean for you to do all the work” and then sits down and directs the placement of lights and ornaments. Sometimes I am rewarded with a cup of cocoa.
This “women do all the work and get no credit” propaganda is put out by the International Association of Wives to keep men in their place.

… creating this gem along the way…
If that is a gem, this is the Hope diamond. A small sample of this “my pronoun is they” horse crap, RTWT, have your favorite headache remedy handy if you do.

Marilyn claims to have been tormented by family members for over a year before the murder, until they decided to take matters into their own hands, claiming that “either I kill myself or I kill them.”
The convicted killer also says that during the day, they were subject to verbal abuse from the men at their rural town, but, at night, they would act sexually towards him.

I think that last line poor “Marilyn” was mispronouned, and it should read “…they would act sexually towards them”, makes much more sense that way.

Although Marilyn remains imprisoned, Marilyn reports a greater degree of freedom from their cell as staff use their preferred pronouns on their medical records and in person.

So the staff use their pronouns or hers his theirs the inmate’s ?

There’s nothing quite like Google Street View for shattering any rose-tinted memories of childhood. Christ, what a dump.
That’s why I stopped doing it. One of the interesting — by which I mean depressing — things about getting old is that with each passing year an ever-increasing number of places exist only in your memory.

Another piece of annoying leftism:
“Everyone understands English, but nobody understands England.”
–EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker
I have seen American liberals repeat this quote, thinking they are making a devastatingly witty put-down of Brexit and conservatives. They seem to think that the English people could not possibly have any comprehensible, rational reasons for wishing to leave the EU. (Just as they seem unable to comprehend how any American could want government to be smaller, less powerful, less intrusive.)
What this attitude betrays about the leftist mind is not very nice, but they cannot see that: “The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger Collective is you don’t know you’re in the Dunning-Kruger Collective.”

Christ, what a dump.
Ah, the joys of warm, heartfelt, family gatherings.

David, was that 2-mile trip through the snow uphill both ways?
Women who don’t like decorating for holidays shouldn’t do it. I missed it myself. Now I can bring things up from the basement again. (Sending Sonkitten down worked sometimes, but all too often we’d have a dialogue like this: “Please bring up the ghost.—Oh, sorry, I should have specified, the other ghost.”
“Mom, I can’t find the other ghost.”
“He’s on the top shelf next to all those napkin holders Grandpa never got to finish carving.”
“What napkin holders?”
“The ones on the TOP SHELF. Next to the ghost.”
“I don’t see a ghost.”
And so on. True freedom has little to do with politicians (thank goodness). True freedom is when you can walk up and down the stairs.

Beat me to it. Damn!
I didn’t walk barefoot, you understand.

He must have been desperately unprepared for an audience that didn’t agree with him.
It does, I think, have a symbolic quality.
Not entirely unrelated.

Running a marathon is now unprogressive. I’m just annoyed this wasn’t declared 30 odd years ago, so I would have an excuse to get out of all those stupid school sports.
(Previous comment included without a link, whoops).

Christmas is coming! Women hardest hit:
Apparently, not being a c**t 24/7 is ‘Emotional Labour’.

“Everyone understands English, but nobody understands England.”
Until I saw Juncker’s name, I read that aphorism with the opposite of its intended meaning. I thought it must have been a quote from say George Orwell or G.K. Chesterton arguing that the nation states of Europe have diverse, complex, deeply-rooted cultures that can only partially be understood by outsiders and globalists.

I didn’t walk barefoot, you understand.
Was that because, as an eevil colonist, you had stolen Kumar’s shoes? 😀

the Thompson Compound
Band name.

Running a marathon is now unprogressive.
The braincrap in that piece is packed so densely that I’m amazed it hasn’t formed a sort of po-mo singularity. This in particular stood out:

As cultural critic Mark Greif aptly explains in his 2017 essay Against Exercise, the gym-goer may be a ‘solitary evangelist’ but the runner is most insidious because they take proselytising out of the gym and into the public sphere.

Now, the runners of my acquaintance just run. They don’t preach, they don’t browbeat — hell, they barely interact with the world at all. They just plug in the earbuds and run. To the extent that the simple act of running serves as a sort of guilt-inducing example to others, well, I just don’t see it. Quite the opposite, in fact. Every time I see a runner in the city, it looks as though he or she is suffering horribly. It’s more of a cautionary tale than a guilt trip.
So, not only is this Greif character completely full of excrement, but young Ms. Bennett quotes him as authoritative. Evidently, we’re supposed to be impressed that she has read this joker’s work and regurgitated it for our benefit. Little wonder that her skills with rhetoric are so deficient, if this is the diet she was educated upon. I’m tempted to bookmark the piece in case I ever need a handy example of a 23-year-old child aching to be accepted as an intellectual.
As for the whole “proselytising in the public sphere” thing, I can only say that it’s obvious that they don’t teach self-awareness in the Art History programme at Monash.

“Family”
https://twitter.com/ScottMGreer/status/1202603989503807490

“Social justice is climate justice”
Is there nothing, not even weather, that can’t be shoved into the intersectionality-we-all-be-victims event horizon?

Is there nothing, not even weather, that can’t be shoved into the intersectionality-we-all-be-victims event horizon?
Darleen, I’m getting you one of these:

Reading the op-ed linked from Darleen’s post is not something I’d recommend unless you have a bottle of bourbon or ibuprofen close at hand.
This paragraph, in particular, is a real doozy:

When one of these storms strikes, the affluent have no problem taking time off work to prepare their families for an impromptu vacation, and either jump in their car or even catch a flight to spend some time at a hotel where it’s safe. Many households who live on the economic margins are left behind before and after disasters strike.

Sounds like a good reason to work at becoming affluent. What’s the average wage for a professional Climate Protestor these days?

Folks in low-income communities, meanwhile, have to stay and work as many days as possible, before finding their way (without a car) to a likely overcrowded shelter.

Which is why we all need to give up our cars, of course. Also, how overcrowded will the shelters be when all the formerly-affluent families are forced to stay there?

(Assuming they’re welcome in the shelters, which are often churches. And while many people of faith welcome all comers, religious institutions traditionally haven’t been particularly welcoming to the LGBTQ+ community, to put it mildly.)

Poppycock! I’ve never seen a church group turn away anybody in their hour of need. You really think there’s some kind of intake form, where you have to prove your hetero status before you’re given dinner and a bedroll? Just because the church grannies don’t approve of your lifestyle decisions doesn’t mean they’re monsters who will happily let you drown. Get over yourself already.
And that’s just one paragraph! It gets so tiresome, playing whack-a-mole with these lazy assertions all the time.

Poppycock! I’ve never seen a church group turn away anybody in their hour of need. You really think there’s some kind of intake form, where you have to prove your hetero status before you’re given dinner and a bedroll?
PBS is always ready to defame those it disagrees with.
But maybe I am being too harsh: Maybe PBS means that the churches are oppressing gays by not allowing them to have sex on the alter and use the crucifix as a toy.

Let me be the first to thank our host for giving us a little reminder of the delicious Jill St. John. The 1970s were most definitely not all bad.

The 1970s were most definitely not all bad.
The 1970s did give us two of the worst James Bond films though. The pictured film (Diamonds are Forever) is a pretty weak and campy cheese-fest, and Moonraker’s even worse. Both are redeemed slightly by the excellent-as-always set design by Ken Adam, and the brilliant scores of John Barry – the upbeat, jazzy one from Diamonds are Forever and the lush, sweeping melodic string lines of Moonraker. And, bad as it is, even I have to admit that Moonraker has perhaps the best double entendre: “‘My god, what’s Bond doing?!’ – ‘I think he’s attempting re-entry, sir!'” out of all the Bond movies.

This is too flippin’ funny!
You’ve gotta hear it!

Well then, we certainly can’t have nukes.
Source here:
https://twitter.com/zackkanter/status/1201259377816027138
He then tweeted:
“Isn’t it beautiful to see the left and right united? Let’s build us some nuclear power plants, friends.”
and:
“Difficult to logically reconcile ‘climate change is a priority’ with ‘no nuclear power.’ “