Friday Ephemera

Can’t help noticing that the word imbalance, used repeatedly, seems tendentious, a tad question-begging.
While common-or-garden varieties of incompetence can’t be ruled out, it does fairly reek of a carefully managed dishonesty. (Although as incompetence and dishonesty are complementary rather than mutually exclusive, it could be both at the same time).
On a related note, I came across this headline from The New York Times yesterday:

Scrutiny of Social-Distance Policing as 35 of 40 Arrested Are Black

The purpose of that headline seems all too clear – to provoke outrage at the injustice of what, it insinuates, are the actions of a clearly racist and discriminatory NYPD.
Except it turns out that if you read down far enough, you discover this:

Of those arrested, 35 people were black, four were Hispanic and one was white.

You also discover that the article itself was prompted by a statement originating from the DA’s office of Brooklyn and refers to that borough only.
That this statement came out of Brooklyn seems to be quite significant to the story since that area’s demographics break down to roughly the following:

African American 64%
Hispanic 30%
Asian 3%
White and other 3%

This information isn’t mentioned at all, only alluded to here:

More than a third of the arrests were made in the predominantly black neighborhood of Brownsville. No arrests were made in the more white Brooklyn neighborhood of Park Slope.

Anyone reading this who is unfamiliar with Brooklyn would be forgiven for thinking that the population of black and white residents are in roughly equal proportion, making the arrest rates a glaring anomaly.
Of course, it might be argued that the numbers of those arrested still show evidence of racist discrimination since if the NYPD were arresting people according to the demographic make-up of the area then it “should” have arrested 25 African Americans (not 35), 12 Hispanic Americans (not 4), two white people (not one) and one Asian American.
That Hispanic Americans were arrested at only a third of what would be expected according to demographics and that no Asian Americans were arrested at all seems to be a problem for the narrative that NYPD is incorrigibly racist.
Although quite why anyone would expect rates of arrest to be proportionate with demographic make up in the first place, something that seems to be the underlying assumption both here and in The Guardian piece on the gender of experts, is left unstated and unexplained.

While common-or-garden varieties of incompetence can’t be ruled out, it does fairly reek of a carefully managed dishonesty.
The fact that different demographics often have differing aggregate inclinations, is, for some, terribly problematic. Something to be fixed, indignantly, while pretending it isn’t true.
It’s a dance that involves pinheads. In both senses.

We got a lot of culture largely based on the “sad self-knowledge” of people who were psychological and moral outliers — social and moral losers, as I say — but who fancied themselves representative of humanity and who managed to sell that self-justifying delusion to the rest of society. The costs were significant.

Glenn Reynolds, here.
It may also to some extent explain why the pages of Slate, Salon, New York, Everyday Feminism, and of course the Guardian, are so often filled with personal issues that are framed as normal and commonplace, but which sound decidedly marginal and a tad degenerate.

“Those who do not study history are doomed to write garbage for the Guardian”.

“Those who do not study history are doomed to write garbage for the Guardian”
Poor Zoe. She finds “Britishness,” and almost any sense of national affirmation – including, no doubt, my elderly neighbours’ flags and bunting – both “regressive” and “nauseating.”
It occurs to me that Zoe’s sorrows may relate to Glenn Reynolds’ point, linked upthread.

But you know what really grinds my gears about articles like Williams’? The very same Guardian types will bugger off to foreign parts and gawp at other countries celebrating their ancient “monocultures” – Greeks goose-stepping about dressed for all the world like Morrismen, African tribal war dances – then come home an gush about how terribly authentic it all is.
You want “authentic”? My late father watched refugees walk down the main street of his town in their nightclothes the morning after the Clydebank blitz. British refugees, practically his neighbours, left with nothing by a foreign government with a Big Idea. I want to celebrate the fact that we, Britain, America, and the Commonwealth, overcame that shit, dammit.

The very same Guardian types will bugger off to foreign parts and gawp at other countries celebrating their ancient “monocultures”
Indeed. But Zoe’s tiresome parroting isn’t arrived at via any kind of autonomous mental activity, or with any standards to speak of. I doubt she feels any obligation to be accurate or realistic or reciprocal or self-consistent. We’ve seen the spiteful, baldly incoherent bollocks she churns out.
Let’s not forget her belief that giving money away “creates inequality,” or her claim that even moderate exercise makes you rightwing. Oh, and we mustn’t forget Zoe’s delight in devising elaborate humiliations for parents who can no longer afford to give their children an education as comfortable as Zoe’s own, details of which she carefully omits, and in which, extracurricular activities included visits to Rome and Morocco and an eight-day tour of Barbados. Because she cares so very much.
There are no meaningful standards in any of this, no probity. It’s just an attempt to conform with her in-group, thereby accruing status, while rationalising the nasty posturing of her inner adolescent. Which, on reflection, is a large part of modern leftism. Pretty much its core.

Who’s on first.

In my stupider days, which is saying something, I brought my espresso machine to work so I would not spend so much money in cafes. I basically would make an espresso drink, finish it, then make another. I might have been drinking tennis Brussels are cappuccinos in a work day. So I shorted out my nervous system, and trained it to give me an existential crisis every time I drink a cup of coffee.
then I switched to tea, but my family’s tea was aged old lipton’s that have been up in the cupboard since I was born, and was only ever drunk medicinally. With a metric ton of sugar and milk to cut the horrid bitterness.
went to college and met a real tea drinker, who introduced me to Darjeeling, and my world changed. Finally I have found something I could drink, but actually had magical anti asthmatic properties, and which would not make me into a crazy person.
So even though this is a particularly anti-Chinese period we are living in, and for good reason, I have come to like there style of tea drinking the best.
Gongfu tea means that it is carefully prepared. The British, in my observation, drink tea culturally. They like the wake up, but even more they like the tradition and connection it gives them with their British identity. And so you will find tea connoisseurs going to the UK, and will have tea lovey shop on beautiful china with fantastic little sandwiches with watercress, but the tea itself is bog-standard tea served in tepid water.
The Japanese drink tea, as part of a religion of aesthetics. But the actual tea they drink doesn’t taste that good. When you read Japanese tea blogs, they always focus on the ceremony, and very very little on getting the highest quality tea leaves. One can find amazing matcha and sencha teas, but that’s not usually the point of the tea ceremony as we’ve come to understand it. In fact, matcha tea is often made in China, but I would never drink it, because of the danger of lead and Mercury and other metals.
Taiwan has an absolutely insane tea culture, and it is not unheard of to buy a $2,000 pot of tea for lunch. They’re the ones who have refined the tea process even further than anyone’s ever seen. It’s amazing.
All of American tea culture, the less said, the better.
But I love the Chinese gongfu style, because they take easily as much care and energy to make their tea as the Japanese too, but without all the doilies that you would expect in British tea. They make huge messes, splash water all over the place, clatter their dishes and teaware incessantly, all in a goal to get the best tasting cup you can possibly find.
And the results make me realize why people drink tea. I am no expert or tea Master, but I really do enjoy the enormous variety of teas that the world has to offer.
No milk and no sugar, of course. And for heaven’s sake, please do not offer me chocolate souffle raspberry flavored tea. Trustee. Camellia sinensis sinensis is good enough for me.
And purchased in bulk, it is way cheaper per cup than the garbage we have on our grocery shelves. Find me a good tea sorcerer can give you things that you can re steep a half a dozen times and still be flavorful.

I had meant, tea sourcer. But tea sorcerer has a nice ring to it.

Terribly sorry about the typos. Voice to text is not my friend.
Ah. Whew. I thought I was having some kind of aphasic seizure.

“Those who do not study history are doomed to write garbage for the Guardian”.
A lefty acquaintance proclaimed online yesterday that VE Day marked ‘no victory’ though there was a victory ‘militarily’, which really makes you wonder WTF WWII was if not a ‘military’ occurrence. He teaches history….

So… How many cappuccinos are “tennis Brussels are”?
I grew up in California in the 60s, so even Earl Grey in Surrey at age 16 was a revelation.
But then I went to UC Berkeley and hung out with overseas Chinese and ABC, and then there was my wife, and the trip to PRC in about 1995, and now our place is literally stuffed with little pouches of excellent tea.
But…our morning drink is Sumatra coffee.
Go figure.

A lefty acquaintance proclaimed online yesterday that VE Day marked ‘no victory’ though there was a victory ‘militarily’, which really makes you wonder WTF WWII was if not a ‘military’ occurrence. He teaches history….
This is how academics indicate how smart and virtuous they are. By saying stupid things that are significantly indefensible. Your inability to see how they are thinking outside the box shows how right they really are. It’s The Emperor’s Clothes. Just as with the American Civil War not being about slavery. It’s a gaslighting. You, dear student, will write down on the test what we tell you. And if teacher tells you WWII was not a victory for the Allies, well that’s what you write down and shut up about it. Dummy.

All that verbiage could be condensed to 7 words:
“I hate men so I became one.”
Yup. Makes sense to me. I’ll grant she or he or whatever is justified in holding a long grudge against the mugger.
I don’t mind people coming up with their own explanations to justify a transition – ‘I’m a man in a woman’s body’, that sort of thing. It’s their life. They have to work it out for themselves.
But transitioning, justifying their transition in terms of modish feminist ideology, and then using that to describe everyone who was just *born* male as in some way toxic? No. That’s just inflicting the contradictions of your own ideology on everyone. Bugger off.

Slavery triggered the conflict, but most of the Northern soldiers didn’t give a rat’s ass about the slaves.
You think the British soldiers in WWII cared that much about the Poles? They went to war because they were told to. And that was because the government thought that the invasion of Poland was sufficiently worrying to react to.
In the end the American Civil War was about three main things:
1) Slavery.
2) States rights. But most specifically about the right to have slaves.
3) Whether Secession was allowed. (And they seceded so that they could continue to have slaves.)

Tea without milk is uncivilized

I switched from coffee to tea about ten or eleven years ago, after too much of the free stuff at work started doing a number on my moods, my sleep patterns, and my stomach health. The tea habit has proven to be much gentler.
I started on Darjeeling as well, but graduated to Assam after the former started tasting too grassy for me. I like the warm malty flavo(u)rs of Assam quite a lot. We’re blessed to have a really delightful tea sorcerer in St. Paul, so I get to play around with lots of options. If you’re looking for a mail-order option in the US, I can heartily recommend these guys.

Tea without milk is uncivilized
Cardinal Fang, the heretic Ray needs saving from error.

I know what you’re saying, but a “Republic” and slavery have never been mutually exclusive.
Well, exactly. I know what you’re saying. People’s Republic of China, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, (my favorite…and not just because they throw a huge celebration on my birthday there) Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea. There are others.