They Sell Failure
From a needlessly indulgent New York Times piece on Robin DiAngelo and her fellow clown-shoe race-hustlers:
[Marcus] Moore directed us to a page in our training booklets: a list of white values. Along with “‘The King’s English’ rules,” “objective, rational, linear thinking” and “quantitative emphasis,” there was “work before play,” “plan for future” and “adherence to rigid time schedules.” Moore expounded that white culture is obsessed with “mechanical time” — clock time — and punishes students for lateness. This, he said, is but one example of how whiteness undercuts Black kids. “The problems come when we say this way of being is the way to be.” In school and on into the working world, he lectured, tremendous harm is done by the pervasive rule that Black children and adults must “bend to whiteness, in substance, style and format.”
Well, that’s one way of looking at it. A perverse and pernicious way, I’d suggest, and an obvious blueprint for degrading, perhaps irreparably, the lives and opportunities of those sufficiently credulous to internalise it. Unless, of course, the cultivation of tardiness, self-absorption, and lack of focus, along with a disregard for deadlines, standards and obligations, and a disdain for reciprocity, will somehow catapult minority students into gainful employment. But such is the way of the woke. Or of “equity transformation specialists,” in Mr Moore’s case.
One might instead argue that this supposedly “white” “obsession” with “mechanical time” – which is to say, basic foresight and punctuality – or just adulthood – has very little to do with oppressing the negro, as Mr Moore claims, and rather more to do with courtesy and treating other people as if they were real, just as real as you, and no more deserving of delays, frustration, or gratuitous disrespect. It seems to me that punctuality is not only about getting things done, about practicality and cooperation, but about getting over yourself. And presumably, Mr Moore – the one reducing black children to strange and otherly beings, unmoored by mere temporal concerns – would prefer his payments for this claptrap, aired to teachers and school administrators, to materialise promptly. Not, say, three weeks late. Or hey, whenever.
Update, via the comments:
Nikw211 notes,
Adherence to clock time is ‘democratic’ insofar as the same standards and expectations apply to all members of society regardless of status. For instance, it is not only the student that has to be on time, but also the teacher, where respect for good time-keeping has to be demonstrated, and demonstrated consistently, as a rule that applies to everyone. Only in undemocratic and rigidly hierarchical “big man” communities, where the strongest and most powerful are free to ruin the lives of others for any reason or for none at all, do you commonly find poor time-keeping used as a symbolic way of humiliating the vulnerable and more powerless.
Well, quite. And again, it’s interesting just how often woke posturing entails a rejection of reciprocity. It’s practically a signature.
Punctuality is, among other things, a gesture of recognition, of empathy. You’re acknowledging the other person as mattering, as someone whose time is as finite as your own and no less valuable. And if someone exempts themselves from such reciprocal expectations – having been encouraged to do so by supposedly grown-up educators – then it seems likely they will do less well in life, whether socially or materially. To pick a humdrum example – if a schoolfriend’s mom invites you to join them for tea, and you turn up an hour late, unapologetic and still expecting to be fed, this is not an obvious basis for congratulation. Or a second invitation.
From this childhood example, you can, I think, extrapolate.
Update 2:
And that’s the thing about adherents of “equity” ideology – a term that seems to mean something like “equality of outcome regardless of inputs.” They disdain the habits of bourgeois life as something to be done away with, at least for certain favoured groups, while expecting the rewards of those same bourgeois habits.
Previously, this and this. Via Julia. 
… “work before play,” “plan for future” and “adherence to rigid time schedules.”
I see Daddy issues …
Also this:
Again, as so often, the projection is extraordinary. And it seems to me that if you wanted to hamstring minority students, make them likely to fall behind and fail – and swell with exploitable resentment – then telling them repeatedly that punctuality and planning ahead are merely “white” impositions, unjust, and indeed “harmful,” would be a pretty good way to do it.
And then, hey, more punters for your claptrap.
more to do with courtesy and treating other people as if they were real … punctuality is not only about getting things done, about practicality and cooperation, but about getting over yourself.
This. Absolutely this.
Adherence to clock time is ‘democratic’ insofar as the same standards and expectations apply to all members of society regardless of status. For instance, it is not only the student that has to be on time, but also the teacher, where respect for good time-keeping has to be demonstrated, and demonstrated consistently, as a rule that applies to everyone.
Only in undemocratic and rigidly hierarchical “big man” communities, where the strongest and most powerful are free to ruin the lives of others for any reason or for none at all, do you commonly find poor time-keeping used as a symbolic way of humiliating the vulnerable and more powerless.
My suspicion is that the greater part of the way Hollywood conducts its business would be a good example of the latter – which if true might explain a lot.
Adherence to clock time is ‘democratic’ insofar as the same standards and expectations apply to all members of society regardless of status… a rule that applies to everyone.
Well, quite. And again, it’s interesting just how often woke posturing entails a disdain for reciprocity. It’s practically a signature.
The Smithsonian Museum had a display up concerning white supremacy…
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article244309587.html
They took it down a few days ago. And well they should have. It suggested that blacks were lazy, unmotivated, irrational, and illegitimate. It was one of the most racist displays I’ve ever seen.
But it raises a bigger question: Why do so many people now believe that the way to combat racism is to be really, really racist? Any day now I expect to see separate drinking fountains for whites and POCs (and an ensuing argument over which ones that Asians and Jews use).
In a similar vein (via Guido’s place): When Wokesters and Racists agree…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev373c7wSRg&feature=emb_logo
This. Absolutely this.
Punctuality is, among other things, a gesture of recognition, of empathy. You’re acknowledging the other person as mattering, as being real, as someone whose time is as finite as your own and no less valuable. And someone who disdains such reciprocal expectations – and who’s been encouraged to disdain them by supposedly grown-up educators – seems less likely to do well in life, whether socially or materially. To pick a humdrum example – if a schoolfriend’s mom invites you to join them for tea, and you turn up an hour late, and unapologetic, and still expecting to be fed, this is not an obvious basis for congratulation. Or a second invitation.
And from this childhood example, you can, I think, extrapolate.
OK, so if all this blather about the corrupt ‘virtues’ of whiteness are true, what is the alternative? How do these people think black students should be taught? And what results do they expect to see?
All they seem to be saying is “Them nigras will never amount to nothin’ so why waste time on teaching’ ’em?”
To be honest, I’ve simply had enough of non-white people voluntarily living in majority/ historically white countries and demanding that said countries should change to accommodate them.
Unfortunately, Politicians and the ‘Establishment’ seem to have lost their backbones and pander to their every demand. Thus our nations are being destroyed from the inside.
It’s a tragedy in slow motion.
Apparently, the way to be woke and “anti-racist” is to regard all brown-skinned people as The Dark Folk Who Live In The Forest, Outside Of Time™
When I read about things like this (and this isn’t the first time that time keeping has been promoted as a white vice) then my immediate thought is that someone has taken all the negro stereotypes of the antebellum south and decided, not to debunk them, but to reframe them as virtues.
Along with “‘The King’s English’ rules,” “objective, rational, linear thinking” and “quantitative emphasis,” there was “work before play,” “plan for future” and “adherence to rigid time schedules.”
I’d like to see BLM run an airline! Pilots who don’t speak English to, or understand the tower; non-linear flying (hey – go wherever you want); non-quantitative emphasis – (how much weight to we have on the left side? how much fuel – nah, doesn’t matter); no planning for the future, (i.e. the landing); and non-adherence to rigid time schedules (final approach just as another BLM Air plane is taking off straight for you).
Ah yes, what a wonderful world they promise.
And it seems to me that if you wanted to hamstring minority students, make them likely to fall behind and fail – and swell with exploitable resentment – then telling them repeatedly that punctuality and planning ahead are merely “white” impositions, unjust, and indeed “harmful,” would be a pretty good way to do it.
As the old Marxist revolutionary saying goes, “the worse, the better.”
What could possibly go wrong by teaching impressionable young children that a) white-people rules don’t apply to them, and b) anyone who says they do is racist?
This is not helpful.
But this is the drivel you get when you absolutely positively must ignore the #1 pathology affecting the underclasses of all races–children being born to a single mother and growing up without a father in the house.
When you can’t talk about the truth, then everything else is on the table. That’s how you end up with ridiculous mental contortions like “punctuality is a white thing.”
I’d like to see BLM run an airline!
And yet these pernicious clowns aren’t being laughed out of every room they enter.
And by laughed, I mean, hunted with nail guns.
I’d like to see BLM run an airline!
According to Theodore Dalrymple’s accounts of living and traveling in Africa, bus and boat and plane schedules are largely wishful thinking. I get the impression that this is often because operators will set out when the bus or boat is full rather than when the schedule says. However, I have known a number of “brown people” (such as Native Americans) who frankly admitted without shame that their tribes had very relaxed attitudes towards time. I never had the nerve, however, to ask them if they saw the connection between such attitudes and chronic poverty.
Only in undemocratic and rigidly hierarchical “big man” communities, where the strongest and most powerful are free to ruin the lives of others for any reason or for none at all, do you commonly find poor time-keeping used as a symbolic way of humiliating the vulnerable and more powerless.
As the old saying goes, punctuality is the courtesy of kings. (And is a useful indicator of the character of the ruler.)
Says another ludicrous narcissist.
And for those who missed it, somewhat related.
And these things aren’t random aberrations, they’re part of a trend.
Only in undemocratic and rigidly hierarchical “big man” communities, where the strongest and most powerful are free to ruin the lives of others for any reason or for none at all, do you commonly find poor time-keeping used as a symbolic way of humiliating the vulnerable and more powerless.
I’m reading Clive James’ “Cultural Amnesia,” and he talks about how totalitarian rulers are all alike in that they’ll pontificate for hours, knowing that they’re boring their listeners to tears, because it’s a show of power. It’s to show they can.
“Punctuality is the politeness of princes”
More interesting details:
https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199539536.001.0001/acref-9780199539536-e-1782
The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (5 ed.)
Edited by John Simpson and Jennifer Speake
“Punctuality is the politeness of princes”
Fr. l’exactitude est la politesse des rois, punctuality is the politeness of kings (attributed to Louis XVIII, 1755–1824).
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/31584/punctuality-is-the-politeness-of-kings
This article explains it rather well:
Kings (especially before the [French] revolution) didn’t need to be punctual. They could show up when they wanted. Afterall, people would wait for them. But [King Louis XVIII of France, to whom the quote is often attributed] suggests that one way a king can show respect for other people is to meet them at the appointed time. If this is true for kings, it certainly is true for you and me. [emphasis added]
answered Jun 26 ’11 at 3:56
rintaun
Rintaun is right, but what Jeff wrote shouldn’t be forgotten: a monarch has no other way to be polite. It’s not merely that he doesn’t have to hold doors for others, say “please” and “thank you”, stand when someone enters the room, take off his hat, he cannot do such things. Much of etiquette consists of self-humbling; a monarch cannot humble himself without humbling his country. Being on time, however, is a possibility.
– Malvolio Jun 26 ’11 at 19:21
These are also the kind of people who wail about overpopulation. I tend to agree, and think it’s time to cull the herd.
*singing*
I’ve got a little list. Oh, I’ve got a little list.
rather more to do with courtesy and treating other people as if they were real, just as real as you, and no more deserving of delays, frustration, or gratuitous disrespect
If only my doctors got this message. I am routinely forced to wait 30-45 minutes later than the scheduled time for my doctor to deign to make their appearance.
this supposedly “white” “obsession” with “mechanical time”
Most Japanese people I’ve met are super-punctual. Are they ‘white’ now?
“…white culture will not permit Black kids to succeed in school….”
To coin a phrase: Where there’s no will, there’s no way.
It’s that magic sci-fi year of 2020. Personally no other year has quite the space-age aesthetic of “2020”. Anyone else depressed that our time is consumed by lecturing to roughly a third of the western population about basic manners, the Golden Rule, and “sticks and stones…”, among other traits assumed to be taught in early childhood?
I have two young children and it’s demoralizing to contrast the relatively easy job of correcting their behavior and teaching them ethics with the Herculean task of doing the same to the adults who apparently run everything.
Anyway, as the woke say, “It’s 2020!”. I agree! We navel gaze then argue over the navel as a social construct instead of doing “2020” things. I mean, we should be overthrowing Cocteaupia or debating the replicant final solution or fighting the same battle over and over to little effect or…hold on…I guess it really is “2020”. Never mind.
I was done with people who are late – always. At one time I put up with it because I thought they were just really busy people. But about 20 years ago I realized that they were NOT busy, just rude and treated me like a throw away person. So if we are to meet at 6 p.m. to go to a movie, if they are not there, I go by myself. And I told them why. Those people that valued my friendship made changes – those that did not were tossed. I no longer am wasting my time (probably counted in years) waiting for latecomers.
I also run a training program for middle managers. We start the courses at 8:45 a.m and participants are told that we start promptly. In a class of 20 there are usually about 3 people who wander in around 9:15 a.m. but we have already started – they are embarrassed and need to catch up – we don’t redo stuff for latecomers. I reward the 17 people who organized their life to show up on time, rather than penalize them while waiting for three who didn’t. Enforce that a couple of times and the latecomers realize quickly that they need to be on time for the rest of the session.
But then our white family motto was better to be three hours early than 5 minutes late – maybe a bit extreme, but lateness was considered rude to others. My mother always said if you want to be late, then you are on your own.
but lateness was considered rude to others.
Habitual tardiness is rude – a way of saying, “Your time doesn’t matter.” Or, “I know I can’t get my shit together and will therefore impose on others, but I just don’t care and you’ll put up with it.”
In a small way at least, it reveals a person’s character.
A perverse and pernicious way, I’d suggest, and an obvious blueprint for degrading, perhaps irreparably, the lives and opportunities of those sufficiently credulous to internalise it.
This deliberate retardation of a “favored” group’s social progress is their M.O., and absolutely central to their power scheme, and without which they might be literally hanging from lampposts. I’ve fought vociferously against Spanish-language classes in public ed for the same reason. The immigrant ladies at my workplace are tired of me telling them to learn perfect English or they will never get a better job than the menial tasks we’ve hired them for. But hispanics, you see, serve a different role to the people-in-charge; less the “sword and shield” role that blacks have filled, and more the “work hard for cheap, vote democrat, and shut up” battalion. Oh, and the Chinese Coof is so, so dangerous everyone but pay no attention to the mass of Spanish-speakers that ensure all those cooking, cleaning, maintaining, and manufacturing tasks get magically done.
“Most Japanese people I’ve met are super-punctual. Are they ‘white’ now?”
It occurs to me that all of the allegedly “white” traits listed apply in many south-east Asian societies to a degree that Europeans and white Americans would find oppressive themselves.
rather more to do with courtesy and treating other people as if they were real, just as real as you, and no more deserving of delays, frustration, or gratuitous disrespect.
Yes, ask any concert goers how “respected” they feel after spending hard-earned money for tickets promising a 3-hour concert after the main act is an hour late and leaves 30 minutes early.
Also, these black folk certainly weren’t happy with delay.
We start the courses at 8:45 a.m and participants are told that we start promptly. In a class of 20 there are usually about 3 people who wander in around 9:15 a.m. but we have already started – they are embarrassed and need to catch up – we don’t redo stuff for latecomers.
I did the same thing when I became a manager a few decade back. I couldn’t understand why punctual people were expected to have their time wasted by non-punctual people, so I started my meetings precisely on time. I never gave anyone hell for showing up late. I just let them walk in as the meeting was in progress. Everyone learned quickly enough what the deal was.
It’s not quite true that I didn’t give anyone hell. One time I was 10 minutes for a meeting that I was chairing. When I walked in, everyone was waiting for me. I told them that one of the supervisors should have stepped up and started the meeting on time.
OK, so if all this blather about the corrupt ‘virtues’ of whiteness are true, what is the alternative? How do these people think black students should be taught? And what results do they expect to see?
It’s amusing to me to see people taking this crap seriously. And by seriously, I mean in the sense that the objective of the crap is in the context of a reasonable world. Get it through your ‘conservative’ heads that these people hate you, hate that you are successful, and are under the impression that if they can eliminate you, take your stuff, then they can then be well off. They don’t give a crap about ‘reason’ and logic. Least of all, your wypipo reason and logic. Hell, they’re at least doing you a favor now by openly admitting it but you still try to shoehorn what they are saying into some civilized framework. It’s a fool’s errand. And people sit through such crap and accept it. Because one dare not speak up because you know even if there are others who see through it as you do, they will not speak up either.
To some degree, I’m starting to view this as a variation of the Nazi mentality of Liebestraum. Obviously different and the parallels are a bit more complicated than that, but effectively the same mentality. At least the Germans had a clue about themselves at least being productive. They must have what you have and therefore you have to go. But once you are gone, they don’t understand what happens next.
Get it through your ‘conservative’ heads that these people hate you, hate that you are successful, and are under the impression that if they can eliminate you, take your stuff, then they can then be well off. They don’t give a crap about ‘reason’ and logic.
That x 1000. Something my recently politically active wife struggles with.
Though, to be fair, what would we talk about otherwise at this here fine establishment?
what would we talk about otherwise at this here fine establishment?
One can only get so far on a repertoire of fart jokes. Or so I’ve been told.
“Will 2021 be 1984?”
totalitarian rulers are all alike in that they’ll pontificate for hours, knowing that they’re boring their listeners to tears, because it’s a show of power. It’s to show they can.
I’ve worked for multiple companies where VPs would do this, deliberately, as a way of enforcing how they were more powerful than you. On the other hand, I’ve walked out of time-wasting meetings with such VPs; there’s a certain liberty that comes with being the only guy who can keep the network running.
“…ask any concert goers how ‘respected’ they feel after spending hard-earned money for tickets promising a 3-hour concert after the main act is an hour late…”
I gave up on pop music performers many decades ago. To hell with them.
I see Daddy issues …
Harsh, but obligatory: You’d have to see daddy there to begin with.
(what’s the whitest holiday?)
I’d like to see BLM run an airline!
Aside from Mr. Dalrymple’s testimony, we have other evidence.
https://twitter.com/returnedredux/status/1285369988744802304
From the a report on the NTSB investigation of a recent Boeing 767 cargo crash:
The co-pilot’s training record showed he acted “impulsively” during training exercises at several previous airlines and had a history of failed check rides, in which an instructor or supervisor watches.
And: In its findings of probable cause, the safety board faulted the FAA for not fully enacting changes in pilot record reporting that Congress mandated year ago.
Are the airlines desperate for pilots? Or are they desperate for Pilots Of Color? Sure, the FAA should keep better records but how does this excuse allowing the guy back into any cockpit?
Instalanche!
You’re acknowledging the other person as mattering, as someone whose time is as finite as your own and no less valuable.
This is what they do not believe. They do not believe it as a matter of class, though, and not really as a matter of race.
They think of the situation only from the perspective of someone who is disorganized, shiftless, and has taken on a greater number of obligations than they can fulfill. This person, as far as they are concerned, deserves the privilege of being late, and if you are well-organized, energetic and have correctly matched your obligations to your capabilities, that makes you a bourgeois and you should just step up and do extra work and make extra effort to help the tardy or delinquent person out. They think this about literally every other asset that man produces or consumes – why wouldn’t they think it about time also?
Instalanche!
[ Rummages frantically in lost property box. Hands out combs, breath mints and denture fixative. ]
Does it seem to any one else that one of the goals of BLM et al is to create an exempt caste, unbound by law or mores?
On occasion masks do have their uses.
I’m not racist, it’s in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colored_people%27s_time
That sausage roll crawled away with my breath mint.
“Will 2021 be 1984?”
…
Are the airlines desperate for pilots? Or are they desperate for Pilots Of Color? Sure, the FAA should keep better records but how does this excuse allowing the guy back into any cockpit?
I’m seeing it as a mashup of 1984 and Atlas Shrugged. The worst of both worlds.
Does it seem to any one else that one of the goals of BLM et al is to create an exempt caste, unbound by law or mores?
Yeah. But try saying that years ago when something could have been done about it.
Along with “‘The King’s English’ rules,” “objective, rational, linear thinking” and “quantitative emphasis,” there was “work before play,” “plan for future” and “adherence to rigid time schedules.”
Consider the implication of this remarkable assertion: that blacks cannot speak proper English, cannot think in an objective, rational, linear fashion, cannot think quantitatively, cannot put work before play, cannot plan (including “for the future” is a pleonasm), and cannot adhere to “rigid” time schedules.
In short, they are doomed to perpetual Third Worldhood, because it’s intrinsic to their nature.
Is that really the message that these race-hustlers want to send?
Oops. No idea how I posted that twice. Sorry.
Oops. No idea how I posted that twice. Sorry.
Someone fetch the Stone of Chastisement.
that blacks cannot speak proper English, cannot think in an objective, rational, linear fashion, cannot think quantitatively, cannot put work before play, cannot plan (including “for the future” is a pleonasm), and cannot adhere to “rigid” time schedules.
You don’t say.
And yet every single person who decries punctuality as an expression of whiteness expects to get paid on time.
To some degree, I’m starting to view this as a variation of the Nazi mentality of Liebestraum.
Posted by: WTP | July 21, 2020 at 15:57
I guess autocorrect is responsible for that, and you meant “Lebensraum”. Interesting. Give non-whites the metaphorical “room” by systematically giving them the jobs whites would normally have.
But once you are gone, they don’t understand what happens next.
I guess they don’t follow the news about Zimbabwe. Or maybe they do, and while they supervise and theorize, they expect white people to do all the work or be punished. Hmm, where have I heard that before?
Oops. No idea how I posted that twice. Sorry.
It’s bears repeating. 🙂
Heh. Yeah, the “living room” thing, not the Liszt thing. Though I suppose wet dream isn’t that bad of a metaphor as well.
Just thinking…as I previously screwed the pooch in a job negotiation by simply asking if the client was a supporter of BLM, considering this line of interview…
I wonder what would happen if I ask if the company looking to hire me gives “colored people”, or whatever the proper term is these days, more time to complete tasks and does not expect them to think or perform in a logical or linear fashion, how that would/could/should be handled? I mean, it’s a legitimate question from either a woke or “racist” perspective. Especially if I’m being interviewed for a leadership role.
To pick a humdrum example – if a schoolfriend’s mom invites you to join them for tea, and you turn up an hour late, unapologetic and still expecting to be fed, this is not an obvious basis for congratulation.
If the antecedent of an objective pronoun is “a schoolfriend’s mom,” don’t you think, Mr. Thompson, that you might go all the way out on a limb and use the pronoun “her”?
Do not surrender to the illiterate singular “they.”
My father would say “Punctuality is the courtesy of kings.”
He loathed being late and when others would arrive late.
Late people suck. Therefore the venerable military adage “If I’m not early, I’m late.”
As has been noted already, a cheap, easy and effective way to demean/devalue someone, and to demonstrate your power over them, is to simply make them wait for you.
But it appears we need not worry about these crusty, antiquated notions of courtesy and graciousness anymore. Time and the clocks that tell it are now racist.
(what’s the whitest holiday?)
Now that is weapons grade badspeech!
Is that really the message that these race-hustlers want to send?
The only message they are interested in sending is “gibsmedat”
eggo:
To pick a humdrum example – if a schoolfriend’s mom invites you to join them for tea, and you turn up an hour late, unapologetic and still expecting to be fed, this is not an obvious basis for congratulation.”
If the antecedent of an objective pronoun is “a schoolfriend’s mom,” don’t you think, Mr. Thompson, that you might go all the way out on a limb and use the pronoun “her”? Do not surrender to the illiterate singular “they.”
I would respectfully suggest that there’s a world of hurt between “to join them” – i.e. schoolfriend, mother, possibly father, possibly other siblings, possibly other friends of schoolfriend – and “to join her” – i.e. mother only, which might be fun for both mother and invitee, but might well be illegal…
It’s to show they can.
Fidel Castro was the poster boy for this particular tyrant’s tell. He reveled, with great frequency, in making his subjects pay respectful attention to speeches that lasted several hours, for decades.
OK, so if all this blather about the corrupt ‘virtues’ of whiteness are true, what is the alternative? How do these people think black students should be taught? And what results do they expect to see?
That’s actually quite a deep question. There are various answers depending on who exactly you mean. After all, look at Castro or Chavez – what they clearly expected was to get personally extremely wealthy and that worked fine. That it was hideously inefficient, destroying the wealth of the rest of the nation, was clearly not important.
For others, as I observe, I come to think of “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind” as more prophetic all the time. I think sometimes we are witnessing the reversion of the process described there, with ever more bicameral minds wandering about. For the one thing a true progressive lacks is the ability to introspect, a hallmark of consciousness. They don’t “expect” anything, as that would be introspective. They just do, in a gestalt lacking the concept of “cause and effect”.
In a class of 20 there are usually about 3 people who wander in around 9:15 a.m. but we have already started – they are embarrassed and need to catch up – we don’t redo stuff for latecomers.
I had a professor who would *lock the door* at 5 past. Those arriving within the 5 minutes got silence and a stare which followed them from the door to their seat, at which point he would resume *in mid-sentence*, or near thereto. VERY few repeat customers. I think only one or two (girls, iirc) complained to the Department Head, who only asked one question: Were you late?
Of course that was long ago in a galaxy far far away.
“Someone fetch the Stone of Chastisement.”
No. No. No! You must sit in the comfy chair, and stay in the chair until lunch time with only a cup of coffee at 11.
Since no one expects the Spanish Inquisition for diabolically signalling by posting twice.
“It’s to show they can.”
*Real* power is to have them so scared, that you only need speak for a few minutes, but they dare not stop clapping for hours….
Meanwhile you can leave the stage and sit in the comfy chair, awaiting its next victim…
Ooops. We’ll be needing that stone after all.
And someone light up the sign over the bar—I’m off to work in a moment or I’d do it.
Do not surrender to the illiterate singular “they.”
You’re not having tea alone with your schoolfriend’s mom. She won’t be touching your knee or anything, while wearing a low-cut blouse. The school friend will be there too, and his sister, and his dad. Hence they.
someone light up the sign over the bar
Clearly, we need a bigger one.
Clearly, we need a bigger one.
I know a man, his name is Lang,
And he has a neon sign.
And Mister Lang is very old,
So they call it Old Lang’s Sign.
After hearing some grumbling about the text of the blog being too small for old eyes, or something to that effect, I’ve enlarged it. However, the degrees of adjustment aren’t exactly fine and now I can’t decide if the main text looks too big.
Thoughts?
I’ve enlarged it.
Ah, is that what just happened . . . . Ehn, I’m resetting the browser resolution amount as result, but at the moment I’m reading a 14 inch screen instead of a 30 inch monitor . . .
It’s a bit of a faff trying to find some happy medium for all conceivable reading devices – PCs, laptops, phones, tablets, etc. The whole thing’s due for an overhaul, but that entails more expertise than I possess, and therefore entails expense.
It’s a bit of a faff trying to find some happy medium for all conceivable reading devices
A few months back I picked up a laptop with a 17 inch 4K screen . . . and then got to have the bemusement and amusement of multiple software packages that had yet be upgraded to situations with a 4K resolution…
David Foster Wallace (2001) –
For one thing, Descriptivism so quickly and thoroughly took over English education in this country that just about everybody who started junior high after c. 1970 has been taught to write Descriptively—via “freewriting,” “brainstorming,” “journaling”—a view of writing as self-exploratory and-expressive rather than as communicative, an abandonment of systematic grammar, usage, semantics, rhetoric, etymology.
For another thing, the very language in which today’s socialist, feminist, minority, gay, and environmental movements frame their sides of political debates is informed by the Descriptivist belief that traditional English is conceived and perpetuated by Privileged WASP Males and is thus inherently capitalist, sexist, racist, xenophobic, homophobic, elitist: unfair.
my immediate thought is that someone has taken all the negro stereotypes of the antebellum south and decided, not to debunk them, but to reframe them as virtues.
Well, quite. And yet they imagine themselves as the heroes of their own mental drama.
It’s a tragedy in slow motion.
It feels like a kind of civilisational rot. In the instance above, there’s an extraordinary disregard for, an antipathy towards, a basic but important behavioural norm. When you arrange to meet someone at a given time and they make plans accordingly, perhaps prioritising you over something else, you’re making a promise. By being late casually and repeatedly, with no expectation of actually keeping your word, of delivering on your promise, of sparing others needless inconvenience, you’re telling the rest of us that you can’t be relied upon. And not just in terms of punctuality.
It’s a strange message to encourage people to send to the rest of us, and to feel righteous in sending.
I’m seeing it as a mashup of 1984 and Atlas Shrugged. The worst of both worlds.
Including the turgid prose.
It’s worth noting that “equity,” a word favoured by Mr Moore and other activist clowns, is usually defined only in the woolliest and most evasive of terms. Given the assumed connotations of fairness, it sounds unobjectionable; but when used by activists, it seems to mean something like “equality of outcome regardless of inputs.” Which isn’t fair at all.
And that’s the thing about adherents of “equity” ideology. They disdain the habits of bourgeois life as something to be done away with, at least for certain favoured groups, while expecting all of the rewards of those same bourgeois habits.
Including the turgid prose.
Heh. I almost threw in a reference to the writing style as well, especially in regards to AS, but wasn’t sure how to express it. Great minds think alike. Pity no one listens to us.
Do not surrender to the illiterate singular “they.”
Matt. 18:35: So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.
A Comedy of Errors, Act IV, Scene 3: There’s not a man I meet but doth salute me, As if I were their well-acquainted friend
Sure, if you want to assert that the KJV and Shakespeare are appalling bad modern trendy English, go for it. I’m sure you’re better than the best English ever written. Not.
A Comedy of Errors, Act IV, Scene 3
Again, just to clarify – in the scenario above, you’re not having some off-the-books encounter with said schoolfriend’s mom. It’s all above-board and there are other people present. No slipping bra straps or flashes of thigh.
That would be a whole different kind of blog post. And a different kind of blog.
It’s all above-board and there are other people present. No slipping bra straps or flashes of thigh.
Yes. But the low-cut dress. Can you tell more about that? You…you can tell it as slow as you like. I’ve got time…
[ Fetches spray-bottle of hamster urine. ]
Is everybody coping with the new Enormo-Text™…? Customer feedback, people.
Customer feedback, people.
I usually view this via my iPad (hence my hunt-and-peck typing that gets me in trouble…see above), but TBH I haven’t noticed a difference. My sympathies on your efforts. Reason number 17 why I have little interest in UI development. As interesting as the new tools are, the plethora of platforms is a nightmare for the OCD (or even quasi-OCD) afflicted.
Now about that low-cut dress…
Customer feedback, people.
Do what you must, kind host, and we’ll adjust the decades-old zoom feature accordingly…
but TBH I haven’t noticed a difference.
[ Bursts into tears, throws scarf over shoulder, slams door. ]
They disdain the habits of bourgeois life as something to be done away with, at least for certain favoured groups, while expecting the rewards of those same bourgeois habits.
That.
Are you asking if everybody can cope or if everybody cares for it or no?
It’s a bit startling at first but not something to set off ructions.
It’s a bit startling at first…
Heh. I believe the words you’re looking for are confident and bold.
Are you asking if everybody can cope or if everybody cares for it or no?
Well, both. Is it a bit much? Does it seem… er, shouty? Not that there’s a great deal I can do about it, really. Not without forking out for a makeover by someone who knows what they’re doing. For the time being, it’s this or how it was yesterday, which some complained was difficult to read. I suppose as much as anything it depends on what you’re using to read it.
It’s worth noting that “equity,” a word favoured by Mr Moore and other activist clowns, is usually defined only in the woolliest and most evasive of terms.
As always, the devil is in the detail.
(Sos about the lack of italics. My old machine wants nothing to do with them)
Sos about the lack of italics.
You’d be amazed, or at least amused, by how much time I must spend discreetly italicising things.
[ Discreetly italicises relevant part of Watcher’s comment. ]
Customer feedback, people.
At first I checked my browser zoom setting but I have to admit, I like it.
. . . at the moment I’m reading a 14 inch screen instead of a 30 inch monitor . . .
Hmmm . . . and back at a 30 inch monitor, the oddity I’m noting is that while the display text that is posted can be adjusted, everything being typed into the text window keeps coming up as utter microtext, even when the browser is adjusted so that the rest of the screen comes up as even larger Godzilla text.
—Based on this, I don’t have an impression of Typepad being able to play nicely.
On an other hand, with ctrl-+ and -, I’ve seen browsers tend to be a bit more responsive when adjusting text size, so mebbe the occasional browser adjustment comment may be a solution for text size visibility. . . .
[ Bursts into tears, throws scarf over shoulder, slams door. ]
. . . Someone be sure to fish David’s scarf off the floor before the sausage roll gets to it . . .
Re text: I read this blog on my laptop, and change screen size almost unconsciously, so didn’t realise it had changed. Many apologies.
As for Eggo’s point about singular they/their and subsequent comments – while in our gracious host’s original example, the subject was plural, there is a major push to use singular they ahistorically. It’s quite true that they/their has been used for a singular possessive when the gender of the antecedent noun is unknown – we do that quite naturally all the time – or when the noun is formally singular but semantically plural, as in the examples from Shakespeare and the Bible above. (It’s obvious that brother and man refer to people in general.)
What’s happening now, though, is that the Woke brigade are insisting it should be used when the gender is perfectly clear, so one reads sentences like ‘[Sam] Smith has stumbled plenty of times as they tried to talk as effectively about queer history as their music does about loneliness. But each time, Smith picks themself back up and made the same pledge:they’re going to learn; they’re going to educate themself; they’re going to be better.’ Having seen multiple examples of this, I imagine that Eggo has extended his* dislike of this confusing syntax to the historic (though generally informal) use of singular their.
*His was for centuries the accepted usage in formal writing when gender was unknown.