Friday Ephemera
“A lacquer fixative sees that it doesn’t sag.” || He does this at least as well as you would. || I struggle to understand modern music. || At last, amplified squirrels. (h/t, Damian) || Meanwhile, in Essex. || Practically flirtatious with a criminal mastermind. || Merry old London town. (h/t, Holborn) || London’s alleys and passages. (h/t, Things) || The dance they do. || Nicely done, but good question. || Aqueduct of note. || The thrill of Icelandic quiz shows. || Um. || Things you’ll find on a lesbian dating app. || For big earrings. || A little build-up. || Place your bets. || His beef wellingtons are fancier than yours. || Coffee foam. || Fifteen seconds of art. || And finally, festively, it seemed such a good idea at the time.
Who knew that Diana Moon Glampers was running Boston’s public schools?
Who knew that Diana Moon Glampers was running Boston’s public schools?
Reality is “just not acceptable.”
As I said a few days ago, if you are ideologically committed to any number of false premises – say, regarding the aggregate distributions of interest, aptitude, and cognitive wherewithal – then tensions will arise, and mental contortions will have to be performed. And the more evidence piles up to undermine those conceits, the more feverish and irrational, and indeed spiteful, the reactions will be.
See the stupefying, profoundly dishonest reactions to Charles Murray and Noah Carl, for instance.
Who knew that Diana Moon Glampers was running Boston’s public schools?
They are not “underrepresented minorities.” They are underqualified minorities.
Who knew that Diana Moon Glampers was running Boston’s public schools?
The result of generations of failed policies: Racial quotas can be seen to have failed, as underqualified black students flunk out and underqualified black employees are fired or quit. So the next logical step is to hold back qualified whites and Asians. If blacks cannot succeed then whites and Asians must not, either.
“Somewhere between a thin rationalisation and a laughable fig-leaf.” Well said.
And this is why I differ, slightly, from those (like, say, Brendan O’Neil at Spiked, or James Lindsay) who argue that the post-modernist/critical race identitarian crowd are not necessarily leftist. It seems to me that somewhere near the heart of their madness is a pathological need to overcome the longstanding (and basically correct) argument that socialism cannot work because individuals have different ‘interest(s), aptitude(s), and cognitive wherewithal.’ The world is a chessboard so these people must insist on the rules being for checkers.
Who knew that Diana Moon Glampers was running Boston’s public schools?
But quotas will never go out of fashion with the woke. Blind auditions for symphony orchestras are now being attacked as not doing enough for blacks.
“The status quo is not working. If things are to change, ensembles must be able to take proactive steps to address the appalling racial imbalance that remains in their ranks. Blind auditions are no longer tenable.
It’s a racial imbalance in competency. Blacks can’t cut it, and therefore must be given free stuff.
“This well-intentioned but restrictive practice has prevented substantive action when it comes to the most essential element of maintaining an orchestra: hiring musicians. Musicians’ unions, which have in many ways valiantly worked to protect their members in an economically tenuous industry, have long been tenacious defenders of blind auditions, asserting that they are the best way to ensure fairness.”
Blind auditions are not a barrier to hiring musicians. They are a barrier to hiring inferior musicians.
“But in sticking so stubbornly to the practice, unions may be hurting themselves, their orchestras and their art form. Hanging on to a system that has impeded diversity is particularly conspicuous at a moment when the country has been galvanized by revulsion to police brutality against Black Americans — and when orchestras, largely shuttered by the coronavirus pandemic, are brainstorming both how to be more relevant to their communities and how to redress racial inequities among their personnel when they re-emerge.”
Wave the bloody shirt of “police brutality”, but without noting that blacks are shot more often because they commit crimes more often. And so black criminality becomes another reason to hire more blacks even though they are inferior in accomplishment to whites and Asians.
“If the musicians onstage are going to better reflect the diversity of the communities they serve, the audition process has to be altered to take into fuller account artists’ backgrounds and experiences. Removing the screen is a crucial step.”
If it is now a requirement that orchestras fully reflect the diversity of the community, what about people with no musical talent whatsoever? Shouldn’t we also be represented?
How many sub-Saharan black tribes had written languages before the Europeans arrived?
There were substantial and long lasting polities from Ethiopia from well before 0 BC and quite a few around the Gulf of Guinea when the West was still in the Dark Ages. Timbuktu was famous for its wealth. The Almohavids conquered much of Spain.
That most westerners don’t know about Axumites, the Songhai, the Mali Empire etc is understandable (how many Africans can tell you anything at all about Medieval Sweden or the Czechs, for example) but that doesn’t mean that they were uncivilised barbarians. It pays not to think because you haven’t heard of something that it doesn’t exist. (This is not some fancy of modern Black activists eager to extend meagre scraps into Empires — the whole Black Aphrodite and Black Cleopatra nonsense. We’ve known about this for decades — I read up on them thirty years ago, and we’ve learned a lot more since.)
The Geez script: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ge%CA%BDez_script
On the other coast, the Gulf of Guinea, the earlier writing systems were subsumed by Arabic, and the climate and lack of permanent writing materials means little survived from earlier times. (But then the amount of writing we have in the West between the fall of Rome and the advent of Charlemagne is numbered in the dozens. And they had vellum.)
So, most of the immediate south of the Sahara was literate, and indeed in contact with the north, well before the Europeans arrived in their boats.
The jungle areas of Africa didn’t seem to have much by way of polities, but the East coast slowly developed. Zanzibar and then Great Zimbabwe are two of the better known.
“If it is now a requirement that orchestras fully reflect the diversity of the community, what about people with no musical talent whatsoever? Shouldn’t we also be represented?
Trade blind auditions for deaf auditions and we’re good to go!
The Geez script
“Ge’ez script is derived from the Ancient South Arabian script which originated in the region centred around what is now Yemen. The earliest inscriptions of Semitic languages in Eritrea and Ethiopia date to the 9th century BCE, which is known as Epigraphic South Arabian (ESA), an abjad shared with contemporary kingdoms in South Arabian peninsula.”
Yes, sub-Saharan Africa had writing before the Europeans arrived. They got it from the Arabian Muslims who invaded after the 7th century. There is zero archaeological or documentary evidence for sub-Saharan polities beyond the tribal level that were not created by North African invasion.
“There were substantial and long lasting polities from Ethiopia…On the other coast, the Gulf of Guinea…”
I had inklings of such in East Africa, but had not heard anything about sub-Saharan West Africa. Thanks!
“the climate and lack of permanent writing materials means little survived from earlier times.”
I have read about that in terms of art and artisanal artifacts but not writing.
Trade blind auditions for deaf auditions and we’re good to go!
That would certainly benefit me.
And once that’s done, we can all focus our efforts on pretending the performances aren’t rubbish (and not being the first to stop applauding them).
And just because the dumb can’t sing – at least they can mime
Funny no one seems to mention Voltaire anymore…
Pangloss
Candide’s teacher, a philosopher who follows the teachings of the philosopher Leibniz. Pangloss argues that this world is “the best of all possible worlds,” and none of his many misfortunes—including enslavement, hanging, and losing an eye and an ear to syphilis—can convince him otherwise. His name means “all-tongue,” reflecting his tendency to speak at length about philosophy no matter what is going on.
Pangloss
I would like to quietly cultivate my own garden, but those fucking liberals won’t let me.
Daniel — and we got our script from the same root, via the Phonecians, too. Even the word “alpha best” gives it away.
The question was about literacy south of the Sahara. Don’t come all No True Scotsman by changing the terms of the question.
There’s evidence for local scripts, but I wasn’t going to wade into contested waters when not relevant to what was asked.
Sorry, “alpha-bet”, from the symbols for ox and house.
There’s evidence for local scripts, but I wasn’t going to wade into contested waters…
I think I made a mistake with that cheap throw-away joke that started this. 🙁
…although I did learn something…
Who knew that Diana Moon Glampers was running Boston’s public schools?
Numbers are not adding up for me. According to the article, “nearly 80 percent of all Boston public school students are Hispanic and Black.” But, according to the last census 24.4% of the Boston population were black and 17.5% latino. Sounds like non-hispanic whites (47%) are voting with their feet regarding education.
Trade blind auditions for deaf auditions and we’re good to go!
A couple of years ago, here in the Antipodes, a Behavioural Science unit conducted an experiment. They sent identical resumes to a bunch of public service managers, half gendered and half non-gendered, to see who was proposed an interview. The hypothesis was that gendered resumes would tilt the scales against wimmin. Much to their surprise, when the resumes were gendered, females were significantly more likely to be selected for interview than males.
Effortlessly they changed tack, and recommended that gendered resumes were to be preferred in promoting diversity.
Numbers are not adding up for me.
When I was in high school Somerville, NJ, the town, was somewhere between 2/3 and 3/4 white. The school however was a different matter, even with all of us who were bussed in from another town that was more like 9/10 white. I suspect that a lot of the white families from Somerville had their kids in the local Catholic school.
I wonder if Madame Diana Moon Glampers has a contract which includes a potential incentive bonus for superior educational outcomes in children in the schools she supervises resulting from her ‘management’? If so she should not receive it.
(Off Topic)
When I was at high school, the Berlin Wall came down about the same time a guy I knew, let’s call him “Lenny”, befriended the Socialist Workers who at that time regularly used to hang around selling papers in the city centre.
Lenny’s parents had divorced a few years earlier and although it bore it well in public everyone who knew him even more than passing well knew that it had left him angry, frustrated and resentful.
It was about the point where his mother started seeing someone that he found himself welcomed with open arms by the Comrades of the Socialist Worker, who gave him a place to crash when it all got a bit much at home and who had a ready supply of fags, booze and, let’s not forget, girls, some of the older by a few years and studying at one or other of the local universities.
So one day, at school, I’m studying in the school library with a girl from my class when Lenny appears round the corner, his eyes lighting up with delight at finding us there.
Unbidden, out of nowhere, he quickly catches us up with his recent reversion to Socialism – bear in mind the the visible destruction of the Berlin Wall is being almost nightly televised at this time – and then he says:
“I’m brilliant at debating me! Go on! Debate me! Ask me anything! I can win any argument!”
Neither me nor the girl I was with in the library showed any interest at all, but he persisted and in the end he had to go with why Communism was superior to anything the West have to offer and the girl (let’s call her “Whitney”) took the bait.
Whitney – “If it was so good in East Germany, why did so many try to escape?”
Lenny – “They didn’t! No one tried to escape!”
Whitney – “But it’s on film – there’s TV footage of it!”
Lenny – “That’s all faked by the CIA!”
Whitney – “But some people were killed trying to get across!”
Lenny – “It was all fake! Those graves are empty!”
It continued in this vein for some time until he suddenly got up with a triumphant flourish, declaring himself to have been the “winner” in the debate.
As I hope is clear, it wasn’t that he was “brilliant at debating” as claimed, just that he had been trained by his newfound Comrades that the best way to deal with lines of argument tricky to the Socialist position (otherwise known as “facts”) was to lie – lie loudly, lie brazenly, and lie in volume. Mount a barrage of lies one on top of another as fast as possible until, beyond exasperated, the other person simply walks away at which point you can declare yourself the victor.
I was reminded of this episode just this morning while looking at Andy Ngo’s Twitter feed.
Every time he posts a video of Antifa engaging in mayhem and violence, you can find at least half a dozen replies or so under any one video such as this:
Show the destruction. I just see a march.
Or this:
Looks like one person doing it while walking
As opposed to multiple/“their riot.”)
Pointless and annoying, and so is this tweet
Or this:
Maybe one very bright flashlight?
Stop the presses
I should be used to this by now, but this degree of effrontery still leaves me speechless.
And the latest on Ngo’s feed?
How one attempt at a civil conversation came to an abrupt and violent end.
But remember, what you’re seeing there, in that woman being pinned to the ground while being beaten senseless, can’t be fascism because “Antifa” literally means “against fascism”.
Ergo she was a fascist and deserved it.
(Off Topic)
I wouldn’t say it was off-topic at all. The denial of reality leads to some very strange places, often unhappy places. Neurotic behaviour becomes hard to avoid. And the fact that Lenny’s rhetorical dance, and that of the Antifa boosters, bears some resemblance to the rote contortions of the “equity” industry scarcely needs pointing out.
And once that’s done, we can all focus our efforts on pretending the performances aren’t rubbish
We seem to have come full circle back to Diana Moon Glampers.
Those graves are empty!
And that means they’ll need filling, for real this time, with the bodies of those who would not believe that they were empty.
Mount a barrage of lies one on top of another as fast as possible
That does indeed describe the left. Some of the leftists I have known were crude liars whose bullshit was obvious to anyone (“there are no demographic differences in crime rates”) while others were more sophisticated (“those differences are due to [insert Marxist boilerplate]”).
Who knew that Diana Moon Glampers was running Boston’s public schools?
I was in my early teens when that story was first published in book form in 1968 and lots of kids were talking about it. At the time I saw it as pure sci-fi: as a moral lesson that could not ever really happen. At that time I believed in the unlimited power of affirmative action programs to make the world right and also in the benevolence, rationality, and wisdom of the left. That the failure of racial quotas could lead the left to embrace the world of Harrison Bergeron never even occurred to me.
From further down the twitter feed:
“its like insane how many people literally can’t seem to wrap their tiny brains around why people would be protesting.”
So see? She did deserve it. Her and her tiny brain.
Lenny – “They didn’t! No one tried to escape!”
My favorite leftist response to the Berlin Wall (favorite for its hilarious lunacy) was the assertion that the Communists did the West a favor by building the Wall: without the Wall we would have been overwhelmed by millions of refugees which would have collapsed our economies. (This from a College Know It All Hippie, of course.)
But remember, what you’re seeing there, in that woman being pinned to the ground while being beaten senseless, can’t be fascism
This is why George Zimmerman carried.
I wouldn’t say it was off-topic at all.
Ah, yes,I suppose so – I think I said it just because it was a personal anecdote.
And the fact that Lenny’s rhetorical dance, and that of the Antifa boosters, bears some resemblance to the rote contortions of the “equity” industry scarcely needs pointing out.
Something very much on topic I would say, but in news that should come as no surprise to anyone:
Newly published research indicates that people who more frequently signal their victimhood (whether real, exaggerated, or false) are more likely to lie and cheat for material gain and denigrate others as a means to get ahead.
While a healthy degree of scepticism needs to be maintained in the reporting of “research” such as this, I think lived experience seems to bear this out quite clearly without the need for statistical evidence of the same.
the assertion that the Communists did the West a favor by building the Wall
Undoubtedly, the real reason.
the assertion that the Communists did the West a favor by building the Wall
I have wondered now and then what happened to those College Know It All Commies that I used to know. Did they eventually get a clue or did they keep their delusions?
Newly published research indicates that people who more frequently signal their victimhood… are more likely to lie and cheat
Fourteen years of archives here would seem to support that statement. Assuming that people won’t exploit theatrical victimhood for unedifying reasons, and do so routinely, is, to say the least, a big ask. The obvious temptations and leverage have never been more obvious, and more available, than now. And even setting aside the opportunities for manipulation and abuse, continually thinking of oneself as a victim, as if that were a defining trait, a go-to excuse, is psychologically poisonous.
OK, I just watched the Andy Ngo videos with the sound on this time. The victim tells the protesters that she voted for Biden. I know it’s “wrong” but my sympathy dropped to zero…or below.
Fourteen years of archives here
Well, exactly. Or even 14 days…
Well, exactly. Or even 14 days…
Thanks for mentioning that again. This time I remembered to download and archive the paper.
This time I remembered to download and archive the paper.
Yesterday I felt the need AGAIN to verify what I know of the George Zimmerman case. When I went to my bookmarked link, a rather crudely done web page but one that had proper links to the source information, court case data, etc. I found that many of the links no longer work. I’ve downloaded the site itself and saved it to pdf for my own backup reference, but this crap is getting seriously scary. Before long, we will all be Nikw211’s Lenny. There will be no way to prove otherwise. Not that anyone cares to believe the facts anyway, but at least it’s nice to pretend.
I’ve downloaded the site itself and saved it to pdf
How do you do that?
Yes, many of my saved links are now broken.
Also: I started saving articles as emails back in the late 90’s. Many of those emails are now corrupted, showing that online services cannot be trusted.
In chrome it’s kinda awkward/odd, but you use the Print menu and change your “Destination” to “save as pdf”.
you use the Print menu and change your “Destination” to “save as pdf”.
Ah, so you meant “save one page at a time”. Got it. That “print to PDF” feature is very useful. I thought you were talking about a tool that crawled an entire website or designated portion.
Meanwhile, check out the Nazi symbolism being used at CPAC…
https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2021/02/27/tmz-and-snopes-are-both-on-the-case-of-the-nazi-inspired-cpac-stage/
David’s readers should also be aware of the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, which archives entire websites. But not all websites are archived, because owners can flag their websites to not be crawled by the IAWM’s bots.
Meanwhile, check out the Nazi symbolism…
TMZ twitter logo black text in a red circle…problematic.
Have they gone after Kiss yet or are they too scared of Gene Simmons?
There are people in high places that need a severe beating.
At the time I saw it as pure sci-fi: as a moral lesson that could not ever really happen
I should note that the 1980s mini series V was a substantial rework of the Sinclair Lewis novel It Can’t Happen Here, about how a Hitleresque fascist dictator comes to power in the United States.
There are people in high places that need a severe beating.
Forget it, Jake. It’s Canadastan.
There are people in high places that need a severe beating.
Also the parents who are following these “guidelines”.
My wife’s co-worker’s eight-year-old son was sent home for this quarantine just before Christmas and they followed instructions to a tee. He had to be tested and his three brother’s and sisters had to be tested. The testing centre would not allow more than one person from the same family get the test at one time. The boy tested negative and was still forced to go through this hell for 10-days because the test results were delayed. In our jurisdication, the “authorities” still won’t accept or promote rapid testing.
They’ve been sending kids home with the sniffles.
(Off Topic)
I have also been irritated by this style of debate. Not to engage in any meaningful way then bizarrely declare themselves the victor.
This is the basically word for word discussion I once had:
Person: The obstetrician was a mysogynist and mutilated that woman with no justification. he should be in jail.
Me: Well, he had to make a call in a crisis moment as to whether to perform that caesarian. If he hadn’t it is very likely the baby or mum would have died. It is also possible the mum, in her pain didn’t realise just how dangerous the situation had become.
Person: Don’t defend him, he mutilated her viciously and carelessly.
Me: I’m not defending him. A c section is standard practice with that clinical presentation as the alternatives are far more dangerous. he could have explained his reasoning to the mum better, but she may not have been able to process it given her distress.
Person: Don’t defend him, he mutilated her viciously and carelessly.
Me: What do you think would have been the better/more realistic approach? Is it worth the risk of death to the baby or significant harm/death to mum?
Person: Don’t defend him, he mutilated her viciously and carelessly.
Me: It was hardly a careless operation, both mum and baby came out healthy, and I’m not sure what doing it ‘viciously’ would look like, but what is the evidence he behaved viciously?
Person: I hope now you have a new perspective on this situation to replace your previous one that is obviously a result of ignorance and misogyny. I will leave things here, hoping that you have taken the opportunity to learn and grow from this.
Me: *dies inside*