Tales From The Far Side
The curriculum recommends that teachers lead their students in a series of indigenous songs, chants, and affirmations, including the “In Lak Ech Affirmation,” which appeals directly to the Aztec gods. Students first clap and chant to the god Tezkatlipoka—whom the Aztecs traditionally worshipped with human sacrifice and cannibalism—asking him for the power to be “warriors” for “social justice.”
Christopher F Rufo takes a look at California’s proposed ethnic studies curriculum.
The state board of education will vote on this curriculum next week.
Academic standards may not be quite up to snuff, but hey, look on the bright side. The kids can use class time to appeal to unseen demons, thereby bringing about “decolonization” and its “healing epistemologies.”
Oh, and consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.
Call it Cultural Appropriation – hopefully their heads will explode
But that “hegemonic Eurocentric neocolonial condition” won’t overthrow itself, you know.
The children must be freed. From literacy, apparently.
If the US is an “oppressor nation”, then it takes a very second place to the Aztec nation. Unless I am much mistaken, the US rarely captures large numbers of its neighbour’s citizens and then rips out their hearts.
Call me old-fashioned, but to place any reverence in Gods of a culture that is pretty much the apex of sadism and cruelty does not seem like a step forward.
I suppose it’s another example of how Marxoid personalities – including those to whom the education of children is entrusted – can’t help but reveal the inevitable dissonance.
My family and I left California ten years ago for the wilderness of East Tennessee (a wasteland of savages in which I must drive 15 minutes to find an authentic taco). I shall reiterate what my husband says each time I tell him the latest folly in California: “They brought that shit on themselves.”
Where in the modern USA did the Aztecs live?
The children must be freed. From literacy, apparently.
I believe it was Che Guevara who shouted something about evidence being a bourgeois value. What is literacy but a way for vulnerable young minds to gather, and thus be tainted by, evidence?
Call me old-fashioned, but to place any reverence in Gods of a culture that is pretty much the apex of sadism and cruelty does not seem like a step forward.
There are those who put forward that when Europeans landed in the Americas they effectively stepped as much as 5000 years into the past. I would agree in more ways than they usually outright say. The merry larks of the Assyrian Empire in particular come to mind.
Is it racist to point out that many of Tezkatlipoka’s descendants are pouring over the southern border?
And here I thought prayers were illegal in American Schools. Where’s the ACLU when you need them* ?
* Rhetorical question, we all know they are chasing wokery themselves
57 big ones for this….
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9347201/Woke-50k-Manhattan-school-bans-kids-using-terms-mom-dad.html
Meanwhile, they continue to cannibalise themselves
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9349743/Teen-Vogues-new-editor-27-issues-lengthy-public-apology-old-racist-tweets-emerge.html
Sorry for all the Daily Mail links, but this is where I’m getting my news these days. They seem to be the least woke news site.
The kids can use class time to appeal to unseen demons, thereby bringing about “decolonization” and its “healing epistemologies.”
Ia Ia, Cthulhu F’taghn !
Unless I am much mistaken, the US rarely captures large numbers of its neighbour’s citizens and then rips out their hearts.
You are indeed, but the ripping is more metaphorical.
As it is Woman’s History Month, one should be proud ally and read the whole thread that last thing came from and educate yourselves, also, in the true spirit of empowering women, CNN advises us It’s Time For A New Beauty Paradigm.
Share ye links and bicker.
I don’t want to bicker (unless Hal and Minnow show up) but I am peeved that it is already Thursday and so little done. [ Looks sternly at self. Decides it’s more fun to shift the blame. Looks sternly at proprietor of fine establishment. ]
More cultural relativism; where all cultures, present or historical, are equally deserving of praise. Except for modern western cultures, of course.
It’s strange that all these proponents of such cultures prefer to live in western democracies, rather than ones that exhibit the ‘characteristics’ they praise.
Where in the modern USA did the Aztecs live?
I believe they used to play soccer in Los Angeles…so…
which appeals directly to the Aztec gods.
So, Aztecs? Who let those bastards in?
*calls up ancestral beings….*
You know, I really oughta open a casino. Selling cigarettes and tax free booze.
Is Royston Vibes involved, by any chance?
(“18th-year sociology student at Nerdley University. Claims to be head of an Aztec community that conquered Nerdley in the Dark Ages and demands ever-increasing concessions and benefits from local government, including the inalienable right to commit human sacrifice on subsidized step pyramids.” – Wikipedia. Peter Simple material seems to be disappointingly scarce on the electric interweb.)
It’s hard to imagine how these people could be any more effective in promoting white supremacism.
California parents should be concerned.
As understatements go, that is simply magnificent.
The document claims that whites began “grabbing the land,” “hatching hierarchies,” and “developing for Europe/whiteness,” which created “excess wealth” that “became the basis for the capitalist economy.”
A constant refrain from postcolonialists and their various kindred spirits is to claim that without slavery or imperialism the West would never have generated the capital necessary to launch the industrial revolution that ultimately resulted in western hegemony.
But what that seems to overlook is the quite serious flaw that it is complete and utter fucking bollocks.
As an idea, I will grant that there is a certain dramatic appeal to picturing western cupidity as a sleeping dragon slowly being awoken by the scent of gold and transformed by the sweat of captive peoples into a monstrous engine of modernity … but it’s all just so fucking Richard Wagner, Pre-Raphaelite, William Morris, etc.
Besides, as a Creation myth it is just that – a myth.
Unrelated:
If I see one more message on social media about holding keys between their fingers …
… seriously, assuming they do actually do this on a regular basis, and I’m not, where exactly have got this idea that holding keys like that magically transforms you into a living weapon?
It gets more absurd with every repetition.
[ Looks sternly at self. Decides it’s more fun to shift the blame. Looks sternly at proprietor of fine establishment. ]
No refunds. Credit note only.
[ Resumes tinkering with time machine. ]
the quite serious flaw that it is complete and utter fucking bollocks.
As noted before, Angry Studies and Education courses, which is where these clowns typically build their nests, attract students with some of the lowest SAT scores, while indulging those students with by far the most generous grading. And this is before we get to the, shall we say, mental complications that very often accompany a far-left worldview.
The re-primitivization continues apace.
In the interest of open thread, I’m not sure if this is meant to be satire or not. Seems to be written from the belief that legislators can actually control the sun…
https://thefederalist.com/2021/03/10/stop-standard-time-madness-we-should-be-saving-daylight-all-year-long/
I’m imagining some California teacher actually teaching the pupils what proper worship of Tezkatlipoka entails, and then said pupils, a few years later, dutifully taking appropriate action.
The document claims that whites began “grabbing the land,” “hatching hierarchies,”…
Suggested book title: “Horton Hatches a Hierarchy”.
If I see one more message on social media about holding keys between their fingers seriously, assuming they do actually do this on a regular basis, and I’m not, where exactly have got this idea that holding keys like that magically transforms you into a living weapon?
This is old – I first heard about it before the internet was big – may have read it in a women’s magazine back in the 90s. I think it came from womens self defense classes/articles. The version I read didn’t purport to turn you into a living weapon. I think the idea was the keys served as a sort of sharpish brass knuckles, to add some pain or damage to an otherwise weak punch. And your keys are in hand, so you don’t have to fumble at the door for them.
I don’t know what the claim is in the social media version is today, but I’m sure it’s been influenced by the trendy kick-ass skinny female cop trope that’s in every tv show, movie and whatnot.
The re-primitivization continues apace.
Now that is a dandy phrase.
:::sigh::: What with letting males into womans/girls sports, locker rooms, restrooms and store changing rooms, we also have again another zeta male being fetishized for being better at being a woman.
Darleen – between CRT advocates insisting via their ideology that white people/culture are superior to all others, socialists insisting that fascism (eg government directing corporate activity) is preferable to capitalism, and trans advocates/feminists insisting that males are superior in every way to women I think ‘Horseshoe Theory’ has been proven beyond doubt.
I think the idea was
The original idea was that you could use them to scratch at the face of your attacker – not to deter them, as keys are not very sharp, but to mark them for later identification. Which, if you think about it for five seconds, won’t work either because of the logistics involved.
Punching someone with your keys laced between your fingers is very likely to hurt you a great deal more than your target.
There’s been a lot of very silly advice given to women on how to defend themselves from potential rapists over the decades because the organizations giving that advice are ideologically opposed to the one thing women can do that will actually protect them: get a gun and CCW and learn how to use it.
The fact that the states with the highest rates of stranger rape are also the ones with the strictest restrictions on CCW is an inconvenient hatefact. As is the political party governing those states.
Dude. You’re not supposed to talk about Horseshoe Theory anymore. It’s a right-wing talking point.
https://psmag.com/social-justice/an-end-to-horseshoe-theory
Personally, I’ve always thought of it as Circle Theory. By ‘always’, I mean since about 10th grade or so.
I’m not sure if this is meant to be satire or not.
It’s hard to tell. With the ubiquity of low-powered LED lighting, there are actually a lot of good economic reasons for getting rid of the disruption DST entails and this idea has been floated a few times before. Nobody proposing the legislation thinks they can, pace King Cnut, control the Sun.
[ Slumps across desk, emotionally spent. ]
Ephemera… compiled…
Punching someone with your keys laced between your fingers is very likely to hurt you a great deal more than your target.
Years ago, the women in my office (DA) were offered a basic self-defense class by our Bureau of Investigation (they are sworn law enforcement attached to a district attorney office). That *keys between the fingers* thing was blasted as a Very Bad Myth for the reason you state.
However, if keys are the only thing you have in your hand, you CAN use them … by holding the keyring in a way that a majority of the keys are dangling from your fist, then backhanding the mass across the attacker’s face (then running like hell while they are stunned).
And there are reasons, economic and otherwise, that it was done in the first place. See Chesterton Fence. The stupid thing to me is, why DST all the time but not ST? If they don’t think that they control the sun, seems ST is the default position. Why the bumping of DST such that it now is effectively the ST even though it was never meant to be? I predict a lot of whining and complaining when people realize how flipping dark it will be at 9 AM in many parts of the country in November, December, January. Or October and February even. Kids going to school, even elementary kids, in the dark has been an issue with the increased spreading of DST. Now that will be worse for the full school year? Heh. Perhaps I should stock up on popcorn.
[ Slumps across desk, emotionally spent. ]
Ephemera… compiled…
Quick! Hold his head while I give him a reviving tot of that floor cleaner he calls whiskey!
As for the keys thing…more f’n BS from the ‘experts’ first one way then the other. How about women, or even men, think for themselves. Consider your situation, consider what is available to you, and act accordingly. It’s not something that should be dismissed as a bad idea nor promoted as a good one universally. It’s a bloody tool available in a desperate situation.
As for the keys thing…more f’n BS from the ‘experts’ first one way then the other.
There do seem to be a lot of ‘experts’ whose expertise is entirely a product of their own egos. Newspapers and magazines (not to mention websites) seem to be full of them.
Can’t help but think of Tom Wolfe’s reporting on the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic in 1968 where doctors were treating “diseases that had disappeared so long ago they had never even picked up Latin names”.
Has there ever been a time past when hard-won knowledge has been gleefully abandoned en masse in favour of baseless superstition?
…Horseshoe Theory…
Personally, I’ve always thought of it as Circle Theory. By ‘always’, I mean since about 10th grade or so.
That’s how I always heard it presented, too.
Well it was presented to me as linear. But they neglected to remove that cartoon of Hitler and Stalin with their legs tied together, so unfortunately I started to think about these things…
Daylight Saving
If the powers that be insist that “noon” be redefined as “an hour before the sun reaches its highest point in the sky,” we’ll need to update the terms “ante meridiem” and “post meridiem” to reflect the new system.
(I still have fond memories of a July visit to Greenwich, where the Lovely Bride and I nearly laughed ourselves sick at all the tourists trying to get snaps of themselves standing on the Prime Meridian at “noon” and never noticing that their shadows were way off the line.)
The children then held the teacher down over her desk and cut her heart out with an obsidian knife.
Oh sod that. If I find myself walking to my car in the dark (something any sensible woman tries to avoid whenever possible), the only ‘identification’ thing I care about is f*cking an attacker up so badly his own mother wouldn’t recognize him. The only practical applications of the key thing are an eye rake (challenging, especially in low light against a moving target) or turning a throatpunch into a poison strike. Better than nothing, but that’s a pretty low bar.
Back in the days I had a car that I had to actually insert the key in the lock to open this was only semi-handy, since meant that although I had the things in my hand I had to juggle them around to get them into position. Not something you want to attempt when jittery.
This. So much this. Ideally, you should try to avoid situations where you might find yourself under attack. Sadly, we don’t live in an ideal world, and sometimes bad things happen to good (even smart) people. Prepare accordingly, in both the long and immediate term, so you’re not trying to come up with options in the heat of the moment. And don’t trust the talking head ‘experts.’ I’m not saying go play an unarmed Paul Kersey, but do some actual sparring and encounter drills.
The children then held the teacher down over her desk and cut her heart out with an obsidian knife.
She would have no moral grounds to object, so to steal a line from pulp romance, she should “give her heart willingly”.
Thread your keys, if you think someone might be after you…
This was taught to us in the 1960s by both our fathers and our schoolmasters. Then, any punch – or quick swung “whupp” on the side of a fella’s skull would hurt him far more than a straight punch, would hopefully draw much blood, and maybe tear his flesh messily too – or even puncture bone if we were lucky.
The mighty Aztecs were an unapologetically imperial power. They subjugated their neighbors, rather brutally, and their neighbors were the source of human blood and human hearts to be sacrificed to the ever-hungering gods.
When the Aztecs were toppled, the Conquistadors were certainly involved, but most especially as the metastasizing factor for a more general revolt of the Aztecs’ subjects. (Who would, of course, have one overlord exchanged for another. Though one with a different use for “blood” in its liturgy.)
The hard Left’s supposed aversion to “imperialism” and “colonialism” is just a pose. They’ve always admired just that sort of thing, so long as they can identify with the ones holding the knife.
Then, any punch – or quick swung “whupp” on the side of a fella’s skull
Testicles damn it. Some women hits me in the head, all I get is a sore head. I’m not disorientated for more than a second.
When men fight for prestige reasons or in public, they punch each other in ways that are accepted. But ineffective.
When unarmed men fight to the death or in private, then hitting the head is a waste of time. Gouging eyes, biting ears, knees to the groin — it’s all on.
Gouging eyes, biting ears, knees to the groin — it’s all on.
I’m reminded of a fight video between a U.S. trainer and a Peruvian soldier. Not sure of the context, but it was over in seconds, when the trainer poked the soldier’s eye out.
Criminy, not only did I remember it right, but YT still has the video up.
https://youtu.be/y-VP12g49TI
Gouging eyes, biting ears, knees to the groin — it’s all on.
Yes. Problem is that some men and even more women are squeamish when it comes to going Berserker on an attacker and will hesitate targeting things like eyes.
Testicles damn it
Band name.
which appeals directly to the Aztec gods.
The ones to which they ritually disemboweled other Amerindians? Those Aztec gods?
Nice people.
Let’s face it: the Aztecs were low IQ Stone Age Nazis.
A constant refrain from postcolonialists and their various kindred spirits is to claim that without slavery or imperialism the West would never have generated the capital necessary to launch the industrial revolution that ultimately resulted in western hegemony.
Thank Lenin for that one. He ginned up that rubbish to explain why Marx’s prediction of the collapse of capitalism didn’t happen. Per Lenin, it was because the capitalist countries exported their problems to the Third World by exploiting the natives and resources there.
No answer yet for why those same countries are still floundering to this day.
And odds are her hand is going to hurt even more, potentially with broken bones in it.
Thank Lenin for that one. He ginned up that rubbish to explain why Marx’s prediction of the collapse of capitalism didn’t happen…
Lenin was an even bigger liar than Marx, as I recall.
Gouging eyes, biting ears, knees to the groin — it’s all on.
I’ll take my discount whiskey and deboned pork rectums to go Landlord.
Thank God for Cortez!
I’m reminded of Neil Young’s paean to Montezuma–“Cortez the Killer”
Best cover here: Grace Potter and Joe Satriani
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paeNnR33i5Q
And the women all were beautiful
And the men stood straight and strong
They offered life in sacrifice
So that others could go on
Hate was just a legend
And war was never known
The people worked together
And they lifted many stones
And they carried them to the flat lands
But they died along the way
And they build up with their bare hands
What we still can’t do today
Word.
“Personally, I’ve always thought of it as Circle Theory. By ‘always’, I mean since about 10th grade or so.”
I used to. Since about the same age, too. But I’ve come to think of all these theories that attempt to disassociate the self-described “Left” from their intellectual bedfellows on the so-called “far right” in the same vein as Ptolemaic epicycles. If you have to come up with complicated exceptions and explanations for why this is not that, despite all appearances to the contrary, then you’re probably missing something fundamental.
And they are. They’re all collectivists. The “Left” are collectivists of class and wealth, the “far right” collectivists of “race” (and, often, wealth). Which is why those on the Left often find themselves succumbing to their own forms of racism, as we’re seeing more and more often right now. Once you start thinking of people not as individual human beings with agency and responsibility but only as members of a “class”, it’s much easier to switch to thinking of them only as members of a “race”.
“The stupid thing to me is, why DST all the time but not ST?”
Good point. Here at 56°N, it gets light at about 8:45am in late December, and the sun sets around 3:15pm. But it stays fully light until well after 10pm in high summer, DST, and it’s daylight again by about 3am. (In fact, although we’re still a long way from the land of the midnight sun, in astronomical terms the sun doesn’t fully set for a couple of weeks; we only get twighlight, not full night.) No amount of fiddling with the clocks can alter the fact that we just don’t have enough daylight in winter and more than we can handle in June.
Personally, I look on DST as one of those little quirks that make life a bit more interesting. But if we’re going to get rid of it, get rid of it. It’s useless in winter and largely pointless in summer.
Then, any punch – or quick swung “whupp” on the side of a fella’s skull would hurt him far more than a straight punch, would hopefully draw much blood, and maybe tear his flesh messily too – or even puncture bone if we were lucky.
And for only $2.98, you too can be a master of yubiwaza.
Let’s face it: the Aztecs were low IQ Stone Age Nazis
In fact, the Aztecs were the most accomplished of the people of the Americas, and Cortez and his gang were astonished by the sophistication of their civilisation. However, they were also very nasty to anyone that wasn’t Aztec, and so all their neighbours hated and feared them. They weren’t great at the “winning the hearts and minds” thing, except for the “hearts” part. Cortez would never have conquered the Aztecs without the cooperation of their native enemies, and the assistance of smallpox. Of course, Europeans would have eventually prevailed anyway due to their superior technology.
It’s a pity we can’t send Neil Young back in a time machine.
It’s a pity we can’t send Neil Young back in a time machine.
Seems fair. It’s what he wanted, and it’s what he deserved.
However, they were also very nasty to anyone that wasn’t Aztec
They weren’t very nice to Aztecs either, as I recall.
I’m imagining some California teacher actually teaching the pupils what proper worship of Tezkatlipoka entails, and then said pupils, a few years later, dutifully taking appropriate action.
That’s exactly how Islamic terrorists recruit people. They point out what the Quran actually says, and that you (the recruit) are living a life that Allah rejects. They also point out that when Muhammad said “I have been made victorious through terror”, he meant it, and as Allah’s ordained perfect example of a Muslim, he must be imitated.
If one considers the savagery of the Mexican drug cartels, you couldn’t help but conclude that the spirit of the Aztec gods is flourishing in the present.
And for only $2.98, you too can be a master of yubiwaza.
I have a kubaton for about $4.
I have a kubaton for about $4.
Illegal in the UK?
self defense classes
Speaking of which, His Hands Are Weapons:
(Cover painting by the great Barclay Shaw for the first serial publication of Stephen King’s The Gunslinger. He’s published a couple collections of his art. Have not as yet found anyplace where reproductions can be purchased.)
I always laugh when I see stuff like this.
“Aztec” is what the Spanish colonizers called the Mexica.
That’s exactly the same as calling Zimbabwe “Rhodesia.”
A hate-crime in other words.
In fact, the Aztecs were the most accomplished of the people of the Americas
High praise indeed.