Dark Comedy
It’s impossible to envision a world without race for the Democratic Party. For such people, it’s impossible to envision a world that gets beyond race because their bread and butter, their bottom line, their raison d'être, and everything that they’re trying to do depends upon people being kept in these boxes.
Professor Glenn Loury.
Martin Durkin’s new documentary, The Great American Race Game.
Mr Durkin’s films, which I strongly recommend, have been mentioned before.
Also, open thread.
I’ll cheat and go the other way. Can someone explain to me, unless I missed it, why the Michigan State Spartans,
I can beat that .. San Diego State University Aztecs.
Oh, there WAS controversy over the mascot and “identity”, but not on the basis of the culture being one of the most bloody, oppressive and murderous civilizations to have ever existed.
You just can’t make this crap up.
Real or satire, your guess is as good as mine:
What’s the article about? My straight boyfriend gave me a queer pandemic haircut
Read the rest, if you dare: it’s spectacularly awful and full of buzzwords that really mean nothing put together.
The Russian Lord of the Rings is reminiscent of something from the wonderful MST3K such as, say, Jack Frost:-
https://youtu.be/CVpOaeBtr7w
it’s spectacularly awful and full of buzzwords that really mean nothing put together.
It’s all performance art.
Makes me actually wonder if the “queer community” would actually exist but for the internet.
But I don’t know that Uncle Hugo’s science fiction bookstore was in a “traditional black and Asian business district”
Uncle Hugo’s was at 29th and Chicago. George Floyd died at 38th and Chicago. I lived for three years at 40th and Chicago. I was born in the hospital at 27th and Chicago, but I don’t remember much from that time.
When I lived there in the late 90s, my laundromat and liquor store were at Lake (30th Street) and Chicago. It was a very diverse neighborhood in those days. Chi-Lake Liquors was happy to sell me a nice Cabernet if I was cooking a fancy dinner, but they also did a brisk business selling malt liquor to the local panhandlers 40 ounces at a time.
At any rate, it should come as little surprise that a guy making a living by selling second-hand science fiction books would choose a location with somewhat depressed property values and rents. But I’d hardly call Chi-Lake a “traditionally black and Asian business district.” It’s a marginal, transitional neighborhood that bounces between different flavors of entrepreneurs and immigrants with each passing decade.
In recent years, it’s experienced a bit of an uptick with the redevelopment of the old Sears building into the Midtown Global Market, which is where ethnic cooks and crafters sell overpriced food and products to hipsters. If the city were ever able to sort itself out, they could have a nice little neighborhood there. Too bad there’s no political power to be had by helping neighbors get along with one another…
Spartans, arguably the Nazi’s […] of Ancient Greece
The Spartans get a bad rap because the Enlightenment historians thought democracy was the Coolest Thing Ever, and since the Athenians were all about the participatory democracy and the Spartans still had hereditary kings, therefore in the Peloponnesian War the Athenians must have been the Good Guys and the Spartans must have been the Bad Guys. It’s a ridiculously simplistic view of both societies. The Spartan government was actually closer to most modern forms of representative democracy than the Athenians’ was.
I can beat that .. San Diego State University Aztecs.
Yeah, I call foul on that. Aztecs were not whitey-white-white people so they OF COURSE DO NOT COUNT IN THE EVIL, EVIL, NAZI SOCIETY RANKINGS. Seriously. You should understand these things by now.
Sorry. Ace has been down all day and I don’t know what to get pissed off about today. I mean, I know I could man-up and find some such thing myself but that would likely be even more dangerous. My dog needs me. And my mortgage company. Though the dog has been a little standoff-ish lately.
OK…let me try this then…We’ve been left without lifelines or anchors or chances to see how we might feel and change by interacting with each other—instead, we sit in our mostly not-at-all-private spaces doomscrolling on our phones.
Again, I know I’ve said this over and over but would someone please b****slap these worthless f***s to stop this “we” shit? YOU. YOU are the psychobabble f*** up. Well, psychobabble in that regard anyway.
Apropos of nothing, does anyone know when this Darren Chauvin jury is supposed to return a verdict? I’ve got a car I need to sell and I’m thinking if instead I park it overnight in juuuuust the right location…
The Spartans get a bad rap because the Enlightenment historians. Yeah. Except the Helot thing. And the tossing unfit babies into chasms. And the training. And the sneaking around just to sleep with your own wife. And not feeding the young boys so that they would learn to steal. Of course the food sucked anyway so….
Not that they weren’t good for a party or two.
Read the rest, if you dare…
I guess you can only do that with narcissistic public displays.
Speaking of which, this will bring much needed healing for these troubled times.
Yeah. Except the Helot thing. And the tossing unfit babies into chasms. And the training. And the sneaking around just to sleep with your own wife. And not feeding the young boys so that they would learn to steal.
Always take the word of an Athenian general writing about his mortal enemies after getting his ass kicked by them. And ignore all that Athenian imperialism, conquest, razing of rebellious colonies, and pederasty. It’s all hyperbole.
Always take the word of an Athenian general writing about his mortal enemies after getting his ass kicked by them. And ignore all that Athenian imperialism, conquest, razing of rebellious colonies, and pederasty. It’s all hyperbole.
Nah. I heard it from Walter Cronkite. It was on an episode of And You Were There. I think. Or maybe it was Donald Kagan at Yale many, many years ago. I forget, really. But I defer to you. Because the Athenian general thing. Occam’s Razor and all that. Or perhaps what I heard about Occam was wrong?
Seriously…Somebody get Ace’s blog f’n fixed.
Teacher subbing at a high school where I worked had the last name Kok. He wisely insisted everyone call him ‘Mr. K.’
And of course there is always Mister Fokker.
Or maybe it was Donald Kagan at Yale many, many years ago
Kagan is probably the world’s foremost scholar on what Thucydides wrote, yes.
Keep at it. You’ll figure it out.
“A narrative put forth, as usual, to deny Black agency and responsibility. It wasn’t White people I saw rampaging through a Minneapolis Target, stealing everything in sight.”
The blacks down there are poor. Very poor. They saw a broken-open store and they did what was expected. But the store was broken open by the white Antifa asshats.
I visited some friends in the Floyd Zone last week. Had to talk my way through the self-appointed White masked hoodied guardians. Ended up with my black friends coming out of their house, and their black nieghbors coming out of their houses, to all yell obscene imprecations at the Antifa jerks, all revolving around “get out of here and leave us alone, you cannibals!” Even the blacks down there hate them now. They used to have jobs, and gardens, and a life. Now, not so much.
Daniel, Thucidydes is far from our only source on Spartan culture and society. Herodotus, Xenophon, and Plutarch (IIRC), among others, wrote of them. These writers all had their own biases, of course, but they were not at all universally anti-Spartan. Xenophon was was an associate of a Spartan king, for instance.
Even then, Thucidydes’ bias was not so pro-Athenian as you suggest, given how Athens treated him (indeed, I’ve much more often seen him accused of pro-Spartan bias).
“We will “effectively embrace and teach positive elements of what is known about the Aztec Empire and its people.”
Making the trains run on time? Fighting overpopulation? What?
Let’s face it: the Aztecs were genocidal Stone Age Nazis, nothing more. They fell not because the 300 Conquistadores defeated them, but because all of the surrounding tribes had had quite enough of the Aztecs’ depredations, and rallied around the Conquistadores.
Cats were sacred to the ancient Egyptians, who were black.
No, they most certainly were not, as a trip to the Valley of the Kings will establish. The tombs contain frescoes of Egyptians in war chariots riding down Nubians (black Africans). The contrast between the two is stark. I have seen them, and frankly, was surprised by this.
Name changing upon immigration to the US was not restricted to Asians or to POC.
My friend’s last name was Domashinovinski. When her great grandfather, arriving from Russia, passed through Ellis Island around 1900, the immigration officer wrote Domash on the forms, and that became the family name.
The blacks down there are poor. Very poor. They saw a broken-open store and they did what was expected.
Expected … by whom? By liberals? Leftists? You? What stores did they loot? Bookstores? Or would liquor stores be a better bet?
But the store was broken open by the white Antifa asshats.
It’s easy to believe that Minneapolis, like Portland, is heavily infested by feral leftists. So I hope we can all agree that those feral leftists should experience the full weight of the law.
I have seen them, and frankly, was surprised by this.
I saw this as a young child around 1965, possibly in one of those Time-Life books on history. Take this as an argument for copious illustrations of many topics.
The blacks down there are poor. Very poor. They saw a broken-open store and they did what was expected. But the store was broken open by the white Antifa asshats.
Go on, keep infantilizing blacks and denying them agency. “It was those bad Whites fault that we burned and looted!” That never gets old.
I have seen them, and frankly, was surprised by this.
I do believe you may have misses the implied “/s”.
Meanwhile, and generally related, an update on the car hijacking murder possible plea bargain because asking the US media to report on this is too much to ask.
Almost the same as being sent to the gulag, that will be a deterrent.
Cats were sacred to the ancient Egyptians, who were black.
No, you misunderstand. The cats were black. I read it in a magazine.
Real or satire…
Makes me actually wonder if the “queer community” would actually exist but for the internet.
Well, here’s your answer:
How Do I Define My Gender if No One Is Watching Me?
No, they most certainly were not, as a trip to the Valley of the Kings will establish.
Not necessarily, though; that may just have been an artistic/propagandistic convention. There is a midrash (rabbinical exposition) that has Abraham pointing out to Sarah the contrast between her looks and those of the “ugly, black” Egyptians, so at the very least that would make their color some shades darker than that of your typical (olive-skinned) Middle-Easterner. For that matter, the Table of Nations (Genesis 10) has Mitzraim (Egypt) and Cush (Sudan/Ethiopia) as “brothers,” presumably indicating some racial similarity.
“Let me introduce you to the story of the defacing of the monument to Robert the Bruce.”
To be fair, I remain to be convinced that this wasn’t a 4-chan-esque trolling exercise.
“A name like Bich (pronounced ‘Bic’)”
It’s not hard to imagine a German with similar* problems. But he wouldn’t find it as easy to garner prestigious sympathy.**
“Name changing upon immigration to the US was not restricted to Asians or to POC.”
It doesn’t even have to be at the point of landing. I always think of the Brazilian racing driver Helio de Castro Neves, who, sick of people in the US calling him “Castro” or “Neves”, changed his surname to “Castroneves” in 2000. His compatriot Ayrton Senna da Silva took the other option, and simply resigned himself to being “Senna”.
Language is emergent behaviour. You can’t force it to your will, because that means forcing everyone else to do things your way. Sometimes you have to bend or you’ll break.
*Yes, I know the Germanic “ch” isn’t identical to “ck”. But it’s close enough for most Anglophones.
**Band name.
This happened Saturday morning a little more than 3 miles from my home.
“Nice” neighborhoods are no protection as California’s Left refuses to do anything about “transients” (aka homeless) and other criminals and this obviously psychotic perp was caught-and-released only a few days prior for taking a skateboard to beat on a woman.
Disagree. Please enumerate their top 3 propaganda items for our review.
Alex,
The most likely explanation is that the elite were lighter skinned than the peasants, an arrangement that can be found in some countries to this day.
Good God, I do believe that’s rather well documented.
Prior to the industrial revolution, the worthless scuts that did the hard work to provide things most people wanted worked in the fields. If you worked in the fields, you get a tan; any human will become darker when exposed to excessive sunlight.
(When I was a CTLT cadet in Fort Hood many years ago, one of the lieutenants in my company was African-American. When I mentioned that I thought he couldn’t get a tan, he showed me that my head was up my fourth point of contact by rolling up his sleeve and showing me the difference. As a side-effect, he also showed me what his fraternity did to pledges; from his description, that entailed using a red-hot piece of metal to sear a heart into his arm. The scar that I saw matched what he said.)
During the industrial revolution, most of the worthless scuts that did the hard work were in factories. Those worthless scuts would not get a tan, since they worked within a building during daylight hours.
After COVID19, I have no idea what the elite would think differentiates themselves from the worthless scuts that provide value.
For those out there who think only the US has politicians who are not exactly the sharpest knives in the marquee, an MP is stunned by history.
Farnsworth:
Garbage Human is on the case with his reply “Now show London”.
Go on, keep infantilizing blacks and denying them agency.
In fairness to Bobby, he’s hardly the first or only person infantilizing the black community in Minneapolis. We’re talking about several generations who’ve grown up attending Mpls Public Schools and getting their daily bread from the friendly bureaucrats in the Hennepin County government building. Good role models, solid education, and encouragement to succeed? Pretty thin on the ground, I’m afraid.
Yes, of course everybody has agency and should be held responsible for their actions. But when you set up an incentive structure that punishes responsible behavior, you can’t really express surprise when lawlessness and irresponsibility flourish.
Thanks, Ray. That does make sense, although still, after all, lots of Semites and other Middle-Eastern people were peasants too. So it still may be that the Egyptian range of skin tones was a couple shades darker than that of the Semites.
an MP is stunned by history.
Claudia Webbe, MP, Labour Party.
Garbage Human posted a photo of her. Note Castro and Lenin behind her. (I tried to find the source of the photo but was unsuccessful.)
Nice friends she has on the wall there, but we wouldn’t expect consistency…
“Nice” neighborhoods are no protection as California’s Left refuses to do anything about “transients” (aka homeless) and other criminals and this obviously psychotic perp was caught-and-released only a few days prior for taking a skateboard to beat on a woman.
“Transients,” “homeless” = “mentally ill and/or drug-addled vagrants.”
And we are inundated with them in coastal California. Our sleepy burg has recently had several brutal murders perpetrated by them, in one of which two vagrants broke into a tony condominium overlooking a lagoon and stabbed the female occupant 147 times. They probably got a stern warning for that.
Meanwhile, the idiots that run California are doing everything in their power to attract more vagrants (free food, free healthcare, free accommodation, no legal consequences, etc.) and yet liberals here marvel that the number of vagrants keeps increasing.
Imagine. Somehow, for those sleeping rough, California is a more desirable locale than Fargo, North Dakota. Which probably also lacks any government-provided incentives for them.
Somehow, for those sleeping rough, California is a more desirable locale than Fargo, North Dakota. Which probably also lacks any government-provided incentives for them.
Well that, definitely, and also the fact that sleeping rough in Fargo North Dakota is also likely to result in vagrants becoming snow-covered meatsicles – at least for 85% of the year. Although the summer weeks probably aren’t much more hospitable.
Well that, definitely, and also the fact that sleeping rough in Fargo North Dakota is also likely to result in vagrants becoming snow-covered meatsicles – at least for 85% of the year.
Yes, of course. That’s why I chose Fargo.
Let’s see Fargo, or San Diego? Must think, must think …