Problematic Pallor, Part 362
I want to share with people why I didn’t know I was white. Because I think a lot of people don’t know they are white.
I bring thrilling news from academia:
Professor of education and human development at George Washington University, explains how she needed “somatic embodied training” to “learn that she was white”.
These people are responsible for training new teachers. pic.twitter.com/yXBv2KV7VW
— Mythinformed (@MythinformedMKE) October 18, 2021
The speaker quoted above is Dr Julia Storberg-Walker, an associate professor of education at George Washington University. A teacher of teachers, of those who will in turn shape young minds, or try to, anyway. Our educator’s realisation of her own “whiteness” – and thus innate wrongness – was, we’re told, a result of “somatic, embodied training,” which is essential, apparently. In order to struggle with one’s “positionality” as a White Devil, a doer of “harm,” a devourer of souls.
Dr Storberg-Walker’s academic biography tells us,
Her activist/scholar work…
Because one can’t not be an activist, obviously.
is generative and aims to develop equitable and compassionate frameworks, models, and processes for the purpose of catalysing whole planet interdependence and flourishing.
Whole planet flourishing. Goodness. This feat is to be achieved by drawing on,
quantum field theory, and wisdom traditions spanning diverse cultures and historical moments.
Readers are invited to speculate as to exactly how quantum field theory might bear upon such topics as “critical race activism,” or “colonised words,” and how it might inform “deep learning” about the seemingly endless pathologies of being pale. Alas, Dr Storberg-Walker remains coy on the subject, merely teasing us, and instead offers the following:
I see my contribution as an [sic] leadership studies educator grounded in the the [sic] wisdom of the feminine—a voice long submerged and whose time is now.
And,
I have started to find more and more people who share this type of perspective,
An encouraging development, I’m sure.
and I see more and more people yearning for the profound, the wise, and the eternal.
Okay, then. So, the words intersectional woo are entirely inappropriate and should be banished from your minds, you doubting heathens. If racially neurotic women and pretentious ethno-masochism are your thing, we’ve poked this particular bag of crazy before. More than once. 
An individual has an issue with David Chapelle.
An individual? Or a cartoon?
Anyone know if much (or any) of that was true?
All of it. In 1991 I was interning at Canada’s premier energy R&D laboratory, and one of the petroleum engineers showed me a folder once and said “if oil ever goes above $50/bbl, we’ve got enough in the tar sands to run the world for 200 years.” And then he threw the folder back in the filing cabinet because unless oil hit $50/bbl, the extraction process was more expensive than the oil was worth.
Fracking, shale oil, deep sea drilling, there’s Saganesque volumes of oil still out there and we know exactly where it is. It’s just expensive to get it out, and cheaper alternatives exist. When the market is allowed to operate, increased oil prices drive investment in these sources and (counter-intuitively) prices then drop as economies of scale and initial infrastructure investment is amortized.
Because feminists tell us that boys should be sexually aroused by a girl’s recitations of Marxist dialectic.
If she mutters it quietly enough that I don’t hear it over the DJ playing Du Hast for the third time of the night while she is taking her turn swinging around a pole, then fine.
An individual has an issue with David Chapelle.
Cartoon, indeed.
Belatedly, after all the fuss, I watched the Chapelle thing. Aside from an occasional chuckle, I didn’t think it was particularly funny – but it didn’t strike me as particularly gaspworthy either. The mismatch of umbrage, or feigned umbrage, with the actual show itself was noteworthy. But apparently, even if you share affectionate anecdotes about a transgender friend and end your show on a note of something like ‘let’s not be too nasty to each other’ – you will still be denounced by professional hysterics. Because failing to full-throatedly affirm transgenderism, in whatever modish terms are demanded – and worse, acknowledging the inherently comedic aspects of gender-bending – is now something that must be punished.
By people like this.
WTP: Just so. Reservoirs are chunks of shale or sandstone with oil and/or gas trapped in the stone matrix — in the pores of the formation — and under amazing levels of pressure. When tapped by a wellbore, which is an area of reduced pressure, the pressurized contents are driven to the low-pressure point and up, and out. When the reservoir pressure drops past a certain point the hydrocarbons can no longer move out of the rock matrix, so pressure and the reservoir drive mechanism are the be-all and end-all of production.
Early fields were abandoned when pressures abated with as much as 80% of reserves still in place — they just weren’t producible. Later techniques enabled field reentry, but still left large amounts of unrecoverable reserves behind. Maybe we’ll come up with new tech for old fields, or just develop new tech, like fracking, for producing from formations that weren’t worth the effort forty years ago.
By people like this
Perhaps, but only insofar as to how to prevent its employees, especially public facing ones, from ever expressing such a wrong-think independent thought. And I may have said this here before but I have no respect for Chappell’s supposed stance. He’s part of the problem himself. Maybe if he actually does get canceled himself, he will own up to it. Doubt that will ever happen. Would certainly change my perceptions if it did.
unless oil hit $50/bbl, the extraction process was more expensive than the oil was worth
The first commercial SAGD plant was built in 1996, SAGD is a cheaper extraction process than mining.
Thx on the reservoirs thing. I think I had a technologies confused. So it is the fracking of shale sandstone, etc. that is unleashing more of that other 2/3,
The mismatch of umbrage, or feigned umbrage, with the actual show itself was noteworthy.
The first to stop applauding Comrade Stalin’s speech must be traitors.
God help us. We’re going to lose our next war. How many will die because liberals are stupid, corrupt, and evil?
TIL Isaac Asimov and my grandmother had something in common: death from transfusion-acquired AIDS in 1983. Rest in peace, Wanda Koretzky.
And rest in peace, Daphne. How many people vociferously protesting Chappelle’s “The Closer” actually watched it? I did and discovered it was less a comedy special and more a lesson in humanity. And decidedly not transphobic. But for me, that is the tell of a true mental disorder: the inability to laugh at oneself.
How many people vociferously protesting Chappelle’s “The Closer” actually watched it? I did and discovered it was less a comedy special and more a lesson in humanity.
Quite. Given the screeching and howling, I was surprised by how relatively mild it was, and by the closing anecdote about Chappelle’s transgender friend. But again, some people are professionally indignant. It’s the basis of their status, and a large chunk of their personality. Presumably, they practise quite a bit, perhaps in front of a mirror.
perhaps in front of a mirror.
That in itself must be a punishment.
Stephanie: Sorry to hear that.
I did and discovered it was less a comedy special and more a lesson in humanity.
So did you laugh? I mean actually laugh. Out loud. Like prime Robin Williams or prime Richard Prior or prime Ron White (pick whatever works for you)? Or was it one of those nod-along things kinda like an old Phil Donahue show?
Still valiantly endeavoring to keep the flame alive in the previous thread.
That in itself must be a punishment.
As we’ve seen many times, any pretext for outrage will do, however slim or exaggerated, or however laughably contrived. Any gag or demurral, or simple hesitancy, can activate the social-justice howler monkeys. They’ll screech and wail anyway because… well, that’s what they do. That’s who they are.
Still valiantly endeavoring to keep the flame alive in the previous thread.
Not sure a link to the top of the page is the best way, though…
Speaking of social-justice howler monkeys*, “It was wild! Transgender [transflag rainbowflag twohearts] our future is in great hands.”**
Clearly they are an oppressed and silenced minority with no voice, but where does the claptrap about them being killed in droves (other than from their own hands) actually come from? Just more flummery to help achieve the gold star of victimhood?
*(Apologies to howler monkeys, at least their noise is actual communication)
**(We’re screwed)
Oops. Could you please fix that link, David?
https://twitter.com/buster_shepard/status/1450976711416467462
And then erase this evidence of my shame? [ hides face ]
Oops. Could you please fix that link, David?
Fixed. But your shame will remain here as a lesson to the others.
[ Peers over spectacles, surveys room. ]
Great googly moogly, I remember the good old days when they just sent you DVDs that nobody ever cleaned and were frequently unplayable, but now it appears nigh the entire staff of Netflix is “trans”.
Meanwhile, over in Blighty, a charity event becomes problematic.
the entire staff of Netflix is “trans”
They want to be what they want to be at any given time, and you’re supposed to play along.
Just like little children.
I am a fan of Asimov’s writing, but his political opinions are so naive and unrealistic that I can’t help rolling my eyes. I think the reasons for this are pretty obvious. He grew up in New York City and attended a boys-only high school. His time was spent working in his parents’ corner store, attending classes at his monastic school, or secluded in his room, reading and writing science fiction. College wasn’t much different. World War II did temporarily force him out of his shell, first to work as a chemist in a government research lab in Philadelphia, and then for nine months in the Army (the war was over at that point, so he never went abroad or saw combat).
After his discharge, he completed his graduate studies and took a position as a chemistry professor at a medical school in Boston. He and his wife and kids lived in the Boston area for over 20 years, until his marriage ended. When he separated from his wife, he moved back to NYC and remained there for the rest of his life. He and his second wife eventually lived in a penthouse apartment occupying the entire top floor of a Manhattan skyscraper. When he died in 1992, his net worth was $15 million. In other words, he was a classic limousine liberal.
Asimov had a pathological fear of heights that prevented him from flying. He disliked traveling, so he did it as little as possible. He really enjoyed writing more than anything else, so he typically spent his days cloistered in his office, writing ten hours per day, seven days a week. Except for a few years during the war, he lived a very sheltered life in large, northeastern cities controlled by Democrats. He had almost no direct contact with anyone outside of that environment. He was a highly intelligent man and, due to his phenomenal memory, knew an incredible amount, but it all came from books and periodicals that he had read. He had almost no practical experience with anything other than writing and lecturing.
It’s no surprise that his political opinions sound like those of a college sophomore. Those opinions weren’t influenced at all by the real world that most of us live in, because he was disconnected from that world for virtually his entire life. He at least lived in a house in the suburbs during his time as a family man in Boston, so he had some experience cutting his own lawn and driving himself to work. But after 1973, it was back to NYC, where he was happy to give up his car and rely on taxis and limos for transportation, and there was no lawn to mow. I doubt that he ever set foot in a small town for longer than it took to refuel his car, or that he ever had a significant conversation with a plumber, auto mechanic, welder, or farmer — anyone who worked with his hands in the skilled trades. That world was completely foreign to him.
He was a charismatic and fascinating man, but outside of the narrow purview of his reading and education, he knew almost nothing. Of course his opinions were complete nonsense. They could scarcely have been anything else.
but now it appears nigh the entire staff of Netflix is “trans”
Only one or two dozen at that protest, I hear. But I’m sure that they think each of them counts for more than a thousand people who are not trans.
“In other words, he was a classic limousine liberal.”
Worse than that: He preferred Communists to normal people, as illustrated by his choice of the totalitarian Futurians sf group over the non-communist fans. Later he lied to cover up the communist ideology of the Futurians. He steadfastly refused to criticize the Soviet Union, and pretended that the dearth of non-socialist sf stories published the USSR must have been due to a natural cultural difference rather than government censorship.
English footballers Pwned:
https://tekdeeps.com/here-the-british-pk-team-is-enchanted-by-polish-fans-during-the-humiliation-ritual/
The mismatch of umbrage, or feigned umbrage, with the actual show itself was noteworthy.
It’s like they *want* to be hysterical…
It’s like they *want* to be hysterical…
Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything
It’s like they *want* to be hysterical…
Sir Roger Scruton on the ’68 riots that so horrified him:
“The graffiti paradoxes of the soixante-huitards were the very opposite of this: a kind of adolescent insouciance, a throwing away of all customs, institutions, and achievements, for the sake of a momentary exultation which could have no lasting sense save anarchy.”
It’s like they *want* to be hysterical…
To recap. Well-paid employees at a fashionable TV company are indulging in disruptive, recreational histrionics – and being courted by much of the media – because they were insufficiently affirmed by a comedian’s jokes. Now what kind of people might do that? Well, as seen in the video upthread, the kind of people who steal and destroy a sign bearing the words “We like Dave” and “Jokes are funny,” and who then point to the remnants of said sign – the stick to which it was attached – and shout that the person they’ve just needlessly besieged – and are now physically harassing – has “got a weapon.”
Meanwhile, in AD 2021 not entirely surprising, but did not expect it in France.
More Scruton from that same link:
“Perhaps the most fascinating and terrifying aspect of Communism was its ability to banish truth from human affairs, and to force whole populations to ‘live within the lie,’ as President Havel put it.”
Meanwhile, in AD 2021 not entirely surprising, but did not expect it in France.
Source.
“Three Miss France contestants who failed to make the grade have joined a leading feminist group in suing the beauty pageant for alleged discrimination [and breach of labor laws] based on their appearance.”
What was that again about Sailer’s Law?
Speaking of which, I seem to recall a similar lawsuit against the Hooters restaurant chain–that it did not hire ugly women and men.
Given their recent track record, this can’t end well.
Palate cleanser: I don’t know where he’s going, but he looks pleased.
The attacker is insane. But then so are the prosecutors and judges who keep letting this lunatic back out on the street to attack again.
The judge in that case has priors.
“… I said to a friend of mine, “Why must you always look at a girl’s butt?” She promptly responded: “Are you Cis or something? What else should I look at, a guy’s butt?”
Fixed it!
Fixed. But your shame will remain here as a lesson to the others.
I thought I smelled shame. It was interfering with the scent of the fresh cut pine boards I’m working with.
“To recap.”
Heh.
“Meanwhile, in AD 2021 not entirely surprising, but did not expect it in France.”
“They all have lovely bottoms”.
Isaac Asimov
In 1959, I saw Nine Tomorrows on a book rack in a drug store.
I became an Asimov “fan” for a time. I read most of his books, both fiction and non-fiction.
My politics were more akin to Robert Heinlein’s than to Asimov’s. (My favorite Heinlein book is The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.)
But Heinlein got a bit weird in the 1980s.
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
A fine book, and quite thought-provoking for the young me who discovered it. He did indeed get kind of weird. I sometimes wonder if it was not so much that Heinlein changed as that he felt free to give freer rein to ideas and attitudes that he had always held. Note, for instance, The Door Into Summer and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
I read and enjoyed much of Asimov’s fiction when I was young, but now find him mostly “meh”. The robot short stories and the first volume of Foundation hold up better than most of the rest–with the proviso that I have not attempted to go back and re-read The Gods Themselves.
He was a charismatic and fascinating man
He also fondled women’s breasts and buttocks without permission, pinched nipples, and tried to stick his tongue down throats. It has been speculated that he started doing this to fellow writers and editors because he had lost his inhibitions after years of getting away with it with willing young female groupies. On the other hand, I have heard that he was very “handsy” even as a young man. Sort of the alpha male “grab em by the pussy” phenomenon that Trump crassly mentioned. 🙁
Objecting to a beauty contest: failure to acknowledge that we are sexual beings attracted to beauty. It is what makes the world go round. There is not an alternative to a beauty contest (reciting Marx?) except to cancel them all.
At netflix, if you count the size of the egos there WERE thousands protesting (by volume anyway). The demand that we not only tolerate but celebrate the strange started with the gay pride marches.
I would be willing to give up big national beauty contests, if we could also cancel the entire left.
WTP: Sorta depends on meaning, pace Bill Clinton. The original version of fracking was a secondary recovery method used when initial pressures started to flag, so yes, it was a means to extend well life and increase recovery, but it was pretty limited. In the 90s, with the innovation of horizontal drilling, fracking became an integral part of primary recovery in new reservoirs, not just helping out older ones. Caveat: it’s long and long since I left the Oil Patch, and it’s possible/probable that there have been expansions of newer recovery methods into older fields, but that’s beyond my ken.
Interview: Trevor Rees-Jones on fracking.
A society gone mad: “undocumented citizen“
Ring of power:
I think I have located part of the problem.