Friday Ephemera

I ran across an article in a Canadian newspaper while vacationing up there that was about Yogic Flying
I expect that was about the time the Canadian former illusionist Doug Henning was running for parliament representing the Natural Law Party. They took out a number of full-page newspaper ads designed to look like legitimate articles.
It was an interesting con: under Canadian law, political parties that receive above a certain number of votes are entitled to a per-vote subsidy after the election. That law was intended to allow non-mainstream political parties (read: leftist fringe loons) to participate without needing huge campaign war chests. Play your cards right, however, and it’s possible to get more in subsidies than you spend.
it must keep admitting more and more unassimilables
Friend of the Blog Tim Newman used to have a number of posts on his own about his experiences working in sub-Saharan Africa. Most of them demonstrated the truth that the average IQ in sub-Saharan Africa is ~80. The US Army considers “untrainable for any duty” to be <= 83.

We looked at Canadians kinda funny for years after that.
Any funnier than I looked at all those Murican woo-woos? Well maybe, because I tried to avoid any facial expressions that would have let on just how much I looked down on them. It was one thing to politely and rationally disagree but another to outright tell them they were sub-normal kooks–would have gotten me a reputation for antisocial disagreeableness in the local science fiction community.

Friend of the Blog Tim Newman used to have a number of posts on his own about his experiences working in sub-Saharan Africa.
Used to have? You mean he’s deleted those posts? (I haven’t poked around in his archives in a good while.)

“What kind of country is this where a Black man has to fear for his life every time he fires a gun into an occupied apartment building?”

I expect that was about the time the Canadian former illusionist Doug Henning was running for parliament representing the Natural Law Party.
My freshman year college roommate was a magician. Big poster of Doug Henning in front of or floating over some pyramid. Had to look at that crap every day for a year. It’s funny. You start out telling yourself…whatever, it’s just a poster…nbd…but every morning, every evening, every time you come back to the room, there he was. I’ve never cared for magicians. Except maybe for the obvious flim-flam types like Penn & Teller or Harry Anderson. Though even that can be a stretch.
The news article was in a local paper, I think I picked it up in Moncton, where we spent a week one night. Worst pizza ever. Well, second worst to the cafeteria in college, product of Serv-O-Mation…but I digress… I’m fairly certain it was not an advert as it was so ridiculous I would have checked for that. It was one of the earliest instances where I began to wonder how seemingly normal sources of information might be significantly weak.

And according to the GoFundMe, she lost her job? I saw a reference to this elsewhere but nothing on the details. The wording “I’m raising money for my younger sister Arabella Foss-Yarbrough and her two young boys, ages 4 & 2 after learning her job terminated her today.”? No explanation for this can I find anywhere. Odd.

I’m intrigued.
I’m loath to provide too many details, as the person in question is quite well-known online in her field. On the other hand, she (biologically female, although she’s had a double mastectomy) is demonstrably severely damaged, and it’s pretty obvious both her “identity” and activism are just her lashing out at the world around her constantly. She has her own kiwifarms page, which is pretty impressive for an obscure artist from Canada.
It was a social party made up mostly of people in the field in question, and she was ranting about men and the patriarchy and gender WTFever mouth noises, and although everyone else was enthusiastically agreeing, I remained silent for the sake of not starting a scene. I may have involuntarily eyerolled, I’m not a saint.
Whatever set her off, she rounded on me and began an escalating – in both pitch and volume – series of accusations based mostly on the assumption that because I am white, male, 40-something and look like I could, at least potentially, pick up a chainsaw and maybe clear some brush with it, that I must be a number of things. Including a Trump supporter.
(I nearly laughed at that one. I mean, we do have “conservative” politicians in Canada. It doesn’t matter how milquetoast their policies, every one is Literally Hitler according to the media, and still Trump lives in their heads rent-free)
I tried to de-escalate and extract myself but if you’ve ever dealt with a PTSD victim in the throes of a triggered reaction you know they’re running on autopilot and not really responding to outside stimulus. I think what sent me over the edge was the entire rest of the party just standing there watching and saying nothing, as if this was a perfectly normal sort of conversation to be having at a launch party.
In the aftermath a number of the attendees contacted me, some to excoriate me for disclosing private medical information[1] but many to say “you, know we always thought there was something there, _____ doesn’t act like a typical trans person”.
I may have involuntarily eyerolled.

I think what sent me over the edge was the entire rest of the party just standing there watching and saying nothing, as if this was a perfectly normal sort of conversation to be having at a launch party.
In the aftermath a number of the attendees contacted me, some to excoriate me for disclosing private medical information[1] but many to say “you, know we always thought there was something there, _____ doesn’t act like a typical trans person”.
I may have involuntarily eyerolled.
My sympathies. I haven’t been exactly there but have come somewhat close. Not with anyone whom I knew had PTSD but with women who, looking back in the time machine, could very well have though I would have had no way of knowing. There is only so much female BS that I am willing to sit through. Though a couple of my “diversity training” exercises have come close as well.

If your friends/acquaintances had done so when they noticed…
When friends/acquaintances/family fail to speak up… ?

I was and am more offended by the fact that people are celebrating this person’s obvious self-destructive coping mechanisms. I don’t know what kind of toll this is taking on her family; she has a husband and two minor children.
From personal experience somewhere within my blood relations, I can say it’s awful. Destroyed what everyone thought was a loving family. Known the person their whole life and can’t identify any childhood trauma. But after announcing the M-F transition, it became apparent later that he’s really just sexual-identity-confused. Damage done, however. His wife and three children…they’re the main victims. Other than whatever emotional damage he did to himself over the years. Way too much to unpack, I expect.
Fonts
I thought I was imagining things when I came back to refresh the page after the weekend. However, a quick ctrl-scroll fixed it. Also, I have minimum font settings in my browser, so I wasn’t all that fussed to begin with. It’s your establishment, so I feel like I’m the one who needs to adapt. 🙂

Known the person their whole life and can’t identify any childhood trauma
95% still leaves 5%. I remain convinced that in 100% of cases, the dysmorphia is a coping mechanism for something else, but since I’m not qualified to treat anyone it doesn’t matter what I think. Certainly the original “effectively 100% of female dysmorphics” has plummeted due to the social contagion effect. When I returned to university in 2004 one of the freshmen girls in the CS cohort kept talking about how she’d discovered she was bisexual now she was in university. I asked her point-blank if she’d ever f*cked a woman. No points for guessing the response; she dated the same boyfriend for four years and married him after graduation. Same sh*t, different pile except now they’re cutting their t*ts off.
Really?????
Really. Canada has a massive national inferiority complex where we obsess over everything the US does while insisting that we’re totally different and better than they are at everything. We’re kind of insufferable.”>https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2004/11/28/before-you-flee-to-canada-can-we-talk/878044e8-18e6-4648-8efb-d2894be29ef5/”>insufferable.

.

I remain convinced that in 100% of cases, the dysmorphia is a coping mechanism for something else, but since I’m not qualified to treat anyone it doesn’t matter what I think.
Oh, I agree…there’s something wrong internally. Not having seen the trauma (if such exists), I can’t say what it is, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was a lifetime of denying and fighting his sexuality is what broke him down finally. But it could equally be something more malign that got buried for decades. He did have a lot of internalised anger that showed up in his blog posts before I stopped reading them, and I had to unfollow him on FB for similar reasons…just too much vitriol to handle on a regular basis.
How inferior, you may ask?
And who can forget “I am Canadian”?
For those who have or who never knew…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMxGVfk09lU

For those who have or who never knew…
But seriously, thanks for posting that. I never saw it before.

I ran across this
I regret to inform you that this is not hyperbole. In everyday conversations where no Americans are present, this kind of sad chest-beating will occasionally break out. It’s our version of The Blurting.
I never saw it before
When it originally launched I cringed at all the defensiveness. For the love of St. Michael the Archangel, have we nothing in this country we can be proud of that isn’t appropriated or a sad “at least we’re not America” whine?
Mark Steyn pointed out that Canada celebrates mediocrity and failure, not success or talent. Everyone knows who Terry Fox is. Nobody knows who Steve Fonyo is.

I know I used to greatly enjoy Moosehead until my doctor to me to stop.
“When I was a young girl I used to like boys.
I’d play with their bodies and fondle their toys,
Till my true love ran off with a sailor named Bruce.
You’d never be treated that way by a moose.
Chorus: And it’s moose, moose, I like a moose.
I’ve never had anything quite like a moose…”