Friday Ephemera
Bubbling detected. || An abundance of ladybirds. || Singled out. || Monkey see, monkey do. || Mahi-mahi. || “It’s mango, don’t you like it?” (h/t, Ben) || The shadow of the Moon. || Magic show of note. (h/t, Desert Rat) || Signage. (h/t, Perry) || Summon the worms. || Today’s word is uncrossable. || Kiss of life. || I foresee accessibility issues. || Steals car, kidnaps child, when caught invokes victimhood. || As cabin views go, it’s pretty decent, actually. || Treasuring the good times. || Hardcore teacher. || Two types of home security, exchanging looks. || Stealth tech in action. || He was sent to buy curtains. || That’s exactly how I would’ve done it. || How to enhance your viewing of vampire-romance movies. || And finally, via Paul Johnson, when the Space Age met the Stone Age, in 1964.
Oh, and a reminder that I now have a Twitter account.
Homicide Suspect Ends Up Arrested After Calling Cops About Cold McDonald’s French Fries.
After watching a season or two of Cops, a recurring theme of the criminals’ psychology soon becomes apparent. A grandiose, solipsistic assumption of entitlement and a fixation with small or imagined wrongs done to them, usually as a consequence of their own behaviour, alongside a total disregard for the rather more serious wrongs they have done to others, and which they plan to go on doing until someone stops them forcibly. And so, you can see habitual predators complaining that the person they assaulted, because they could, and whose property they were attempting to steal, dared to defend himself.
With endless variations on this theme. “Yes, he’s robbin’ y’all. OH WELL.”
In another context, the attitude might even be funny. As opposed to merely grotesque.
Jeannie with the heavily scorched hair
It’s about the clash of faith with politics, and how as long as she was politically useful
Parallels, perhaps, with the arrest and trial of Christ where the pharisees were the driving force forcing Pilate’s hand (well washed as it was). Likewise with Mlle Arc, the French clerics forced the English to build the bonfire.
“Yes, he’s robbin’ y’all. OH WELL.
A sentiment not restricted to the denizens of US inner cities as evidenced by the reaction of the family of traveller Henry Vincent who was stabbed to death with his own screwdriver during a struggle with the pensioner he was in the process of burgling.
This took place in 2018 in South London and became a cause celebre due to the family’s organising an extravagant memorial and funeral procession which passed outside the house of the pensioners, a house they are unlikely to ever enter safely again.
A grandiose, solipsistic assumption of entitlement and a fixation with small or imagined wrongs done to them, usually as a consequence of their own behaviour, alongside a total disregard for the rather more serious wrongs they have done to others, and which they plan to go on doing until someone stops them forcibly.
All of that.
It’s one reason why the Left continually come across as weak on crime and justice (or else accused by their own side of selling out or acting as a ‘Red Tory’).
They are either lacking in direct experience of such activities or else if they do have direct experience, and they’ll be sure to let you know if they do, then it’s not infrequently as a result of working with the incarcerated.
In the former case, they fail to understand the harms, humiliation, and intimidation involved in having a relative of that sort (especially ironic given their often absolutist views on domestic violence). In the latter, it should be obvious that self-pitying remorse is going to feature highly rather than some imagined Spartacus-like defiance (the latter do exist, but are as rare as they exceptionally dangerous).
Anyway, your comment put me in mind of Elijah Anderson’s Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City which, perhaps unexpectedly for a work by a Professor of Sociology and African American Studies, is described as arguing that:
The most powerful force counteracting this code [of the street] and its reign of terror is the strong, loving, decent family. [Anderson’s] most interesting characters are not the bullies and dealers, but the decent folks, young and old, who through entrepreneurship and creative self-help strategies are forging a viable alternative
Chapter 2 introduces Yvette:
a young woman who grew up in a decent family in a drug-infested neighborhood. Her parents sheltered her from the public environment to such an extent that she was forbidden to go onto the street unless she had somewhere to go. Although they themselves were members of the working poor … Yvette’s parents sought to protect her from her own relatives. Their efforts, though extreme, seem to have paid off: today Yvette is a successful college student with plans to become a doctor.
Anderson then interviews Yvette:
I went to Valley Christian School, which is a private school. And [my mother] struggled to put me in that school, because she wanted to make it so that I wouldn’t be in public schools … my cousins were going to public schools and getting in trouble, getting suspended. And I wasn’t doing that, because I was in a private Christian school … I came home from school and I studied. When the studying was over, I had like ten minutes of phone time, watch a little TV, go to sleep. That was my daily regimen. I didn’t really go outside … My family thinks my mother as well as me, we’re both sellouts …
And then when [my mother] went to buy a house – none of them own their own houses. So, “OK she thinks she’s better than us again.” Just because she’s making it, she’s making something of her life, they think there’s something wrong with that [One of my aunts] was on welfare for about ten years … She has a sixth grade education, and she sees me going to college as something, “Why are you doing this? You trying to be better than me?” …
This summer there was an incident. I was tutoring her [the aunt’s] two children in math and science, just trying to help them out because they’re kind of failing … And she caught me one day when my mother wasn’t there. She’s like, “You know, Yvette, you make people hate you … You come around here. You think you’re better than everybody else. Da-da-da” … So I don’t really talk to this aunt anymore, because I’ve just had it, basically … My other aunts all feel the same way, but not as strongly as her.
It’s notable, also, that at the beginning of the book Anderson describes a district called Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia where he notes that although it is a mostly white, educated, and affluent part of the city, “it is increasingly” he’s writing almost 25 years back in 1999, “becoming racially and ethnically mixed” and where “the community appears to be racially integrated in its public relationships” adding “perhaps self-consciously so”.
The overall picture he paints is not one of a division between white and black so much as one between well-adjusted, which coincides with generally being better off and better educated, and the not so well-adjusted, who are noticeable by their dress and mannerisms as coming from the other end of town, the rougher end.
Referring to a recent violent crime in an otherwise pacific neighborhood, he says “the fact that black people robbed the bank and that blacks commit a large number of crimes in the area does give a peculiar edge to race relations … even middle class blacks have to work consciously against [the] stereotype [that blacks are inclined to criminality]”
The book’s depressing, obviously, but it also confirms the point that it really isn’t anything to do with race as – a point previously made by Thomas Sowell – you can see the same behaviours, attitudes, and dramas playing themselves out in majority white areas of the UK.
Elijah Anderson’s Code of the Street
For some reason, this post came to mind, especially the part about vandalising gardens.
“You should know the score by now.
You’re a native New Yorker”
Of course, apartments buildings all across America have trash chutes.
And considering how badly f**ked up New York is now, compared to all those small towns that New Yorkers look down upon, I wonder who are the people who really know the score.
I think it may be the fact that he taps his head and announces his own smartness, all evidence to the contrary…
Are there any good studies comparing of the average IQ of criminals vs. the general population?
…Or maybe it’s the squealing at the end.
Sounded just like veterinarian James Herriot giving a sow an injection.
my cousins were going to public schools and getting in trouble, getting suspended. And I wasn’t doing that, because I was in a private Christian school … I came home from school and I studied.
Slightly related: Are any of David’s readers highly familiar with Harlan Ellison’s essays on culture and politics? For instance, it’s been about 40 years since I read his two The Glass Teat essay collections, but I have a vague recollection that he highly disapproved of parents who raised their children so strictly.
A sentiment not restricted to the denizens of US inner cities as evidenced by the reaction of the family of traveller Henry Vincent who was stabbed to death with his own screwdriver during a struggle with the pensioner he was in the process of burgling.
There is something to be said for permanently segregating not only the habitual criminals but their families and other allies. This runs strongly counter to current jurisprudence, and very understandably, but which is worse? Incarceration/exile of obvious and unreformable enemies, or the continuing reign of terror upon ordinary decent people?
“Why are you doing this? You trying to be better than me?” …
Crab bucket.
I have read that low-morals black Americans still accuse hard-working black Americans of “acting white”. I do not personally hear that, but I do occasionally hear racist talk from randomly encountered blacks who do me wrong and then immediately bring up race when I object. Those sorts of low-life people tend to go very quickly to race when called on their behavior.
They are either lacking in direct experience of such activities or else if they do have direct experience, and they’ll be sure to let you know if they do, then it’s not infrequently as a result of working with the incarcerated.
A third possibility: They know about the crime, but will insist that there are no demographic differences in crime rates–not between blacks and whites, not even between black slum neighborhoods and middle class white suburban neighborhoods. The list of ploys to excuse or deny reality seems to be very long.
Regarding the trash-compacted former resident of the Medgar Evers apartments, he may in fact have found an ingenious way to leave a large estate to his (probably numerous) progeny.
There will doubtless be a large financial settlement to his “heirs”.
This may have been his plan all along.
A decolonized transport system.
Many such cases. London likewise being decolonized.
There is very good data that criminals in prison have much lower IQ than the mean. They also have low impulse control. Mix in a little alcohol, present in the majority of major crimes, and boom.
The quotes from Yvette show the effect of culture (which the Left denies exists). You shouldn’t try to be “better” than the people around you. You “deserve” to take what the whites have (or similar for white crooks). The rich got rich by taking from poor people (popular with academics). Studying is “acting white”. It is a culture of self-defeat.
The success of white people (or chinese or jews) comes at a cost. The men I know are busy all the time, either with work or family. They are cutting the grass and painting the house and taking their kids to sports. Maybe a couple times/yr they have a social gathering (party) at their home. They don’t go hang out with their homies or at the bar. They may work a second job or do some consulting on the side. In college they studied their ass off. Only academics could imagine that white people just get $ handed to them (well, except for Hunter).
For some reason, this post came to mind, especially the part about vandalising gardens.
“And yet he wants to ensure more of us live next door to “the poor and marginalised.”…The idea that we must demolish large areas of high-value owner-occupied housing and replace it with high density, socially-rented housing is still way off the agenda. Maybe it is time this changed.”
I am certain that this is a sentiment that many American leftists share. Based on the many leftists that I have known, I’ll go so far as to say that the vast majority feel this way even if they don’t say it except to each other. This should lead to some radical conclusions about how decent people should treat leftists.
“And yet he wants to ensure more of us live next door to “the poor and marginalised.”
Meanwhile in Anacostia…
Many such cases. London likewise being decolonized.
As I recall, it used to be legal in the UK for a property owner to use deadly force to stop burglars. Correct?
During a twitter discussion of Eddie Izzard, some insight on the whole “trans”woman thing:
Checks out.
“Yes, he’s robbin’ y’all. OH WELL.”
Which is why I believe so many people responded positively – even gleefully – to the security tape (including audio) of the would-be robber shot by the 80 y/o store keeper screaming “he shot my arm off!”
This does not surprise me: I have known leftists who maintain that there is nothing wrong with prostitution.
And never forget how the German government tried to force welfare recipients into prostitution.
What should be done with leftists?
“Police tracked down the suspect, but the driver denied the charges.
In the end, he escaped with the threat of a 10k CZK fine.”
I am sure the dog is racist.
Canada’s Minitrue
I am sure the dog is racist.
WTF?
Turn On the light.
Based on the many leftists that I have known, I’ll go so far as to say that the vast majority feel this way even if they don’t say it except to each other. This should lead to some radical conclusions about how decent people should treat leftists.
Not just leftists, but the center and many on the right as well. Logic and reason only fall on deaf ears. People are mostly driven by fear. And as bad as I thought that was just 2 1/2 years ago, more recent events that I have personally witnessed have driven that point much further home to me. People are cowards. In a similar vein…
Generally I find Stonetoss’s anti-semitism annoying if not slightly disturbing. But he does have a few good points. Ran across this recently….Damn. Can’t find it now but when I originally saw this the cartoon bubble said something to the effect of “Joke’s on them, this is unconstitutional”. But this is close enough.
David…not sure but something screwy happened with that image. I thought it was the “fit” part in the src url but taking that off didn’t seem to matter. When I tried to preview before posting, the buttons were off the bottom of the page. Today, unusually, I am working from my PC (and I see the blog renders differently and a bit more traditionally than from my iPad) using Chrome but I also tried with IE (my default for when things don’t work) and the button issue was the same. Though just hitting “post” instead of “preview” (with sufficient praying to any in all gods whether I believe in them or not….wait, I didn’t say that) I was able to post and it looks from here like it rendered ok. Just FYI. My condolences on multi-platform GUI support. But then, now you know just a little slice of some of the hell of my professional career. And partly why I abandoned and avoided GUI development as much as possible.
We must always be prepared for the fact that the listener may be stupid.
True story: a friend once ran a manufacturing business (mattress and furniture springs) in Wigan, Lancashire. Most of the work was repetitive and dull, and his employees were not exactly the cleverest of people. One day, one of them came into his office at lunchtime: “Boss, I’m off to the shop. Do you want me to get you anything?”
“Yes- could you get a packet of Marlboro Lights for me, please?” and gave him the necessary cash.
“Will do. What if they haven’t got Marlboro Lights?”
“Oh- just get me anything”.
Twenty minutes later, he was presented with a hot meat and potato pie, and his change.
When the State has no further use for you, you should go quietly to your death.
David…not sure but something screwy happened with that image.
[ Stops playing Hades’ Star, mutters, faffs. ]
Fixed. I think.
[ Resumes playing Hades’ Star. ]
Level 10, since you asked.
Twenty minutes later, he was presented with a hot meat and potato pie, and his change.
Depending upon which of my bosses I would have been working for at the time, that’s exactly how I would have played it. Some people don’t understand the concept of writing proper requirements until they have to deal with the results themselves.
Stops playing Hades’ Star, mutters, faffs.
Heh. Same here. Though I haven’t killed any Cerebrebreriousus forces/”bad guys” in ages. I’m starting to question who the bad guys really are. I get lost in the zen of just moving crap around in the most efficient way possible. Or most efficient without thinking about it too much, that is.
I get lost in the zen of just moving crap around in the most efficient way possible.
Heh. I also find shipping runs to be oddly relaxing – though I crank the time modulator (level 13) so as to be relaxed in a brisk kind of way. Have you still not joined (or formed) a corporation? That’s when the fun starts.
I have a vague recollection that he highly disapproved of parents who raised their children so strictly.
“The Glass Teat” and “The Other Glass Teat” (and many more of Ellison’s works) are on hoopladigital, which you might have access to via your USA library.
Canada canceling: there are NO historical figures or monuments that pass their test. They are headed for year zero. Anyone who was honored in the past was part of the colonial/patriarchal system. Just number all the streets and monuments.
Bell was key to tech for the deaf–surely that isn’t a good enough reason to honor him urgh
…surely that isn’t a good enough reason to honor him…
No, he was trying to colonize and commit genocide against deaf culture in the manner of all yte supremacists.
Have you still not joined (or formed) a corporation? That’s when the fun starts.
No. I’ve grown to hate people such that I barely tolerate the ones I already know. For example, I got on an app-based diet plan called Noom. It’s kinda girly and keeps pushing me to share my experience. I hate that. Fortunately it is working out quite well without all that socializing crap. Down 12 lbs since June.
Well… I lie. I did join a corporation but I only did it for the points. Aside from saying “Hello” I haven’t participated. Occasionally I will read some of what is posted but I just can’t get into that aspect of it. Just moving/adjusting my warp lanes and racking up the credits. I do kill off a bad guy or so when I have to to access a new sector because…hey, my star my planets! But then I gotta upgrade the planet which at this point takes weeks to get a new one where the older ones are. Because symmetry. It’s a zen thing.
Aside from saying “Hello” I haven’t participated.
Heh. You do realise that a big part of the game is teamwork? It’s the only way to survive the really challenging levels, or indeed to reach them. You don’t have to socialise much if that’s not your thing. Just co-operate enough to take out bigger threats. And trading artefacts and resources is a big help. I made it to level 5 without joining a corp, largely because I wasn’t interested in White Star runs, which require more time than I can spare. But once you join a corp, and team up with players in other countries, the game becomes much more fun. Not least during the Red Star Events, when corporations compete, and which can get quite intense.
…the dog…
WTF
Staged, and pretty funny.
Just co-operate enough to take out bigger threats.
Oh, I do cooperate with others on Red Star (level 5, embarrassed to say) runs but I only do those when I need more credits. Which I haven’t needed in weeks now. Also, I only play on my iPad or, if really bored waiting on someone, on my phone. Which makes typing/communicating and playing simultaneously problematic. I am toying with going to level 6 if I ever build out or am waiting on other things to complete/build. I treat the game more like therapy than a game.
I have a vague recollection that he highly disapproved of parents who raised their children so strictly
Because the SF culture he was part of for decades was so healthy and functional.
Generally I find Stonetoss’s anti-semitism annoying if not slightly disturbing
To a large extent, Stonetoss tries to trip just about everybody’s “OMG you can’t say that” alarms. A lot of the anti-semitism in the soi-disant alt-right is just trolling to see if they can get people to overreact. There are people who are quite serious about it and I’ve detected a couple of such stealth social media groups that intentionally slip actual Nazi propaganda into their posts. But frankly I’m still not allowed to enter or leave my own country without submitting to intrusive government surveillance and handing over my medical records. I’m just grateful I no longer have to endure medical experimentation.
Level 10, since you asked
I tried it for a while but it’s a mobile game that’s mostly about optimizing a graph. A friend’s kid got me into Genshin Impact, which turns out to be surprisingly diverting and well-produced for a loot box game. It’s like Breath of the Wild crossed with Diablo II.
“The Glass Teat” and “The Other Glass Teat” (and many more of Ellison’s works) are on hoopladigital
Confession: I do still have my 1970s paperback editions, but just do not feel motivated to read any angry Ellison. If anyone else has observations I will happily pay attention.
Another very low IQ felon: https://mobile.twitter.com/hpdrobbery/status/1547637628962451456
you should go quietly to your death.
Colby Cosh is level-headed and careful.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/colby-cosh-of-nazis-and-canadas-assisted-death-laws
To a large extent, Stonetoss tries to trip just about everybody’s “OMG you can’t say that” alarms.
Agree. I mean I kind of sense that. The thing is I would have really liked to have reposted the version of that cartoon that I first saw, but I don’t want to open a pandora’s box of excuses and such when some db friend of mine would make an issue of that instead of the very valid point of the cartoon. There’s just too much baggage there.
In one’s personal life you can, or at least used to, get away with the friendly banter of racism and such but it doesn’t work on a broader scale without all that baggage. And especially not today. I had a Jewish friend in college with whom we had a routine. After classes in the afternoon he would stop by and we would bs about music and stuff and as I was taking a comparative religious course and his dad was a rabbi, I would ask genuine questions, though some I already knew the answers to, about Judaism. We had a bit where I would casually but with an increasing edge bring my 3/4 German heritage into it and drop tiny bits of bigotry into the conversation. In almost perfect synchronization he would slowly ratchet up taking offense until he reached a crescendo of (faked) anger, go back across the hall and slam his door. Our residence assistant, whom we both for different reasons regarded as a bit of a douche, witnessed this on a few occasions and in his desire to nail me for something approached my friend in a very early attempt at cancel culture. It was quite funny in 1981 or so. Would not work today.
@WTP
My closest friend, who I met freshman year of college in the mid aughts, is Jewish. We used to make the same kind of jokes – he once theatrically dived after a coin on the ground with a loud “oy, gevalt!” We still make light of each other’s ethnicities and religions in private, but would never feel as free to do so in public as we did even just a few years ago.
There’s a much better case to be made for a historical drama that portrays J. Edgar Hoover as non-binary. The alphabet-gender crowd should be chuffed to have such a prominent person counted in their ranks.
Now I’m waiting for a remake of Downfall with Leslie Jones in the lead role.
Now I’m waiting for a remake of Downfall with Leslie Jones in the lead role.
I’d kill to see a drama about Marsha P. Johnson, where Johnson is played by a straight white male actor. Laurence Fox ought to do a bang-up job of it. Just imagine the conniption fits he’d give all the usual “right-on” suspects…
@WTP
A college friend used to put on a long dark trenchcoat and barge into a Jewish friend’s room, announcing in a heavy German accent “Ve are lookink for Juice”, whereupon he would appropriate a can of fruit juice to his friend’s great amusement.