Perfecting The Species
For devotees of the farcical and grotesque, a spot of history:
Whether out of a sense of duty or fear, the Chinese peasants complied and started building crude stone kilns in their back yards. Now, it turns out that modern steel production is in fact a highly complex, laborious process. The peasants never got anywhere near meeting their absurd quotas, and the steel they did produce was of such poor quality as to be utterly useless.
The big-brained Communist tampered around with agriculture too and came to the perfectly ignorant but quintessentially Marxist conclusion that household vermin are agents of capitalism. Yes, like capitalists, they exploit the labour of the proletariat and therefore must be totally eradicated. And by far the worst of all these bourgeoisie oppressors was, naturally, that most vile and heinous creature, the sparrow…
As part of the “Smash Sparrow Campaign,” children were enlisted to bang pots and pans around, chasing the sparrows out of their nests. Later, adults knocked the nests out of the trees and crushed the eggs underneath their sandals, until there were almost no sparrows left in all of China… Within a year of the “Smash Sparrow Campaign,” itself part of the larger “Four Pests Campaign,” the locust population exploded and did what locusts do best. The Communists had played God and literally created a Biblical plague.
In the following video, quoted above, Professor James O’Flannery concludes his lively, somewhat unorthodox three-part lecture series on the Chinese Revolution. Or, to borrow one of his chapter headings, Our Turn Fuck Up World.
Needless to say, given the subject matter, some dark turns are taken. Notable moments include an explanation of the inevitability of sociopathy in communism; the pivotal role of hysterically self-righteous adolescents; and a lesson in demented street signage. Readers may also detect some, shall we say, contemporary resonance. And do watch to the end.
The professor’s lectures on the French and Russian Revolutions, the latter in three parts, are also recommended.
How drunk you should be while watching them is entirely your own business.
*Sends wife to off-licence*
I’m fairly sure I read that what little “steel” the Chinese peasants were able to produce was the result of melting down their much needed pots and pans (although not all of them as the unfortunate sparrows discovered) into lumps of pig-iron which could then in theory be refined in order to produce steel for ………………… much needed pots and pans.
Except the refining capacity didn’t exist ergo they were left with huge quantities of unusable pig iron.
P.s. Before anyone gets too snarky let’s remember which net-zero besotted countries are eagerly destroying their own industries and energy generation capacities and which country is building fossil-fuel power stations at a rate of knots. It’s not the Chinese who are the laughable dummies nowadays.
And yet, doing absurd and impossible things has come back into vogue, and I don’t just mean fake penises. The West (Europe, US, Aus, Canada) are determined to save us by getting rid of all fossil fuels while not replacing them with anything. Oh, sure, wind and solar, except not building those and no form of backup. The dutch are even banning farming. It will take a little longer than the chinese fuck-up but shut-down here we come.
And we can add to the list of the impossible:
Printing money
Actually defunding the police
Not imprisoning anyone (notice some criminal in the news with 42 convictions who is on the street)
And now, not to be outdone, reparations.
The dutch are even banning farming…
Not completely, the government will generously allow the peasants to have two cows per soccer field size area (1.75 acres in real measurement).
TBF, though, watching two cows on a soccer field would be as exciting as a soccer match and they would probably fall down for no reason less often.
Heh.
two cows per soccer field size area (1.75 acres in real measurement)
Looks like it was the Telegraph who converted from 0.35 hectares/cow to imperial sports-based units.
Densely-packed turkeys: bad. Densely-packed Turks: good.
Having read The Black Book of Communism I suspect watching those would seriously deplete my stores.
It hasn’t ever gone out of vogue, just changed its name every decade or so.
Morris dancing: a much-ignored menace.
Don’t see any sticks or buckets.
I keep pausing the video thinking some of it must be a joke… So far, all true.
Think of Mao as an Literature major who got distracted by the shiny toy of Marxism, and it all makes sense. I have noticed that a lot of the American Maoists I knew were denizens of English Departments, and many who weren’t quite Maoists were, to put it kindly, not very smart.
https://youtu.be/Sl58rIDNdWA
The Bacup Nutters. Traditional Morris Men now under threat for ……….reasons.
I take it you don’t know the story about the mango?
A profound unrealism seems to be a prerequisite for Marxism and its variants, which may help explain the ensuing absurdities.
That and the narcissism and sociopathy, I mean.
It occurs to me that mangoes in formaldehyde would be a passable band name.
Mango Cult. It’s simpler plus people whose job it is to put band names on the marquees generally can’t spell formadahyde. Hell even I can’t spell formalgahyde. Can’t even pronounce the damn thing. Guess it’s a good thing I’m retired.
Though I would say mangoes in formaldehyde makes for an excellent debut album name.
With album cover design by Hipgnosis.
Mangoes – never get out of the boat.
Morris dancing: my understanding (FWIW) is that morris dancing is short for Moorish Dancing and was brought back by the crusaders. Dancing like that with scarves is traditional across the middle east and is done by men and women but mostly men.
I keep pausing the video thinking some of it must be a joke
I got crossed up and thought you were talking about the morris dancers.
Could be worse: You could be a physicist who can’t pronounce German names. 😀
Or cannot remember the names of Greek letters. “And so we see that the integral of squiggle times c approaches the limit sqiggle as…”
Bad sci-fi novel.
It seems highly unlikely crusaders went through North Africa to get to the Levant.
There is nothing like a dignified graduation ceremony.
Heh. As I was never a frat boy I kinda prouded myself on my ignorance of the ones that have nothing (to my knowledge) to do with math or science. Like that one that’s just three horizontal lines. Or that one that’s used by that other black fraternity. Not the one that does the branding but those other guys. Though I do believe that one is used somewhere in STEM. I just don’t recall exactly where.
It seems highly unlikely crusaders went through North Africa to get to the Levant
Then explain how Louis IX, financier of the seventh and eighth crusades, died in Tunis while on crusade. Sailing from France, North Africa would be the most logical stop on the way the to the Levant, certainly a safer, less expensive stopping point than the Italian islands or mainland.
This dickweed again.
Good news, though, he has been spoken to. That’l learn him.
There is nothing like a dignified graduation ceremony.
Would love to read a few of the papers written by those two gentleman on their way to graduation. Although, to be honest, I’m expecting something like the uh, uh, uh award winning debate team featured here some years ago.
As for that loon screaming her/his tits off in the Nebraska Senate. As many have asked here before Why is it always women?
I observe that they are graduating from the faculty (school?) of African-American Studies, which is certainly the ‘dozens of people climbing out of a Volkswagen’ corner of clown world. Since no non-black student has ever enrolled in “A-A Studies” it was not necessarily a segregated ceremony. But I suspect it was, anyway, because… Berkeley
Speaking of dignified, cheers, bitches!
Per Encyclopædia Britannica:
Hubris, perhaps?
As a Muhammedan redoubt, North Africa would have been an insalubrious waystation.
Since the Greek alphabet (among others) is just used as an extension of the Latin to plunder for variables, you’ll run into practically all of them if you come into contact with enough sub-fields. Going down the list, Omicron was the only one I don’t remember seeing in 4 years of physics education, probably because it’s too easily mistaken for latin “O” or the numeral “0.”
Three horizontal lines is uppercase Xi. I only ever saw lowercase in the wild (memorable partly because, along with Zeta, it’s one of my favorites to write). A quick check on Wiki shows the uppercase version having quite a few uses in physics and mathematics.
Hubris, perhaps?
Perhaps. But he was in moorish North Africa nonetheless and it’s likely he wasn’t alone.
North Africa would have been an insalubrious waystation.
No doubt, but the Moors were far from a united monoculture. There must have been pockets that could be bought or were sympathetic to the crusaders, otherwise Spain would likely be a Muslim state today.
Moorish Spain suffered a series of crusades over the centuries, as ultra-strict Berber tribes tried to straighten the locals out. Never really did seem to work.
That.
Just remember the jumping graduate will be headed straight into a (big) 6 figure salaried job in either the private or public sector irrespective of what his degree is. Todays world is his for the taking.
As the video illustrates, absurdity and power can be an unhappy combination. Say, with impossible tasks and quotas, which nobody meets, and which require the widespread propagation of, and practising of, dishonesty – effectively, as a way of life.
One of the things I liked about the HBO mini-series Chernobyl was its demonstration of this aspect of communist culture.
I’m not wading into the whole North Africa thing beyond saying that the Crusades are a fascinating period of history that everyone should learn at least a bit about, as they’re fundamental to the identity of Western Europe. You should use David’s Amazon links and search for “crusades history”.
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Back when I was just a wee’un, it was only Communists I wanted to see thrown from helicopters.
Now? So many more, so many . . .
Cheers, bitches!
They’re all roommates? The amount of household waste they must produce boggles the mind.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/05/22/labour-rachel-reeves-hypocrisy-row-new-york-business-class/
This is fun. Never mind the hypocrisy of hiding the fact you were flying in Club World. I want to know when Van Gogh started painting the windows. .
Never mind the hypocrisy…
Also from the world of hypocrisy, not that anyone expected anything else.
Department of African American Studies, University of California, Berkeley.
But of course. A department of clowns and dregs.
got crossed up and thought you were talking about the morris dancers.
How about dancing Morris Minors?
Maoists in Formaldehyde would be more fun, though.
The UK police have indeed become a sick, grim joke.
This video is even more creepy.
Those dickweeds badly need a severe beating followed by years in prison followed by deportation.
Those dickweeds badly need a severe beating…
The problem is shitheels like this will never go after anyone they think will push back.
♪♫Look for the union label…♪♫
We’re not allowed to criticize: They’re “bringing their whole selves” to the event.
My wife liked this comment…
Seems like a great idea. I think blacks-only ceremonies and such should be mandatory. Maybe they should have their own schools, yadda-yadda-yadda.
“Tiktok trend involving race tracks”
(Via A Blue Canary.)
Much of modern-day Spain was a Muslim state from 711 ’til the last of the emirs were shown out in 1492.
Much of modern-day Spain was a Muslim state from 711 ’til the last of the emirs were shown out in 1492.
[ taps Amazon browser window ]
Those foolish Japanese just don’t understand.
Even better would be Maoists in Formaldehyde.
That sounds like it might relate to rules of thumb for how much grazing area each cow needs when there are no artificial fertilizers and pesticides and so on.