From the comments, some items you may have missed. We’ll kick things off with some kicking off, care of commenter Mr Farnsworth M Muldoon:
Curious how when you hear of yet another educator being intolerant, childish, or wildly unhinged, you don’t need to ask what their politics might be.
Speaking of unhinged:
After many months of refusing to confirm what so many people already suspected, Ron DeSantis will reportedly announce on Wednesday that he is running for president. And that’s not all: He is said to be planning to formally jump into the 2024 race during a conversation on Twitter with Elon Musk, because apparently other neo-Nazi sympathizers weren’t available.
When you get your news from Vanity Fair.
Found via Flappr.
And with near-telepathic simultaneity:
You see, Twitter has “fully assumed the role of a far-right platform.” “It is,” says The Atlantic, “accurate to call [Elon Musk] a far-right activist.”
Remember, dear readers, always respect the media.
Oh, and because I do like quoting myself, we revisited the moral pretensions of Guardian columnist Zoe Williams:
According to Zoe, we should be “unstigmatising,” which is to say, non-judgmental. A result of which is that empathy, or feigned empathy, is shifted from the working class victim of crime and antisocial behaviour to the working class perpetrator of crime and antisocial behaviour, on grounds that the thug or criminal is in some way being oppressed and, unlike their neighbours, being made to misbehave.
Presumably Ms Williams’ own neighbours have little in common with, say, the delightful Stuart Murgatroyd, a father of twelve who has never worked and boasts an extensive criminal record, not least for robbing the elderly in graveyards, and whose attempt to challenge an antisocial behaviour order was cut short at the very last minute due to him being arrested for assaulting the mother of his children, herself a convicted getaway driver, on the steps of the courthouse.
And I suspect our infinitely compassionate Guardianista has yet to experience an all-night eleven-hour rave being hosted next door, which would doubtless give her an opportunity to practise that non-judgmental piety.
See? If you poke about, you never know what you’ll find.
I have a long list of liberals who are now in their 60’s and 70’s who have not learned a damned thing since I knew them in their teens and twenties. Not only have they not learned anything, they continue to condemn anyone who points out reality as “racist” or “fascist” etc.
So do I.
Not since the Wolfman or Dr. Jekyll have I seen so astounding a transformation.
The poor: Marxism views the poor as a fixed lump, the proletariat. The Left follows that tradition. You are part of the poor class categorically. But in reality, most people are poor when young and work their way up (if they allow themselves to) over time. For most people, their highest income and greatest wealth is just before retirement. When I was 20 and briefly dropped out of college, I was “poor” but since I didn’t even imagine anyone would give me free money, I got jobs in demolition and then painting. My friend and I painted houses for a year and were always busy. A group of my friends were hippies and did not want to give up their casual lifestyle and long hair so 5 of them opened a Volkswagon repair shop. But if you view the poor as a fixed class, then you start giving able-bodied people money for no reason and it kills incentives to work.
Ms Jekyll and Ms Hyde.
Is it hateful to point out that her voice remains the same throughout?
Ditto posture and mannerisms. She really needs to work on that Elliot Page shtick which is a pretty low bar anyway.
Found farther down in the replies:
Women’s group forced to flee public meeting room to escape creepy trans critters.
For many years I “lived poor” in order to save for retirement and hedge against the possibility of extended illness. I gave up many pleasures in order to provide for a secure retirement. But my feckless leftist “friends” who failed to live frugally have told me that people like me should be subjected to confiscatory taxes to fund their failure to save for retirement.
“I’ve got a little list, I’ve got a little list, of society offenders who never would be missed…”
Or, “Dysmorphic men – i.e., men with a high probability of having a Cluster B personality disorder – behave as men with Cluster B personality disorders very often behave.”
I have encountered men exhibiting such behavior although without any special gender pronouns.
Recall the folk tale of the man who gave strange names to everyday things: “You must not call it ‘fire’. You must call it ‘hot cockalorum’.”
Those men made it extremely difficult to interact with them because they would refuse to use ordinary English and would demand that others learn their arcane (and obfuscatory) jargon.
I first heard that tale at a very young age, read by Danny Kaye. The “woke” fanatics may eventually get around to cancelling that story as being subversive to their goals.
Meanwhile, in Sheffield.
Congratulations to George Floyd: 3 years drug- and crime-free.
Also Michael Brown, crime-free for almost 9 years.
And Trayvon Martin: over 11 years without a crime.
…….or a purple drank.
[ Does last-minute check of links in tomorrow’s Ephemera, clicks schedule, considers a beer. ]
Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto – you’re beautiful!
Dime store van Gogh
Forgotten Montreal band name.
empathy, or feigned empathy, is shifted from the working class victim of crime and antisocial behaviour to the working class perpetrator of crime
Concurrence but one dissent: we oughta differentiate between the working class and the criminal class. (The Victorian/Edwardian term “respectable working class” does this neatly.) Or as Oscar once said, work is the curse of the drinking classes.
It’s remarkable just how often this manoeuvre, or some variation of it, is performed. By those who deem themselves sophisticated.
I’d forgotten that post but it speaks volumes about the Zoe Williams mindset. (Not to mention seeing Steveageddon, dicentra, NikW, and the like…where are they now?) Between that and the destruction of the garden I’m reminded of that great reflection on the Liberian coup by Theodore Dalrymple.
When I become Lord Vetinari, they will be forced to live with those criminals.
For some reason, I’m reminded of Sheffield, City on the Move from the beginning of The Full Monty.
The Dalrymple piece is very good. Thanks for that.
It touches on, among other things, something I said a few days ago, regarding Ms Williams, Mr Matthews, and their likeminded peers. That they seem oblivious to just how degenerate the degenerate can be, and to why this is so. That, or they feign an obliviousness for the sake of their own self-flattering conceits, which is scarcely an improvement.