For newcomers and the nostalgic, some items from the archives:
Pantomime.
Sociology lecturer wants you to be disconcerted by his stockings.
Dr Cremin doesn’t seem to grasp, or isn’t willing to admit, that his craving for public transgression – to, as he puts it, “sow gender confusion in kids” – by which he means young people over whom he has leverage – reveals quite a lot about his character. And his fitness to teach.
I hate to sound prim, but if I were – God help me – a sociology student, I doubt I’d be reassured by the fact that my lecturer felt entitled to use the classroom as a venue for his transvestite fetish. It does rather suggest a pathological level of self-involvement and raises a suspicion that students may find themselves playing captive audience to – or being reluctant participants in – some personal psychodrama. A kind of power game. Some variation of, “I can do this, and you can’t stop me without being accused of bigotry.”
Let’s Do That Thing That Doesn’t Work.
In which resentful narcissists give really bad advice.
And so, we find a seemingly endless parade of preening, pretentious dolts telling us that poverty, and staying in poverty, never has anything to do with bad choices, including the choices that they themselves encourage. As, for instance, when telling us, emphatically, that “a couple cannot raise a child better than one [person] can.” And that the “diffusion” of the family unit – which is to say, absent fathers, hardship, and subsequent dependence on the state – “is one of the most exciting things to happen to the American social pattern since sexual liberation.”
Yes, divorce, estrangement, and sudden-onset poverty. It’s all terribly exciting.
The Bedlamite Solution.
He’s a campus counsellor and he’s here to help.
When not using the word “whiteness” as a modish pejorative, and “questioning Eurocentric ideas surrounding mental health,” Mr Soto plans to “challenge the historically-dominant whiteness” of the campus and thereby “create a more open environment for students.” This heavenly state of openness and resurgent mental wellbeing will be rendered upon the Earth by telling students at an upscale and statusful liberal arts college how oppressed they are and by invoking racial conspiracy theories, the aforementioned “whiteness” and “white supremacy,” as the root of all distress.
Readers will recall that Middlebury College is where students suitably gorged on “inclusivity” and “social justice” display their righteousness and mental stability by physically menacing elderly scholars, trying to trample them underfoot, and assaulting female staff, such that they require a hospital visit and, subsequently, a neck brace.
Only Doing It For The Betterment Of Us All.
Come, dip a toe in the world of “queer studies.”
Mr Andersson tells us that during three months of, er, research, and 30 notebook entries, his mind often wandered to thoughts of other gentlemen doing much the same thing with the same publications, including the copies he’d acquired second-hand. This is described as a “feeling of intimacy.” Dozing off afterwards is described as “self-care,” which is apparently important. And we’re informed that the Cellophane wrappers of his pornography collection “signalled luxury and investment in myself.”
Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.
Blimey, look below. I see buttons.
It’s a real head scratcher…
Why, it’s almost as if inculcating racial paranoia and competitive, pretentious resentment weren’t in fact a path to happiness and psychological wellbeing.
See also, middle schools.
And these, we’re told, are the clever ones.
That is f*cking twisted.
Well, yes. Quite.
Ben Sixsmith on “equity” and cricket.
Related to the above.
[ Wipes bar, straightens coasters. ]
Ben Sixsmith on “equity” and cricket.
Commisarina Butts is spouting the same nonsense we get over here about Wymnx’s basketball (average game attendance around 5o00) vs. NBA (average attendance around 17,500), or Womxn’s Eurokickyball the National team of which was beaten by under-15 boys and later by a bunch of retired UK geezers.
I also have to wonder what she thinks of the racism of the Maori or Indian teams.
I vaguely recall some hoo-hah in the Guardian about Gwyneth Paltrow not being paid as much as Robert Downey Jr, as if box office draw were some alien concept and quite unfathomable. As if the main reason people go to see Iron Man films is to watch the thrilling adventures of Pepper Potts.
That such a thing needs to be explained or even discussed is a giant flashing red warning beacon, accompanied by a siren as shrill as Yoko Ono telling you that your society is serious f’d up and if you don’t do something about it, people will start chopping the dicks off your little boys. Now of course this is bloody obvious today. But try telling this to people back in the 70’s when women’s lib was getting serious traction. Even the most conservative of conservativey conservatives would have called you a fool. And yet…
It does suggest that certain, quite obvious lines of thought are being actively avoided. A kind of learned stupidity.
Related, “the woeful diversity of plumbing” and the brave wxmyn tackling the problem, as if that is not a trade any could enter if they wanted to.
Meanwhile in Atlanta, apropos of earlier comments about crime and punishment, as it says, watch till the end.
And as is the custom with such articles, there’s no meaningful explanation of why this alleged problem is indeed a problem, let alone a “woeful” one, or why we should expect plumbing to appeal to men and women in equal proportions. It just is, and it just should, apparently.
We are, however, told about all the things that the plumbing industry must do – immediately and at considerable expense – including “menopause support” – if this supposedly desirable scenario is to be achieved. Which it must be, albeit for reasons that are, again, not entirely clear.
I was sort of a mess as a teen. I attribute my path to robust sanity to having no excuses available to me, it being the 70s, so I had to face and tame my own demons. Sadly this path is no longer open to most.
Could it be that faculty at Penn State are beginning to wake up? Let me just say I won’t be holding my breath.
Ben Sixsmith on “equity” and cricket.
Wait, there’s still men AND women’s teams? But I’m told, over and over again, there are no differences in male and female athletes. Why should there even be teams based on ‘gender’?
That’s pretty much the default state of being a teenager, isn’t it? The hormones, the door slamming, not knowing how long your legs are going to be from one week to the next, etc.
I know it’s hard to imagine, but I was not always the radiant, sophisticated being you see before you now.
There can be zero doubt that this wilfully misplaced belief is responsible for the current shitshow that is the Disney/MCU/Star Wars/Indiana Jones etc etc output for the past decade.
To take the example mentioned above although I have not seen the young diverse female character Ironheart in any of her movie or tv roles I get the distinct impression that she is not exactly wowing the audiences.
The template for this kind of “don’t you know who I am?” grievance is a minority householder complaining about being mistaken for a servant or a trespasser. But the new variant which I’m sure we’re going to hear more of is that burly laborers with their hands full mistake a rare tradeswoman for the lady of the house and treat her with deference that isn’t her due. And instead of laughing it off, she stores it up as a resentment to report to the BBC.
I’ve seen more than a few minority complaints about being mistaken for a store clerk. (“Do you know where X is?”) But it happens to me too and I’m as white as they come.
On a similar note:-
https://youtu.be/89bHfnJHdTM
Has anyone in the UK ever heard of Copperhead cider?
This ad, from nearly 25 years ago, might explain why not.
While tact is often something to aim for, it’s also a little odd to complain about what is usually the case still being regarded as what is usually the case.
A few years ago, a chatty taxi driver assumed I had a wife. He was being friendly and going with the odds. (‘Handsome chap, well-spoken too. Someone must have snapped him up, probably a woman.’) To have indignantly corrected him for assuming what would be the case much more often than not, would, I think, have said more about me than the taxi driver.
Never tried it, but I do remember that advert.
These things, especially given how adamant they are about how offended they were, always smell like things-that-never-happened. Now of course, maybe a few of them did. Not saying ALL of them never happened. But most, yes. I mean no…whatever. Especially the idea that seeing a woman doing plumbing work would mean she must live there? Really? With (supposedly?) a man/husband lurking around the place? My assumption seeing such a thing would more likely be she’s a professional plumber than the wife. Especially as other men were in the house. Ah, but I suppose that is even more “sexist”.
So…maybe just me or maybe it’s an American cultural difference…generally speaking, outside of some sort of fall festival or some cold weather specific thing like skiing, I can’t recall seeing men grabbing a cider. But certainly not cider after work-work. Even a bunch of guy-guys at the 19th hole, it’s always beer or maybe a whiskey, scotch, margarita at best on a hot day and they’re already mixed/on special. Maybe if playing with a bunch of doctors or lawyers someone might order a cider but… I really wouldn’t know.
The trades are totally open because one can start a business without any permission. Union jobs? Well, there is racism and sexism there, but not in the independent trades. My buddy and I opened for business as house painters in college and were busy immediately. If you learn some things useful there is high demand for handymen (handyppl?). Women simply do not want to stand on a ladder in the hot sun or get under a house to fix a leak. If a few do, great. You cannot mandate it and it has noting to do with sexism. Idiots.
Rousseau’s children.
I’ve been pondering why so many of these twits seek the destruction of the family. Being married and having kids around and grandkids is so great. An extended family provides support and makes life easier for all. An old person with no relatives is in a seriously bad situation.
What comes to me is if they are unable to maintain relationships and also resent the idea of mutual obligation/responsibility, it is a sour grapes response. I can’t have it/don’t want it so it must be destroyed.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2391313/Oprah-Winfrey-says-regrets-mentioning-handbag-racism-incident-Zurich.html
This is the undisputed gold standard, a story which hit the headlines just when Oprah had a new book coming out.
Notice the wording of the headline, implying the problem is because the store assistant called OW a liar. The Daily Mail does a lot of good work in covering stories the rest of the mainstream media, particularly in the USA, ignore. However their willingness to brown-nose celebs is sickening.
WTP
There is a world of difference between real cider (scrumpy) which, should you find it in a country pub, packs one hell of a punch providing much amusement to the locals when a stranger downs a couple of pints too quickly and the over-sweet aspirated piss which is only suitable for teenage girls. Some boys drink the fizzy stuff mixed with lager and called a snakebite but it’s still a really wussy drink.
If you see, for instance, this – with its adolescent perversity and the weird nervous grins – it does seem possible that Ms Lewis is driven at least in part by some, shall we say, personal issues.
Heh. I’m not a big cider drinker, but I do remember trying Stella Artois’ attempt at cider. Sorry, Cidre. It was gassy and almost entirely flavourless. And not, if memory serves, a huge commercial success, even among teenage girls.
That’s probably the difference. I think over here, and typing this out I seem to recall this being the case, cider was a strong drink thing before prohibition. Then the cider makers started making it without alcohol, which became something only women and children had the taste for and men (likely) resented the difference. Then prohibition gave much harder liquor a sales boost as the alcohol-per-volume thing was more important, smuggling wise. The post prohibition, men who likely would have remained cider drinkers stuck to the harder stuff. It’s all coming back to me now….
mistaken for an employee. I was wearing a suit and attending a big party at a venue. Employees did NOT wear suits. Someone assumed I worked there and asked me where something was. All good. I said not working there and we both laughed. Looking for a reason to get offended is not a good look.
I did make a point of sampling cider in pubs when I visited England. Very tasty.
From the link:
Sooner or later everyone comes around to the idea of helicopters.(TM)
I’m sure you are right.
But: Another very important reason is that Marxism calls for the destruction of the family and its replacement by the State.
*ping*
Thanks for lots of laughs (and lots of head-shaking).
Bless you, sir. May gunk never accumulate in the crevices of your keyboard.
A reminder…
Also…
A reminder…
I guess we should be greatful that parents are in the picture at all.
Just give it some time.
Yeah…Well….all the time in the world ain’t gonna budge that system design. IYKWIM.
Stone soup by any other name . . .
All good. I said not working there and we both laughed. Looking for a reason to get offended is not a good look.
I wore a particular colour of t-shirt in a large hardware store, and was asked where XYZ was… I turned around, the graphics on the front were clearly not corporate, embarrassment ensued, then chuckles, and I pointed the lady in the direction of XYZ.
Why isn’t that the norm?
Hating ‘whiteness’ and trying to be oppressed all the time will do that to you.
Well, it’s unlikely to make you a realistic and emotionally resilient person with a preference for rational thought and a healthy sense of proportion.
They’ve created an environment, a fiefdom, tailored to ‘progressive’ psychology, in which counsellors are employed only if they are deemed “allies” and “social justice advocates,” and in which students are expected to play the roles of oppressor and oppressed, depending on their skin colour, and regardless of anything approaching oppression actually taking place. As a result, competitive pretending becomes the norm, the measure of status, the way to fit in.
And so, students are continually told that they are “unsafe”… from disagreement or refutation, from insufficient flattery, which is framed as “violence,” an act of “hatred.” This is the ideology of the liar and coward, the bullying neurotic. In turn, we see this kind of behaviour – ratcheting hysteria, impervious ignorance, and recreational thuggery – and which is deemed not only acceptable but something to aspire to. A matter of “social justice.”
Same deal here, with dozens of other examples in the archives.
As I said in the original thread,
Or,
As Daniel noted here.
Asheville North Carolina is now San Francisco in the Great Smoky Mountains.
The greatest blame falls on the “liberals”. I suppose the disease has multiple etiologies, but nonetheless it is a disease.
An exchange of views.
An exchange of views.
Nothing says “pride”, love, tolerance, and acceptance quite like being kicked in the ass by an orange mop-haired troon.
The woman being assaulted, repeatedly, in the name of tolerance and puppies, is, in her words, a former trans-rights activist. I’m not quite sure what she was hoping to achieve, though. I mean, the people who attend such events, and who screech about how loving and tolerant they are, aren’t usually there in order to have their assumptions challenged.
Chris Elston, mentioned here, has managed to engage a few people in civil, one-to-one conversation – as opposed to howling and jostling – but that’s quite rare and doesn’t usually take place in the middle of an animated mob, at least not initially.
The Dark Triad* of personality traits correlates with membership in these “activist” movements.
* Psychopathy, narcissism, and machiavellianism.
Or better yet the Dark Tetrad, which adds sadism to the mix.
Or better yet the Dark Tetrad, which adds sadism to the mix.
They are generally neither smart enough nor well read to be Machiavellian. Either substitute sadist for Machiavellian in the triad, or change it for “ovine” in the tetrad.
See also.
More “pride” love, tolerance, and acceptance, and thank goodness there is no bigotry, hatred, or prejudice – though threatening to kill someone on an NYC subway is a bit ironic.
Yeah, because that’s what education’s all about: making kids confused. I don’t care what someone wants to “sow confusion” about; if he’s not bringing greater clarity to his charges, he’s unfit to teach.
Speaking of bringing clarity, I re-watched a couple of episodes of James Burke’s Connections the other night. Greatest TV show ever made. And one of them touched on why, uniquely, the Europeans travelled all over the world spreading their culture to every corner of the Earth. James didn’t make a big deal of it in the context of the story he was telling, but it stuck out like a sore thumb to me watching in the here-and-now. Was it because they were hell-bent on subjugation? Or might it have been because the Turks took Constantinople and cut off the infidels’ long-established overland trade routes with the far east?
Sailing across oceans with 15th-Century technology is hard. Dangerous, too. You only try it if you’re all out of options.
I disagree: I have met plenty of leftists who were very Machiavellian, maintaining a pretense of compassion and respect in their public personas, all while working to destroy our liberties and society.
It’s rather rare even in one-to-one conversations.
My leftist friends echoed They Might Be Giants and insisted “that’s nobody’s business but the Turks”.
Yes indeed:
Tolerating and supporting such institutions and individuals is akin to nurturing plague rats.
I have met plenty of leftists who were very Machiavellian
The few, the vast majority are ovine.
…echoed They Might Be Giants…
The Four Lads 1953, TMBG version is a brummagem cover.
Well, maybe. But it doesn’t matter: Pathological people do not all exhibit the same mix of dark traits.
From what I remember, the first series is by far the best.
That last detail is revealing.
It also helps to confirm my hesitancy over the use of the word bravery in the original post.
It’s one thing to remain stoical in the face of noisy abuse from that kind of activist when they try to disrupt a scheduled talk (as we’ve seen happen to, just off the top of my head, Heather McDowell, Charles Murray, Jordan Peterson, and Janice Fiamengo to name but a handful).
But it’s quite another to wade right into the middle of the activists’ parade, on their day.
So it’s interesting that she presumably cut her protesting teeth as one of them.
Apart from that, the most striking detail for me was the girl in the pink top and baseball cap who clocks the woman with her giant pink handbag and then turns around with a look of wonder and shock as if to say “Wow! Who on Earth did that?”
That, too, is very revealing.
Sorry – I meant Heather MacDonald.
I blame it on the unseasonal appearance of the sun.
[ Fetches Giant Pantaloons Of Shame. ]
I think one of the things that makes the activists a worse problem is that there are currently multiple issues that can be claimed to be “life or death”–climate change, the environment (if you ignore how much cleaner things are than 80 yrs ago), trans rights, general injustice, and of course racism (if you squint and ignore all the progress). 80 yrs ago, people disagreed on many issues, but they generally were not viewed as life or death.
‘Elicit’ not ‘illicit’.
I’d blame it on voice-to-text or limited spell-checkers but I’ve run into similar homophonic confusion (‘tenant’ for ‘tenet’, ‘break’ for ‘brake’, &c.).
End of peeve.
Intelligence isn’t a requirement, nor is being well read: a certain low, animal, cunning combined with ingrained malice does quite well enough.
Spelling and grammar: Everyone must tow the line.
[ Edges towards the door. ]
“ScientificAmerican Lysenkoism” is at it again, tackling the climate hysteria about (magnifies browser) mixed drinks.Trucking around slabs of ice certainly sounds eco-friendly. Maybe they use bike messengers with giant Igloo coolers on wheels.
Closed, OK – never let it be said AmLy doesn’t go to real experts.
I wonder if they use clipper ships to tote all that champagne and black currant liquor around the world, for the eco-friendliness and sustainability.
Tow the line, why not?
Nice cultural reference. And that’s where the editors at SciAm want us peons to be.
Another Repin allusion:
This blog community, commenting on the latest SciAm idiocy.
♪♫Everywhere is freaks and hairies♪♫
Indeed, often one and the same.
Don’t sweet it. I’ve been having considerable difficulty the last few years with words I once knew how to spell or use properly. Things that when I saw other people use them improperly would have made me cringe in the past. Recently someone tried to dismiss my entire point because I said ‘looser’ when I meant ‘loser’. I then felt compelled to point out to said language nazi that he missed entirely where I had also used ‘to’ where ‘too’ was the proper word. So at least under the associative principle of the conservation of vowels I was still correct.
That’s an awesome song by Toto.
Speaking of language stuff… has anyone else noticed an increase in the use of not-logic in legal stories? Things to the effect of “The Supreme Court declined to review a lower court’s rejection of the challenge to Governor Bumpkis’s veto of the legislature’s bill to prevent local communities from banning widget blockers”?
Also…Tow Toe, band name and album cover:
Spelling and grammar: Everyone must tow the line.
Oldie, but a goodie…
I know you meant ‘tow the lion’.
Don’t know about the bottom three, but hard to argue with the top two.
Bowie tune?
Update
https://www.professorwatchlist.org/professor/karlandersson
And more
https://karla74.userpage.fu-berlin.de/
From the link:
and:
We are dealing with monsters.
Or, instead you could just, you know, not bother pretending.
The university’s oddly belated response, months after the fact, and the indignant, contrived defences of Mr Andersson by other academics, didn’t exactly help on that front either. Nor did the public’s discovery of what now passes for scholarship.
The actual paper is remarkable only in the author’s self-involvement and how little there is there. The lines quoted above – about a “feeling of intimacy” and the wrappers of Mr Andersson’s porn stash – are much of the supposed substance of the thing. The rest is largely narcissistic rambling – as “autoethnography” usually is. Apparently, the author saw no need to “explore” the moral and legal ramifications of his own preoccupations, or the pathologies. Ditto, the supervisors who accepted his “research.” And this, it seems, is considered good enough for academia’s Clown Quarter.
And then we were treated to equally ludicrous affectations of innocence. According to which, hoarding paedophilic pornography, and having produced it for many years, with sexualised photos of small boys juxtaposed with headlines about the rape and murder of children, apparently has nothing whatsoever to do with the real-world abuse of children. “Why would we think that?” he asked.
As noted in the original thread:
It’s almost surreal.
On the subject of academic nonces gathering round to protect one of their own let us not overlook the fact that earlier this week MPs, including 25 conservatives, voted to derail a bill which would have gone a long way towards curtailing gender transitioning in schools.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12239043/Bid-ban-social-gender-transitioning-schools-narrowly-killed-MPs.html
it is worth noting that nearly 89% of MPs did not even bother turning up to vote presumably having more important things to do with their time.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/06/29/thames-water-crisis-feargal-sharkey-sunak/
But has anybody asked Limahl of Kajagoogoo what he thinks?
Contrived defenses which the public is expected to accept uncritically.
Once again, Theodore Dalrymple:
And:
pst
That applies to so much these days. Not least the UK government/establishment, for they are one and the same, and it’s professed claims to be really trying to halt the endless flow of fighting-aged males being shepherded across the channel
by our navy and lifeboat charity to a luxurious and open-ended free stay in a 4-star hotel safe in the knowledge they will never be obliged to leave.
“But we’re really trying to do something, we hear you, it’s just that (insert excuse)”.
You’re the fecking government. You can pass laws.
And there are already enough laws, yes? But the politicians won’t enforce them.
As I’ve said elsewhere if the government, with their 80 seat majority, somehow pass a law:-
It will already have been delayed and watered down in the House of Lords.
Civil servants will immediately say it’s not possible to implement it and refuse to do anything.
A taxpayer funded law firm will appeal in the courts.
So will numerous taxpayer funded “charities”
The bbc will do a “Panorama” exclusive the same evening.
A different taxpayer funded law firm will then go to the Court of Appeals.
Backed up by more charities.
And the Archbishop of Canterbury.
And Gary Lineker.
A third taxpayer funded firm will then go to the Supreme Court.
Then the ECHR will step in.
So will the UN.
President Biden will make clear threats to severely damage our economy.
So will the EU.
And finally all this is assuming our Monarch will have signed the bill to give Royal Assent. That’s not a gimme.
Speaking of feking government, oh look, we will learn when it is TEOTWAWKI if we don’t cut back on energy use according to this (cleans glasses) billboard sized energy sucking LED screen doomsday clock.
Can I take these off yet?
They chafe in somewhat surprising places.
Sure, people outraged by something are just producing performances. Literary crit comes to destroy the real world.
[ Fetches pantaloons made of coarser material. ]
The denials of intent, and his general disingenuousness, were particularly farcical and unpleasant. As if we weren’t meant to know that Mr Andersson has spent his entire adult life propagating and trying to normalise the sexual abuse of children. An activity he finds arousing.