For newcomers and the nostalgic, some items from the archives:
How To Create A Low-Trust Society.
These things thou shalt not notice.
The general theme of the replies, and the air of annoyance, reminded me of Ms Claudia Balducci, a woman responsible for Seattle’s public transport network. Faced with evidence that up to 70% of passengers are now freeloading with impunity, Ms Balducci replied: “People are feeling more welcome on our system and less afraid to use it because there’s less of a fear of fare enforcement.” Which is progress, apparently. An achievement unlocked.
Trust Me, I’m A Witchdoctor.
The thrill of prehistoric healthcare.
Well, not everyone is happy trusting their recovery to healing songs and delusions of aboriginal sorcery, and there’s only so much you can achieve by pushing crushed witchetty grubs into a person’s ear. Likewise, the restorative properties of bush dung, as used in many of the practices invoked by Ms Ngaree Blow – those “ways of knowing” – are somewhat unclear.
With a glorious lack of irony, Ms Blow then denounces “outdated approaches to health” and insists that medical treatment must be “culturally appropriate.” If not, one assumes, optimal or even efficacious. Still, if patients aren’t recovering as rapidly as one might hope, or indeed recovering at all, at least those Western paradigms will be “decolonised” and righteously disrupted: “There has never been a more exciting time to be disruptive,” says she. A term Ms Blow deploys no fewer than eleven times. Possibly hinting at her priorities.
His Skin Just Won’t Come Off.
The bedlamite academic – a case study, one of many.
“Whiteness,” an allegedly deplorable yet oddly nebulous phenomenon, is apparently rooted in the “destruction of the environment” and the “total demolition of value,” including, we’re told, the destruction of “integrity, honesty… common sense.” Our theatrically agonised academic insists that “whiteness” has “no nature, no culture, no essence… no value or intrinsic meaning,” and yet it supposedly corrupts and befouls everything it touches and must therefore “dissolve into oblivion.”
It scarcely needs saying that allowing one’s children to be exposed to the unhappy mental contortions of Professor Barrett would not be the wisest way to spend tens of thousands of dollars. Though conceivably one might use him as an illustration of how minds can come undone.
She Doesn’t Do Toilets.
Guardian columnist bemoans her womanly lot.
“The personal is political,” says she. Well, so I hear. But it’s also worth considering just how often the political, or allegedly political, is a function of personality and a self-flattering rationalisation for personal shortcomings and sub-optimal choices. Not least among the kinds of people who loudly announce that the personal is political.
Pudding First.
On allegedly “good reasons to give children the vote.”
It occurs to me that if you start demanding that small children be allowed to vote in general elections – largely because you assume that their choices, their
politics, will tend to mirror your own – then perhaps it’s time to ponder why your own politics correspond with the imagined preferences of children, who are, by definition, unworldly and irresponsible. Such that you grudgingly concede that, “Enfranchising everyone [i.e., including small children] will make the electorate less informed on average.” The rest of us, meanwhile, may wish to ponder whether a leftist’s desire to exploit the ignorance of small children in order to further her own socialist vanities is not only farcical, but degenerate.
We’ve been here before, of course, when Professor David Runciman claimed that not allowing primary school children to vote alongside adults amounts to “an inbuilt bias against governments that plan for the future.” As if small children are renowned for their selflessness and conscientious forethought.
Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.
Why do these Guardian writers have such trouble with shopping lists and birthdays? Is this like the third now? What the hell is hard about it?
Heh. It does seem to be a recurring theme, and never quite presented in a way that’s… well, remotely convincing.
Again, I’m guessing that the “systemic issues” invoked but never quite pinned-down – the ones that apparently demand “structural social change” – have more to do with the inadequacies of the author. Among which, ingratitude.
But as we’ve seen, for the kind of middle-class progressive who as recreation writes for the Guardian or the Observer, or Harper’s Bazaar, life is apparently an endless moral torture inflicted by minor, everyday events, or at least a theatre of pretending to be tortured by minor, everyday events. (Which of the two constitutes a more harrowing and nightmarish existence, I leave to the reader.)
These are the kind of empowered, progressive women who are crushed and exhausted, not only by the chore of remembering their own children’s birthdays, and the insufferable physical grind of hiring domestic cleaners to scrub their multiple bathrooms, but also by the moral agonising that such things apparently entail.
I mean, it’s hard to know where to start. But I’m fairly sure the issue has more to do with the psychology of the writers than any actual arrangement of the external world.
The “moral agonising” lady frets about a great many things including collecting her unfortunate offspring from his nursery – a national chain disproportionately staffed by women of colour.
I wonder if she has considered the potential freedom from such guilt achievable by moving to a more white society? (Or paying a bit more).
The author of the Observer piece, Sally Howard, seems all but incapable of thinking coherently, such that one thing follows from another. It’s quite remarkable.
Instead, we get a tangle of pretension, buzzwords and half-baked ideology, in which paying a female cleaner over the odds, more than a male equivalent would be expected to earn, is a “structural devaluation of women’s work.” And in which the way to empower female cleaners, while easing one’s “feminist conscience,” is to make those female cleaners suddenly unemployed.
[ Added: ]
As I said in the subsequent thread:
Again, it’s not obvious what the line of reasoning was, if indeed there was one, beyond advertising Ms Howard’s social status to other women.
That attitude is not completely confined to the left. Even more-or-less apolitical STEM field people can manifest that blindness. For instance, I once saw a news item about a robotic machine for building tiny houses from continuously extruded mud, with a short video clip of it in operation in a poor village in rural South or Central America. The moral message was “Look at this cool technology which we are using to benefit poor people!” But nobody was asking “What about the people who make a living building houses?” Just as various charities are seemingly unconcerned about how they cause local unemployment when they ship food and goods to Africa.
Open thread, you say?
As long as we are slagging on nitwits at the Guardian, today they are fretting that the Gulf Stream (the ocean, not the jet) could collapse by 2025. Of course they were whining about this back in 2018 whereby “scientists”, apparently throwing chicken bones or other indigenous ways of knowing, devined it was the weakest in 1600 years. Just kidding about the chicken bones, they no doubt studied all the records from 1600 years ago.
After 14 paragraphs of TEOTWAWKI…
Oh. Mighty big if.
Meanwhile in 1920, Atlantic captains were puzzled because “…the water in the stream is warm—more so than usual—but for some reason it is stationary, or almost so.” I blame steamships and locomotives.
The real puzzlement is why anyone takes the Guardian seriously about anything.
I think you’re missing the point. That people will be put out of work is effectively the Luddite story. But the real issue is not the material concerns. The problem in general is giving people stuff. Or money. Giving people a hand up once in a while, and one should demand some acknowledgment of gratitude for doing so, is fine. The only proper way to help people is to show them how to help themselves.
I saw a social media story about some soccer star who was giving away his millions to the people back home in his native African shithole. Just handing it out. And every bloody comment was “Oooh, what a great man”. Those people in his home country would be much better off if he left them alone. But try telling people this, especially a good number of conservative…”conservative” people, even telling them in the most gentle way possible, and you are an asshole. No thinking required. Fix this perception problem and you solve 75% (ok, 73.87% but I rounded up) of the world’s problems. No helicopters required.
Karson Nutter
Predestination?
That.
…also by the moral agonising that such things apparently entail…
Doris Lessing
Naked woman fires gun at random drivers on San Francisco Bay Bridge.
I would have applauded the driver who ran her down to protect everyone else.
“whiteness has no culture”–so much of white culture is attractive to other peoples that they have voluntarily (not by “colonization”) adopted it. There is an active country music scene in Nigeria (IIRC). Classical music orchestras are big in Japan and China. Western modes of dress, both formal and casual, are so much better than robes and loincloths that they are almost universal now. If you go to the most remote primitive tribe, they have, at minimum, western t-shirts and shorts plus machetes. Western technology is so obviously useful that even communists and the primitive try to get as much as they can. One can only make the claim that whites have no culture out of ignorance as to what culture IS.
Such female writers: these agonizing women seem to be oblivious to the benefits of division of labor and ungrateful for the things the husband does. For example, my wife is great remembering birthdays and who gave what present. For my part, I keep track of bills, car repairs, taxes, etc. We both win. These writers seem to resent having ANY obligations.
As for those excusing the fare dodgers, I’m not sure how these morally superior arbiters of what we should and shouldn’t be noticing think the public transit system should pay for, you know, transit when revenues run low.
And why should I pay the fare when the guy next to me doesn’t, and it’s perfectly moral?
“helping”–the desire to “help” by giving people money gives us the welfare system in the US (and elsewhere of course) which has destroyed the black family, caused gang wars, and led to young men with no education, no guidance, and no self-control (since no father present). At the same time, city governments make it harder to start a business by shutting down street vendors, food trucks, and marginal retail stores. Why do you need 2 years of schooling to braid hair? Pure protectionism. Chicago could not wait to shut down the Maxwell street market, where small vendors sold all sorts of stuff–on the basis that stolen goods were also sold there.
The Taliban would like a word with you.
Band name.
Finally, a strategy straight out of Clausewitz.
Well, yes. Their exalted presence absolves them of any duty to other, lesser, beings.
Not that I disagree with the general thrust but I would note the welfare system in the US and elsewhere is premised on giving people money obtained via, as Sir Terence put it, “a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces.”
White culture and western modes of…..most things.
Thanks to Tim Newman I have become a great fan of Japanese bluegrass music which in turn led me to the equally excellent Korean variety. YouTube has shedloads of this stuff invariably performed with talent and affection.
(Well it does say Open Thread).
Indeed it does. I was rather hoping you might share one or two examples.
Video to prove that she really was firing AT cars.
Many news stories claimed she was merely firing in the air. Gosh, I wonder why they would underreport the evil done by a “diverse” criminal.
https://youtu.be/ZsdJ7F6JDVM
https://youtu.be/-Gq-rbsfPS0
As you wish. The first song is obviously really well played and sung. However the second, while far more basic with some “interesting” instruments, is in many ways even more enjoyable to me.
It’s all out there, something for everyone.
Good man.
The face of climate change.
Does Sumerian count?
And a Japanese take on the blues.
No surprise: Democrat. Gave money to many left wing causes.
Yikes. With quicker reflexes, she could have run the driver down.
Behold my excruciatingly intellectual bollocks.
And what do you think of my suit? It’s from the Pepto Bismol Collection.
Bingo. 😀
Asian bluegrass: thank you, hilarious. They both got the accents right too, esp the Japanese one. I love the replacing the violin with the oriental upright version.
I likes to imagine them all wearing the pre-printed but unsold Buffalo Bills Super Bowl Champions T-shirts.
“help” by giving people money”
Which always begs the question about why one should not feed animals, as that causes various and sundry ills…
Asian bluegrass:
Tuvan Delta Blues, with Paul Pena.
Criminals are getting more creative.
“We understand X is illegal in your country. Is anyone on your team engaged in X?”
–a smart, educated BBC reporter
I assume she’s not the sort of woman one wants to see naked?
I assume she’s not the sort of woman one wants to see naked?
There have been worse around these parts in the past.
I can’t explain glacial motion
Or why Los Angeles don’t drop into the ocean
I can’t unfold the layers of mystery
Or piece together the tragedy of history, ‘cause
Those lucky suckers
They don’t have to work
Make 3D billboards and big
30-foot Smurfs
Everybody wants to be naked and famous.
Clayton Cramer just posted on low-trust societies.
https://claytonecramer.blogspot.com/2023/07/low-trust-societies.html
Ah, but it’s “emotional labour,” you see, and worse, “unpaid.”
This, after all, is someone who complains that her domestic chores – and caring for her own child – are also “unpaid.” Though actually, it seems to me that her husband is contributing on that front. Say, by paying her half of the mortgage, bills, etc., and making sure that she, and their child, have food, heating, medical care, and so forth. Or does that somehow not count in the world of ungrateful middle-class feminists who write whiny, incoherent articles for the Guardian…?
Again, this:
At which point, it’s worth bearing in mind that Ms Heath’s editor at the Guardian, and presumably her peers, saw nothing questionable in her line of thinking, such as it is. Nothing that might warrant a little more reflection.
*chokes on coffee*
Creative criminals.
The enjoyable news report based “Florida Man” articles on PJ Media suggest this is far from an isolated case of strangeness. Perhaps WTP could put us straight as to whether this is correct.
My sister and her family who emigrated out there 20 years ago say that Floridians are no different from anywhere else. However they are pretty weird themselves and certainly not reliable witnesses although I still love them dearly.
Brains Trust.
[ Compiles tomorrow’s Ephemera. ]
Common sense says there has to be a second entrance to the site so just leave them there for a day or so.
Alternately maybe a nearby farmer could be persuaded to herd his sheep (although heeland coos, the shaggy buggers with the big horns, would be better) along that particular stretch of road. Damnit, I’d even settle for a bunch of geese.
! I first ran across him via links at Instapundit. He wrote a lot about firearms–“good guy uses gun to stop bad guy” stories and discussions of the Second Amendment.
No, I’m not: There are multiple points and I merely focused my attention on one of them. And, of course, putting people out of work via unwise charity increases the number of people who become dependent on charity.
There have been worse around these parts in the past.
That’s the same woman.
Maybe you meant to link to this violent lunatic?
Wondering why it’s illegal (or prohibitively risky) to use violence to stop her antics? Thank liberal lawyers, liberal judges, liberal journalists, and liberal jurors.
This. In many, many other domains as well.
Another trans monster threatens women with violence.
Well as of yesterday I am no longer a Florida resident. Though I do still plan to spend several months a year there. As has been noted a good bit of Florida Man has to do with the more open records but that obviously (?) cannot explain all of it. I have a couple of takes on it. For one, in California you’ll see these people like this lady walking around naked acting like an idiot, but that’s just a Wednesday out there. In Florida what you get are stories that even sound like a set up for a joke. I.e. a guy walks into a convenience store carrying an alligator… Though the closer you get to Miami..well…
But also consider Florida is to some degree California light/California east because of the weather. With a heavy dose of humidity thrown in. It’s a huge state both in population and distance between cities. There’s a similar agriculture/coastal/city life split. But there’s less stupid-easy money in Florida. The frontiers of any country have always drawn the crazy people. After the west was effectively won/conquered/civilized, the Florida peninsula became that last frontier until Alaska. Now there’s a state with a considerable number of Florida-man kinds of stories. If they only had the kind of weather that drew a higher concentration of people…Yet here in the hills of Georgia I see the same sort of crazy. Big concern when we got back here is some guy wants to build a huge dragon and castle themed community overlooking the lake. I think (hope) what he’s really trying to do is try to start a common-sense (heh) discussion about zoning laws. Of which we have none.
Leave them there. Put up barricades around them & allow no one to cross the barricades or succor them in any fashion.
Or amputate as necessary, then bill them for the damage to the road.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12336989/Burlington-store-Sacramento-raided-trio-female-shoplifters-make-slow-getaway-pushing-shopping-carts-loads-stolen-booty.html
The progressive shopping experience also comes in White XXXL.
Damn good springs on that Charger.
Or amputate as necessary, then bill them for the damage to the road
If only. Either one would be good to deter future idiocy, although the first one would have more immediate impact. I don’t see anyone getting much money out of these morons, but a lost limb would definitely get their attention.
Parenting, #3987:
Woah, big if true. I am starting to think licences to have kids is a good idea.
Regressive parenting.
Meanwhile, in the world of lingerie...
Tim Curry did it better.
These clowns are totally without shame.
The progressive shopping experience also comes in White XXXL.
It’s about damned time. After the Elites let the melanin-gifted loot with impunity, changed the laws so it’s not a felony anymore, and refused to do anything about misdemeanors, it was only a matter of time before the melanin-challenged decided to get in on the action. After all, they changed the laws. Although those yte Progressive Shoppers better not wear a red hat or anything like that or they will get the book thrown at them.
What an amazing concept truly we live in a golden age of enlightenment.
“Whiteness,” an allegedly deplorable yet oddly nebulous phenomenon, is apparently rooted in the “destruction of the environment” and the “total demolition of value,” including, we’re told, the destruction of “integrity, honesty… common sense.”
Have you seen the urban blight? Not exactly white up in there. Perhaps it’s that Projection is the lingua franca of marxism.