Reheated (87)
As I’m otherwise occupied, some items from the archives:
A radical young lady asks, “What do we eat during the revolution?”
Apparently, the revolution will be fuelled by cashew milk and vegan pseudo-cheese. Because as capitalism is toppled, and amid the riots and burning cars, there will, it seems, be space for neurotic niche cuisine. And so, while her comrades “break capitalism” and “abolish” prison, and as violent criminals roam the streets unmolested, Margot will be instructing the little people on how to dry pepper seeds and how to wash foraged bin scraps in vinegar to remove any trace of those nasty pesticides.
For readers in search of some below-the-belt upgrades.
Thank goodness a teacher walks among us, a guide to what lies ahead. Meet Laura (formerly Lawrence) Jacobs, a man who describes himself as “trans and genderqueer-identified, kinky and non-monogamous,” and as a “lesbian” with “multiple intersecting identities.” And – because the universe has a sense of humour – a psychotherapist.
He didn’t know he was in a gang, you see, so how dare you sentence him?
Hey, it’s an easy mistake to make. Accidentally putting on a balaclava and stalking someone, based on their race, then menacing them, and tasing them, and tugging the wedding ring from their twitching finger, and then barging into their home and taking their stuff. And then doing it all over again, and again, and again, all entirely by accident. I mean, who here hasn’t done it?
Ladies, good news. Danger is now something you can just pretend away.
You see, in the progressive pecking order, the fantasies of sexually dysmorphic men – and the preferences of male sex offenders – are of much greater importance than any “discomfort” felt by the women and girls on whom the former groups choose to impose themselves. Women and girls whose role, it seems, is merely to understand and tacitly affirm. To be reluctant accessories to some strange man’s psychodrama, while remaining free of judgement. Which is frowned upon.
Because the modern, not-at-all-insane response to repeated acts of indecency and sexual intimidation – by a predatory man in the women’s changing rooms – is to ask him not to keep waving his erection at women and children. On grounds that what he’s waving could somehow be a lady’s penis. Such is the sophistication of our times.
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That’s a total canard! You’re deshpicable!
I was seeing complaints over 20 years ago, even before the headquarters was moved from Seattle to Chicago, that Boeing was now being run by MBA’s and bean-counters rather than by engineers and pilots. Similarly regarding other companies such as Hewlett-Packard.
“Someone disagrees with someone else on a political or social matter, and automatically, everything that person ever made is suddenly ‘garbage,’ or they’re ‘talentless’ and ‘no one likes them.’ “
I am reminded of how the left-dominated news and literary world immediately stopped reviewing David Horowitz’s books when turned away from Communism. Up until then each of his books was deemed worthwhile and deserving of respectful attention. Afterwards they were garbage and he was a non-person. (So much for the myth that the “moderate left” are not on the side of the communists.)
Chef’s kiss
Possibly related: Some time in the 1990’s the sf writer Samuel R Delany had to get a job at a comic book store to make ends meet. I don’t know if he railed against the “injustice” of his situation, but I was not surprised at his situation: He was publishing less fiction than when he was younger, and his readership seemed to have shrunk as his stories became less and less appealing to normal people (gay S&M, public sex, porn, and Marxist economic delusions.) He was saved by a professorship at Temple University.
I have personally witnessed that sort of jealousy in various fields: “Why is that person more successful than me? Aren’t I just as good or better?” I still recall a conversation with an artist who did have technical skill but whose subjects all looked stiffly posed in compositions devoid of drama.
Well, it’s quite funny, in a niche sort of way, and even now, some 14 years later, still rather surprising in its candour. And so, we have an Envious, Chest-Puffing Academic Of Little Use telling us that he should command a salary and social status to match his vanity, on grounds of him being so educated and so terribly clever. In an article, of his own devising, that very much casts doubt on those claims of cleverness and, by extension, on the credentialism he invokes.
The professor’s article, and his response to subsequent comments, rather kicks the feet from under his own argument, such as it is. And yet somehow he doesn’t see this. Perhaps in his social circle, among fellow Envious, Chest-Puffing Academics Of Little Use, this kind of fatuous tossery is considered good enough.
The traditional academic deal was “you will settle for a very moderate salary in exchange for lifetime employment, giving up the possibility of high salary combined with the risks of the open market”. Now these people want high salary and guaranteed employment–plus the right to demand our respect and deference.
That was also the traditional deal with government employment, at least since the civil service reforms which made it virtually impossible to fire a government employee.
This, in a nutshell (literally in his case) is the reason for the popularity of Socialism amongst academics. These vain, petty, jealous intellectuals imagine that in a world in which resources are to be distributed “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” they will be the ones tasked with evaluating each person’s abilities and tabulating every persons needs. And be suitably feted and admired for it.
Rather, as is historically more evident, being the first up against the wall.
Fourteen chuffing years…
Congratulations!
David, is there an easy way to mark parts of your blog page as out-of-bounds for web crawlers? Or as not suitable for re-crawling? I’m thinking particularly of the “Recent Comments” section, but the rest of the sidebar should qualify too: Your comment prompted me to attempt to see how long ago I started reading (well, commenting) but the search results included very old pages which counted as hits only because of very recent comments in the sidebar.
Not so far as I’m aware. It seems to be an all-or-nothing for the whole blog, at least without venturing into sub-sub-sub-menus that are beyond my technical expertise, and which I’m reluctant to poke about in. What with having no buggering clue what I’d be altering.
So far as I can see, you’ve posted 14,908 comments over the years, dating back to July 29, 2007.
Karl, since you ask, has posted a mere 344 comments.
So he really needs to get his shit together.
I was seeing complaints over 20 years ago, even before the headquarters was moved from Seattle to Chicago, that Boeing was now being run by MBA’s and bean-counters rather than by engineers and pilots.
This is true, but I was mostly referring to anon’s sly mention of United Airlines, which did splash out to the world how DIE was the most important thing to consider when hiring, and did the obligatory alphabet rainbow butt kissing. Didn’t their CEO decide he was a she as well? Yes, Boeing has its woes, and is likely cutting corners to serve the MBAs, but United maintains the Boeings they buy, and I have about as much faith in their maintenance crews as I do in their pilots and their ridiculous CEO.
Never mind the quantity, feel the width!
As neurosis becomes psychosis . . .
Yes indeed. They cannot have already replaced all their competent workers with useless DEI hires, but just a few can do great harm and DEI is guaranteed to demoralize serious workers.
Driving instead of flying seems more attractive with each news cycle.
A very good reason to Leave Well Enough Alone. The blog is great as it is, and it would be folly to embark on a project with large risk for small reward. (As I have said before. Anything that makes the blog a pain to operate would be a bad idea.)
[ Jaw drops. ]
At Oakland airport (San Francisco bay) there use to be a problem with seagulls hanging out on the runway approach lights. After a plane passed low overhead, they would fly up into the wingtip vortex, where they would be tossed around violently.
They were doing this for fun.
Eventually the airport figured out someway to discourage them.
[ Considers baking cake. ]
“bits have started falling of Boeing’s planes”
That wheel-loss incident was a 22 year old B-777. It was bad maintenance by the airline.
U.S. airlines started offshoring maintenance last century. A NASA safety expert I knew predicted this. But like many of his other warnings (e.g. Pilot training) it was largely ignored, because $$.
As neurosis becomes psychosis . . .
You all really don’t spend enough time around women.
“Gretchen, dear <exasperated sigh>, we’re still doing masking. Didn’t you get the memo?”
Their entire professional existence stems from the world inside their heads. Their ideas, theories, whatever only meet resistance from minds that work similarly. They don’t have to deal with the real world of physics or chemistry or (honest) accounting or computer logic, etc.
About 25-30 years ago I became so tired of the BS that I was seeing through even back then that I stopped consuming fiction, modern fiction anyway. What little I do read is pre-WWI. Not WWII, WWI. No movies (ok, very minor exceptions) made since about 1995-2000. Similarly no TV shows except the few that went against the grain like South Park and early Big Bang Theory. The latter was running somewhat counter-culture early on with comments from Raj about how India sucks and some of Sheldon’s Texas/religious background. I haven’t watched TV news since the Lewinsky BS. Stopped reading the local paper and switched to the WSJ, which itself I gave up on about a dozen years ago. Consequently I am significantly de-programmed from teh Narrative. On the few occasions I read much of anything from the MSM, the amount of BS fictional Narrative that bleeds through is hard for me to ignore. Most people that I know, even most conservative people, are oblivious to it.
“women in Afghanistan, who can’t leave their homes without a male chaperone, women in Iran who are imprisoned and abused for not wearing a mandatory head covering, women in Nepal, who risk death once a month when they are consigned to menstrual huts, women in Malta, where they have no right to abortion and women in Texas who have no reproductive rights”
One of these things is not like the others…
When is society going to wake up to it even happening. Many people whom I know have no idea how wide spread this crap is. When I try to tell them they dismiss it as conspiracy theory. Especially in the groomer department but the surgery/chemical poisoning stuff as well. It is amazing how many people actually believe that those drugs can just turn puberty on and off like a light switch. Because the media tells them so.
About 25 years ago, long before the term “cancel culture” was coined, I would struggle with a succinct term for this. Amongst people with whom I discussed these sorts of things I would call it “litmus test culture”. Not sure if I used the word ‘culture’ consistently but, whatever. My point being that a certain entertainer or public or even private person who failed certain specific litmus tests on certain edge issues would get dropped, treated like a leper. It reminded me of similar situations I observed in high school.
Well the Malta thing is a bit of a stretch as well. Unless you meant Texas…but…yes.
I watched it twice and still had no idea as to whether it was a well-executed parody or an actual bedlamite. A difficulty that’s becoming a defining feature of our times.
At an exhibition of Mayan artifacts there was a covered bowl, the lid of which had as a center knob the nicely rendered head of Daffy Duck.
Well I can’t complain about the kerning but “Next Post” is supposed to refer to something that happens in the future.
Harrumph.
The cake is a lie!
Third album.
It worked for the civil service.
A Castella Cake?
Sent them to the local In-N-Out Burger?
I don’t spend time around women like that.
I know right? For one thing, if she was as cripplingly germ-o-phobic as she presents wouldn’t she be wearing a mask here?
“early Big Bang Theory. The latter was running somewhat counter-culture early on with comments from Raj about how India sucks and some of Sheldon’s Texas/religious background. “
Not sure what you mean by “counter culture” here.
While as an Indian I enjoyed the show, and the jokes, in a way the choice of targets of humour was “safe” and fully in line with the prevailing progressive ideology of Hollywood etc.
One thing you should realise is that how India “sucks” (jokingly or otherwise) is as much a staple of progressive ideology as, for instance, religious Christians or Israel (hence Sheldon’s mother).
Couldn’t care less, but it does tell you something very interesting about that ideology, if you think about it – considering that some other “POC” and “BAME” that have far worse issues, are sacred territory for them.
I had to look that up.
[ Pulse and respiration mysteriously increase. ]
Oooh!
Oh, definitely. But Raj character had to be from India, not for PC reasons but just…obviously. Thus the country to get dissed would be India. I have a good number of work friends from India and I could see them saying somewhat similar things. But at the same time, there has been tremendous progress there, much more than many similar countries in the (once)post-communist era. Nigeria seems to be creeping up in that department, somewhat.
Band name! What? Who doesn’t like cake?
[ Adds tart to shopping list. ]
Babies are only so interesting.
Where are you shopping?
To clarify, I was thinking of a salted caramel and chocolate tart.
[ Adds double cream to shopping list. ]
Not helping.
They live in a different world.