I expect to be busy for a few days. However, being a gracious host, I’ll leave you with some items from the archives:
Marking Their Territory.
Two radical identity groups struggle for toilet dominion.
Naturally, the first task was to give the toilets a makeover via the uplifting medium of graffiti, thereby communicating the life-enhancing qualities of prostitution: “Less abolitionism, more whoring,” and “less TERFs, more sex.” Needless to say, the conflict has escalated… With the facilities now being used by rival tribes, all gorged on intersectional compassion – and with so much graffiti to be written and responded to indignantly – students are reporting queues and “lengthy wait times.”
You’re Reading The Comments, Right?
When wokeness is ascendant and apparently quite stupefying.
Pst314 and Mr Muldoon point us to an “analysis” piece in
Scientific American, in which we’re urged to fret about “the violence Black men experience in [American] football,” and in which we’re told that the physicality of the sport “disproportionately affects black men.” This is framed in the article so as to imply some systemic racial wrongdoing – “anti-Black practices” that are “inescapable” – rather than, say, being an unremarkable reflection of the sport’s demographics, in which, at professional levels, black players are a majority.
Or to put it another, no less scientific, way – the risk of injury while playing a contact sport disproportionately affects those who actually play it.
No evidence is offered, at all, to establish that injuries are more frequent among black players compared to their white peers – which is pretty much the article’s premise – or to support the conceit that any such disparity, should it exist, must be driven by racism. And yet we’re told, with an air of satisfaction, “These playing fields… are never theoretically far from plantation fields.” Albeit a plantation with fan mail, lucrative endorsements, and an average salary of around $2.7 million.
The D-Words.
On supposedly racist traffic cameras.
Those presented as victims of injustice, of “racial inequity,” include Mr Rodney Perry, whose photograph accompanies the piece, and who, in a single year, has received eight tickets for speeding and three for running red lights. The article appears not to have had room to include the views of those injured or bereaved by Chicago’s law-breaking motorists, despite an eye-widening spike in accidents, fatalities, and hit-and-run crashes. Nor, it seems, was there room to consider the possible effect of endless, widespread excuse-making for antisocial behaviour, and its role in making such behaviour more likely, not less.
No Relation.
“Diverse identities” and euphemistic convolutions.
I can understand the reluctance to appear indelicate or to cause needless offence; and in some situations, there may be scope for polite fudging. But pretending-as-default, or worse, pretending-as-law, can lead to unhappy farce and a kind of collective derangement. And the media presenting the reader with an obvious distortion of reality, and seemingly an expectation that we should all pretend too, is also rather offensive.
Hard To Tell If It’s Going Well.
I bring you art. And atomised dairy products.
The mighty talent featured in the following video is artist, educator and “community organiser” Alex Romania, whose work teeters on the edge of profundity, as will doubtless become clear, via juddering and convulsion, and the strategic deployment of 25 pounds of powdered cheese. Come, sup ye at the teats of creativity.
Consider this an open thread.
Goodness. Buttons. I wonder what they do.
Don’t do it. It’s a trap!
Nonsense. I bring aesthetic wonders to dazzle and amaze.
See?
Band name.
The ‘racist traffic cameras’ post is very good.
You’ve been Ko-fied.
Thank you. Though I tend to think of my output as a statement of the fairly obvious. It’s more that the subjects of the piece, like those of many others, are practised in a kind of weird mental and moral contrivance. And so, the default narrative, the woke conceit, is a little boggling. As I said in the post:
And it’s worth noting that these mental convolutions are not the work of some random blogger. These are experienced and statusful journalists who pointedly mention their awards, professional appointments, and academic credentials, and who boast of having third parties to check their facts and “analysis.” Apparently, it takes a lot of expertise to tip-toe around the obvious.
Bless you, sir. May you not be obliged to sit through an interminably long domino-toppling video.
“In a time of universal deceit, telling the obvious is a revolutionary act.”
–paraphrase of George Orwell
Related: Chicago’s current mayor (black, racist, leftist) is getting rid of Shotspotter, a technology which detects and locates gunshots. The objection? It’s racist because the detectors are in neighborhoods where there are lots of gunshots to detect, and those are minority neighborhoods. Among his excuses: It does not prevent crime. (Well, of course. It detects crime after the fact. But locking up people after they commit crimes is, it seems, raaacist.) Some critics say it is insufficiently accurate, but nearly all of the critics seem to be leftists and black racists with an agenda. However, Shotspotter does have supporters among those who worry more about crime than about “equity”.
Heh. Stated without contrivance, it’s almost funny.
For another illustration of the same manoeuvre, see also the Guardian on the wickedness of litter inequality. And note the rather obvious factor that somehow isn’t considered.
Finally. These womb-women are being put in their place.
Jordan opines.
Ah, but we must applaud the obvious cheating, while ignoring the 30% advantage of male weightlifters, even the ones who play dress-up and call themselves Vicki. We must learn to lie.
Man of God. Pronouns in bio.
No discussion ensues, obviously, despite many overtures from passers-by. But there’s lots of pre-emptive blocking.
Again, stupefying.
We must learn to lie.
That, or administer a simple test to see who is really a man.
One of those where, although you can see it coming, you cannot look away.
Man of God. Pronouns in bio.
Conversely, if you use DIE, WOKE™, or CRT* as an adulatory, you are most assuredly the racist in the room.
*(Offer does not apply to cathode ray tubes)
Because all Smart People know that there are just as many shootings in Winnetka and Highland Park as in Englewood and Garfield Park. /sarcasm
More plausible, I think. Ah, the times we live in.
Certainly leaves me bewildered and perplexed.
If you tilt your head and squint, the profundity and wondrousness will become apparent.
See?
Which God is the question.
Now I have coffee in my ear.
How about now? I suspect you’re not tilting anywhere near enough.
[ Fetches neck brace. ]
Still not seeing it.
Ah yes. From the SFHoF, Vol 27, I think…
Or not. Either way, a great ScFi title from the late 50s/60s…
That.
Well, they do seem to be expending quite a lot of effort on not noticing things.
Nonsense. I bring aesthetic wonders to dazzle and amaze.
Human Cheesy Poofs?
Administer a simple test….never ever let other guys put a blindfold on you. That in fact is an IQ test.
Traffic cameras: I have tried to see who is driving when people do something stupid–almost always impossible, certainly not for a traffic camera.
[ Suddenly remembers list of chores, wanders off, singing badly. ]
Well, it’s not like the “Unitarian” Church is a real church in the first place. But, sheeh, Easter?
But, sheeh, Easter?
Easter is so 2020, the Gesture Bunny will bring you Gesture eggs.
[ skin suit muttering intensifies ]
I’ll bring them a gesture, dammit.
It’s all about taking over other peoples’ holidays and traditions.
Quite.
It’s all about taking over other peoples’ holidays and traditions
There’s another factor here. Confectionary companies have learned that there’s year-round demand for these treats, so selling and branding them only seasonally is leaving money on the table. “Cadbury’s Creme Eggs” used to be “Cadbury’s Easter Creme Eggs”, on the packaging. They’ve dropped that so they can sell them year-round. Their Easter “Mini Eggs” are now also sold in red and green at Christmas. Hershey’s Kisses seasonal variations are no longer seasonal, etc.
Calling them “Gesture Eggs” (WTF does that even mean?) during the Easter season is absolutely some kind of fuckery, though.
Bets on whether they hesitate on producing ‘Pride Eggs’ for Pride
DayWeekMonth?“Look, mommy, those brown eggs don’t look like the other ones…”
In which an Amish-bearded grifter explains how questioning the propriety of a District Attorney appointing her lover to a position for which he was completely unqualified, paying him significantly more than his colleagues, using him as a slush fund for her own expensive treats and holidays, then perjuring herself in an attempt to conceal her behaviour is completely racist.
If the DA is black.
“Civil rights” attorney says the way to prevent cops being murdered by hard core criminals is to not pull over drivers who violate traffic laws. (Officer Jonathan Diller was shot by career criminal Guy Rivera who has 20 prior arrests.)
See also looting and shoplifting.
“Hollywood race-baiting is a disgrace”
What she said.
Hmmm, thanks Spiked – maybe there really is something positive in this Gender Self-ID nonsense!
Yes, that.
Apropos of nothing, I’ve opined that I don’t read medieval murder mysteries by female authors (because in general they’re much worse for injecting entirely anachronistic sentiments). I’ve been pleasantly surprised by Sharon Kay Penman’s Justin de Quincy series, which is a solid series with an interesting protagonist.
DEI, CRT, etc…
Fred sez: If you use racist as a pejorative, you are probably the racist. (This ain’t always true, but these days its the way to bet.)
[ Fiddles with spam filter settings. ]
Two sweet innocent 16-year-olds, cut down by “gun violence”.
Michael Brown’s 8th-grade graduation picture could not be reached for comment.
The YouToob page for Disney’s “Acolyte” trailer is worth visiting.
Not for the video -it’s dogshit. For the comments. They’re hilarious (while they last)!
.
A quick explanation of the comments for those who understandably don’t want to watch even a second of the trailer:
A Jedi training master invites a class of diverse girls and an alien without eyelids to “Close your eyes” and “tell me what comes into your mind“. There follow a number of painfully clichéd responses of the kind that a Gender Studies graduate might think were profound.
That’s about all you need to know.
Back in the sixties, Disney was merely shallow and vulgar (to quote Tolkien) but now they are downright evil. I hate to think what Tolkien’s reaction would be to the current far-left Disney. The words “Mordor” or “Wormtongue” might be invoked.
Yeah, a common observation goes something like:
Once upon a time a Disney film would touch your heart.
Now Disney just wants to touch your kids.
Well, also that the creator is one-time Personal Assistant and procurer of “talent” for Harvey Weinstein.
I don’t read medieval murder mysteries…
I would have stopped right there.
…medieval…
My favourite medieval barber.
Aussie women’s soccer team, with five male players goes undefeated in tournament. “Huge difference in ability.”
Well, thank you, Captain Obvious.
The writers are enablers.
They do seem to have chosen a side – apparently based on skin colour. Just as they’ve chosen to tie themselves in knots in order to further this enabling of selfishness and other, much more dangerous, antisocial behaviour.
And so, we get the words disproportionate, disparate, disparity and disparities occurring no fewer than 22 times. Each time with an insinuation of unfairness, of some supposedly racist persecution, thereby begging the question while carefully avoiding the obvious.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that Mr Perry and Mr Reed were presumably the best pin-up boys for victimhood that our leftist authors could find. These two chronic lawbreakers and moral degenerates, now presented as victims and heroic activists.
Such is wokeness.
See also racist traffic lights:
And then things get a little odd.
Oh, and in other news, that thing that never happens has once again not happened.
Please erase this information from your memory.
The UN is trolling us all again:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13247979/Outrage-Saudi-Arabia-chosen-lead-womens-rights-group-despite-abysmal-record-equality-kingdom-wives-stoned-death-adultery.html
Just going to leave this here, I think.
For future reference.
Name of the Rose wasn’t bad as I recall.
How about Ancient Greece?
[ Decides to freshen bar snacks. Artfully arranges slices of swede. ]
She’s “been doing things your brain can’t compute.”
As someone notes in the replies, “Ayahuasca is supposed to dissolve the ego.”
It occurs to me that the symptoms of those who see racism everywhere, all the time, are remarkably similar to paranoia: they see a vast conspiracy of shadowy figures aligned against them. That others can’t see.
Never have been good with imaginary numbers.
Neither have i. Sorry, it was there…my ocd compels me…
On a positive note, she’s unlikely to harm anyone who doesn’t deserve it. I found that profoundly funny. Parody cannot compete with such people.
Note that when Mr Kaufman, our New York Times contributor, discovers that one of his bizarre assumptions is wrong – regarding the use of white in pedestrian crossing signals – he nonetheless remains determined to be tormented and unhappy. And having laboured to conjure demons where none exist, he doubles down and presumes to continue scolding others. While expecting to be taken seriously.
It’s much more comforting to blame racism for one’s personal inadequacies.
And then there are the stone-cold racists and grifters.
Artfully arranges slices of swede
Planning a Donner Party, or was there a two-fer on rutabaga* at Tesco’s?
*(serve on aluminum foil)
Whenever I see the word rutabaga, my brain, very helpfully, goes Winnebago.
You can imagine the confusion.
I would have stopped right there.
All good. I minored in Classical Studies and Ancient History, and dabble in the medieval period on my own. Sometimes I prefer a good narrative and characterization to a dry academic paper.
How about Ancient Greece?
I’ll add it to the list. I enjoyed the early books in the Marcus Didius Falco series, for instance, but even then I find what is supposed to be Falco’s insouciance drifting into outright foppish territory as the series progresses.
My favourite medieval barber.
And that’s part of the appeal. Realistically any modern would be completely flummoxed by, say, Westchester in the 12th century. It’s a completely foreign mindset and culture. The trick of a good medieval mystery is immersing the reader in that world through a character that is at least passably comprehensible to a 21st century reader.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/27/nhs-workers-asked-if-greyromantic-abrosexual-or-endosex/
“NHS workers asked if they are greyromantic, abrosexual or endosexLGBTQIA network survey wanted to know ‘current sex’ and ‘what umbrella would your romantic orientation fall under’”
I assume garden umbrella was not on the approved list?
Unfortunately, there are no drugs to cure this woman’s mental illness.
[ Slides bowl of raw swede slices closer to Mr Muldoon. ]
Salt is available. 20p per sachet.
The BBC [ spit! ] have been long serialising Falco on Radio 4 and I’ve enjoyed listening to several of them, but the latest round “The Iron Hand of Mars” was too tedious to endure. It has turned into a romcom, or a romdram or whatever the term is when a Roman mystery series is beset by whinging women and lots of emotional introspection.
I don’t know if the fault lies with the BBC, which would be par for the course, or the books’ author Lindsey Davis.
I’ve learned to approach any product of the BBC created since 2000 with suspicion. And anything in the last 5 years should be shunned.
Entirely unrelated and mentioned for no reason whatsoever.
And regarding the thing that never happens, mentioned upthread, a footnote.
Best reply: “Everyone who criticizes my ideas is racist.”
Pretty much. It’s not clear to me how one might even begin a discussion with our unhappy chappie. On practically any subject.
Assuming there was a desire to.
I don’t want to have a conversation with him; I want to kick him out of our society with a steel-toed boot. Let him wallow in the racial paradise of, say, Somalia or South Africa. And the same for everyone like him.
Note this monster’s leadership position in the NAACP.
The NAACP has become BLM in a three-piece suit – off the rack nastiness.
National Assn for the Advancement of Criminal People.
The KKK in blackface.
Thug sucker-punches 57 year old woman, breaking her jaw. Seven prior arrests for assault, but it’s only a misdemeanor so he has to be released.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I ask you: Is this the face of a psychopath?
Thanks, but until I get an explanation for the tire marks I’d need some proof that this is really rutabaga and not some poor tourist from Uppsala you ran over and have had in the trunk of your car for the last week.
Anita Ekberg in a sauna? Oh. Never mind.
Liberals will not allow citizens to solve problems like this.
Boy, the dirt on the bottom of my shoes is worth more.
Remember, you have to cut out the roots or they’ll grow back.
Would love to have one of those.
Can also be applied to quite a number of the phenomena described and illustrated in this thread.
Wait. That wasn’t a satire? That was in earnest? I thought it was in the spirit of that other movie that satirized lefty attitudes towards blacks.
I’m guessing racial narcissism must be quite intoxicating.
Somewhat related –
Readers may recall our visit to the world of progressive club-going and intersectional dancing, all of which has to be carefully organised and ruthlessly policed. Lest the wrong colour people gyrate near each other.
Oh, and we mustn’t forget the convoluted rules of listening to rap while white.
In particular, the implication that one of the most hazardous of words to use, and from which All Decent Non-Racist People are expected to recoil, is simultaneously one to which All Decent Non-Racist People are obliged to be drawn. Such that, failure to enjoy endless repetition of the word in question is, we’re informed, “the silencing of intellectuals in music” and, inevitably, evidence of racism.