Long Live King Victor
Via Mr Muldoon, a guide to finding ‘Pride’ in the taxidermy collection of Manchester Museum:
Have you found everything on our Pride Trail yet? 🏳️🌈
To Celebrate Manchester Pride we’re shining a spotlight on stories in our museum that speak to today’s LGBTQ+ community.
Here’s Nick with more about why there are so many more males than females in our taxidermy collection. pic.twitter.com/ovcDGbKwUU
— Manchester Museum (@McrMuseum) August 21, 2024
Whether taxidermied birds will in fact, as claimed, “speak to today’s LGBTQ+ community,” and prompt some radical and liberating mental uplift, remains something of a mystery. Still, at least we’ve been made aware of Nick’s fabulist pronouns, and her – sorry, them’s – badge collection. Manchester Museum is, sadly and perhaps inevitably, blocking enquiries and replies from those not pre-approved:
Apparently, the initial comments from the public, including museum visitors, were not the unanimous affirmation that was expected. An expectation that in itself is somewhat revealing. It does rather suggest a mindset, a bubble. And hence the rush to clamp down on unauthorised opinions.
Among which, the opinion that bemoaning the evils of “cis, straight, white men” may require a more solid pretext than the fact that Victorian collectors and taxidermists used for display the most eye-catching specimens they could find.
Similarly, any suggestion that the positioning of some stuffed male birds slightly higher than the females – so that their sexes might more readily be grasped by visitors – is hardly a basis for indignation, or indeed woke job creation.
And remember,
A stable structure for raising offspring. How terribly unfashionable.
Readers will doubtless recall the likeminded “queering” of Portsmouth’s Mary Rose Museum, home of all things Tudor, where visitors were informed, with some satisfaction, that, “Many objects can be viewed through a Queer lens and can indirectly tell LGBTQ+ stories.”
The word indirectly was, it turned out, doing some heavy lifting. And so, those curious about the favourite warship of Henry VIII were shown a mirror salvaged from the wreck, and were told how mirrors in general can induce psychological crises in the sexually dysmorphic. Because, obviously, when you’ve travelled across the country to learn about Tudor England, the first thing you want to know is that reflective surfaces can upset men who pretend to be women.
A display of sailors’ nit combs was likewise accompanied by a reminder that, “for many Queer people today, how we wear our hair is a central pillar of our identity.”
Yes, I know. Breath-taking stuff. The bleeding edge. Those with a taste for cack-handed incongruity will find much to marvel at.
Goodness. Buttons. I wonder what they do.
*shocked face*
Apparently, the replies were not the unanimous affirmation that was expected. An expectation that in itself is rather revealing.
Does rather suggest a mindset, a bubble.
And so, the clamping down on any unauthorised opinions.
And yet they cannot delete the ones that are there.
Not one in favor. Not one.
Well, the fact that Victorian collectors and taxidermists tended to use, for display, specimens deemed the most eye-catching is a pretty slim pretext for rote rumblings about the evils of “cis, straight, white men.”
They were white cis males. It wouldn’t matter how they played it, this bubble-brain would have condemned it.
[ Post updated. ]
It’s actually a little weird. Listening to her – sorry, them’s – regurgitated prattle, I get no sense of any autonomous mental activity. No self-generated thought of any kind. I just hear a programme running.
I’d settle for some self-respect.
Indeed. As someone replied, just prior to the mass comment-blocking:
Evidently, they didn’t. Or if they did, they didn’t expect anyone else to notice, or at least dare to say so.
Likewise, the “queering” of the Mary Rose Museum, mentioned here, following which, public feedback was near-unanimously negative and mocking. Patrons and potential visitors found the incongruous contrivance farcical and rather insulting, as well they might. But no acknowledgement of error, of misjudgement, was forthcoming.
And these, lest we forget, are the keepers of our heritage.
Much like vampires.
When you put it like that… 😀
Oh, and the fact that at least two displays position the stuffed male bird slightly higher than the female.
How very dare they.
I mean, as a basis for indignation, or woke job creation, it’s thin bloody gruel.
Oh, and the fact that at least two displays position the stuffed male bird slightly higher than the female.
Personally I was fascinated by the
rare genetic anomalies found inintersex butterflies.This is a MAJOR problem, right here: woke job creation
Send them into the militar…
Oh wait.
It’s worth bearing in mind that the video embedded above presents us with what are presumably the strongest arguments, the best bits.
Can’t help but imagine what was left on the cutting room floor.
They really do hate us.
Well, in the post you refer to, there is an unavoidable implication of insult. We are, in their eyes, in need of firm correction. Lest the mere sight of a Constable landscape inspire TERRIFYING BLOOD AND SOIL TENDENCIES.
Or even just some vague sense of historical continuity, of attachment, of belonging.
An unfortunate metaphor when discussing trans activists.
An obvious joke, but not really a joke: These people are malevolent parasites. Their relationship to civilization resembles that of Ichneumon wasps.
And these, lest we forget, are the keepers of our heritage.
Hold our mead, says the University of Nottingham.
(Little known fact, “Nottingham” is the Anglo-Saxonized version of No Tun Ham Un, the Egyptian prince who first settled England)
Meanwhile on this side of the pond, hold out halfcaf decaf free range soy milk frappachino says the San Francisco Taliban.
Indigenous Land Acknowledgement:
Oh boy! Is that lack of interest not being amply demonstrated in spades (pardon the expression) by the current intake of diversities.
My guess is that most of these specimens are “mounted” with a stick up their… “vent”.
Does that not “speak to today’s LGBTQ+ community”?
They can’t be bullied into lying.
Who said rote learning is dead?
Even to type out the sentence you quoted is to sense the verboten – a line of thinking we’re not supposed to explore, at least not out loud. And yet the statistics are readily available, and anyone who visits museums with even minimal regularity is likely to have noticed a pattern.
And so, we’re expected to view the demographics of those who do visit galleries and museums as a problem, but one for which only the galleries and museums can be held responsible, with threats of withdrawing funding unless they somehow become more “diverse.” The fault – if fault is the word – can’t ever lie with the “diverse” demographics and the choices they make regarding their own leisure time.
The pallor of those visiting museums and galleries, relative to the racial demographics of the country as a whole, or of London in particular, is not something I would spend my evenings fretting about. But it does occur to me that if a majority of immigrants show no interest in their host country’s heritage and culture, that doesn’t sound… optimal.
Just in case.
Oh for crying out loud! Not everything everything has to be about you!! Quit trying to shoehorn your philosophical BS into every single niche of society.
Also, I suspect it’s too late, but could we get a do-over on the ‘cis’ thing? I personally find it to be annoying and tedious. I go out of my way to not use it. If you need a prefix to a gender or sex designation, use one that makes sense, e.g. ‘trans’ for trans women and ‘natal’ for natural born women. I’m trans and I’m super ok with it.
The activists insist that ‘cis’ is not a slur, but they certainly seem to use it like one.
Apologies… I’m out here to angry-up the blood. Sometimes my morning coffee is not enough. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
*snort*
[ Chops lime, slides large gin and tonic to Twin Cities Teegan. ]
Just noticed that the Manchester Museum video embedded above – the one denouncing white, heteronormative stuffed bird displays – and being universally mocked – is by far the most widely viewed post in their X feed. By at least an order of magnitude.
I’m not sure their efforts at outreach are going entirely to plan.
And these, lest we forget, are the keepers of our heritage … Hold our mead, says the University of Nottingham.
So the people are not to be mentioned, although the latitude/longitude that’s named after the people is still not quite taboo. Also permitted for the moment is a concept of medieval suggesting God forbid a race of people in whose cultural memory there’s a before and an after to compare a middle era to.
Much of the historical US usage came in the middle letters of an acronymic racial slur used by Ellis Islanders who resentfully recognized the fact that the country’s character and institutions were already formed by this specific people. That’s less frequent now that the ethnic deck is more shuffled, but one often hears progressives claiming, for example, that sexual repression was stamped forever onto Americans by the Puritans, a very strong statement about the nation-forming influence of a very small subset of Anglo Saxons.
It’s also worth noting (or worth suppressing any temptation to analogize about current border-crossers) that the Anglo Saxons didn’t become Celto-Romans when they landed in Britain, or Iroquois when they landed in America. They just saw all this as more space to continue to be Anglo Saxon. Although the Celto-Romans and Iroquois were undoubtedly grateful for the diverse Anglo-Saxon food, lifestyles, and GDP contributions.
So animals having a “nuclear family” is sexist? Actually, it is just the best way to raise offspring and was merely being reported by taxidermists, not created by them out of whole cloth. Many animals of course just mate and lay eggs somewhere (e.g., most insects), no nuclear family at all, which should please the wokies.
This reminds me of feminists complaining that skyscrapers are phallic symbols rather than merely the most efficient way to pack lots of offices into a small plot of land.
Everything is about something symbolic rather than just being what it is. As if these people are college freshmen getting stoned for the first time.
And so, the clamping down on any unauthorised opinions.
Well they do tend to interfere with the echoes in the chamber.
When I was a college freshman, it wasn’t the reefer that was telling me that. It was the faculty. The reefer only told me that we needed more Doritos.
Is the reefer in the room right now?
I think I must be bad at smoking cannabis. On the handful of occasions I’ve tried it, I just felt hot, slightly nauseated, then sleepy. It basically sedates me, which I’m not keen on. I don’t get the agreeably chonged state. Except the one time, many years ago, when I was given ‘special’ chocolate brownies. Those made me laugh to an indecent degree. Maybe it’s the rate at which the thing kicks in.
*Tries to imagine our host stoned*
Clearly, I’ve said too much.
[ Straightens tie. ]
.
The screwed up state of criminal justice in Chicago:
Yesterday, Monday morning, Bryant McCalip shot 4 homeless men and women to death who were sleeping on a Blue Line CTA train. But in 2020 he was charged with attempted first degree murder for stabbing three sleeping homeless men in Grant Park in downtown Chicago. So why was he not in prison yesterday?
I wasn’t a big enthusiast. Just an occasional imbiber. A couple times just to be sociable. And by ‘sociable’ I mean, “See? I’m not a cop.” The stuff did nearly kill me a couple times. Once with a group of friends, musicians mind you, crammed in a small TV room at a band member’s girlfriend’s house watching the movie Airplane. A very dangerous combination.
You don’t hate academia enough. You think you do, but you don’t.
Article in the Kansas City Star. Which links to Cornell University.
A counter-proposal: Online algorithms which make it virtually impossible for leftists to find each other.
Bias on dating sites: and yet, if a white man dates an asian girl, he has “yellow fever”. If a black man dates a white girl, he is a traitor to his race. etc.
the Catch-22 game is so much fun!!!
And if a white dates a black he or she has “jungle fever”.
The proper response to these racial fascists is mockery, ridicule, contempt, intolerance.
Let us not forget the dating platform for Brooklyn’s hipster socialists:
Needless to say, the project didn’t flourish.
Well, if Mr and Mrs Ahmed aren’t ever taking their kids to any galleries or museums, even those nearby and where admission is free, then seizing on this as a problem and blaming the galleries and museums, while pointedly sparing the feelings of Mr and Mrs Ahmed, seems… a little odd.
I am very sorry, but this is just about the worst thing I’ve ever read.
No sarcasm. It really is awful.
Curious if there isn’t more to that messed up situation. The daughter didn’t do anything about the other warning signs? Apparently they have two other children as well? Not to say that France has a monopoly on bizarre sex crimes (nor Germany, which is totally inappropriate for me to also mention) but that story has a certain French je ne sais quoi.
from the link:
Utterly, utterly clueless.
“Capitalism” is a term invented by communists. A better, more accurate, term is “free exchange”.
A horror story.
Not entirely unrelated.
Also.
Correction, lest falsehoods be perpetuated: Latest coverage says that the man who shot 4 on Monday is not the same man as the one who stabbed three in 2020.
I call BS.