Ample. || Secrets of the ladies’ powder room. || Solve your problems with a septum piercing tattoo. || Close enough to fool ’em. || Close enough 2. || Incoming. || A political question from 1973: Should Hornsea have a nudist beach? || Goodness, she’s got a big one. || Not half bad, all things considered. || Suboptimal situation. || Just one percent. || The progressive retail experience, parts 569, 570, 571, 572, 573, and 574. || Hardcore ping pong. || The thrill of shrimp. || In Pride news. || Kidnapping attempt of note, 1974. || Wrap malfunction. || Much too gentle for my taste. || This chap seems determined. || Some punching needed. || Your deepfake avatar has arrived. || At last, folding coat-hangers. || Fresh bread with flavouring. || And finally, they’re size 10 (Eur 38).

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Further to The Blurting, a footnote of sorts:

“My Fox News dad makes everything political” https://t.co/JxaZvPwrSg

— wanye (@wanyeburkett) August 15, 2024

Please update your files and lifestyles accordingly.

Update, via the comments:

The above, it seems to me, is not so much a declaration of values as a psychological profile.

As Rafi says in reply,

Not having to deal with such people does have a cash value. If in order to use a communal laser cutter, you first have to “strive to uphold” the notion that sex differences are unrelated to biology, that “meritocracy is a joke,” and that, despite all available evidence, “nonbinary people” somehow aren’t aggravating poseurs… Then, well, buying your own laser cutter seems a much better option.

After all, this life is finite and best not wasted on proximity to wankers.

Oh, and some of that super important intersectionality.

From the forthcoming film by Vaishnavi Sundar, Behind The Looking Glass, about women whose partners, or fathers, have ‘transitioned’:

“Your dad has fallen in love with himself, & there is no part for you in there where you are not just a prop.”

There is profound silence surrounding the lives of the children with trans id-ing father. Are they just props used for championing a delusion? #behindthelookingglass https://t.co/MGRE78WGLk pic.twitter.com/aw9yFit55J

— Vaishnavi Sundar (@Vaishax) July 27, 2024

Emma Thomas, the woman recounting her somewhat unorthodox childhood, also appears in this longer interview. The subjects touched on include unmentionable erotic motives, ideological capture, and the experience of watching a man publicly enacting an approximation of breastfeeding. It’s a strange listen, necessarily, a little sad, and sometimes darkly funny.

Ms Thomas also has a blog, Children Of Transitioners, in which she relates her experiences, and those of others, and where she attempts to parse the phenomenon of dads in dresses:

For instance.

Update, via the comments:

Pete SJ visits Ms Thomas’ blog and quotes this:

Adding,

At which point, this eye-widening saga came to mind.

And note that those applauding Mr Yates, the star of the link above – the bewigged man quizzing schoolgirls about their panties – are overwhelmingly ladies of a progressive leaning. Selling out their own daughters, and the daughters of their neighbours.

In order to be seen holding fashionable views.

Or, as Ms Thomas recounts in the embedded video:

So again, some boundaries being tested.

Given the current near-ubiquity of trans activism, it’s curious how little attention is given to estranged wives – ‘trans widows’ – or, as above, estranged children. Who, I suppose, would be ‘trans orphans’.

To which dicentra replies,

Before citing the following scolding comment, directed at Ms Thomas by a disaffected reader:

Yet the popular activist term deadnaming.

And you’d think the news that your husband no longer exists and that your entire marriage was a farce – or that your dad no longer exists and is now competing for the title of mom – or some bizarre hooker aunt – might be a legitimate basis for some, shall we say, irritation.

Even so-called “phobia.”

Update 2:

The entire documentary can now be viewed here.

Lifted from the comments, and relevant to the ongoing liveliness, Peter Whittle ponders a recent, very rapid transformation:

An animated chart of some relevance.

Update, via the comments:

Regarding the video above, this came to mind. Tim Newman on knowing your neighbours:

Having re-read it, it’s not entirely inapt.

Very much related to the above, and because an example is always handy, the rumblings of progressive educator Dr Adam Kotsko:

The phenomena that Dr Kotsko is unlikely to experience personally, but which he is keen to see inflicted on others, are helpfully illustrated.

See also Douglas Murray on the Simon Schama tendency:

Needless to say, Mr Schama’s own neighbourhood is suitably… insulated.

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

I’ll be taking a break for a few days, and so, to soften this terrible blow, here are some items from the archives:

Role Models, You say.

On the weirdly woke marketing of retailer John Lewis.

Gardening Gone Wrong.

Four women fondle straw, tongue moss.

Bravely, I Cope With Rejection.

Royal Air Force sidelines fitness tests, prioritises brownness, womb-having.

Why Don’t You Welcome Further Degradation?

Observer columnist excuses habitual, organised shoplifting. Dystopian surrealism ensues.

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

Not entirely unrelated to ongoing events:

Mr Politano, by the way, is a “He/him. Bi/pan.” Just in case it wasn’t clear that he’s better than you.

The subject of social trust – specifically, its erosion – has, of course, been mentioned here before.

Update, via the comments:

From the subsequent rumblings:

It does rather call to mind numerous polyamory ‘cope’ videos, in which clearly neurotic and unhappy people try to convince themselves that they’re totally cool with their chosen lifestyle miseries. Often while on the verge on tears.

Pretending not to see the obvious implications of, say, this phenomenon here, and variations thereof, or this lively, uplifting scene, is, I suppose, a skill of sorts. But I wouldn’t say that such pretensions are a basis for applause.

Update 2:

And speaking of practised unrealism:

As Steve E adds, drily,

The idea that there may be very real physical constraints on some favoured policy – that reality may not comply with half-baked theory – seems entirely alien to Mr Snow. An attitude not uncommon among his progressive peers, and which may help explain the lively events currently underway in several British cities.

Mr Snow, since you ask, is married to the philanthropist Lady Edwina Louise Grosvenor, daughter of the sixth Duke of Westminster, one of the country’s richest landowners, with an estimated fortune north of £7 billion. Needless to say, Mr Snow does not live in, or anywhere near, the kinds of “diverse” neighbourhoods now being trashed and terrorised by competing tribes.

Tribes that apparently shouldn’t exist.

Also open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

Memorable watermelon. || Maybe it’s a meat thing. || Monster competition, 1967. || Mirror for sale. || Two men with placards, an exchange of ideas ensues. || The thrill of watching dough. || Card game. || How to earn a doctorate in psychology. || She’s got a big one. || Bouncy. || Just one job. || One of these things is not like the others. || You want one and you know it. || Oh glorious enrichment. || We revolve around him, you know. || Cinema snacks. || Fancy a little chicken? || Not unfair. || No, I insist, ladies first. || It’s “gender affirming,” see. || A compendium of profanities, sorted by subject and rudeness. From cobblers and cack to putain de merde and cona da tua mãe. || Stiff competition for food. || “Unfortunately, the cost of this mistake is quite high.” || And finally, funereal scenes.

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Further to this, and also via Charlotte Gill, let’s visit the world of politically radical tableware. Specifically,

Because this is what you need to know when taking a class in ceramics:

We funded this.

But remember, universities need more money 😉 pic.twitter.com/gKEbweQsVG

— Charlotte Gill (@CharlotteCGill) July 29, 2024

For those deeply intrigued:

Well, obviously, you can’t just learn how to make plates.

And hey, who wouldn’t want some of that lovely racial awareness? Or, less coyly, practised question-begging and pretentious racial guilt. Or unearned racial resentment, depending on how brown you happen to be. I mean, you can’t just go through life interacting with people as individuals. You have to cultivate a neurotic habit of seeing people as avatars of some supposedly put-upon racial group. Or conversely, as oppressors, as proven by their pallor, their deplorable whiteness.

And a fragrant utopia will surely follow.

The creative titan behind the project – named, inevitably, Working With Whiteness – is Victoria Burgher, a self-styled “artist from a colonising country,” for whom pretentious, and rather invidious, racial agonising has been a path to many grants and awards. Ms Burgher, we’re told,

You see,

And,

Strained metaphors are very in, it seems. Along with teetering piles of assumptions. Also, Bad Whitey. It’s all terribly original. Very daring. Not at all conformist.

It occurs to me, however, that Ms Burgher’s contrived, modish waffle may make a kind of sense if you think of it as an attempt to add social heft to the otherwise pedestrian art that she actually produces.

For instance:

“From The River To The Sea… #2 (2023). Porcelain, cobalt, gold lustre and glaze, 27cm.”

And,

“White But Working On It (2022). Glazed porcelain ceramic badges, 5-6 cm.”

And,

“Whiteness (2018). Ink on bagasse (sugar cane fibre), fabric, pins, 14 x 14 cm.”

It would, I think, explain a few things. As it often does.

Update, via the comments:

Regarding the unattractive objects shown above, and others very much like them, Martin D adds,

A fair question. One worth pondering.

Ms Burgher approvingly cites Ms Robin DiAngelo, the peddler of neurosis mentioned here, the L Ron Hubbard of wokeness, and whose devotees, as we’ve seen, are often wildly unhinged and nakedly malevolent. Which probably tells us much of what we need to know about Ms Burgher and her racial affectations. The mindset she wishes to inflict on others. And by extension, those who succumb.

And so, Ms Burgher makes her unattractive tat, and calls it art, and treads on ceramic eggshells, and calls it performance art, while listing the hallucinatory evils of having pale skin. And while telling those sufficiently credulous that “whiteness is oppression,” the source of all that is wrong, a basis for eternal shame, and that white people should “not behave white.”

You see, we will purge the world of bigotry by embracing wholesale the mental habits of the bigot.

So, yes. Someone quite fucked up.

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

Attention, music lovers. Charlotte Gill brings thrilling news:

I knew you’d be keen.

Naturally, all this healing and coexistence, all this righteousness and resistance, necessitates certain rules, indeed a manifesto:

As Ms Gill observes, one eyebrow slightly raised:

Ah, but, you see, it’s “the radical act of collective song.” The “radical act of joy.” And the radical act of shunning white people as some kind of moral contaminant. How the time must fly.

Readers intrigued by the prospect of shaping the tapestry of their collective sound, via “somatic practice,” “singing and healing together,” and “co-creating an anthem,” can savour the results of all this radicalism below:

This is what a “Decolonise Choir” looks and sounds like. Find out more in my new piece 🚨🦄 🌈 💰 🌹 https://t.co/gFm6yv2QKo pic.twitter.com/pSaI9301Sx

— Woke Waste 💰🦄 (@WokeWaste) July 25, 2024

You may now resume your humdrum, dreary, non-decolonised lives.

Update, via the comments:

Nikw211 asks, not unreasonably,

Indeed. It’s a head-scratcher.

However, as the only racial group being explicitly excluded is Old Whitey, the obvious inference is that the cause of all this alleged misery and “trauma” is the party being excluded. As if the mere proximity of People Of Pallor would inhibit and befoul any creative endeavour, any glimmer of “joy.” Given the minority status of white people in London, it seems a bit much. And ever so slightly ungrateful.

And it is, I think, worth noting that the nation’s capital, where these dramas of “resistance” unfold, has in my lifetime gone from a native white-majority city, over 90%, to a native white-minority one, around 35%. Yet it would seem that even this dramatically downsized white devil population is, for some, still too burdensome and oppressive.

A cause of “collective trauma.”

So, I’ve returned from my travels and I have questions. Among them, why is a planet-wide celebration of athleticism and uncommon sporting prowess being introduced with yet another tedious display of cross-dressing, oddly selective sacrilege, and self-satisfied obesity?

Perhaps I’m missing something. By all means, illuminate me in the comments.

Update, via the comments, where dicentra adds,

I was struck more by the tackiness, the tawdriness of the thing. It just looked so inapt, so adolescent and low-rent. Hackneyed to the point of anachronism. It occurred to me that as a snapshot of a collective cultural psyche, a statement of where we are, or where Our Betters are. it doesn’t instil any great confidence. Or – what’s the word? – oh yes, pride.

Sort of,

I suppose the gender-bending and drag bacchanalia could be construed as some kind of comment on the current Olympic rules regarding who may compete in women’s events – i.e., women, not men. At least, not men who have gone through puberty. So, some men. But not as many as some activists and “allies” might wish. Say, ostentatiously “queer” artistic directors of Olympic opening ceremonies. Maybe even this small concession to physical reality – that men and women are different – was deemed a provocation, an outrage, and a basis for retaliation. As if not being allowed to cheat were a form of oppression.

It’s just a thought. Though not, I think, a wildly implausible one.

Also, open thread.