Reheated (103)
For newcomers, some items from the archives:
Mathematics is “saturated in whiteness.” Selfish inadequates hardest hit.
Even more frequent is use of the term “whiteness,” an alleged phenomenon on which the paper is premised. Though readers in search of some clear and convincing definition, or some compelling evidence of its existence, may find their hopes dashed. We are, however, assured that “whiteness” is something that gets in the way of black students “maintaining their Blackness.”
Readers will note how any feelings of incompetence and not being welcome are immediately blamed on external causes, on some ectoplasmic “whiteness,” that Befouler Of All Things. As if such feelings had nothing whatsoever to do with the choices and behaviour, and the personal shortcomings, of the students themselves.
Instead, Dr Jasien and her colleagues expect the teaching of mathematics to be driven by the goal of “healing… intellectual trauma,” by paying “attention to the minds and bodies of students.” The students being, it seems, much less obliged to pay attention to anything beyond themselves.
And so we’re told that “exclamations” and “cacophony” are “to be both expected and valued.” Because when you picture a maths classroom and people getting to grips with differential equations or vector calculus, the first thing that springs to mind is the word cacophony.
On the fare-dodging hipsters of San Francisco.
As one might imagine, this modish, habitual freeloading – now estimated at 20% of users, possibly higher – has had certain consequences, including the alienation of many paying customers. Say, those not impressed by orange-vested climate activists who repeatedly screw the law-abiding, and the taxpayer, while applauding themselves for their belief that “Muni should be free.”
Left unchallenged or actively reinforced, the disregard for paying bills may of course spill into other areas of life, and losses from municipal parking garages are also mentioned as a “concern.” The fiscal state of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is described by insiders as “incredibly dire,” with a deficit projected to rise from a mere $15 million to a rather more impressive $322 million.
Come, marvel at the world of politically radical tableware.
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.
For those craving more, The Year Reheated is a pretty good place to start.
Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.
Mediocrities (or worse) gravitate towards making crap because they know full well in advance that they’re incapable of producing quality – or even producing anything anyone but another neurotic would want to purchase. This way, when they fail (as they knew they would) they have a ready excuse.
This can be seen in the art world, where “conceptual” art dominates, in part because so many artists have no actual talent and so gravitate towards “art” which is all “concept” and zero technical skill. Sadly, they are all zero concept, too.
Whenever this subject comes up I’m reminded of that day back in college when a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend, smart…”smart” self-assured guy was hanging out. Now I have, and had at the time, a limited appreciation for conceptual art. Sometimes, in my more cynical moods, I appreciate the grift of it all. More so back then than now but…anyway in the course of the discussion I picked up a fork, stuck it through a beer can and said that if I weighted the fork on a sufficiently burnt orange clay pedestal and clandestinely stuck it in an art museum, no one would notice. Oh, the outrage…well more objection really but I have my suspicions that deep down…anyway…Even a little bit from my more STEM-y roommates whom I still think mostly agreed with me. Perhaps because one of them was afraid I might just do that. Though why they would care…I still wonder if I missed the boat on this grifting thing. For better or for worse.
We Americans truly are monsters.
Ed Smart would know something about that, though it’s interesting that Wiki has removed the detail about how Elizabeth’s father was remodeling his home, so he went downtown among the homeless and offered them a square meal and money in exchange for some honest work.
That’s how Brian David Mitchell knew Elizabeth existed and how to get into the house and abduct her. Ed must have been a soft-hearted man who thought he was helping the helpless when in fact he was engaging with predators.
If they weren’t monsters and loonies, they wouldn’t be “homeless”.
It’s all a grift. But it is a lucrative business propped up by a cabal of pseudo-intellectuals telling us and each other how “meaningful” and “deep” this shite is.
If Andy Warhol were alive, and I happened to meet him, I’d ask him only one thing: ‘How does it feel to have wasted your entire life?’
“This how you feed animals in a zoo” and “Dis say ‘I don’t trust you’ ” and “We tired of being treated like animals”
Cry me a river. You are animals.
People around the world look at your antics and think “animals”. Foreign airlines warn travelers to avoid you and your neighborhoods.
“The destructive effects of liberalism are not usually felt by the liberals themselves—not immediately, at least. The first victim of liberal immigration policies is the indigenous working class. When the welfare state was first conceived, it was in order to provide insurance for poorer members of the indigenous community, by taxing their income in exchange for the benefits which they may one day need. The rights involved were quasi-contractual: a right of the state to levy contributions in exchange for a right of the citizen to receive support. The very term used to describe the deal in Britain—’national insurance’—expresses the old understanding, that the welfare system is part of being together as a nation, of belonging with one’s neighbours, as mutual beneficiaries of an ancestral right. The liberal view of rights, as universal possessions which make no reference to history, community, or obedience, has changed all that. Indigenous people can claim no precedence, not even in this matter in which they have sacrificed a lifetime of income for the sake of their own future security. Immigrants are given welfare benefits as of right, and on the basis of their need, whether or not they have paid or ever will pay taxes. And since their need is invariably great—why else have they come here?—they take precedence over existing residents in the grant of housing and income support. Those with a handful of wives are even more fortunate, since only one of their marriages is recognized in European systems of law: the remaining wives are ‘single mothers,’ with all the fiscal advantages which attach to that label. All this has entailed that the stock of ‘social housing’ once reserved for the indigenous poor is now almost entirely occupied by people whose language, customs, and culture mark them out as foreigners.”
–from Should He Have Spoken? published in The New Criterion September 2006
Which of course calls to mind that classic Murphy Brown episode where Eldin’s ceiling painting ends up in a gallery, but when I went to YouTube to find it, almost all Murphy Brown episodes had been removed.
So here it is at the internet archive. Start watching at 13:00.
Without the racial slandering, all those modish affectations, I doubt Ms Burgher would have received quite so many grants and awards. As I said in the post, it’s an attempt to add social heft to the clumsy, artless tat that she actually produces. Her skills may be lacking in many key respects, but in the realm of rote racial agonising – where people value the mouthing of bollocks – she’s, well, close to adequate.
Needless to say, making an object of uncommon aesthetic value isn’t easy. However, regurgitating fashionable but socially corrosive bollocks… Well, any status-seeking mediocrity can do that.
I suppose what’s wearying is that this flatulent tat – “white but working on it” – is presented as somehow radical and daring, as a feat of heroic boldness, when in reality it’s conformism and utterly generic.
The very lowest bar.
Scenes.
This can be seen in the art world, where “conceptual” art dominates, in part because so many artists have no actual talent and so gravitate towards “art” which is all “concept” and zero technical skill. Sadly, they are all zero concept, too.
I posted a question in a local photography forum about how people think about the USE of AI in photography, not whether AI can be considered photography. One older gentleman came to rant how AI is ruining photography as art. I could have responded with, “Well, Sid, so is taking boring shots of the Titanic exhibit in Pigeon Forge and throwing an ugly filter on it, as are copyright violations.” But I didn’t because you do you, boo.
I have noticed that if any art is decsribed as “mixed media” . . . it’s usually bad.
I still wonder if I missed the boat on this grifting thing. For better or for worse.
Never too late, not when it comes to “art.”
What do you think when you see this […]
“Here there be dragons”
Meanwhile over in a green and pleasant land, I don’t know why everyone is getting upset over this tournament, it had to be hard with four extra balls in play.
Or, Man Beats Man In Finals Of Women’s Pool Tournament.
What a time to be alive.
Or, Man Beats Man In Finals Of Women’s Pool Tournament.
I guess those broader shoulders, larger hands, longer reach, the greater height, the greater strength and cue grip, and the tendency to have better large-scale visual-spatial acuity really do pay off. Who knew?
Why, it’s almost as if the women’s category existed for a reason.
There’s also the irony that, by winning, the men are inadvertently lending weight to the argument that they shouldn’t be in the women’s tournament at all, on account of being men, whatever their pretence to the contrary, and with the advantages mentioned above.
But hey, pride.
I’d forgotten that scene!
Restrooms identified.
[ Puts breakables back in storage. ]
😀
The “I am the weapon” t-shirt makes this art.
I’d forgotten what a crap comedic actress Candice Bergen was.