As I’m sure you all know, watching people eat online is now a thing in South Korea. 

“Whenever I’m a bit lonely it feels like I’m eating with someone else.”

The following is from a letter by Tony Clark of the Communist Party Alliance, as featured on the letters page of the Weekly Worker, “a paper of Marxist polemic and Marxist unity”:  

I never claimed that the future of humanity “may rest on the beneficence of extra-terrestrial reptiles.” I… referred to the reptilian control theory, which argues that for thousands of years humanity has been controlled by a reptilian race, using their mixed reptile-human genetic bloodlines, who have oppressed and exploited humans, while claiming descent from the ‘gods’ and the divine right to rule by bloodline. Ancient and modern society is obsessed with reptilian, serpent and dragon themes, possibly due to this heritage. Even the flag of Wales has a dragon on it. 

Most people have closed minds, depending on the issues. Mention the possibility of aliens secretly manipulating humanity behind the scenes and the shutters come down.

Anyone wishing to express their solidarity with Mr Clark and the Communist Party Alliance can do so here. Members of the Alien Reptile Hegemon™ are advised to use false names and adopt a human appearance.  

Via PootBlog. 

Use of pepper spray brings forth tears, possibly laughter. // Landscapes of note. // Their lightning machine is much smaller than ours. // Man spends 52 years building own cathedral. // Dog and owl. // Potty Glo. “If lit, then sit.” // Limpet teeth. // Unappetizing cheeses. // Snacking hoopoe. // Speechless Obama. // Courtyard balcony of note. // “Beverage holders on all four corners.” // Camouflaged beverage holder of note. // That’s not a bookstore, this is a bookstore. // Some kind of rat-beast. // An object approaches Chelyabinsk. // Chairbending. // New Year’s Eve mega-rave, Wembley Stadium, 1994. I see a lot of suspicious gum-chewing. // Fog in Tokyo. // 3D-printed selfie statues. // The unseen Pakistan. // And finally, why parents rarely want their children to be artists, part 12.

Good news, dear reader. You too can learn to be a performance artist and thereby make the world tremble. You could, for instance, attend Sandrine Schaefer’s course in Durational Performance Art, which is run by the Studio for Interrelated Media at the Massachusetts College of Art. The ripened fruits of this intense and demanding study can be witnessed in the video below. Among its gems are the vigorous crayoning works of Nicole Dube, complete with off-camera grunting and sounds of exertion; a 90-minute display of marker pen misuse and poorly choreographed wrestling by Ambar Janual and Luke Ryba; and Darien Stankowski’s haphazard scraping of a wooden door, the purpose of which remains stubbornly unobvious and hard to care about.

However, the video begins with the colossal radicalism of Elaine Thap, a woman who refers to herself as “they,” “their” and “them,” and whose talents are described thusly, if only by herself – sorry, themself:

Elaine Thap uses identity in their work to convey layers of being and relationships… Taking the form of social constructs and the irony of it, they are asking for critical communication and concocting the politics of identity. Performance allows them to fabricate situations of childhood trauma and adult responsibility. They seek intersectional meaning and memory in others by the act of othering.

Ah yes, the politics of identity, intersectional meaning and of course othering. How terribly non-conformist. Now brace yourselves, people. I don’t want anyone fainting from the daring of it all: 

This, I mean. 

Via PootBlog.  

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Speaking, as we were, of campus intolerance and the Clown Shoe Left, here’s something that may be worth half an hour of your time. In the following short film by Steve Brulé, Professor Janice Fiamengo of the University of Ottawa talks about the assumptions and effects of doctrinaire feminism and the censorious tactics of self-imagined radicals. Tactics that are illustrated quite vividly throughout. 

Professor Fiamengo also discusses campus censorship here. Via Joan in the comments following this. 

“For pleasure and profit.” (h/t, PootBlog) // The periodic table of sexual terminology. // Rio in 10K HD. Full screen viewing recommended. // Icelandic caves of note. // Kubrick recut. // There are mites under your duvet. // “The electromagnetic railgun can fire projectiles at 5,300 miles per hour.” // Foxes at large, doing what they do. // Dog bots are coming. // How to class up Beethoven. (h/t, Randall) // Batman, then and now. // Supersonic boom carpets. // Paper bag building. // Do not screw with a drunken gorilla. // A tumblr of glitches. // Chocolate pig. // Working with wood. // Handle tools carefully. // Teeth and tusks and necks. // Robot spins web. // And finally, “Vaginal Kung Fu is a method I teach for women to physically and emotionally reconnect to their vaginas.” 

This just in from academia, more words you mustn’t use: 

The words “angry,” “passive” and “exotic” are also strongly discouraged and will no doubt be tutted at. Please update your files accordingly.

Via The College Fix.

Jim Goad on when a “hate crime” can’t be called that: 

I can only guess that the reason you don’t hear much about black-versus-Hispanic violence in America is that you’re not supposed to hear much about it. It’s the sort of thing that swims upstream against the dominant narrative with the tenacity of a thuggish, heavily tattooed salmon.

Somewhat related.  

Heather Mac Donald on the clown-shoe circus of identity politics: 

The Centre for the Study of Sexual Culture at the University of California, Berkeley, is presenting a talk next week on “Queering Agriculture,” dedicated to the proposition that “it is absolutely crucial queer and transgender studies begin to deal more seriously with the subject of agriculture.” […] The talk’s presenter, a Ph.D. candidate in American studies at the University of Maryland, will allegedly show that “the growing popularity of sustainable food is laden with anthroheterocentric assumptions of the ‘good life’ coupled with idealised images and ideas of the American farm, and gender, radicalised and normative standards of health, family, and nation.”

And Thomas Sowell on the peculiar impunity of self-styled campus radicals: 

An all-too-familiar scene was enacted on the campus of Swarthmore College during a meeting to discuss demands by student activists for the college to divest itself of its investments in companies that deal in fossil fuels. As a speaker was beginning a presentation to show how many millions of dollars such a disinvestment would cost the college, student activists invaded the meeting, seized the microphone, and shouted down a student who rose in the audience to object. Although there were professors and administrators in the room — including the college president — apparently nobody had the guts to put a stop to these storm-trooper tactics. Nor is it likely that there will be any punishment of those who put their own desires above the rights of others.

On the contrary, these students went on to demand mandatory campus “teach-ins,” and the administration caved on that demand. Among their other demands are that courses on ethnic studies, and on gender and sexuality, be made a requirement for graduation. Just what is it that academics have to fear if they stand up for common decency, instead of letting campus barbarians run amok? At a prestigious college like Swarthmore, every student who trampled on other people’s rights could be expelled and there would be plenty of prospective students available to take their places. 

As we’ve seen so many, many times, some children need to learn that this world has consequences. But apparently the Clown Quarter of academia isn’t the place for that. And if you’re still not convinced, don’t forget the third item here, in which Alice McLachlan, a professor of philosophy, insists that censorious mobs who shriek personal abuse and shut down discussion are in fact the very model of progressive debate. You see, Professor McLachlan is “warmed” by such behaviour and she “cares a lot about free speech.” Just not for people who might dare to disagree with her.