Fun with condoms. // Fans of FC Magdeburg help their team locate their opponents’ goal. (h/t, Obo) // Dads who didn’t want a dog. // On the theme for Doctor Who. (h/t, Damian) // Whalesynth. // Life at sea. // The Victorian illustrated Shakespeare archive. // The search for the greatest, like, ever, Valley Girl. // A brief history of Oscar-winning visual effects. // A brief history of nail clipping. // This. // TopoTopo. // Our impartial media. // Made with Google Earth. // Meanwhile, in academia. (h/t, TDK) // Delivery of note. // You have my undivided attention. // A touch of drag. // On the adhesive properties of geckos’ feet. // Don’t touch my stuff. // These things exist. // And finally, informatively, an interactive real-time 3D map of every bit of man-made stuff currently in orbit.

Via the comments, Spiny Norman steers us to another ‘progressive’ initiative:

The University of Cincinnati is sponsoring a workshop on “white fragility” and “white tears” this semester… “White fragility,” as defined by a paper in the International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, “is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviours such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviours, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium.”

In the spirit of reciprocity, I’ll attempt an alternative, and perhaps more realistic, definition. “White fragility” is the unremarkable fact that people by and large don’t like being slandered as racists and then assigned with some pretentious collective guilt, the supposed atonement for which requires deference to actual racists and predatory hokum merchants.

As Hippogryph notes in the comments, the official definition of “white fragility” looks an awful lot like Kafkatrapping, a dishonest and pathological manoeuvre, a form of emotional bullying, in which the denial of an unproven and insulting accusation is instantly seized upon as damning confirmation of said accusation. The object being to inculcate pretentious guilt via some notional group association, making a person feel somehow responsible for the actions of others, even strangers long dead, over whom he or she has zero influence. It’s an attempt to induce a profound unrealism, and thereby compliance. 

In light of which, we could parse the official definition of “white fragility” a little further:

These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear…

Or, put another way: “How dare you be annoyed by our slandering? How dare you question our motives as anything other than benign?”

…and behaviours such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation.

Or, “How dare you talk back and draw attention to our question-begging? How dare you not want to remain in the presence of people who wish to do you psychological harm?”

I’m paraphrasing, of course.

Here’s yet another example of leftist student protest bearing a remarkable resemblance to opportunist spite:   

The Whiffenpoofs, “one of the most prestigious a cappella groups in the United States,” last November chose to remain exclusively male.

I’m sure you can see where this one is headed. This male-only line-up has been both a musical aesthetic and the group’s identity for over a century. Whatever the prevailing politics on campus, male and female voices are, by and large, not entirely interchangeable, and I’d imagine that, say, close-harmony work, a signature of the group, is probably easier if the voices are in the same range. However, 

As the Yale Daily News notes, this did not thwart females and “nonmales” from protesting that policy during their auditions.

Specifically,

Student Sydney Garick used her try-out time to criticise the group’s male-only tradition.

And,

A gender nonbinary student… told the News that four Whiffs walked out in the middle of the audition as the student stood in silent protest rather than performing a solo.

Well, given the imposition on others’ time, and the limited number of audition slots available, stage hogging in silent protest is fairly dull to watch, to say nothing of being selfish and insulting.

And because a cake needs icing, 

Before auditioning for the Whiffs, students are required to sign a contract committing to the group’s demanding travel schedule. The student told the News they signed the contract with the pronouns “they/them/their” rather than a name.

But of course. Because pissing about with the paperwork and refusing even to give a name shows everyone just how serious you are, how genuine in your interest, and how terribly radical. For some people it’s just politics über alles. Imagine the fun on tour. Oh, and do note that the protest, the petitions, and the hectoring about inclusivity were aimed only at the university’s all-male singing group. The university’s all-female singing group, which doesn’t admit male singers, was strangely exempt from similar fuss and umbrage.

Heather Mac Donald on the farce and scope of UC Berkeley’s cultivated victimhood: 

UC Berkeley’s Division of Equity and Inclusion has hung vertical banners across the main campus reminding students of the contemporary university’s paramount mission: assigning guilt and innocence within the ruthlessly competitive hierarchy of victimhood… “I will acknowledge how power and privilege intersect in our daily lives,” vows an Asian female member of the class of 2017. Just how crippling is that “intersection” of “power and privilege”? The answer comes in a banner showing a black female student in a backward baseball cap and a male Hispanic student, who together urge the Berkeley community to “Create an environment where people other than yourself can exist.” A naïve observer of the Berkeley campus would think that lots of people “other than himself” exist there, and would even think that Berkeley welcomes those “other” people with overflowing intellectual and material riches. Such a misperception, however, is precisely why Berkeley funds the Division of Equity and Inclusion with a cool $20 million annually and staffs it with 150 full-time functionaries: it takes that much money and personnel to drum into students’ heads how horribly Berkeley treats its “othered” students.

Jade Haney on blatant indoctrination and replacing facts with pretentious guilt: 

Jack Flotte, a member of Regis University’s Social Justice and Spirituality Committee, opened the session by scolding his white peers and professors on their state of “white fragility,” saying, “Like it or not, we are already accomplices. The question becomes: to what end are we partners in the crime of continuing to perpetuate these systems that dehumanise and oppress people?” Flotte also advised white students and faculty to “spend less time being upset about accusations that you’re complicit and that white people are bad and spend more time being mad at the racism and suffering,” adding, “Stop changing the subject when race does come into a conversation. Not that you understand this concept of white fragility. You’re going to be made uncomfortable as white folks when the conversation of race comes up. But, just get over it and then channel that energy. Channel that guilt into activism.”

See also, Laurie Penny. 

Speaking of dehumanising people, and added via the comments, here’s Black Lives Matter Toronto co-founder Yusra Khogali being every bit as charming as you’d imagine. What’s particularly endearing – after all the boasting of genetic superiority, and her claim that “melanin directly communicates with cosmic energy” – is when she asks Allah to give her the strength “to not kill these men and white folks.”

Saucy. // At last, a sorting-Skittles-by-colour machine. // How large would a building need to be to store 7.4 billion human beings? // On the origins of tosspot, ramsquaddled and booze. // Bachelor pad. // When baby tortoises attack. // WWII aviation photographs. (h/t, Damian) // Fingers of steel. // Your fake tan is oppressing me. // Feminist fantasy and reality. // Reading room. // “For readers who disagree with the message, the comics portray them as the enemy.” // Improvisation. (h/t, dicentra) // Have you met my eleven puppies? // Cover version of note. // Single-use shaving cream sachets. // Steam turbine of note. // Good deed. // I suspect his dog is better behaved than yours. // And finally, via Obo, if you laugh at this thing here, then there’s something wrong with you.