THOMPSON, blog.
THOMPSON, blog. - Marvel at the mental contortions of our self-imagined betters.

Slide THOMPSON, blog Play nicely.
  • thompson, blog
  • Reheated
  • X
  • Email
Browsing Category
Academia
Academia Free-For-All Tree Licking

Peer-Reviewed, You Say

May 20, 2025 117 Comments

And in whatever-the-hell-this-is news:

[The authors] argue that imagining the Earth as a butch dyke lover enables a radically embodied and joyous mode of environmentalist politics…

Because environmentalist politics is all about the joy.

Stephens and Sprinkle situate their bodies in continuity with the Earth in a relationship of queer interdependency… They envision Butch Earth as a switch who invites us into a multitude of embodied, sensual, mindful responses beyond the limits of self-other paradigms.

Ah, those self-other paradigms. And situated bodies. Of course.

[The authors] propose an ethical practice of co-sense, rather than consent, in which humans attune themselves to the Earth via the senses, a process enabled by repeated, communal, non-monogamous marriages to the planet… in a relationship grounded by love and sensuality.

Naturally, the planet is also assigned with novelty pronouns – BE/BER – because, well, because.

Such is the radical heft of the Journal of Lesbian Studies. Where other topics of deep pondering include “lesbian-dog relationalities and becomings,” and “lesbian, non-binary, and trans-dog intimacies.”

Empowered feminist ladies and their erotic entanglements with pets is, you’ll recall, a subject we’ve touched on before.

The latest issue of the Journal of Lesbian Studies can be accessed, for a whole thirty days, for a mere £220.

Oh, and should you be intrigued by “ecosexuality,” “grassilingus,” tree-licking, and free-swinging breasts daubed with mud, well, today’s your lucky day.

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

Continue reading
Reading time: 1 min
Written by: David
Academia Pronouns Or Else

Any Widening Of The Eyes Will Result In Detention

May 18, 2025 83 Comments

Lifted from the comments, a reminder of Teacher Appreciation Week:

This clearly female teacher has a deep voice, do you think it’s from smoking? pic.twitter.com/CGoFhMXy1C

— Dr. Jebra Faushay (@JebraFaushay) May 15, 2025

To which Chow Bag replies,

When is it child safeguarding week?

A not unreasonable question, all things considered.

Regarding Mr Look-At-My-Fabulous-Hair-Extensions, I suppose the obvious issue is the self-absorption of our strapping madam, such that he records and then publicly shares classroom videos of himself faffing about with his wig while expecting applause for his feats of fake-hair management. It does rather speak to his priorities and focus. And that’s before we get to the oddly ample fake bosom.

The other issue, I’d say, is the fact that schools have surrendered to cross-dressing men with a rapidity and full-throatedness that is quite remarkable. The place where cross-dressing men should not be – in positions of intimacy with, and authority over, children – is where they seem to find the most gushing welcome and the most ludicrous indulgence. Such that children are coerced to mouth fabulist pronouns and to regurgitate obvious lies.

Despite much higher rates of sexual offending, including offences against children, and similarly high rates of serious mental illness, people who identify as trans appear to be favoured in school hiring. Their numbers, and social-media prominence, does seem noteworthy. Among successful candidates, there is a certain triumphalism. A confident strutting.

And we’ve seen several examples of even the most basic safeguarding measures being abandoned, and an eye-widening disdain for children who report inappropriate behaviour by men in bad wigs. Even when that behaviour would, if indulged in by any other demographic, almost certainly result in immediate dismissal.

As if the safety of children were of much less importance than being seen to affirm cross-dressing men.

Also from the comments:

Cross-dressing man needs transgender Pride flag in classroom in order to teach maths.

Supposedly, it’s about making the children feel “comfortable.” Though it occurs to me that the flag’s connotations of coerced pretending, fetishistic mutilation and life-shortening hormone abuse – and generally being subordinate to a cross-dressing man with mental health issues – may have other effects. Say, by transforming a classroom from a place of learning into one of cowed pretension, of deference to the untrue.

And then there’s the not insignificant matter of introducing an element of transvestite farce into the classroom, which may result in children being distracted from the task at hand by the perhaps more immediate question of what the strange man in the wig and padded push-up bra sees when he looks in a mirror.

Readers may also wish to ponder whether children should be imposed upon in this way and should be obliged to pretend, to be dishonest, on a daily basis. Which is to say, pretending not to see the pantomime, and being obliged to participate in the teacher’s psychodrama, for the teacher’s gratification. While any children who demur, who acknowledge the obvious, even politely, run a risk of being disciplined and publicly denounced.

It seems to me this is, at the very least, rude. Some might say abusive.

But hey, this is where we are now. Let the progress wash over you.

Expanded via the comments.

Continue reading
Reading time: 2 min
Written by: David
Academia Problematic Competence

His Heterosexuality Did It

April 14, 2025 140 Comments

Via Toni Airaksinen, more from the hothouse world of pretentious agonising: 

A curriculum writer who works at a lesson-planning agency for middle school teachers has published a paper arguing that math classes “perpetuate whiteness,”

The curriculum writer in question, Michael Lolkus, is keen to let the world know that he champions “equity- and social justice-oriented instructional practices.” “Whiteness,” it turns out, is something to be chided and “decentred” in favour of “ethnomathematics investigations.” “The lens of whiteness” we’re told, will be turned upon itself and “critical interrogation” will ensue.

Because, among the agonised, buzzwords must abound. Lest their status be in doubt.

And so, the paper, published in the Journal of Urban Mathematics Education – which I’d assumed would be more concerned with issues of urban planning and traffic management – contains much fretting and many assumptions:

In his essay to educators, Lolkus begins by arguing that “educational spaces, particularly those centred on mathematics, uphold and promote whiteness,” and that efforts to fix this are still marred by “white liberal ideas” of what mathematics should be.

Quite how those unspecified “white” ideas alter the rules of multiplication, percentages and other simple mathematical operations remains a thing of mystery. Indeed, as so often, the precise nature of this alleged corruption, this all-pervasive and befouling “whiteness” – a term used 157 times – is left to the imagination. Though much is pitched upon that mystery:

Because Lolkus is a white male (he/him), he bemoans the way that he might unintentionally contribute to this issue, and argues that this paper will be an introspective journey into how he might be contributing to oppression in the classroom.

You see, Mr Lolkus fears he may be crushing brown-skinned students with his rampant, manly pallor.

“I am working to distance myself from whiteness,” says our fretful hero. Because “white educators like me need to embrace the burden of unpacking and dismantling white supremacy.” And so, Mr Lolkus will “grapple with my complicity in working within an educational system that… maintains white supremacy culture.”

White supremacy culture. In maths class. One of so many terms left intriguingly nebulous, but from which All Good Hearted People are expected to recoil with handkerchiefs clutched to their faces.

The nearest we get to gritty particulars is a brief stream of bald assertion:

“Dominant narratives in the United States position mathematics as a colourblind and culturally neutral discipline. The values, cultures and experiences of People of Colour, Black, and Indigenous communities are often ignored or devalued in math classes” he explains.

“Representation” is touched on fleetingly, though the question of why black middle-school pupils being as yet unfamiliar with, say, Katherine Johnson or Euphemia Haynes might impair their comprehension of fractions is oddly unexplored. Or likewise, why any 10-year-old of East Asian ancestry might struggle with long division on account of hearing insufficient praise for Wu Wenjun’s algebraic topology.

Mr Lolkus laments his “positionality” as a structurer of lessons and “knower of… mathematical concepts,” wishing instead to be merely a “community member.” A somewhat fanciful flattening of “hierarchy,” and of values, and an abandonment of the teacher’s customary responsibility. This is followed by a suggestion that pupils, especially underperforming minority pupils – the party least familiar with the subject matter – should be put in charge of structuring lessons and the broader curriculum. A sure-fire recipe for success.

And then there’s the conceit that heroically brown pupils are performing “additional labour” by doing less well in class, or by not doing the work at all.

“Whiteness is often represented by low expectations of Black, Indigenous, and Latinx students, which serve to maintain racial hierarchies in mathematics classrooms. These low expectations based on racialised identity markers and other personal biases can manifest in fewer opportunities to engage with ambitious and rigorous mathematics” for students.

Regarding low expectations, do hold that thought. We’ll get to that in a minute.

Meanwhile, our educator offers a boldly modish analysis. Says Mr Lolkus, “My experiences as an upper middle-class white male informed every decision I made,” and by “positioning myself, a white male… as an authority figure” – which is to say, a teacher – this has somehow rendered minority students unable to do simple mathematics.

Or put another way, if a teacher feels equipped to teach a subject that they have studied for many years – such that they feel they are likely to know its particulars in more detail than middle-school children – then this is a cause for concern, a basis for ostentatious atonement. Provided the teacher in question is white, obviously.

And worse – more damning still – Mr Lolkus adds – or rather, confesses – that he grew up as a “heterosexual and cisgender male.”

And so, should some black pupils be struggling with middle-school mathematics, then this can only be explained by the fact that their teacher is pale-skinned and heterosexual. This, then, is the bleeding edge of “equity” scholarship. And the makings of a “social justice” revolution in knowledge transfer.

At which point, readers may wonder whether the institutional influence of so many scrupulously woke, racially fixated neurotics – creatures much like Mr Lolkus – may be among the other, perhaps more obvious causes of impairment and disparity.

Regarding those low expectations, denounced earlier, readers may recall a previous mention of Mr Lolkus and his peers, with our educators devising elaborate excuses for pupils who are undisciplined, selfish, and disruptive – provided said pupils are of a suitable hue.

Excuses in which maths classes are framed as an arena of “violence and trauma.” Specifically, the “trauma” of not knowing the answers, on account of not paying attention, and the “violence” of being corrected for being loud and disruptive in class while others are trying to work. According to our radical reinventors of education, attempts to teach calculus and geometry should be enlivened with shouting, tardiness, and lots of adorable “cacophony.”

On grounds that “whiteness” – say, expectations of accuracy, promptness, and diligence – is something that gets in the way of black students “maintaining their Blackness.”

So no low expectations there, obviously.

Continue reading
Reading time: 5 min
Written by: David
Academia Pronouns Or Else

A Synonym For Spite

March 17, 2025 100 Comments

Another day, another drama involving the changing rooms of schoolgirls – and another illustration of how wokeness – all that progressive piety – can be a mask for other motives:

A middle school in Illinois reportedly forced a class of thirteen-year-old girls to change in front of a trans-identified male student in the school locker rooms after a Physical Education class, according to the mother of one of the girls involved.

Nicole Georgas revealed that on February 5, her daughter came home “frightened” and “upset” after finding a male student in the girls’ bathroom at school. Concerned, Georgas contacted the administration, and was told that under direction from their legal counsel, that if the student identifies as female, they are free to use any of the sex-segregated facilities as they so choose.

And hey, what could possibly go wrong?

Only a few days later, “the situation went from bad to worse,”

Ah.

as according to Georgas, the male student was then present in the girls’ locker rooms for their Physical Education class. The girls, unwilling to have their privacy violated even further, collectively refused to undress in front of him.

Quite right, one might think.

The following day, Assistant Principal Cathy Van Treese hauled the girls into her office and questioned them, before escorting them to their locker room and forcing them to change into their uniforms with the boy present.

Oh.

Van Treese was accompanied by Assistant Superintendent Joanna Ford and Director for Student Services Ginger Logemann. The monitoring to ensure compliance allegedly happened “all week,” Georgas explained to the district.

“You wicked girls will undress in front of this weird, cross-dressing boy, and you will do it over and over again.”

I paraphrase, of course. Though not, I think, wildly.

Readers are invited to ponder the psychology in play at this terribly progressive school. The triumphal righteousness of compelling thirteen-year-old schoolgirls to undress in front of a mentally ill male or opportunist pervert. A mentally ill male or opportunist pervert that the schoolgirls do not trust. Resulting in the girls feeling frightened and upset.

Imagine that tingle of power. All wrapped in a drag of modish piety.

After Mrs Georgas’ daughter refused to take part, understandably, a compromise of sorts was suggested:

The solution presented by the school was for Georgas’s daughter to simply swap into a new PE class, which was flatly refused.

You see,

Under Illinois state law, the “rights” of trans-identified individuals, especially students, to go into whatever facilities they please, are firmly protected.

Entirely at the expense of others.

Such that, “the discomfort or privacy concerns of other students, teachers, or parents are not valid reasons to deny or limit the full and equal use of facilities based on a student’s gender-related identity.” Instead, any girl who doesn’t appreciate being ordered to undress in front of a boy – a boy she does not trust – will be deemed the aberrant party, the one whose behaviour is problematic.

And so, rather than relocate the “trans-identified” boy to (a) the boys’ changing room, or (b) an existing “gender-neutral” space for His Super-Special Self, any girls who complain about the incongruity, the moral inaptness, are to be relocated and isolated. Leaving more compliant girls to endure the indignity and weirdness. Such is wokeness.

At a subsequent public meeting of the Deerfield School District 109 School Board, held on Thursday, Mrs Georgas explained,

“The girls just want their privacy and they want their locker room back… This is my daughter’s story and the story of many other young girls who have been forced at a difficult age to do something they know – and most adults know – is wrong…

Allowing biological males to access girl’s locker rooms sets a dangerous precedent that erodes the very foundation of female privacy and safety. By making this decision, the school board is not only disregarding the concerns of young female students, but also establishing a legal and policy framework that will make it increasingly difficult to protect the integrity of female-only spaces in the future.”

Well, yes, pretty much.

And yet the following speaker, a visibly self-satisfied woman named Charles Friedman, who declares herself “a transgender person” and who also just happens to have a transgender child – hey, what are the odds? – was all too happy to disregard the particulars of Mrs Georgas’ complaint and its wider implications.

Indeed, the lady named Charles, a trans activist – one of many present – dismissed the concerns above as “bullying.” Presumably on grounds that not allowing boys to barge into the changing rooms of thirteen-year-old girls and then watch them undress is an act of oppression. A denial of basic rights.

Those with an appetite for grim surrealism can watch the outpourings of subsequent speakers, for whom pronoun stipulation is a thing, for whom big earrings and nail polish establish womanhood, and for whom the creepy violation of thirteen-year-old schoolgirls is a basis for applause.

Should any tender-hearted readers be tempted to assume that the above must be some one-off aberration, by all means think again. And do note the updates to that particular farce.

Previous changing-room adventures – in which the word pattern comes to mind – can be found here, here, here, and here.

Update, via the comments:

Regarding this,

The following day, Assistant Principal Cathy Van Treese hauled the girls into her office and questioned them, before escorting them to their locker room and forcing them to change into their uniforms with the boy present.

Liz adds, not unreasonably,

We used to call this a humiliation ritual.

Indeed. And yet, in the video of the school board meeting, subsequent speakers, all trans activists, many of whom travelled from far out of town, casually dismiss or ignore the clearly stated concerns, and denounce Mrs Georgas as a bully, a bigot, and, bizarrely, a “white supremacist.”

Because you’re not allowed to object to your children being psychologically abused.

And the option proposed by the school, and affirmed by Ms Charles Friedman, our self-satisfied trans activist – the one who just happens to have a transgender child – is likely to result in further drama. Or the same drama repeated.

If girls who object to a boy’s presence in their changing room are told to change somewhere else, and not in their own changing room, then it seems entirely possible that one by one, quite rapidly, the other girls will follow suit, resulting in the cross-dressing boy having the girls’ changing room all to himself. At which point, this may be invoked as yet another form of bigotry and oppression.

And perhaps the boy or his activist parents, or likely activist parent, will demand he be given access to whichever new space the girls have been obliged to retreat to. Because his psychodrama must be imposed on others, regardless of their objections. And around we go again.

And – as so often – note just how readily the school administrators, these uniformly progressive women, will sell out their supposed sisters. The daughters of their neighbours. In order to look fashionable, and therefore high-status.

It’s also, I think, worth noting the demeanour of Ms Friedman, our trans activist. During her speech, she shows little interest in the concerns of parents. Instead, she is dismissive, self-satisfied and visibly triumphal. The tone is basically, “We have the power over your children now. Suck it up, bitches.”

I can’t help but think that’s rather telling.

I should add that the degree of woke perversity – such that girls who object to the humiliation are the ones deemed problematic and aberrant – is so pronounced that a sense of unreality may ensue. For instance, readers may wish to imagine themselves at the school board meeting above, hearing Mrs Georgas speak, and then hearing her being booed, called absurd names, and her concerns being gleefully dismissed. By men in bad drag.

In light of which, it’s difficult to see any plausible common ground. When activist attendees would rather jeer and preen, and call concerned parents bigots and racists, rather than address their actual concerns, it’s not obvious what room for compromise, or debate, there could be.

Ultimately, either mentally ill boys and opportunist creeps can pretend to be girls and invade schoolgirls’ changing rooms, or they can’t.

Answers on a postcard, please.

Continue reading
Reading time: 7 min
Written by: David
Academia Problematic Drama

May Contain Drama

February 10, 2025 120 Comments

Or, Shakespeare For The Tremulous And Neurotic: 

Drama students are being warned of suicide in Romeo and Juliet after a university put more than 200 trigger warnings on works of Shakespeare. The University of the West of England (UWE) has issued warnings for “blood” and “psychological trauma” in Macbeth, as well as “storms” and “extreme weather” in The Tempest.

No laughing at the back.

One theatre show of the shipwreck play was highlighted for containing the “popping of balloons.”

Readers will doubtless recall the Chichester Festival Theatre warning patrons that its production of The Sound of Music, one of the most famous and widely-seen musicals in the world, would contain references to Nazis. Which, for some, would apparently come as a surprise.

More recently, the Royal Shakespeare Company felt it necessary to forewarn visitors that its production of Hans Christian Andersen’s dark fairy tale The Red Shoes features both loud music and “haze.” Because in a tale of mind-controlling shoes and amputated feet, the haze is the thing you really want to watch out for.

And because you can never have enough of this tiresome contrivance:

The University of Nottingham placed warnings on Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales over “expressions of Christian faith” last October.

Presumably, it was felt to be a shocking twist. Mind-wrenching stuff.

Two months prior, the same university also banned the term Anglo-Saxon from its module titles. Professors renamed a master’s course in Viking and Anglo-Saxon studies to “Viking and early medieval English studies” in a move to “decolonise the curriculum.”

Ah, these fearless correctors of our history and culture. Whose weird mental twitching we’ve seen before.

And so, the modern sensibility, the approved outlook on things, is one in which we are to view cross-dressing perverts striding into schoolgirls’ toilets and changing rooms as in no way provocative or untoward, and regarding which one mustn’t bat an eye, while simultaneously trembling at the prospect of Shakespeare’s Tempest containing scenes of bad weather.

A mindset in which almost any dramatic work that predates Instagram must now come with spoilers. Which does rather appear to defeat the object.

Continue reading
Reading time: 1 min
Written by: David
Page 1 of 1661234»102030...Last »

Blog Preservation Fund




Subscribestar Amazon UK
Support this Blog
Donate via QR Code

RECENT POSTS

  • This Shimmering Oasis
  • Have You Tried Storing Them Upright?
  • Friday Ephemera (769)
  • Reheated (106)
  • Peer-Reviewed, You Say

Recent Comments

  • David on This Shimmering Oasis May 27, 10:11
  • Ted S., Catskill Mtns, NY, USA on This Shimmering Oasis May 27, 10:08
  • Chow Bag on This Shimmering Oasis May 27, 10:05
  • David on This Shimmering Oasis May 27, 09:17
  • David on This Shimmering Oasis May 27, 09:04
  • David on This Shimmering Oasis May 27, 08:52
  • Martin D on This Shimmering Oasis May 27, 08:45
  • Geoff on This Shimmering Oasis May 27, 08:39
  • David on Have You Tried Storing Them Upright? May 27, 06:04
  • aelfheld on Have You Tried Storing Them Upright? May 27, 03:52

SEARCH

Archives

Archive by year

Interesting Sites

Blogroll

Categories

  • Academia
  • Agonies of the Left
  • AI
  • And Then It Caught Fire
  • Anthropology
  • Architecture
  • Armed Forces
  • Arse-Chafing Tedium
  • Art
  • ASMR
  • Auto-Erotic Radicalism
  • Basking
  • Bees
  • Behold My Massive Breasts
  • Behold My Massive Lobes
  • Beware the Brown Rain
  • Big Hooped Earrings
  • Bionic Lingerie
  • Blogs
  • Books
  • Bra Drama
  • Bra Hygiene
  • Cannabis
  • Classic Sentences
  • Collective Toilet Management
  • Comics
  • Culture
  • Current Affairs
  • Dating Decisions
  • Dental Hygiene's Racial Subtext
  • Department of Irony
  • Dickensian Woes
  • Did You Not See My Earrings?
  • Emotional Support Guinea Pigs
  • Emotional Support Water Bottles
  • Engineering
  • Ephemera
  • Erotic Pottery
  • Farmyard Erotica
  • Feats
  • Feminist Comedy
  • Feminist Dating
  • Feminist Fun Times
  • Feminist Poetry Slam
  • Feminist Pornography
  • Feminist Snow Ploughing
  • Feminist Witchcraft
  • Film
  • Food and Drink
  • Free-For-All
  • Games
  • Gardening's Racial Subtext
  • Gentrification
  • Giant Vaginas
  • Great Hustles of Our Time
  • Greatest Hits
  • Hair
  • His Pretty Nails
  • History
  • Housekeeping
  • Hubris Meets Nemesis
  • Ideas
  • If You Build It
  • Imagination Must Be Punished
  • Inadequate Towels
  • Indignant Replies
  • Interviews
  • Intimate Waxing
  • Juxtapositions
  • Media
  • Mischief
  • Modern Savagery
  • Music
  • Niche Pornography
  • Not Often Seen
  • Oppressive Towels
  • Parenting
  • Policing
  • Political Nipples
  • Politics
  • Postmodernism
  • Pregnancy
  • Presidential Genitals
  • Problematic Acceptance
  • Problematic Baby Bouncing
  • Problematic Bookshelves
  • Problematic Bra Marketing
  • Problematic Checkout Assistants
  • Problematic Civility
  • Problematic Cleaning
  • Problematic Competence
  • Problematic Crosswords
  • Problematic Cycling
  • Problematic Drama
  • Problematic Fairness
  • Problematic Fitness
  • Problematic Furniture
  • Problematic Height
  • Problematic Monkeys
  • Problematic Motion
  • Problematic Neighbourliness
  • Problematic Ownership
  • Problematic Parties
  • Problematic Pasta
  • Problematic Plumbers
  • Problematic Punctuality
  • Problematic Questions
  • Problematic Reproduction
  • Problematic Shoes
  • Problematic Taxidermy
  • Problematic Toilets
  • Problematic Walking
  • Problematic Wedding Photos
  • Pronouns Or Else
  • Psychodrama
  • Radical Bowel Movements
  • Radical Bra Abandonment
  • Radical Ceramics
  • Radical Dirt Relocation
  • Reheated
  • Religion
  • Reversed GIFs
  • Science
  • Shakedowns
  • Some Fraction Of A Sausage
  • Sports
  • Stalking Mishaps
  • Student Narcolepsy
  • Suburban Polygamist Ninjas
  • Suburbia
  • Technology
  • Television
  • The Deep Wisdom of Celebrities
  • The Genitals Of Tomorrow
  • The Gods, They Mock Us
  • The Great Outdoors
  • The Politics of Buttocks
  • The Thrill of Décor
  • The Thrill Of Endless Noise
  • The Thrill of Friction
  • The Thrill of Garbage
  • The Thrill Of Glitter
  • The Thrill of Hand Dryers
  • The Thrill of Medicine
  • The Thrill Of Powdered Cheese
  • The Thrill Of Seating
  • The Thrill Of Shopping
  • The Thrill Of Toes
  • The Thrill Of Unemployment
  • The Thrill of Wind
  • The Thrill Of Woke Retailing
  • The Thrill Of Women's Shoes
  • The Thrill of Yarn
  • The Year That Was
  • Those Lying Bastards
  • Those Poor Darling Armed Robbers
  • Those Poor Darling Burglars
  • Those Poor Darling Carjackers
  • Those Poor Darling Fare Dodgers
  • Those Poor Darling Looters
  • Those Poor Darling Muggers
  • Those Poor Darling Paedophiles
  • Those Poor Darling Sex Offenders
  • Those Poor Darling Shoplifters
  • Those Poor Darling Stabby Types
  • Those Poor Darling Thieves
  • Tomorrow’s Products Today
  • Toys
  • Travel
  • Tree Licking
  • TV
  • Uncategorized
  • Unreturnable Crutches
  • Wigs
  • You Can't Afford My Radical Life

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

In which we marvel at the mental contortions of our self-imagined betters.