In academic news:

Says the website of the University Heath Service:

Much like fatness, in fact.

Weight stigma in athletics. I’d better write that one down. The site also stresses the importance of “body positivity,” which is,

Well, losing some of that excess weight would probably help on that front. Less crippling self-consciousness. Less sweating and wheezing, too. We also learn that “weight stigma” is perpetuated by language. Not, say, by being massively fat and the problems that so often follow from that.

At which point, sharp-eyed readers will notice that the direction of all this effort is away from the actual problem.

Well, again, obesity will do that. Best, then, to keep oneself in some reasonable proportion. Rather than faffing about with five-dollar bits of cardboard that make it clear just how neurotic you’ve become. As a result of being fat.

Update, via the comments:

Svh quotes this from the university’s website:

And adds,

Well, quite. And it has to be said, if you’re unwell and are avoiding going to the doctor because you can’t bear the prospect of being asked how much you weigh, this doesn’t sound like “body positivity.” Indeed, the very notion of “body positivity” will likely be of interest only to people who very much don’t feel “positive” about their bodies.

Say, on account of being fat.

And then there’s this, from the College Fix article:

Because – and I say this will love – you’re too fat for the chairs.

So, at risk of sounding insensitive, a choice comes to mind. You can either try to reorganise your every interaction with the universe – every encounter with chairs, mirrors, small spaces, stairs, and so forth – and drag everyone else into some never-ending drama in an attempt to ease your hangups – or you can, you know, dial back on the carbs and sugar and take a brisk walk.

I mean, the thing you can hope to control is not other people.

Update 2:

This seems apposite. Luana Maroja, a professor of biology at Williams College, ventures into the belly of “fat studies” and reports on what she finds:

There follows much to chew on. Including claims by supposed educators that “a healthy diet is [whatever] you like to eat,” that fat people are oppressed by dieting and by other people not wishing to be fat, and that such preferences are a form of “white supremacy.” Oh, and the desire not to be fat oneself – dubbed “fat fascism” – is all about racism and the “subjugation” of Palestinians.

Also, chairs are discriminatory and a cause of health problems. Unlike being fat.

Among the educators in question, there was, inevitably, a lot of pretending not to understand things.

Update 3:

Commenter Chow Bag quotes this,

And adds,

The participants do seem to be devoting an awful lot of effort to their word salad and contrivance – and blatant lies – all geared towards avoidance and displacement. Again, the direction of the rhetoric is away from the actual problem. They seem willing to perform almost any mental contortion in order to avoid acknowledging the obvious about themselves and their behaviour.

And so, for instance, we’re told that very fat cancer patients shouldn’t be advised to lose weight, as this is “discrimination,” an outrageous emotional injury, even though their obesity has numerous, quite serious, well-documented consequences in terms of treatment options, complications, likelihood of recovery, long-term survival, etc.

It’s not politics. It’s psychodrama. Albeit in bad political drag.

It’s tempting to invert the scenario and to imagine some gathering of the Anorexics Liberation Front. A roomful of alarmingly cadaverous young women complaining about the alienating vastness of chairs, and about how anyone concerned by the attendees’ self-harming behaviour – say, parents, spouses or children – is being oppressive and racist.

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

Pies and cakes available on request.

Mr Burkett tries to explain something to Cathy Young:

It means quite straightforwardly that natives have less political power, because their votes are a smaller share of the overall electorate.

Newcomers do not merely “coexist” alongside you. They form political coalitions. They vote.

Even physical space in a city is to some… https://t.co/jAoNacBKWX

— wanye (@xwanyex) June 27, 2026

For those of you without X accounts:

Needless to say, a thread ensues.

If the subject of queuing, mentioned above, should need an illustration, this grim hint of things to come may reward a revisit.

And from which, this passage seems apposite:

In the replies, regarding Ms Young, someone uses the term feigned obtuseness. Which doesn’t seem unfair.

But hey, it’s just people coexisting.

Ms Young has, of course, been baffled before.

Also, deploy the meme:

And no, it won’t be the last time.

I bring you the deep thoughts of Ms Lily Kaplan. Or more precisely, the thoughts of her peers and educators, regurgitated wholesale in a Valley-Girl vocal fry:

Angry Leftist woman publishes negative review of a restaurant because she thinks it’s too “White”

She says it gives off vibes of “racism, misogyny, and ped*philia” because two White men own it.

If you live in the Phoenix area, consider supporting this restaurant. pic.twitter.com/wDGr0rKzpf

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 16, 2026

Quizzed on her assumptions, Ms Kaplan, a “social media consultant,” says,

And so, not knowing or caring, Ms Kaplan felt entitled to smear a local business, for likes and online clout, with a pre-emptively “unfriendly review,” in which she somehow associates the selling of tacos and carrot cake with “racism, misogyny and paedophilia,” and while describing the opening of a restaurant by two white men as representing “centuries of patriarchy,” and “such a bummer.”

For those of you sturdy enough to endure more of her voice, Ms Kaplan replies to her critics here. Albeit in a rambling and immensely self-flattering manner:

Her latest video doubling down. She’s beyond a misandrist and an absolute moron. pic.twitter.com/e2MXMibxXS

— TC (@tcgoldrush) June 16, 2026

Disdaining strangers, especially men, for being white, as if it were some invalidating condition, isn’t racism, you see, all appearance to the contrary. It’s “punching upwards,” and therefore virtuous, indeed heroic. It’s “speaking truth to power.” And white men as a notional group – including unsuspecting restaurant proprietors – are, it seems, in need of some punching.

Those who suggest otherwise are, and I quote, “fucking idiots.”

Readers may wish to try downing a shot of tequila every time she says “white” in a weary, sneery, but in-no-way-racist way. Inevitably, Ms Kaplan is keen to tell us how she’s “so for real.” “I definitely speak my mind,” says she.

Or at least someone else’s.

Update, via the comments:

Chow Bag quotes this:

And adds,

Indeed. Throughout madam’s rote and modish regurgitations, I kept feeling an urge to shout, THOSE AREN’T YOUR THOUGHTS. THAT ISN’T YOUR MIND.

It’s just the programme running.

Though I suppose the fundamental obnoxiousness is quite sincere.

The real deal, as it were.

Lifted from the comments, this feat of self-knowledge:

https://t.co/NK6ZXsV5cq pic.twitter.com/kRryCjRo8X

— Overeducated Gibbon (@MostlyMonkey) June 9, 2026

“How little they understand us,” says he. Sorry, he/him. Because pronouns in bio, obviously. Again, cue the meme.

But remember, dear reader, the routine and often vehemently announced antipathy of so many progressives towards people of pallor – as seen, for instance, here, and here, and here, and here, and here and here – is merely a figment of your fevered imagination.

It was all just a misunderstanding, see? Your fault entirely.

The cattier among you will have noted the choice of profile photo.

See he/him thinking deeply.

Update, via the comments:

Following much mockery, our book-reading pronoun stipulator is now referring to his numerous quoted posts – in which he refers to massive, indiscriminate third-world immigration as “just a thing that is happening,” and in which he says white people are “the worst” and should be “cancelled” and “abolished” – as being some misunderstood subtlety of thought. While sneering at those who noticed these statements as “chuds.”

This process is of course resulting in people uncovering more of the same.

Oh, and then there’s this, approvingly reposted by our deep and subtle thinker:

Given the increasing luridness and frequency with which these horror-show scenes are happening, and given what is at stake should this trend continue – all these vibrant stabbings and rapes – asking pertinent questions with a view to making them stop doesn’t strike me as obvious proof of scumbaggery.

I mean, if you aren’t allowed to recognise the pattern and identify the problem – the dare I say it, root causes – then such horrors will continue and most likely multiply, perhaps very quickly. And it seems a bit rich to rush to one’s fainting couch because someone used the word “savage” to refer to a third-world migrant, supposedly a source of our enrichment, ululating in triumph while attempting to behead a native on the streets of Belfast.

Apparently the indigenous are allowed to be briefly upset, but only before ramping up their tolerance and inclusivity, and carrying on as before, as if nothing of significance had happened, or will happen again, and again, with ever greater boldness. While the process, to which we mustn’t pay any attention, and regarding which we mustn’t ask obvious questions, continues.

Anna, needless to say – the woman crying “scumbag” and boasting of being a Labour voter – also thinks you need to know her pronouns.

Again, patterns.

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and so forth.

From the comments – which of course you’re reading – a phenomenon to ponder. A small but telling feature of our unrelentingly progressive times.

It began with this exchange from Question Time, the BBC’s flagship political debate programme, in which Green Party candidate Sarah Wakefield struggled with causality. Specifically, the apparently alien notion that a rapidly growing UK population – overwhelmingly a result of immigration – requires more housing. And thus the two topics – immigration and housing availability – being very much related.

🚨 WATCH: The Reform and Green candidate in the Makerfield clash over immigration

Sarah Wakefield: “Do you think if we locked down our borders, we’re going solve the housing crisis?”

Rob Kenyon: “The more people you have in the country, the more houses you need” #BBCQT pic.twitter.com/Fsog3KOFz8

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) June 4, 2026

Ms Wakefield is, it seems, somehow unaware that immigration accounts for almost all population growth over the last six years, and the vast majority of such growth over the last twenty years.

When not struggling with simple arithmetic, Ms Wakefield spends her time announcing that farming is riddled with “white supremacy” and is in need of “decolonisation.” British food production, says she, “entrenches racial oppression.”

Still, whatever her shortcomings in terms of readily available facts and observable reality, she does put her face to eye-catching use.

Which prompted the following from your host:

And,

In reply, commenter [+] shared a link to this video, which may amuse, and deployed the term Longhouse Face.

Which in turn brought us this not implausible observation:

Dicentra added,

Quite.

This facial phenomenon has subsequently, and happily, attracted wider attention. Among the commentary to be found elsewhere, this caught my eye:

Cue the meme.