Someone not quite making the case she thinks she’s making. 

Open thread. Do chat among yourselves.

I’m not hungover. You’re hungover.

Or, Prattle Beyond The Stars: 

Physicists at MIT and SUNY Stony Brook recently announced findings that the total surface area of two black holes was maintained after the two entities merged. While this research was a welcome confirmation of both Stephen Hawking’s work and the theory of general relativity, it failed to address a crucial matter: what were its racial implications?

Heather Mac Donald browses an astronomy course at Cornell University, titled Black Holes: Race and the Cosmos, and premised on the question, “Is there a connection between the cosmos and the idea of racial blackness?” It seems unlikely that said course will enable any great scientific revelations, despite marshalling the combined forces of “Black Studies theorists” and the late jazz musician Sun Ra, who claimed to have visited Saturn; though it promises to “conjure blackness through cosmological themes.” 

And so, while some observe the merging of bogglingly massive astronomical objects, others regard themselves as a more fascinating topic, and “conjure” their own “blackness.” Via farce, contrivance, and racial narcissism.

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

Robby Soave on achieving “equity”: 

The Vancouver School Board in British Columbia, Canada, is eliminating honours courses as part of a push to foster inclusivity and equity in the classroom. The board had previously eliminated the high school honours English programme, and maths and science will now get the axe as well. “By phasing out these courses, all students will have access to an inclusive model of education, and all students will be able to participate in the curriculum fulsomely,” said the school board in a statement.

By denying access, they are granting access, obviously. How terribly inclusive.

This is a spectacularly frank declaration: Education officials don’t like that some higher-achieving students are sorted into environments where they are more likely to succeed than their less-gifted peers, and would prefer to keep everyone officially at the same level to the greatest extent possible. The plan closely mirrors California’s recent efforts to discourage students who are proficient at math from taking calculus any earlier than their classmates; Canadian educators seem no less excited than their U.S. counterparts about naively pursuing equality of outcome at all costs.

Inevitably, the objections of students and parents were dismissed by educators, including Jennifer Katz, a professor of education at the University of British Columbia, as “nonsense” and perpetuating “systemic racism.” And so, the needs and prospects of gifted children will be sacrificed in the name of progressive piety. A piety that just happens to look like something else.

Comet Melanie Mae – that’s what it says here – is in no way high-maintenance:

My gender changes depending on the day, or week, or even depending on the hour. It also means the pronouns I’m comfortable with can change too.

To avoid a pronoun gaffe, and crushing underfoot the meek and marginalised, you must first check the colour-coded bracelets.

Pink means she/her; yellow means they/them; and blue means he/him.

And because this arrangement isn’t sufficiently complicated, or enough of an imposition on your time and sanity, said bracelets can be combined. It’s fully customisable. So do pay attention. 

See also Laurie Penny and her ongoing project of self-description. 

Somewhat related. 

Via here. 

Speaking, as we were, of rotundity, here’s a hot intersectional take, delivered with beaming certainty:

Actively not wanting to be fat is fatphobia, and therefore you’re fatphobic. 

You see, while “literally nobody is saying” that you must want to be fat, you should do nothing to avoid it or to delay the unsightly expansion of any body parts. Readers who find this a slim distinction must learn that “there is little to no evidence that we have any control over our size” and must therefore “just stop wanting size changes in general.” Readers who regard weight gain as a “size change,” and not a welcome one, should presumably say nothing and act casual. 

Your ignorance and wickedness thus identified, you must,

Commit to unlearning your fatphobia.

Now just stand there and be scolded, damn you.

Mr William Hornby, whose ponderings are shared above and whose pronouns are announced, is an “advocate, TikToker, actor and singer,” and is soon to graduate from Temple University with a degree in musical theatre. He is, of course, “raising awareness,” a mission that entails steering his followers to a Fat Liberation Syllabus For Revolutionary Leftists, where we learn that,

Fat liberation is a radical anti-capitalist, anti-colonial, anti-state movement that was started by fat Black and Brown disabled queer and trans people.

And where we’re told, quite emphatically, that a reluctance to become fat is,

intrinsically entangled with white supremacy, anti-Blackness, settler colonialism, and capitalism.

And therefore, obviously, really, really bad. The goal, then, for all chubby-and-enlightened people, is to “abolish capitalism and settler colonial states like the US,” along with “abolishing prisons and police,” and dismantling the “fatphobic logic of productivity, discipline, and personal responsibility.” One can only hope that this revolutionary project doesn’t involve stairs or significant exertion.  

Mr Hornby’s list of relevant resources also includes a therapist search engine. Though whether that’s for the weight issues or the revolutionary leftism, I couldn’t say.