Readers may recall this item from four months ago:

I was of course referring to Ms Shellyne Rodriguez, an art teacher at Hunter College, New York, and whose activities include menacing students whose views diverge from her own, shouting profanities at said students, vandalising their property, and chasing people down the street armed with a machete.

A liveliness subsequently blamed on “racists, white nationalists, and misogynists.”

In a turn of events unlikely to surprise regulars of this parish, it seems that Ms Rodriguez, our self-styled “black Marxist” and “public intellectual,” has a new position, this time at the Cooper Union School of Art in Manhattan. Where students will apparently be treated to our gentle maiden’s insights on,

Oh, and,

A coexistence achieved, one assumes, via screamed profanities, fits of physical intimidation, and holding machetes to people’s necks.

Readers are invited to speculate as to what it might take for a progressive educator to become unemployable.

Update, via the comments:

Our art instructor’s list of professed woes – supposedly mitigating circumstances – is of course extensive, and the relevance of many items escapes me, even allowing for the usual contrivance. Apparently, if you think a professional educator should behave like an adult, and not, say, threaten to decapitate people who ask questions about her childish and aggressive behaviour, then this is part of an “attack” on “women, trans people, black people, Latinx people, migrants, and beyond.”

A boldness that suggests Ms Rodriguez is very much accustomed to indulgence and being exempt from normal academic proprieties, and indeed civilisational basics. Rather than, as she pretends, being downtrodden at every turn.

Rafi adds, drily,

Indeed. What catches the eye isn’t Ms Rodriguez’s meagre scholarship – in which “critical studies,” i.e., Marxoid question-begging, seems more prominent than any aesthetic discernment – or even her equally meagre artistic abilities, which call to mind the daubing of a B-minus student, aged maybe 15:

Given the progressive chokehold on academia, and the neurotic racial imperatives consequently in play, corruption and rotting standards are to be expected. It’s the standard trajectory of ideological capture. This is the utopian path chosen by our self-imagined betters.

But it is, I think, interesting just how unhinged – and threatening – a progressive educator can be without having to consider an entirely different line of work.

Update 2:

Being a supposedly “marginalised” individual, maybe Ms Rodriguez was merely heeding the deep, deep wisdom of fellow “educator” Ms Shellene Drakes-Tull, mentioned here previously, and who informs us that expectations of workplace professionalism are scandalously racist, and that brown-skinned employees must be allowed to “bring their whole selves to work.” A wholeness of self that includes behaving in ways likely to be “interpreted as violent or aggressive.”

It turns out that a dislike of being bullied by the childish and emotionally incontinent is merely evidence of “deep, inherent bias and deeply inherent systemic racism.”

How terribly convenient.

Should further examples of suboptimal educators be required, see also this and this, and, well, any number of posts here tagged academia. The political leanings of the individuals in question will not be entirely surprising.

Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

Sensitive readers may wish to brace themselves. Consider this a trigger warning.

Next week, for the whole week, and for the first time in a long time, I will be away on holiday. A proper holiday, elsewhere, doing other things. I realise that for some of you this may be crushing news. Be brave. Dry those tears.

To prevent you from roaming the streets in a daze, consider this an open thread, in which to share links and bicker. To kick things off, here’s an interview with Thomas Sowell, now a mere 93, in which he discusses his latest book, Social Justice Fallacies. Copies of which can be bought via your host’s Amazon portals, here for the US, and here for the UK.

In addition, you could always pass the time by browsing the Reheated series.

Oh, and the edit-comment option should now be working properly.

Play nicely. Use coasters.

I was previously unfamiliar with the concept of bra euphoria:

Resulting, it seems, in hasty purchases and consequent discomfort. And so,

At which point, I should add that these bra-related dramas are from transgender Reddit, where passions run high, and agonies abound:

And,

And,

This latter detail is mentioned for the purposes of calibrating bra discomfort. I, for one, am learning things today.

Needless to say, a thread ensues, in which grumbles are aired regarding the need for repeated measurements, commission-based sales assistants, returns policies, underwiring, and the shortcomings of bra manufacturers, whose products are deemed wanting, on account of their generally being designed for the bodies of women.

Sadly, female sales assistants who find themselves helping strange men try on bras, repeatedly, did not participate in the discussion.

Update, via the comments:

I should also add that, in discussions of this kind, the term euphoria often has connotations of sexual arousal. Which raises the prospect of female sales assistants who find themselves helping strange men try on bras, repeatedly, while said men may be getting euphoric.

Not every sales assistant’s cup of tea, I should think.

Via.

Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

A short thread of possible interest, on a subject we’ve touched on before.

If an illustration of crime would help, this one is quite vivid:

What would you do in this case?

https://t.co/w2joaaDoSx

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) September 4, 2023

The story here. Note the line,

Update, via the comments:

Regarding the video above, commenter anon a mouse suggests,

Not, I think, unreasonable. Assuming one were interrupted while making a nice pot of tea. Though I’d imagine it’s easier to think of such things when you’re not taken aback by the unreal nightmarishness of it all.

Pst314 adds,

Again, I’d guess that many of those who’ve witnessed or experienced serious, aggressive criminality may have been wrong-footed and inhibited by their own disbelief – their own struggle to process the alien behaviour that they’re seeing. Sociopathic activity and feral predation can – to the civilised – seem bewildering and surreal.

If another horror-show example is needed, here you go. Note the merriment. The sense of fun.

It’s perhaps worth noting that egalitarian assumptions don’t exactly help on this front – say, the belief that such creatures are just like us, only more oppressed, and that their wellbeing is somehow a matter of great importance. A conceit that is not only wrong, and insulting, but which is often disabling when it really matters.

If, for instance, someone with a big, shiny knife is breaking into your home in the middle of the night, you should not, ideally, be distracted by any great concern for whether or not your attempt at self-defence results in them getting injured or ceasing to be. Not least because their ceasing-to-be would be a very good thing. A gift to the world.

And yet, among our betters, we see all kinds of mental contortions and obvious dishonesties:

It’s pretentious, neurotic, and morally revolting.

See also this chap, who, being sophisticated, can’t bring himself to use the term Molotov cocktail. You see, it was only a “beer bottle stuffed with toilet paper and gasoline” that was thrown, “non-violently,” into someone’s car. No biggie.

And we mustn’t forget Mr Zack Ford, a “proud SJW,” who believes that women should allow themselves to be mugged, or worse, lest their muggers come to harm.

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

Variations in human ability continue to frustrate those who would perfect us:

You see, if a problem can’t be solved, the next-best thing is to hide it:

The genius of the “equity-focussed” policies, also being advanced in California and elsewhere, is that they are likely to have negative consequences for both ends of the ability spectrum. The cognitively untalented will be spared the normal incentives to master at least the basics, even the basics of behaviour, while the gifted will be denied access to advanced material more suited to their abilities, resulting in boredom and demoralisation.

Again, hiding that bothersome unevenness in effort and ability.

Readers will note that the retreat from clear metrics into euphemism and pernicious fuzzwords – chief among which, “equity” – not only makes it difficult to determine pupils’ academic progress and actual competence, but also has a secondary effect of making it more difficult to identify the shortcomings of progressive educators and administrators. A coincidence, I’m sure.

The pernicious woo named “equity” – which roughly translates as equality of outcome regardless of inputs – has of course been mentioned here before.

If the examples linked above aren’t sufficiently striking, I do have more.

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