Time for a few days off, I think. A long weekend. Play nicely. Use coasters.

Update: Above, Derwent Dam, as seen by your host and photographed by The Other Half. 

It’s a bank holiday hereabouts, so before doing other things, I thought I’d share this guide to online advertising.

Provenance unknown. Also, open thread.

Heard in class: 

“Can everybody look up from their phones? Hello, you guys, look at me.”

As someone quips in the replies, “Is this on the test?”

Mr Zoa is a “performer and educator” who uses the word black as if it were a credential, an obvious accomplishment. Preferred pronouns, because of course, are “she/they/he,” and areas of expertise, of which there are so many, include “loving myself,” “hair micro-aggressions,” and gyrating in heels like a stripper. Readers may note how these daringly individual people – the ones so busily, and so loudly, being themselves – so often default to the same tedious cartoon.

Update, via the comments:

Mr Zoa also thinks that employers shouldn’t object to him going backless at work, on account of his non-binary fabulousness. Which, it has to be said, doesn’t suggest an encouraging set of priorities, or a mind focussed on the task for which said person is being employed. The imagined right to parade around the workplace in a cloud of self-absorption, forever on the cusp of voguing, in some backless, strapless ensemble is a strange hill to die on. For a high-school teacher.

But Mr Zoa seems to regard his hashtags – #lgbt #nonbinary #gay – as amulets of some kind, as protections against criticism, while seeking ever-greater indulgence.

Also, open thread.

The University of Utah has formed an “Anti-Racism” committee which will be tasked with “improv[ing] the overall campus climate regarding issues and events of racism across all intersections of identity.” The video, however, only mentions one race. 

It’s an “intergroup dialogue,” you see, spanning “all intersections of identity and bias.” And in which only one notional group is implied as by default chronically victimised, albeit in ways that are somewhat mysterious. The term “anti-Blackness” is deployed many times. Though particulars of this alleged oppression are not immediately forthcoming, indeed entirely absent, as if such details were unnecessary – possibly on account of the time spent needlessly declaring pronouns, and repeating the words “equity,” “diversity” and “folx.” Students are, however, steered towards a course on “whiteness privilege,” during which people of pallor can feel suitably ashamed for their collective skin – sorry, sin.

We are told, 

The Anti-Racism Committee recommends and evaluates measures to ensure that everyone enjoys a campus free of racism and hate. 

And this feat will apparently be achieved by singling out The White Devil as uniquely defective and deserving of correction.

Update, via the comments:

Given the supposed gravity of the supposed problem, such that it requires committees and an ever-expanding infrastructure, you’d think these keen, colossal minds might share at least a hint of what it is they’re planning to “interrogate” and purge from the Earth. Alas, in page after page, we get only airy waffle about “systems… policies and processes,” none of which are specified, even in broad terms. The university itself is mentioned as allegedly a venue of seething racial bigotry, but again, no particulars are offered – none whatsoever. The claim, and what it implies about students and staff – which is to say, the insult - is simply presented as in no need of explanation, or examples, or any supporting evidence.

The video features Dr Bryan Hubain, the associate vice-president of student development and inclusion – a man who boasts of being a “black, gay immigrant” as if this were a credential, an accomplishment, a triple whammy – and a reason for our eternal fascination – and whose LinkedIn profile tells us he is schooled in “critical race theory.” So, no reasons for suspicion there.

Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

When the topic of gender and genitals came up…

In pre-school, of course. 

Koe Creation, the rather animated lady above, is, she says, a “second-generation queerspawn” – by which she means the product of a polyamorous household – and is allegedly, via some unspecified process, an expert in “sex-positive parenting” and “non-violent communication,” on which she offers “guidance.” She – or rather they, because pronouns – works within the “polyamorous and kink communities” and holds workshops in bondage and sadomasochism, and is therefore, obviously, spending lots of time with small children and talking about their bodies.

Update:

Ms Creation, also known as Valkyrie Jacobson-Smith, is now upset that “the trolls” have found her public announcements and have not been overly impressed or encouraged by them. Insufficient enthusiasm – and any kind of demurral – apparently warrants the designation troll. Presumably, the wider public – those outside of “polyamorous and kink communities” – should be thrilled to discover that pre-school children are being taught by a self-styled “expert” in bondage and sadomasochism, and being quizzed on their genitals, and being used as a basis for “intergenerational dialogue around relational identities (such as polyamory, sexuality… and kink).”

Because, hey, there’s nothing creepy or concerning about that at all.

Yes, dear reader, it’s terribly unfair when people fail to affirm your radicalism and subversiveness, with children aged three and four – a subversiveness of which you’re so proud – based on “moments when that rhetoric happened to come up in the classroom.”

It just happened, you see.

Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.