I’m sensing it may be time for an open thread, in which to share links and bicker. While you mull, here’s a lesson in persistence and redoubling your efforts. Oh, and some totally harmless party balloons.

If the cravings are too much, you can always poke through the reheated series and greatest hits.

While scanning the New York Times, Ben Sixsmith notes the odd parental priorities of author and journalist Jancee Dunn:

The article in question, titled My Marriage Has A Third Wheel: Our Child – and which helpfully includes a photo of the couple’s apparently problematic nine-year-old – can be found here. In it, we learn that the author “would never have dreamed of sharing anything remotely personal with my parents,” but “wanted a different kind of relationship with our daughter.” And hence happily directing a media spotlight onto said youngster while waiting for applause.  

Jancee Dunn is the author of How Not To Hate Your Husband After Kids, her account of an attempt to “salvage” a “faltering marriage.”

And yes, the family does live in Brooklyn. And no, they don’t share a surname. And yes, the adults have availed themselves of professional counselling services.

Also, open thread.

In the comments, Mr Muldoon steers us to this girthy lady and her list of complaints:

Smaller plus-size people, please check your privilege. That includes a mid-fat like me who is FAR more privileged than folks larger than me. I’m honestly so sick of people including small fats and thinking that’s enough… and I’m sick of small fats not calling out the fact that they are the biggest people at the event/shoot/meeting or whatever it is. Fat people above a 20 exist, and we fucking matter. We deserve to be included and seen. Super fat people deserve to be included. Infini-fat people deserve to be included. Fat people of colour deserve to be included. Disabled fat people deserve to be included. We all matter too. Your body positivity isn’t shit if it doesn’t include us.

Setting aside the intersectional hierarchy of fatness – small-fat, mid-fat, super-fat and infini-fat – there is, I think, something odd about the chosen language. In woke usage, the word privilege implies arbitrariness, some random quirk of life, an attribute or circumstance unrelated to one’s own efforts or choices. As if becoming sufficiently vast to engage in fat activism, and bang on about privilege, were merely a matter of the planets aligning a certain way. As if anyone might become colossally fat spontaneously, overnight, with no warning, and through no action, or inaction, of their own. Which doesn’t sound terribly plausible. In fact, it sounds like an attempt to displace responsibility and thereby deceive.

Also, open thread. 

If you think of communication as an exercise in respect for the other, you don’t repeat yourself. Repeating yourself suggests that you’re either demented or that you just don’t care about the other person’s response; you’re prepared to override it and say the same thing again and again. There’s no way in which a chanted slogan invites an answer.

Douglas Murray and Roger Scruton discuss the future of conservatism, why the left wins the culture war, architecture, Twitter mobs, the importance of apologies, and the “institutionalised fraudulence” of woke academia.

Also, open thread.

Or, A Little Something To Cover The Emotional Wear And Tear.

Yes, it’s time to remind patrons that this rickety barge is kept afloat by the kindness of strangers. If you’d like to help it remain buoyant a while longer, and remain ad-free, there are buttons in the sidebar, right, with which to monetise any love. Debit and credit cards are accepted. For those wishing to express their love regularly, there’s a monthly subscription option top left. And if one-click haste is called for, my PalPay.Me page can be found here. Additionally, any Amazon UK shopping done via this link or the search widget top right, or for Amazon US via this link, results in a small fee for your host at no extra cost to you.

For newcomers wishing to know more about what’s been going on here for the last twelve years, in over 2,600 posts and close to 100,000 comments, the reheated series is a pretty good place to start – in particular, the end-of-year summaries. There you’ll find bulletins from the bleeding edge of academia; thrilling adventures in the world of art; the strange mental contortions of Laurie Penny; and tales of how the great outdoors – fresh air itself – is crushingly oppressive to intersectional feminists.

If you can, do take a moment to poke through the discussion threads too. The posts are intended as starting points, not full stops, and the comments are where much of the good stuff is waiting to be found. And do please join in.

As always, thanks for the support, the comments, and the company. Also, open thread.