THOMPSON, blog.
THOMPSON, blog. - Marvel at the mental contortions of our self-imagined betters.

Slide THOMPSON, blog Poking the pathology since 2007
  • thompson, blog
  • Reheated
  • X
  • Email
Browsing Category
Politics
Anthropology Politics You Can't Afford My Radical Life

Countermeasures

July 20, 2023 66 Comments

Lifted from the comments, which you’re reading of course – Just Stop Oil loons encounter rival group Just Stop Pissing Everyone Off:

🚨 | BREAKING: Just Stop Oil protestors have been surrounded by “Just Stop Pissing Everyone Off” protestors – preventing them from marching in the road pic.twitter.com/nyZy7qqbFv

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) July 20, 2023

Update, via the comments:

Note the conceit, aired via bullhorn, that their ‘protests’ – physically obstructing thousands of people, including emergency vehicles, for hours, and doing it over and over again – are “peaceful,” benign, and terribly high-minded.

From here, it looks more like a narcissist’s power game, a kind of recreational sociopathy. I mean, if someone gets their jollies from screwing over random people and watching their victims’ exasperation and pleading – if that’s what makes our mighty warriors feel powerful and important – then the term recreational sociopathy doesn’t seem inapt.

And if someone’s idea of being caring and morally superior is to vandalise an art gallery, or to gleefully pour large quantities of oil across a road – an act morally analogous to sabotaging the brakes on random cars and motorbikes – then some questioning of their motives, and of the kinds of people they are, does seem in order.

Continue reading
Reading time: 1 min
Written by: David
Academia Anthropology Politics Pregnancy

Elsewhere (319)

July 18, 2023 142 Comments

Jennifer Lahl and Kallie Fell on “queered” health care:

The resulting effects… include… an unsettling disregard for biological sex as an important variable in both medical research and patient care. Instead, the new radical movement favours categorising individuals based on their self-identified and medically irrelevant “gender identity.”

A provocative new paper in the journal Qualitative Research in Health titled “Medical uncertainty and reproduction of the ‘normal’: Decision-making around testosterone therapy in transgender pregnancy” by Pfeffer and colleagues propels us further down the road of medical malpractice.

The authors, a group of transgender sociologists and enthusiasts, and healthcare activists, with not one medical degree among them, argue to dramatically move the goal posts of medical ethics, choosing to completely disregard the health, safety, and well-being of the developing foetus, all in the name of “trans” inclusion…

The authors argue that “gendered” pregnancy care is too focused on helping women have healthy babies, and that it might be okay for transmen to continue taking testosterone during pregnancy despite the known health risks to the foetus and effects on its normal development. The desire for “normal foetal outcomes,” according to the authors, is rooted in a problematic desire “to protect their offspring from becoming anything other than ‘normal’” and “reflect historical and ongoing social practices for creating ‘ideal’ and normative bodies.”

This is, quite frankly, insane.

Ah, but “highly gendered” and “offspring-focussed” health care – for pregnant women and their babies – makes it “challenging” for sexually dysmorphic women who wish to be perceived as men, even while heavily pregnant. In short, “Screw the wellbeing of the baby, the inhibited lactation, and the risk of serious birth defects. Just jack me up on testosterone and refer to me as Sir.”

I paraphrase, of course. But nowhere near as much as one might hope.

Somewhat related, Heather Mac Donald on fads, transgenderism, and defaults:

Announcing a trans identity gives young people the thing that they most crave: the ability to subjugate others to their will, in this case, via their pronouns and all that those pronouns entail.

A phenomenon doubtless familiar to regular readers.

And Noah Carl on the unspeakable:

Everything in that paragraph is true. In fact, I would characterise it as a qualified summary of the state of our knowledge…. No serious intelligence researcher would dispute any of this.

But of course, in the Current Year, you can’t simply state certain facts about race and expect to keep your job. How naive of [chemistry professor, John] Sherman to assume that you could discuss such things at a university… If Sherman wanted to broach the subject of race and IQ, he should have picked a location more conducive to free inquiry – like a warehouse or a bus stop.

Feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.

 

Continue reading
Reading time: 2 min
Written by: David
Politics Pronouns Or Else Psychodrama

Just Let Me Check Who I Am

July 5, 2023 92 Comments

From the Telegraph, the thrill of modern high-street banking:

NatWest allows staff to identify as men and women on different days. The bank offers double-sided lanyards to non-binary employees so they can alternate between personas when they please.

If your eyebrows have even twitched ever so slightly, you’re a very bad person.

Because the above is part of an “LGBT-friendly diversity measure,” endorsed by Stonewall, and is therefore beyond reproach. Indeed, it’s the very measure of moral sophistication. The cutting edge of corrected thought. And employees who aren’t sure who or what they are at any given time must be encouraged to enact their “masculine and feminine” personas according to mood and medication.

Hence the double-sided lanyards, obviously.

It’s not just a matter of lanyards, of course:

In addition, workers have been able to display their preferred pronouns and phonetic spellings of their names on environmentally-friendly bamboo badges.

Oh shiny tomorrow.

Employees have also been trained in “how to confront non-inclusive behaviours.” Which I’m assuming includes customers whose eyebrows are not yet under control.

We have, needless to say, been here before:

Stonewall is urging employers to let staff have two email addresses to swap gender identities on different days, the Telegraph can reveal.

Because “gender fluid” and “bigender” employees should have “multiple pass-cards with different forms of gender expression or linked email accounts / intranet accounts with different names and photos.” You see, “workplace equality” will apparently be enhanced by enabling “non-binary employees to have their identities recognised on all employee-facing workplace systems.”

And by introducing confusion and farce into the workplace, along with security complications and a kind of obligatory collective pretension. Such that employees may be unsure of which make-believe “identity” a colleague is inhabiting on any given day and, consequently, which email address to use in order to avoid complaints or claims of being oppressed.

But hey, banking and mental illness, together at last.

Continue reading
Reading time: 1 min
Written by: David
Academia Media Politics

Turns Out This Thing Is Interactive

May 24, 2023 69 Comments

From the comments, some items you may have missed. We’ll kick things off with some kicking off, care of commenter Mr Farnsworth M Muldoon:

Move along now, nothing to see here, just an adjunct professor with a machete chasing a reporter down the street.

Curious how when you hear of yet another educator being intolerant, childish, or wildly unhinged, you don’t need to ask what their politics might be.

Speaking of unhinged:

REPORT: Ron DeSantis Will Formally Announce His 2024 Bid With Elon Musk, Because Apparently David Duke Wasn’t Available.

After many months of refusing to confirm what so many people already suspected, Ron DeSantis will reportedly announce on Wednesday that he is running for president. And that’s not all: He is said to be planning to formally jump into the 2024 race during a conversation on Twitter with Elon Musk, because apparently other neo-Nazi sympathizers weren’t available.

When you get your news from Vanity Fair.

Found via Flappr.

And with near-telepathic simultaneity:

Twitter Is A Far-Right Social Network. 

You see, Twitter has “fully assumed the role of a far-right platform.” “It is,” says The Atlantic, “accurate to call [Elon Musk] a far-right activist.”

It can no longer be denied. 

Remember, dear readers, always respect the media.

Oh, and because I do like quoting myself, we revisited the moral pretensions of Guardian columnist Zoe Williams:

The abandonment of distinctions between the unfortunate and the merely verminous is a phenomenon we’ve seen before. As when the Guardian’s Zoe Williams wanted us to believe that the problem with ‘problem families’ is simply that they’re poor, and nothing whatsoever to do with how they choose to abuse their equally poor neighbours. And so attempts to deal with people who repeatedly play loud music at 3am or throw pets from top floor windows are framed as a “demonization of the poor” and “trying to shunt people out of society for not being rich enough.”

According to Zoe, we should be “unstigmatising,” which is to say, non-judgmental. A result of which is that empathy, or feigned empathy, is shifted from the working class victim of crime and antisocial behaviour to the working class perpetrator of crime and antisocial behaviour, on grounds that the thug or criminal is in some way being oppressed and, unlike their neighbours, being made to misbehave.

Presumably Ms Williams’ own neighbours have little in common with, say, the delightful Stuart Murgatroyd, a father of twelve who has never worked and boasts an extensive criminal record, not least for robbing the elderly in graveyards, and whose attempt to challenge an antisocial behaviour order was cut short at the very last minute due to him being arrested for assaulting the mother of his children, herself a convicted getaway driver, on the steps of the courthouse.

And I suspect our infinitely compassionate Guardianista has yet to experience an all-night eleven-hour rave being hosted next door, which would doubtless give her an opportunity to practise that non-judgmental piety.

See? If you poke about, you never know what you’ll find.

Continue reading
Reading time: 2 min
Written by: David
Anthropology Free-For-All Politics

The Pain Of Being Polly

May 22, 2023 55 Comments

Speaking, as we were, of the Guardian’s imperious opinionator Polly Toynbee, madam’s latest outpouring finds her reflecting – if that’s quite the right word – on the burden of her own elevated status. The woes, as it were, of the upper-and-upper-middle-class socialist:

In each generation my family were forever locked in combat with the perpetual old enemy, the forces of conservatism. But to live a well-heeled life on the left is to live with inevitable hypocrisy and painful self-awareness, with good intentions always destined to fall short of ideals, social concern never enough, struggling to be good but inevitably never good enough. I hunted hard for any redeeming twig of a working-class branch of my family tree, 

Wait for it.

without success. 

Update, via the comments:

We’re also told that, as a child, Dear Polly “envied” her much poorer friends, with their “cheerful,” noisy, and rather small dwellings, which had “ever-open front doors.” Though, alas,

They never asked me in.

As a way to conjure gravitas and fish for sympathy, it’s a bold approach.

The point of the piece quoted above, a long and rambling extract from Ms Toynbee’s forthcoming memoir, is far from clear – as is Polly’s way. However, the gist seems to be that class is a terrible, terrible thing, and that our author, a descendant of the Ninth Earl of Carlisle, and whose life is cushioned by multiple homes, here and overseas, and a well-into-six-figure income, is every bit as much a victim of it. What with her fretting so much.

For brevity’s sake, I’ll attempt to paraphrase: ‘I have never known, and will never know, anything approaching poverty. My lack of diligence, or indeed competence, has never been a significant setback, on account of my class and privilege. Therefore, you should listen to me and do exactly as I say.’

Again, bold. Must be that “painful self-awareness.”

In the comments, further thoughts occur.

Update 2:

Regarding Polly’s purported envy of the humble and downtrodden, Mike D asks,

Peak Guardian? Is that possible?

Which reminded me of the reliably ludicrous George Monbiot, a man who agonises over the “isolating” effects of disposable income, double glazing, and TV remote controls, and who believes that we – thee and me – should imitate the peasants of southern Ethiopia, where homes are made of leaves and packing cases, and where, despite Stone Age sanitation and alarming child mortality, “the fields crackle with laughter.”

For Dear Polly, mingling with the working class is somewhat similar, I should think.

Oh, and Mr Monbiot, lest we forget, was schooled at Stowe, an imposing boarding school in Buckinghamshire, where annual fees are a mere £36,000.

At which point, readers may discern the makings of a pattern.

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

Continue reading
Reading time: 2 min
Written by: David
Page 11 of 285« First...«10111213»203040...Last »

Blog Preservation Fund




Subscribestar Amazon UK
Support this Blog
Donate via QR Code

RECENT POSTS

  • Friday Ephemera (782)
  • Reheated (113)
  • Friday Ephemera (781)
  • Some Big Boys Made Me Do It
  • He Saw It Through A Different Lens, You Know

Recent Comments

  • pst314 on Friday Ephemera (782) Aug 29, 02:32
  • pst314 on Friday Ephemera (782) Aug 29, 01:22
  • Ted S., Catskill Mtns, NY, USA on Friday Ephemera (782) Aug 29, 01:17
  • pst314 on Friday Ephemera (782) Aug 29, 00:55
  • aelfheld on Friday Ephemera (782) Aug 29, 00:52
  • pst314 on Friday Ephemera (782) Aug 29, 00:51
  • pst314 on Friday Ephemera (782) Aug 29, 00:50
  • pst314 on Friday Ephemera (782) Aug 29, 00:41
  • pst314 on Friday Ephemera (782) Aug 29, 00:39
  • aelfheld on Friday Ephemera (782) Aug 29, 00:38

SEARCH

Archives

Archive by year

Interesting Sites

Blogroll

Categories

  • Academia
  • Agonies of the Left
  • AI
  • And Then It Caught Fire
  • Anthropology
  • Architecture
  • Armed Forces
  • Arse-Chafing Tedium
  • Art
  • ASMR
  • Auto-Erotic Radicalism
  • Basking
  • Bees
  • Behold My Anus
  • Behold My Massive Breasts
  • Behold My Massive Lobes
  • Beware the Brown Rain
  • Big Hooped Earrings
  • Bionic Lingerie
  • Blogs
  • Books
  • Bra Drama
  • Bra Hygiene
  • Cannabis
  • Classic Sentences
  • Collective Toilet Management
  • Comics
  • Culture
  • Current Affairs
  • Dating Decisions
  • Dental Hygiene's Racial Subtext
  • Department of Irony
  • Dickensian Woes
  • Did You Not See My Earrings?
  • Emotional Support Guinea Pigs
  • Emotional Support Water Bottles
  • Engineering
  • Ephemera
  • Erotic Pottery
  • Farmyard Erotica
  • Feats
  • Feminist Comedy
  • Feminist Dating
  • Feminist Fun Times
  • Feminist Poetry Slam
  • Feminist Pornography
  • Feminist Snow Ploughing
  • Feminist Witchcraft
  • Film
  • Food and Drink
  • Free-For-All
  • Games
  • Gardening's Racial Subtext
  • Gentrification
  • Giant Vaginas
  • Great Hustles of Our Time
  • Greatest Hits
  • Hair
  • His Pretty Nails
  • History
  • Housekeeping
  • Hubris Meets Nemesis
  • Ideas
  • If You Build It
  • Imagination Must Be Punished
  • Inadequate Towels
  • Indignant Replies
  • Interviews
  • Intimate Waxing
  • Juxtapositions
  • Media
  • Mischief
  • Modern Savagery
  • Music
  • Niche Pornography
  • Not Often Seen
  • Oppressive Towels
  • Parenting
  • Policing
  • Political Nipples
  • Politics
  • Postmodernism
  • Pregnancy
  • Presidential Genitals
  • Problematic Acceptance
  • Problematic Baby Bouncing
  • Problematic Bookshelves
  • Problematic Bra Marketing
  • Problematic Checkout Assistants
  • Problematic Civility
  • Problematic Cleaning
  • Problematic Competence
  • Problematic Crosswords
  • Problematic Cycling
  • Problematic Drama
  • Problematic Fairness
  • Problematic Fitness
  • Problematic Furniture
  • Problematic Height
  • Problematic Monkeys
  • Problematic Motion
  • Problematic Neighbourliness
  • Problematic Ownership
  • Problematic Pallor
  • Problematic Parties
  • Problematic Pasta
  • Problematic Plumbers
  • Problematic Punctuality
  • Problematic Questions
  • Problematic Reproduction
  • Problematic Shoes
  • Problematic Taxidermy
  • Problematic Toilets
  • Problematic Walking
  • Problematic Wedding Photos
  • Pronouns Or Else
  • Psychodrama
  • Radical Bowel Movements
  • Radical Bra Abandonment
  • Radical Ceramics
  • Radical Dirt Relocation
  • Reheated
  • Religion
  • Reversed GIFs
  • Science
  • Shakedowns
  • Some Fraction Of A Sausage
  • Sports
  • Stalking Mishaps
  • Student Narcolepsy
  • Suburban Polygamist Ninjas
  • Suburbia
  • Technology
  • Television
  • The Deep Wisdom of Celebrities
  • The Genitals Of Tomorrow
  • The Gods, They Mock Us
  • The Great Outdoors
  • The Politics of Buttocks
  • The Thrill of Décor
  • The Thrill Of Endless Noise
  • The Thrill of Friction
  • The Thrill of Garbage
  • The Thrill Of Glitter
  • The Thrill of Hand Dryers
  • The Thrill of Medicine
  • The Thrill Of Powdered Cheese
  • The Thrill Of Seating
  • The Thrill Of Shopping
  • The Thrill Of Toes
  • The Thrill Of Unemployment
  • The Thrill of Wind
  • The Thrill Of Woke Retailing
  • The Thrill Of Women's Shoes
  • The Thrill of Yarn
  • The Year That Was
  • Those Lying Bastards
  • Those Poor Darling Armed Robbers
  • Those Poor Darling Burglars
  • Those Poor Darling Carjackers
  • Those Poor Darling Fare Dodgers
  • Those Poor Darling Looters
  • Those Poor Darling Muggers
  • Those Poor Darling Paedophiles
  • Those Poor Darling Sex Offenders
  • Those Poor Darling Shoplifters
  • Those Poor Darling Stabby Types
  • Those Poor Darling Thieves
  • Tomorrow’s Products Today
  • Toys
  • Travel
  • Tree Licking
  • TV
  • Uncategorized
  • Unreturnable Crutches
  • Wigs
  • You Can't Afford My Radical Life

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

In which we marvel at the mental contortions of our self-imagined betters.