Attention, heterosexuals. The way you self-identify is, it turns out, terribly oppressive:

A Wheel Of Innate Sin For Which You Must Atone. Hours of fun. And that question-begging fatuousness won’t be internalised without a little prompting.

Following the complaint, Mr Golash has replied that his disapproval of the term straight was directed at the entire class, not a particular individual, and is therefore merely a matter of encouraging “reflection” on the part of heterosexual students. Specifically,

Should any gay readers have been rendered tearful and downtrodden by an utterance of the word straight, as Mr Golash would have us believe, do feel free to share your harrowing tales in the comments below. Sad music can be added for a small fee.

And so, according to Mr Golash, we will march towards a shining tomorrow via cultivated neuroticism – fretting about the allegedly wounding properties of the word straight – and by telling heterosexual male students that they are merely a “product of the patriarchy that teaches young boys not to care.” Because, unlike the word straight, that’s not insulting at all, apparently.

The claim that straight male students are the hapless dupes of some nebulous yet diabolical and all-pervasive force is not disputed by Mr Golash. And it remains unclear whether all this caring and reflection should extend to being concerned by the dogmatic overreach of an activist high school teacher – an avowed communist and Antifa-booster who uses the classroom to champion Hamas – and who punishes students for their unfashionable honesty. On which, more in a moment.

It’s perhaps worth mentioning that the term straight – meaning heterosexual or sexually conventional – is generally thought to have its origins in gay American slang of the 1940s. Which is to say, it was a favoured in-group term used by some gay people, and often used sarcastically.

If doubt remains as which party may be in need of “reflection,” I should also probably mention our educator’s hair.

And more seriously, this:

You see, if students are presented with the statement “Only women can get pregnant,” and then fail to tick the word “false,” this is a basis for an ‘F’. And any attempt by a student to defend their answer – say, by referring to observable reality – will be construed by Mr Golash as disruptive behaviour and a basis for further scolding.

And so,

Quite right, madam. Though other, perhaps more obvious candidates for removal may come to mind.

Previously in the world of neurotic word-policing.

Come, dear reader. Let us visit the publication now laughingly referred to as Scientific American. In particular, an “analysis” piece by Juan P Madrid, in which we’re told,

Dr Madrid, an assistant professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, begins his attempt to persuade with a tale of poetic drama:

I know. The very stuff of amazement. Brings a tear to the eye.

Apparently, the word collision is, for Dr Madrid, much too brutal and masculine when referring to the unstoppable convergence of two galaxies, and the ultimate merging of the supermassive black holes at their centres – an event that will entail the sling-shotting of countless stars and their orbiting planets, and which may release energy equivalent to around 100 million supernova explosions, and subsequently be detectable halfway across the universe.

A mere hug, you see. All that kindness.

Here, Dr Madrid’s own use of language – specifically, the word reconsider – is somewhat misleading and just a little coy. The reconsidering he has in mind would of course be enforced by those suitably enlightened, much like the author himself – as hinted at with enthusiasm later in the piece:

So, not so much a reconsidering, then, as a coerced neuroticism. A mandatory affectation, on which career progress may very much depend. But hey, where’s the fun in being a pretentious and neurotic scold if you don’t have the power to make others jump through hoops?

And so, when not detecting neutron stars and gravitational waves, astronomers will be expected to submit their findings to someone of “a different gender or ethnicity” to sift out any language that may conceivably cause distress to those determined to seek it out. “This type of conscious engagement,” we’re assured, “can only be beneficial.” And not, say, a farcical waste of time that’s better spent elsewhere.

Terms deemed “needlessly vicious,” and which render Dr Madrid indignant and reaching for tissues, include cannibalism, harassment, starvation, strangulation, stripping and suffocation:

It’s all terribly oppressive – for the implausibly faint of heart, I mean. And should a colleague carelessly refer to a planet being stripped of its ozone layer by a catastrophic gamma-ray burst, this is obviously “misogynistic language” and a basis for the sternest of hands-on-hips chiding.

Given the unequal distribution of interest, aptitude, and cognitive wherewithal, one might wonder why. Alas, as so often, the mystery persists.

The implication being that hearing an occasional use of the word cannibalism or stripping in reference to astronomical phenomena will somehow, in ways never quite specified, deflect an otherwise promising astronomer from their calling, despite an uncommon focus and years of study. Because female astronomers, and brown astronomers, and especially female brown astronomers, are so immensely delicate and likely to be traumatised by such descriptive terms.

At which point, readers may wish to ponder whether the best people to be doing astronomy, or teaching astronomy, or to be making workplace rules for astronomers, are the kinds of people who mouth dogmatic assertions without any trace of supporting logic, and who are distracted, even distressed, by hearing the word collision being used to describe a collision.

The strange trajectory of Scientific American has been mentioned here before.

Update:

Before anyone quibbles, the phrase “halfway across the universe” is merely a figure of speech. The actual estimate for how far away the gravitational waves could be detected by beings with technology comparable to our own is 3.25 million light years. So, for a hug, plenty of oomph.

Via Darleen, in the comments. Which you’re reading, of course.

In politically-charged fashion news:

Why yes, since you ask, I am reading the Guardian. Specifically, a piece by Mr Phineas Harper:

Possibly because it tends to look contrived and rather silly, even when celebrities do it. A contrivance that suggests, not so much a high-minded “dismantling” of “gendered fashion,” or “a small step towards gender equality,” as Mr Harper would have us believe, but something closer to tedious self-absorption. The kind of thing one might expect from a disingenuous, noodle-legged Guardian columnist, say. But apparently, this craving for attention, for being the skirt-wearing star of any social gathering, will somehow liberate British women from their supposedly grim, downtrodden existence.

Those of you with an urge to behold Mr Harper in a skirt – complete with tights, trainers, and dickie bow – can do so here. A second ensemble, featuring a bold leaf print, also awaits your applause. Readers are welcome to say whether the word panache – favoured by Mr Harper – is one that comes to mind. Though it occurs to me that the author’s own carefully curated fashion statements rather solve any mystery as to why said garment hasn’t been widely adopted by the menfolk of the nation.

Despite this setback, further attempts are made to entice male Guardian readers into the realm of “floaty Toast midi skirt combos,” including:

Because every man, in every household across these islands, wants to be complimented on his skirt.

And,

Or perhaps the thing being signalled is something else entirely. Like insufferable twattery.

We have, I fear, been neglecting the arts and their uplifting tendency. Let’s correct that immediately and thereby better ourselves:

How kind.

Now feast thine eyes upon it:

I know. You’re positively trembling with aesthetic rapture.

According to the artist, and the Turner Prize judges, what we, the public, need, and indeed deserve, is a seemingly random arrangement of tape, net curtains, and metal crash barriers, thereby conveying “a familiar yet delirious world,” and an allegedly “hostile” immigration policy, while “invoking societal breakdown,” and “unsettling perceived notions of labour, class, Britishness and power.” It’s “bold” and “engaging,” you see. The Telegraph’s art critic, Alastair Sooke, preferred the term “sculpturally compelling.”

And clearly, the stuff of a good day out. Definitely worth the bus fare.

Sharp-eyed readers may notice another possible reason for the artist’s gushing reception among our betters. The artist’s identity, or pretend-identity, being so terribly in right now, and by default deserving.

Update, via the comments:

Regarding that allegedly “hostile” immigration policy, the number of net legal migrants for the past year has been the highest recorded, several times the level of three years ago, and is somewhere around 700,000. This figure is likely to be revised upwards, of course, as with previous years’ figures on immigration.

700,000 is equivalent to the entire population of Sheffield, by the way.

But hey, let’s ignore such minor details and defer instead to our artistic Brahmin, all busy telling us how it is.

We’re told by Katie Razzall, the BBC’s culture editor, that the prize-winning art, or pretend-art, “tackles nationhood and British identity,” and that the offering is “a cut above” the other entries. It is, says the BBC’s arts reporter Ian Youngs, “making a comment on modern British life.”

Well, it seems to me that if we are in “times of crisis” and civilisational decline – and civilisational dismay – then much of that may be a consequence of the politics and mentality of those who applaud piles of tat as the best that can be done, the peak of human creativity. And who expect the rest of us to pretend along with them.

And because I like to spoil you, here’s another colossal work by the same dysmorphic individual:

What’s wearying is that these things are so numerous and predictable, so uniform, as if the mentally interchangeable peddlers of such things were following the same ideologically acceptable template. The end result being dutifully banal and artless, devoid of any obvious aesthetic, or any discernible skill with tools and materials, and then justified with some equally hackneyed and preposterous political blather.

It is, as they say, all so tiresome.

Oh, it’s a “critique of consumerism,” before you ask.

Attention, dear readers. I bring you a chance to participate in a cosmic drama, to facilitate utopia. A godless heaven here on Earth. Specifically, do you know of any “artists and visionaries,” or people “good at spreadsheets”? Because there may be a job going, come the revolution:

This comrade who is studying to become a teacher says that a revolution is ready to happen in America. She provides a lengthy to-do list for the revolution. On that list is daycare and historians, “who can help us understand what has happened and what's going to happen.” pic.twitter.com/2uRDlq75we

— Inside The Classroom (@EITC_Official) November 26, 2023

I’m guessing the revolutionary catering is already taken care of.