Because I’ve been assured that making your own is always more satisfying. I’ll set the ball rolling with, via Damian, some scenes of human cunning; a search tool for film stills; life skills for ladies; a brief history of ketchup; a museum of antiquated electronic games; and, via Elephants Gerald, the thrill of Lego gear ratios. 

Oh, and this, it seems, is a thing that exists.

The word has done incredible damage to my body.

In the pages of Slate, Emily Duke, a woman who “loves carbohydrates,” shares her sorrows as a professional person of girth:

When New York state announced that Phase 1B of vaccinations would include those who are “obese” or “severely obese,” I knew I would qualify. My heart sank into my stomach. I am fat. I am a fat activist. Like a lot of larger-bodied people, I have embraced the word fat. Doing so allows me to buy clothes that fit, rather than those that could fit if I changed. 

The last three words of that sentence are perhaps worth keeping in mind.

It allows me to exist.

Which, we’re to assume, the word obese does not. It being less fluffy. With the power to send a fat woman into an emotional tailspin. 

Among all the radical self-love coffee mugs I’ve seen, “I love being obese” has never been one of them. The word obese elicits an unparalleled grief in me. 

Well, recognition can do that, especially if belated and previously avoided. And incidentally, if your world is one in which “radical self-love coffee mugs” feature prominently, I’d suggest something may be awry.

When I heard the [vaccination] announcement I had been waiting for, I spent three hours in the grocery store trying to figure out what I “should” have for dinner that night.

Three hours. One might call that a telling preoccupation. Ms Duke then detours, at length, into recollections of being in therapy, parental divorce, the “trauma” of dieting, and the woes of being told she is an “emotional eater.” 

When I heard the good news about my eligibility for the vaccine… I panicked that I was a bad fat activist. I felt like I was just one weigh-in away from losing my chosen identity because I can’t face a number on a scale… I’d need to know my BMI to ensure I qualified, and I wasn’t sure if I could handle it.

No emotional issues there, thank goodness.

Frances Widdowson on the “indigenised” Canadian university, where pretending is everything:  

In 2018, one of the co-directors at my university’s Office of Academic Indigenisation invited an Indigenous elder to give a presentation on “Western Medicine vs. Traditional Healing Medicine.” A member of the audience asked the elder what he recommended for the “gut problems” afflicting her child. In response, the elder stated that the parent should “rub corn pollen on his feet and do a sunrise ceremony.” A number of professors in the Faculty of Science and Technology attending the session acknowledged afterwards that this example of “traditional healing medicine” was completely inconsistent with evidence-based scientific medical techniques (as seems obvious, even to those of us who aren’t doctors). But they remained silent at the event, as did everyone else, out of “respect.”

Not quite the right word, I think.

Readers will note that the beneficiary of this “respect” is the peddler of primitive woo, the one being deferred to as a quasi-magical being, some kind of leprechaun. Not the mother whose child was in need of medical attention. I am, of course, assuming that gastro-intestinal ailments won’t actually be cured by rubbing corn pollen on your feet. But such are progressive priorities. There’s much more to chew, and some noteworthy contortions are performed, so do peruse the whole thing. It does rather convey the unhinged, neurotic atmosphere of woke academia. There are also other gifts of aboriginal piety and “indigenous knowledge.” For instance,

[A]t the University of Winnipeg in 2015… presiding Indigenous elders declared that it was in keeping with their traditions that women in attendance should wear long skirts. (Two years earlier, at the University of Saskatchewan, a poster promoting a similar event instructed women to skip the ceremony if they were menstruating.)

And,

[W]hen I attended an “Empowering Indigenisation Symposium” a few months later, an elder said that his “knowledge” included the belief that trees come out of dormancy in the spring because birds sing to them.

Please update your files and lifestyles accordingly.

Somewhat related: Guardian columnist denounces Western medicine as “outdated,” champions use of bush dung.

Via Nikw211.

Just let the A.I. enhance your doodles.   

Consider this an open thread, in which to share links and bicker.

“A lacquer fixative sees that it doesn’t sag.” || He does this at least as well as you would. || I struggle to understand modern music. || At last, amplified squirrels. (h/t, Damian) || Meanwhile, in Essex. || Practically flirtatious with a criminal mastermind. || Merry old London town. (h/t, Holborn) || London’s alleys and passages. (h/t, Things) || The dance they do. || Nicely done, but good question. || Aqueduct of note. || The thrill of Icelandic quiz shows. || Um. || Things you’ll find on a lesbian dating app. || For big earrings. || A little build-up. || Place your bets. || His beef wellingtons are fancier than yours. || Coffee foam. || Fifteen seconds of art. || And finally, festively, it seemed such a good idea at the time.