An open thread, that is. Now share links and bicker ye. I have things to do. I will, however, set the ball rolling with, via Damian, a polite notice of note, and some festive bathroom scenes. 

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

Mr Roy G Guzmán, whose tweet appears below, describes himself as “a marginalised writer,” and an “artist and influencer,” thereby signalling to lower beings both his suffering and his modesty. He’s also, it seems, a tad sensitive:

Note the gratuitous use of white woman. Perhaps that tells us something about Mr Guzmán’s poetic soul. A sample of Mr Guzmán’s creative output, titled Queerodactyl, is reproduced in full below. But before we venture further, you may wish to grip the arms of your chair:

Grocery order substitution of note. || He does this better than you do. || Banana harvest of note. || 72 hours of Sherlock Holmes adventures, as read by Stephen Fry. || She makes miniatures. || “This unit will work with any make of car.” || Today’s word is calligraphy. || “Too much news coverage feels like commentary.” || Comedy night conditions of note. || Inclusivity. || The Christmas spirit. (h/t, Obo) || A Guardian Christmas. || Chuchel is a game. (h/t, sH2) || A guide to dimensions. || Hardcore. || A compendium of archaic sounds. || The Internet Boy-Band Database. || Motherhood. || Wings. || You want one and you know it. || And finally, when the road to Instagram stardom is rockier than anticipated.

“Everyone deserves 8 hours of sleep,” say Georgia Tech’s branch of the Young Democratic Socialists of America.

Apparently, the students are struggling to reconcile their academic obligations with the need for rest, expectations of free time – eight hours of it each day – and their own socialist activism. And perhaps the students have a point. Socialism is tiring, what with the protests and psychodrama, and the relentless, almost daily, issuing of demands. In this case, our fatigued intellectuals “reject the hostile culture and severe working conditions that pervade Georgia Tech,” and a curriculum that is, they say, “far more difficult and demanding than is necessary.” “All professors,” we’re told, should “implement stress-reducing policies,” including allowing more absences from class without consequence, dropping quizzes and assignments, and generally making lessons “more forgiving.”

The Young Socialists also insist that the university hire more counsellors and psychiatrists, with fees for psychiatric appointments being “eliminated.” “We need more relief from the… emotional burdens of higher education,” say these warriors of tomorrow.

When I became an anarchist, I was 18, depressed, anxious, and ready to save the world. I moved in with other anarchists and worked at a vegetarian co-op cafe. I protested against student tuition, prison privatisation, and pipeline extensions. I had lawyer’s numbers sharpied on my ankle and I assisted friends who were pepper-sprayed at demos. I tabled zines, lived with my “chosen family,” and performed slam poems about the end of the world. 

In the pages of Quillette, Conor Barnes, a woke apostate, recounts his time among sad radicals: 

Radical communities select for particular personality types… They attract hurt people, looking for an explanation for the pain they’ve endured… However, radical communities also attract people looking for an excuse to be violent illegalists. And the surplus of vulnerable people attracts sadists and abusers ready to exploit them. The only gate-keeping that goes on in radical communities is that of language and passion—if you can rail against capitalism in woke language, you’re in…

Abusers thrive in radical communities because radical norms are fragile and exploitable. A culture of freewheeling drug and alcohol use creates situations predators are waiting to exploit. A cultural fetishization of violence provides cover for violent and unstable people. The practice of public “call-outs” is used for power-plays far more often than for constructive feedback… Having somebody yell at me that if I didn’t admit to being a white supremacist her friends might beat me up, and that I should pay her for her emotional labour, was too much for my ideology to spin.

You can imagine my surprise.

Update, via the comments: