They’re bringing us together with their intersectional piety:

Gettysburg College has postponed a painting and writing event hosted by its Gender Sexuality and Resource Centre for people who are “Tired of white cis men.” The private Pennsylvania college offered the event as part of a peace and justice, or “P&J,” senior project, but has since postponed it after it was shared online. The event, originally scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 12, told people to “come paint and write about” how they are tired of straight, white men. The pieces from the event would then be displayed in the school’s dining hall for the campus to view.

For a mere $76,000 a year, you too can receive such lofty moral instruction.

Update, via the comments:

Connor adds, “It’s like everything they say has to be reversed.”

Well, yes, frequently. It’s not obvious, for instance, how “peace” would be achieved by cultivating a pretentious and competitive disdain for one’s classmates, and for random passers-by, based on their sex and skin colour. It’s also somewhat doubtful that the supposedly oppressive and fatigue-inducing properties of any other racial demographic would be a basis for an art event at an upscale college.

But as Lionel Shriver once put it, “Progressives seem especially prone to disguising one feeling as another.” And so, a contrived, self-flattering resentment – and outright bigotry – become acts of woke piety. And students are encouraged to believe that badmouthing people based on their skin colour is a thing one does in order to bond and make friends, and to impress others and thereby become statusful.

As you can see, we have new digs. Told you I was busy.

Work is still ongoing and, inevitably, there will be things to tidy or hammer into shape. Or at least cover with a rug. If you spot anything scandalously up-buggered, do let me know. I’ll add it to the enormous list.

While I faff and tinker, and grumble about plug-ins, by all means pass the time by poking through the Reheated series.

Do make yourselves at home. And oh yes, open thread.

With my brief absence having resulted in the rending of hair and garments, it seems a good a 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 with which to monetise any love. Debit and credit cards are accepted. If one-click haste is called for, my PayPal.Me page can be found here. As requested, I’ve also added SubscribeStar and Ko-Fi accounts, via which love may also be monetised, whether as one-off donations or monthly subscriptions.

Additionally, any Amazon UK shopping done via this link, or for Amazon US via this link, or via the buttons in the sidebar, results in a small fee for your host at no extra cost to you. Feel free to buy things wildly and in bulk.

For newcomers wishing to know more about what’s been going on here for the last decade and a half, in over 3,000 posts and 150,000 comments, the reheated series is a pretty good place to start – in particular, the end-of-year summaries, which convey the fullest flavour of what it is we do. A sort of blog concentrate. If you like what you find there… well, there’s lots more of that. 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. Consider this an open thread.

Genevieve Gluck brings news from Scandinavia:

A man in Norway is sparking outrage on social media after he was sympathetically interviewed about his decision to begin identifying as a disabled woman… In the interview, [he] stated that he had always wished he had been born a woman who was paralysed from the waist down.

So not just a woman, but a woman in a wheelchair, which confers bonus points. So many intersections. So many opportunities to impose on others. The gentleman in question, Jørund Viktoria Alme, is a 53-year-old senior credit analyst for Oslo’s Handelsbanken. He is of course able-bodied, if a tad high-maintenance:

“In the same way that I experience being a woman in a man’s body, I experience that I should have been paralysed from the waist down. This is not a desire to be a burden on society. It is about the wheelchair being an aid for me to function in everyday life, both privately and at work,” Alme stated.

Unsurprisingly, many actually disabled people, whose use of wheelchairs is not recreational or a prop in some theatrical psychodrama, have aired their reservations about this new frontier in the world of make-believe identities. Among them, Noomi Alexandersen, a woman with cerebral palsy, who told Norway’s TV 2 that Mr Alme’s professed “identity” is an insult. Mr Alme, however, prefers to think of himself – an activity well-practised – as an activist of sorts, overcoming prejudice and facilitating “diversity and inclusion.” It’s all terribly selfless and heroic.

Oh wait.

As Typepad is only intermittently functional at the moment, and with some “additional maintenance” occurring this weekend, and with attempts to get anything done during that process a recipe for meltdowns and mood stabilisers, I’ll be taking a few days off. By Monday, the worst of it should be over and normal service will resume.

Until then, play nicely. Use coasters.

Oh, and remember, sometimes one person can make a difference.  

From the pages of Scary Mommy, where ladies of a progressive bent share their fever dreams,

Could Witchcraft Make You A Better Parent? Real Witches Say ‘Yes’

I suspect the word real is creaking under the strain there. Other creaking may occur during our travels. Still, the author of the piece, Annie Midori Atherton, is keen to entice us with the prospect of paranormal parenting:

As a new mom fumbling through the daily grind of work, caregiving, and what little social life I can manage to eke in, I often find myself wondering how other parents pull it off… Some days I’m so worn down… that I feel I’d need to summon supernatural energy to thrive — rather than just survive.

And so, obviously,

For a growing number of people — including many mothers — witchcraft doesn’t begin or end with Halloween. According to one scholar, the number of Americans who identify with Wicca or paganism has risen from less than 200,000 twenty ago to nearly two million today.

Uncorrected narcissism, or fears of being an uninteresting person, or both, will do that, I suppose.

More items from the archives:

She’s Seething With Empowerment.

A Guardian contributor encounters a small act of courtesy, screaming ensues.

Ms Huckeba continues, “No, you cannot open this door for me! You wouldn’t have opened it two years ago, so you damn sure can’t open it now!” “I scowled and stormed away,” says she, “completely enraged.” You see, he’s not allowed to do that – holding open the door for her – or for any woman, presumably. Because although Ms Huckeba didn’t know this polite gentleman and had never seen him before, she’s nevertheless sure of what his views on holding doors open for people must have been two years previously, back when she was fat. It’s intersectional science. And this being the Guardian, what matters is that Ms Huckeba can invoke victimhood to rationalise having behaved like a complete and utter cow.

Don’t Oppress My People With Your Big Hooped Earrings.

The pretentiously agonised, part 436.

When not struggling with oppressive punctuation, Ms Martinez spends her time fretting about the fact that she and her peers are “not taken seriously” as the radical titans they so obviously are. According to fellow umbrage-taker Jacquelyn Aguilera, who also emailed the entire campus, “winged eyeliner, lined lips, and big hoop earrings” are “an everyday act of resistance” by the brown and virtuous.

You Mustn’t Stop The Hysteria.

A Professor of Education denounces consequences for… well, pretty much anything.

Let’s call it a partial success. || Sorcery, perhaps. || Ripe and juicy. || Road manners. || Relaxing in the bosom of nature. (h/t, Tim) || For breast-fondling enthusiasts. || Our betters, being so clever, forgot to bring their own. || Suboptimal situation. || Learning curve. || Well, at least there’s lots of it. || Yes, it will be on the test. || Always respect the media. || The progressive retail experience, part 446. || Remember, this never, ever, ever happens. || Harvard student denounces “the violence of statistics.” Which ones, I wonder. || Be careful which questions you ask. || The Internet Movie Cars Database. || When you donate to Wikipedia. || The Manhattan Population Explorer. || Street vibes. || How to thread a needle. || And finally, fragrantly, the thrill of using unfamiliar towels.

You can, should you wish to, follow me on Twitter. 

And back in the world of contrived racial grievance,

Job postings and corporate ‘About Us’ pages often include a statement about the company fostering an environment where employees can bring their ‘whole selves’ to work. But how often do these claims reflect reality?

At risk of being difficult, I have questions about the premise. For one, why on God’s Fragrant Earth would an employer, or indeed their customers, want employees to drag every last piece of their personal baggage into the workplace and then inflict that inexhaustible tedium on everyone else? If, say, I’m buying groceries, I am as a rule friendly towards the person at the checkout. There’s always eye contact, a smile, and a word of appreciation. However, I rarely have the time or inclination to hear about the cashier’s extensive list of ailments or her difficulties finding a babysitter, or a lover, or a suitable shampoo. Nor do I wish to hear her views on politics. It’s not why I’m there. And ditto her.

Bringing your whole self to your job can be challenging at best and career limiting at worst, specifically for marginalized and racialized peoples.

There we go. At this point, we could, I think, just paraphrase and save a lot of time:

Self-Involvement Not Entirely Practical In The Workplace. Magic Brown People Hardest Hit.

But no. We must push on.

Meanwhile, in academia – specifically, the University of Southern California – it’s “Sex Week,” and so:

“Exploring Sensuality and Herbalism,” slated for Tuesday, will be a “virtual evening of plant-play and exploring pleasure, sensuality, and herbalism.”

If you feel an urge to make your own body oil, or herbal tea, or erotic pottery, or should you be in urgent need of a “sexuality doula” and a workshop on “pleasure and identities,” hosted by Ev’yan Whitney, an apparently famed “facilitator and sensualist”… well, your diaries should be updated.

But if anyone here starts fumbling in their pockets longer than is strictly necessary, I’m fetching the hose.

Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.