So it’s Lockdown II and The Election That Never Ends. Good times.

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

Oh, and lifted from the comments, this. 

My son needed masks that wouldn’t make him lose his shit when his favourite isn’t clean,

Yes, we’re once again visiting the pages of Scary Mommy, home of progressive parenting and assorted “empowerment.” But don’t worry, the stroppy son in question, the one losing his shit, is a juvenile, a tween, not a grown adult. Unlike his mother, Amber Leventry, who shares with us an account of a shopping expedition. It is, needless to say, a tale of sorrow and trauma:

We loaded ourselves into the van, and while getting out at our first stop, we heard horns honking and engines revving. We looked around to see if there was an old-fashioned car rally that happens in our town once in a while.

Brace yourselves, dear readers.

This was a different car rally but with people with very old-fashioned ideas about what makes America great.

You may wish to grip your chair arms as the world spirals out of control.

My queer family was witnessing a Trump parade, and would end up being stuck in the middle of it while running our errands.

Woke hell is real, people.

“Idiots,” I muttered, and became instantly angry at the pride and self-righteousness with which Trump supporters carry themselves—so much so that they organise themselves to drive through towns to wave their giant Trump flags, honk their horns, and hang out of windows to cheer for a man who breeds and encourages bigotry and violence.

Quite why supporting the current President of the United States necessarily entails being “old-fashioned” is not deemed worthy of elaboration. Nor is it clear how said incumbent “breeds and encourages bigotry and violence.” No clues are volunteered. These things simply are, apparently.

It was shocking how similar all of the people looked: white, middle-aged and older, and seemingly male.

No bigotry there, thank goodness. What with them all looking so similar and being so terribly male. Well, not quite all:

An open thread, in which to share links and bicker.

As a sweetener, I’ll include a free blessing: Should you hear the news of a second lockdown, may your hairdresser send you a late-night text asking if you’d like an unscheduled cut the very next day, before said lockdown kicks in and she has to shut up shop.

Oh, and as some of you may be shopping from home a little more than usual, please bear in mind that any Amazon UK shopping done via this link or the search widget top right, or for Amazon US via this link, results in a small fee for your host at no extra cost to you.

It helps to keep this place here.

For those in need of further diversion, the Reheated series is there to be poked at.

Goodness, that’s a big one. || Suboptimal sights. || They bend. || It turns out the Minecraft world is actually quite big. || Attempt at playful belly-rubbing not entirely successful. || Desire me now or I will call you names. || Radical appliance relocation. || Attention, shoppers – you are being watched. || Wakey-wakey. || Oh, we’ve all done it at least once. || At last, a Letraset database. || Librarian training of note. || Law and order. || The thrill of drains. (h/t, Richard Cranium) || He’s an educator, you know. || Classroom scenes. || The constellation of Orion. First one to find the Horsehead Nebula wins a beverage voucher. || Girl’s got reflexes. || A festive treat. || And finally, fiendishly, it’s perhaps a tad excessive.

Further to this and this, Max Eden reveals what “prioritising equity” actually looks like:

[T]he Ohio Department of Education kicked off this school year by promoting… its recommended “Anti-Racist Allyship Starter Pack,” a resource for social studies teachers… It’s not clear whether anyone from the ODE reviewed these articles in full before recommending them. But surely someone at least took a cursory glance at them. The ODE recommended that teachers read “How White Womens’ [sic] Tears Threaten Black Existence,” “When Feminism is White Supremacy in Heels,” and “White People Have No Culture.” Teachers were also urged to read “In Defence of Looting” and “Forget ‘Looting,’ Capitalism is the Real Robbery.” More recommended reading: “The Case for Delegitimising the Police,” “Abolish the Police?”, and “Yes, We Literally Mean Abolish the Police.” 

Ohio social studies teachers – and by extension, their students – will learn that having brown skin is some kind of accomplishment, a basis for applause and favours, unlike being white, which is apparently the opposite, a basis for atonement. In order to achieve “absolution” – and yes, that term is used in the recommended literature, with all that it implies – the “stone idol” of “whiteness” must be “smashed to pieces.” Students and educators are also informed that insofar as “white people” have any culture at all, it is merely one “of colonisation, of genocide, of taking,” in which “envy and fear” are defining features. It is, we’re assured, “the culture of death.” 

If the above suggests the outpourings of monomaniacal bedlamites with dubious intentions, the kind of people you really shouldn’t entrust with influence over your children, then you may be on to something.

Somewhat related. 

For newcomers, more items from the archives:

Artists For Gaia. 

Our betters sail north at taxpayer expense. Gas is released courageously.

Such was the level of inspiration, some of the assembled artists began to work their creative magic immediately: “Tracy Rowledge constructed three series of ‘automated’ physical drawings, mapping the movement of the boat during the expedition.” For readers of a technical inclination, these ‘automated’ drawings involved suspending a felt-tip pen from the underside of a chair, resulting in random scribble on numerous sheets of paper positioned underneath. This feat was “REALLY exciting,” we learn, as it “explored movement, time, place and permanence.” The radical innovation also freed the artist to leave the dangling pen and do something more interesting. According to her two brief blog entries, the sum total of her commentary, Ms Rowledge spent much of this liberated time struggling with Greenlandic place names and making sure her fellow passengers knew how “overwhelmed” she was. 

I Don’t Deserve This Shabby Treatment. 

On the routine vainglory of the academic left.

Professor Surber’s self-regard continues to tumesce. He has fathomed all of history and it validates him. Liberal-arts professors tend to be leftwing, we’re told, “because we liberal-arts professors… have carefully studied the actual dynamics of history and culture; and we have trained ourselves to think in complex, nuanced, and productive ways.” In short, if you haven’t reached a similarly leftwing conclusion, then you haven’t achieved sufficient complexity and nuance in your thinking, you peasant. Luckily, we can count on Professor Surber and his peers to guide us to the light, such is their benign magnificence. They may be cruelly underappreciated, but by God they’re better than us and they will save us from ourselves.

You’ll Notice They All Wear Shoes.

The unhappy sights at San Francisco’s 2012 radical nude-in:

The timeless smell of Hopkins. || Scenes. (h/t, Julia) || Construction site scenes. || The thrill of kidney stones. || In the Ningaloo Canyons. || Attention, housewives. Do not clean clothes with gasoline. (h/t, Things) || Acting in trying circumstances. || Assorted BBC sound effects. || “The masses will rally behind us.” Behind meaning beneath, of course. || Rebuttals of note. || Place your bets. (h/t, Perry) || Giant, slow-motion balloon-pose-off of note. || “Plastic hottie… professional thot.” || Feel his pain. || Poor Jenn. || How to make a zig-zag pattern. (h/t, Damian) || A map of the internet, circa 1973. || Sexy aircraft. || Today’s word is. || What she said. || And finally, obviously, it’s harder without the heels.

Further to this item here, Rafi steers us to more “equity” news, this time from the public high schools of San Francisco:

Lowell [High School] has for decades admitted students based on a score that takes into account grade-point average and test results while setting aside a limited number of spots for qualified students from underrepresented schools, making it one of the best public high schools in the country.

One of the best. And so, needless to say, something had to be done:

The admission process will now mirror that at other district high schools, with priority given to siblings… and those living in census tracts where students post low test scores. The remaining spots will be assigned randomly.

Intellectual flourishing will doubtless ensue.

The debate over what to do about the lack of traditional merit criteria divided the city, with accusations of racism and elitism after community members said the lottery system would water down Lowell’s reputation. Others expressed concern for the students who have focused on academics so they could attend the school.

A preference for academic rigour and admission by ability is “racist,” you see. Please update your files and lifestyles accordingly. Note that the board decision was “unanimous,” while the views of local parents – those directly affected – were somewhat more complicated and deemed “divisive.” Note too the implication that the feelings of those who work hard and show ability should be trumped by the feelings of those who do neither.

And related to the above, this:

An open thread, in which to share links and bicker. Oh, and here’s Dennis Prager talking to Douglas Murray about the rot of academia, the cultivation of resentment, the importance of gratitude, and the rise of childish worldviews:

Board members say the changes are part of a larger effort to combat racism.

From the schools of San Diego, some “equity” news:  

Students will no longer be graded based on a yearly average, or on how late they turn in assignments. Those are just some of the major grading changes approved this week by California’s second-largest school district… “If we’re actually going to be an anti-racist school district, we have to confront practices like this that have gone on for years and years,” says San Diego Unified School District Vice President Richard Barrera.

The practices being confronted – i.e., excluded from consideration in academic grading – include expectations of “turning work in on time” and norms of “classroom behaviour.” Abandoning such standards is, we learn, an “accountability measure.” On grounds that acknowledging tardiness, misbehaviour and a lack of diligence results in “racial imbalance,” which, in the land of the bedlamites, simply won’t do.

Student School Board Member Zachary Patterson, who is also a junior at University City High School, says while some classmates expressed concerns about grade inflation, overall the feedback from his peers is positive.  

A license to disregard normal deadlines and to be selfishly disruptive, all with academic impunity. Why, it’s convenient and morally improving. Mr Patterson, an eleventh-grader who deploys the word inequities with dutiful enthusiasm, informs us, “Students all across the district are excited about this.”

After Patterson expressed concerns at this week’s meeting, the board will also review potential student disparities stemming from its zero-tolerance disciplinary policy on cheating in the coming weeks.

You see, expecting students to meet basic standards of behaviour, punctuality – and, it seems, probity – is “not fair,” according to SDUSD Vice President Richard Barrera, who adds that the new policy is – and I quote – “an honest reckoning.” An intriguing choice of words.

Update, via Rafi in the comments:

And in other “equity” news.