Oh, I think you’ll find it is. 

Also, open thread. Because I’m generous that way.

Back yard scenes. (h/t, Holborn) || Synchronised boobies. || Hey, baby. || Being proud, they filmed it. || “Grandma always wanted a pig.” || Twitter indignation. || Twitter done well. || Dental nerves. || He does this better than you do. || Documentary idea of note. (h/t, Damian) || Unmix your music. Not there, but not bad. || Always respect the media. || Teachable moment. || Teachable moment 2. || The longest sight-line? || Unexpectedly. || New shoes, I see. || On Soviet cannibalism. || “I heard about McDonald’s never decaying so I wanted to find out whether this was true.” || Underclass scenes. || Everything wrong with The Shining. || And finally, if you laugh at this, you’re a terrible, terrible person.

Currently, 17 percent of American homeowners have a smart video surveillance device, and unit sales are expected to double by 2023… The popularity of these devices has led to the “porch pirate gotcha” film genre, a sort of America’s Funniest Home Videos of petty crime.

In the pages of The Atlantic, our sympathies are solicited. Though not for the people being robbed, of course:

The first time Ganave Fairley got busted for stealing a neighbour’s Amazon package, she was just another porch thief unlucky to be caught on tape.

The words first time and unlucky should perhaps be borne in mind.

The deliveries that were dropped daily on her neighbours’ porches caught her attention. At that point, she didn’t know about the cameras or [neighbourhood watch app] Nextdoor. In the months that followed, the police would find a cache of the neighbours’ belongings and mail in her possession… Her sister told me that Fairley generally sold the packages “for a little bit of nothing, just to get high.”

I sense that some of you may not be feeling overly sympathetic.

Ms Fairley – who invokes racism as a cause of her local notoriety, and whose extensive cache of stolen belongings included other people’s credit cards – is described to us at length and in the softest possible light. We learn of her dysfunctional upbringing, her struggles with a mouldy apartment, and her various drug habits, including “trekking daily to a methadone clinic” – a heroic feat, apparently. Ms Fairley’s failure to attend numerous court dates – for petty theft, mail theft, receiving stolen property, possession of heroin, and child endangerment – is, we learn, due to her having “a lot going on” in her life. In at least one instance, it turns out that what was going on was stealing from a resident she’d previously targeted and who, while being robbed again, was waiting to see Ms Fairley appear in court.

The fact that Ms Fairley is gay is mentioned too, as if that were somehow relevant or an explanation for credit card fraud and chronic thieving. We’re also told, touchingly, that she has “family members’ names tattooed on her neck.”

Lifted from the comments – two items, not unrelated.

Our betters opine:

When specifically asked about [journalist, Andy] Ngo, who suffered a brain haemorrhage as a result of a violent attack while covering Antifa demonstrations in Portland, Ore. in June, [Professor Troy] Storfjell replied, “I don’t have a problem with it.”

You see, Mr Ngo is a “militant fascist,” a “Nazi.” If only in the minds of bedlamites who are employed to educate other people’s children.

Our betters at large. Or, Trick-or-Treat, the Antifa Way.

The second link, the video, does, I think, reveal the root motives of the personalities attracted to Antifa. Unless, of course, the obvious way to address an ostensibly political disagreement with someone is to find out where their parents live and then harass them at night in a fairly sinister manner, having already doxxed and threatened the person’s elderly mother. The point here being to intimidate Mr Ngo and his family, and to underline their vulnerability, specifically to violence. To make them feel unsafe in their own homes. There’s a spiteful ingenuity.

But hey, “social justice” is all about piety and compassion.

The basic message of the masked night-time visitors – a message illustrated vividly elsewhere – seems fairly straightforward. ‘You see who we are, and show others who we are, and so we will punish you.’

Needless to say, this also reveals who they are, but I suspect they just can’t help themselves.  

Update, via the comments:

Alas, her telekinetic powers failed her when she needed them the most. || For all your kerning nightmares. || Our political titans. || More joys of public transport. || Winter in Japan. || Landing in trees, in 360 degrees. || The thrill of yarn. || Are we there yet, dad? || He does this better than you do. || I question this design choice. || Oversharing of note. || You shall go to the ball. || Shopping centre scenes. || He sees you. || Headline of note. || “You’ve walked out of the movie three times?” || Woke AF. || Feminist standards. || “Rhetorical violence.” || Always respect the media and their lofty moral leadership. || In fairness, it is easy to miss. || And finally, what appears to be the aftermath of a traumatic collision.

Some Twitter dynamics. 

The words “overly judge” seem to be doing quite a bit of heavy lifting.

Added via the comments, another young lady sending signals. None of which we must register.

Also, open thread.

Rod Dreher on Bad Whitey, Corrupter Of All Things: 

In New Jersey, two high school boys stand accused of racially harassing and intimidating four younger black girls. The accused are of South Asian (Indian) descent. You might think that this ugly display is a reminder that the sin of racism is a universal part of the fallen human condition. You would be wrong, according to Princeton historian Nell Irvin Painter. Writing in the New York Times, the L’Osservatore Romano of the Cult of Social Justice, Painter tells us that it’s really whitey’s fault… Even when racist harassers are brown-skinned, they’re really white, and their alleged actions are the fault of white people… I remind you that this racist screed was written by a Princeton professor, writing on the op-ed page of the most important newspaper in the world.

You see, when members of one racial minority assault and degrade members of another racial minority, they are, we’re told, merely “enacting American whiteness,” something seemingly akin to demonic possession. This, and only this, is apparently “what matters.” Such, then, are the standards of Princeton employees.

And Steve Salerno on woke education – and mediocrity for all: 

It should be apparent that implementing [‘Social-Emotional Learning Theory’] necessarily presupposes some dilution of the traditional nuts-and-bolts curriculum — the diversion of finite class time to topics and methodologies that have nothing to do with mastering, say, long division. The gurus of SEL make no apologies for this. Rather, as [New York mayor, Bill] de Blasio insists in his Fortune piece, “These are hard skills… just like reading and math, that must be taught, practised, and strengthened over time.” SEL’s unflinching emphasis on the so-called “non-cognitive factors” in cognition is bad news for all supporters of no-nonsense education — that is, the kind that doesn’t encourage students to devote class time to communicating their current emotional status to their peers via emojis, as has happened in some SEL implementations. 

Because the way to encourage mastery of a subject is to do away with red-pen corrections, which are “stigmatising,” and to embrace “individual” spelling – as opposed to the stuffy and outdated kind, with its rules and whatnot, and thus the possibility of being wrong. Presumably, on grounds that being precise, articulate and in possession of one’s thoughts – or just knowing the difference between ask and axe – is terribly racist.

Update, via the comments:

Announcement of note. || A question for art enthusiasts. (h/t, Dicentra) || There’s treasure in the attic. || Rodent motorist. || Emergency bread. (h/t, Damian) || Bit late now, love. || Brain-eating amoebas. || Hallowe’en eye pies. || Progressive fashion choice. || Feminist intellectual. || That little face. || Pelican visits fish-and-chip shop. || Enhance your phone fondling with artificial skin. || “Please refrain from gendering us.” || Social gaffe. || The glow of greenhouses. || The thrill of musical theatre. (h/t, Damian) || Compressing metal. || At last, an autonomous robotic pooper scooper. || I suspect trickery. (h/t, Dicentra) || Night landing. || And finally, comfortingly, something to think about before you go to sleep.

Another great moment in Clown Quarter contortion:

“How to assess writing without judging its quality.” 

We’ve been here before, of course. 

Also, open thread. Feel free to share links and bicker.

Or, Call It A Counter-Protest.

Lifted from the comments and further to recent rumblings, a safe space is violated.

“What is wrong with you?” they ask. 

Says Joan,

We’re going to see a lot more of this. Good.

It seems to me that these ladies actually got off lightly. If you choose to block the roads, determined to needlessly frustrate hundreds, even thousands, of people, just so you can indulge in some in-group preening, while ordering drivers to walk, then you should expect some physical push-back from the people on whose freedoms and imperatives you’ve chosen to piss. Because, hey, sabotaging attempts to get to jobs, airports and doctor’s appointments, while impeding emergency vehicles and thereby endangering lives, is such a lark, baby.

Acts of planned and gratuitous aggression, including narcissistic aggression – which is what these ‘protests’ are – should be treated accordingly. It’s important that these cossetted pinheads, so gorged on their own sense of entitlement, learn to fear those on whom they recreationally impose themselves. Their expectations of impunity should be shattered. Along with the conceit that the way to make people sympathetic with your cause, whatever it may be this week, is to screw them over – because you can – while applauding yourself for doing so.

Update:

Despite the pretence of martyrdom and claims by the participants that they “do not enjoy” exerting power over random passers-by – or would-be passers-by – it seems quite obvious that personal gratification is by no means incidental. These disruptions and obstructions – forcibly immobilising large numbers of people – are very much recreational, a rush of ego, as bullying often is. Now imagine being so privileged, so removed from normal concerns, that being arrested is a form of recreation, a leisure activity, a way to impress your peer group and accrue status.

If your go-to solution, your preferred mode of expression, is to frustrate and harass random people who are just trying to get to work, or to get home – and you do this while feeling enormously self-satisfied about your own imagined radicalism – then this tells us very little about the world or any purported cause. It does, however, tell us quite a bit about what kind of tosser you are.