2010 Reheated
December 29, 2010
In which we revisit imaginary evils, ludicrous solutions and various lamentations from the pages of the Guardian.
In January, Kevin McKenna inadvertently revealed the loveliness behind his lofty socialist principles:
Ponder the big, generous heart behind those sentiments. It offends Mr McKenna that private education should be allowed to exist. By McKenna’s reckoning, parents who view the comprehensive system as inadequate – perhaps because of their own first-hand experiences – are by implication wicked. And so they should be stopped.
February brought us the deep, deep thinking of the New Economics Foundation and their blueprint for a socialist utopia:
The NEF are convinced that, once implemented, their recommendations would “heal the rifts in a divided Britain” and leave the population “satisfied.” That’s satisfied with less of course, and the authors make clear their disdain for the “dispensable accoutrements of middle-class life,” including “cars, holidays, electronic equipment and multiple items of clothing.”
February also brought us urban oil painting, delusional playwrights and communist art reviews.
In March, we got a taste of, if not for, the cosmetic surgery aesthetic. And an advocate of “direct action” got a taste of her own medicine and didn’t like it one bit.
April saw Jonathan Kay recounting his visit to a Thinking About Whiteness workshop, where he was told “racism is an outgrowth of capitalism” and that “to ignore race is to be more racist than to acknowledge race.”
Ah, very clever. Guilt in all directions. It almost sounds like a trap. And the way to get past small differences in physiology is to continually fixate on small differences in physiology.
And Eyjafjallajökull did some rumbling.
In May, Professor Sharra Vostral exposed the humble tampon as an “artefact of control.”
At this point, readers may also wonder how it can be that an estimated 98% of humanities scholarship goes uncited or unread.
And a mighty hail fell on Oklahoma City.
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