davidthompson

Those Brown-People Ideas

In this push for ethnic, sexual and racial diversity - which I think is just a mask to enforce ideological homogeneity - there’s no understanding that ideational diversity is the only relevant value for a university. The rest of it is all predicated on the assumption that if you select people because of their ethnicity or racial background or gender, that will, in and of itself, produce diversity of ideas - which is really pernicious… The idea that you’re going to get a diversity of ideas because you have a diversity of classes of people assumes that ideas and identity are the same thing. And that’s an absurd proposition. In fact that’s an essentially racial – and racist – proposition.

Joe Rogan chats, at length, with psychologist Dr Jordan Peterson. 

Poverty And How To Get There

It’s time to turn, once again, to the pages of Everyday Feminism, where Ms Hannah Brooks Olsen wants to educate us about “the real face of poverty” – specifically, Millennial poverty, as experienced by herself: 

As a white, 22-year-old college graduate in a second-hand dress, I did not look like what we think of as “poor.” Of course, at that exact moment, I had, yes, a college degree and a coveted unpaid (because of course it was unpaid) internship at a public radio station. But I also had a minimum wage job to support myself, $17 in my bank account, $65,000 in debt to my name, and $800 in rent due in 24 days.

It’s not a happy tale. This is, after all, Everyday Feminism.

I was extremely hungry, worried about my utilities being shut off, and 100% planning to hit up the dumpster at the nearby Starbucks… I had no functional stove in my tiny apartment because the gas it took to make it work was, at $10 per month, too expensive.

Such, then, are the hardships of “Millennial college grads,” whose suffering, we’re told, often passes unremarked:

Through college debt, we are minting a new generation of people with fewer opportunities, rather than more. Even if you glossed right over the teachings of Thomas Piketty…

the teachings of Thomas Piketty

…you probably know that those who begin poor are more likely to stay poor… New grads no longer start from zero  –  they start with a negative balance.

Well, it’s generally the custom that loans have to be repaid. And so choosing a degree course, or choosing whether to take one at all, is a matter of some consequence. Such is adulthood.

Many college graduates are worse off than they would have been if they’d directly entered the workforce debt-free.

And so, as in many things, one should choose wisely. Ms Olsen goes on to ponder the woes of “Millennials of colour,” and the alleged “gender pay gap,” before wondering whether all university education should be “free” – which is to say, paid for by some other sucker. Say, those who would see no benefit in being forced to further subsidise the lifestyle choices of people who end up writing for Everyday Feminism.

And then, eventually, we come to the nub of it:

An Unusual Bulging

On those fattening mirrors that all ladies’ clothes stores secretly use. 

Friday Ephemera

Click and listen. // Cats wearing hats made from their own hair. An allergy nightmare but a fashion triumph. // For a limited time only. // Valaida croons, gets groovy. // Incongruity. // Swapperoo is a game. // “For everyday essentials, like brandy, teabags and Tupperware.” // The Fondoodler also has a “cheese propulsion valve.” // What fungus does in the dark. // This. // That. // A bit of the other. // Canned whole chicken. Because it can be done. // Educators of note. // So ladies, is this ageism or body-shaming? // “When the bass drops, so does the dance floor.” // OK Go. // On poverty misconceived. // The things you can do with some laser-cut paper and patience. // More joys of public transport. // And finally, “Cherry pits and one hazelnut were visible with the naked eye.”

Elsewhere (220)

Blake Neff notes the exquisite sensitivities on display at another $50,000-a-year educational institution: 

Hampshire College in Massachusetts has announced that it will no longer fly the US flag at all in response to an incident where the flag was taken down and burned. The president of the college says that by getting rid of the flag the school will be able to focus on other issues like halting Islamophobia and promoting gay rights.

Because focusing on “Islamophobia” and gay rights, prioritising these things, is what a college is supposed to do, obviously. And it simply can’t be done while the national flag is visible anywhere on campus.

Heather Mac Donald on open borders and indiscriminate immigration: 

Demographics were now driving immigration policy, not vice versa. State and city jurisdictions with large numbers of illegal aliens passed law after law to minimise or eliminate the distinction between legal and illegal status. The most egregious of those policies — and the ones that jump-started Trump’s campaign — were so-called sanctuary laws. These rules forbid state and city employees to co-operate with the already listless efforts of federal officials to enforce the immigration laws, shielding even convicted criminals from any possible risk of deportation.

Although local activists had complained about sanctuary policies for years, no one with power paid attention — until a young woman was fatally shot in July 2015 on the San Francisco Embarcadero by a Mexican drug dealer with seven felony convictions and five previous deportations. Kate Steinle’s murderer had recently been released from jail back onto the streets by the San Francisco sheriff, despite a request from federal immigration agents to detain him for deportation proceedings. Yet despite the belated national outrage directed at San Francisco for its sanctuary ordinance, the city reaffirmed that ordinance in May 2016 in a breath-taking demonstration of the rule that immigration demographics are political destiny — at least until now.

Tim Blair spies an intriguing way to combat bullying: 

Victoria’s controversial Safe Schools founder Roz Ward has been photographed harassing a bystander while marching in a Melbourne rally protesting against the election of Donald Trump as US president. Images obtained by The Australian show the high-profile LGBTI rights and anti-bullying campaigner trying to remove a cap from a man wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with “Trump 2016.” Ms Ward, who is carrying ­several copies of the Marxist newspaper Red Flag, is seen smirking while the distressed man tries to pull away and shield himself from her.

But Don’t Call Them Hysterical

Victoria Stroup reports a harrowing turn of events at Edgewood College, Madison, Wisconsin:

Staff from the student conduct, human resources, Title IX, and diversity offices were brought together so they could decide how to respond to the “hateful message.” According to [Vice President for Student development, Tony] Chambers, “the group determined that the message constituted a hate crime, based on guidelines from the Jeanne Clery Act and state law.” He adds the group acted according to college policy and reported the incident to the Madison, Wisconsin Police Department, which is currently investigating it as a “hate crime,” and that it is also being investigated through the college’s Student Conduct Process.

The item deemed so incendiary and deserving of endless meetings and even police involvement? Amid post-election campus hysteria, some wag had left a pink Post-It note on a window, bearing four words: “Suck it up, pussies.”

No, really. That’s it. 

Palate Cleanser

After all that political hoo-hah, time for something artistic.

Via sH2.

Friday Ephemera

Optimism. // “Tightly holding the pelican by his mouth pouch” and other foreign euphemisms for masturbation. // From above. // Burglars on burglary. // How to teach a baby to climb a fence. // Here is today. // Proportional and sensible. // Ladies, look away now. // The cordless ice drill you’ve always wanted. // Attention, welding enthusiasts. (h/t, Julia) // Japanese water cake. // Why colour grading matters. // Then and now. // Art. // Untarnished. // How to cut string. // So many kinds of things in Star Trek: Voyager. // What metallic electrocrystallization looks like. // On Mandelbrotting and other effects for Doctor Strange. // The Japanese museum of rocks that look like faces. // And finally, VoCo is like Photoshop but for audio and speech. Stay with it, it gets a little odd. 

Hailing Frequencies

Here’s a footnote to Monday’s post on Ben Shapiro’s attempts to discuss free speech with Christina Hoff Sommers at DePaul University. And specifically, the claim that his visit would be dangerous, and therefore impermissible, because the university doesn’t have sufficient security staff to protect either the speakers or their audience from harassment and thuggery by its own students.  

Well, it turns out that DePaul did manage to scrape together 30 burly chaps in order to repel, as Shapiro puts it, “a 5’9” Jewish guy.” You see, in modern academia, you mustn’t be allowed to discuss censorship and intolerance in modern academia. Because of “security concerns.” At a lecture with no visible protesters. In case you’re wondering, Mr Shapiro ended up having to Skype Dr Sommers from several blocks away, at which point they had a brief online chat for the benefit of the audience, before relocating the event, along with the audience, to a nearby off-campus theatre, where the discussion could take place as intended. The Skype chat starts around 32:38. 

And do note the YouTube warning, informing us that the video is “unlisted” and that you should therefore “think twice before sharing.” 

Update:

Here’s more of Mr Shapiro, filmed last night at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where things got lively. And where leftist protestors tried to prevent non-students from attending the lecture, and then blocked the stage, before finally conveying their righteousness by pounding on the floor. And note Shapiro’s comment about the protestors’ evident privilege when it comes to disruption and impunity. Do we think that a conservative protest against a leftist speaker, with protestors acting in the same manner, using the same tactics and comparable language, would be accommodated in a similar fashion? Without consequences?

Rules are for the little people, you see.

Update 2: 

A white female journalist, Vicki McKenna, was covering the UW-Madison event. Here’s how she was treated by the leftist protestors. And again, note the behaviour of campus security.

If You Film Us Being Violent, Violence Will Happen To You

Further to yesterday’s post and lifted from the comments, via sH2, a warning from anti-Trump protestors to Portland’s local press:

Or, “Do as we say and no-one gets hurt. Apart from the people we’re going to hurt while you’re not filming us, obviously.”

We Can’t Promise Not To Hit You

Emily Zanotti spies more campus censorship backed by the threat of thuggery: 

DePaul University’s chapter of Young Americans for Freedom says they will defy an administration ban on “controversial” speakers, and go ahead with an event next week at the Chicago school featuring conservative speaker Ben Shapiro and “Based Mom” Christina Hoff Sommers. Late Friday, YAF issued an open letter to DePaul University’s administration, noting that they could no longer accept DePaul’s argument that Shapiro did not “substantively contribute” to campus discourse, and that “security concerns” warranted keeping him off campus. DePaul’s Vice President of Facilities, Bob Janis, issued the ban in August, telling YAF students that they could not host the author... [because] DePaul’s modest security forces simply could not handle the ensuing chaos.

“Given the experiences and security concerns that some other schools have had with Ben Shapiro speaking on their campuses, DePaul cannot agree to allow him to speak on our campus at this time,” Mr Janis wrote. Since then, however, Shapiro has spoken at several schools, including Yale and UT Austin, without incident — as has Milo Yiannopolous, whose “Dangerous Faggot” tour has criss-crossed several states. YAF argues that it’s DePaul’s students, and not its invited speakers, that create the problem. DePaul’s YAF branch also note that DePaul claims to have doubled down on its commitment to free speech and the open exchange of ideas on campus, creating a “free speech” speaker series that did not feature any conservative speakers. Hosting Shapiro, they contend, would be well in line with that commitment.

So, to recap. The university’s stated rationale for censorship is that it can’t protect either the speakers or their audience from disruption and thuggery by its own students, which is quite an admission, really. And as we’ve seen, the threat of physical intimidation and mob harassment – by these would-be intellectuals of the left – is quite real. What the university doesn’t admit, however, is that this problem won’t be solved by banning any speakers deemed remotely controversial – in this case, two speakers who prefer evidence and debate over threats and hysteria. It seems to me that the problem will only be addressed, or begin to be addressed, when leftist students no longer feel that mob censorship and physical intimidation are things they can get away with, and get away with repeatedly, without facing consequences. Say, being expelled.

Given the rich seam of psychodrama hinted at above, in which victimhood is professed with rumblings of mob intimidation, and “diversity” comes to mean intolerant mental conformity, it’s perhaps worth revisiting this earlier episode at California State University, Los Angeles, where Mr Shapiro was attempting to speak, and noting both the level of student thuggery and the participation of faculty. Specifically, one Dr Robert Weide, an assistant professor of sociology - a grown man who spends his time tearing down flyers for events he doesn’t like, who denounces those who disagree with him as “fascists” and “white supremacists,” and who offers to fight dissenting students in the university gym, boasting, “I lift bro.” Several videos of Dr Weide’s progressive protégés and their, um, physical vigorousness can be found here. 

Better Out Than In, I Suppose

Burdened as she is by deep political insight and enormous talent, Ms Yoko Ono wishes to share something with you.

That is all. Carry on.