Meanwhile, in the world of deep thoughts and scholarly devotion:
A new video has surfaced of students this past week at Evergreen State College yelling and ranting about everything from “racist white teachers” and “white-ass administrators” to “black power!” during a so-called “meeting” with President George Bridges and other college administrators. Apparently, the activists are not pleased that this recording made its way to the internet at large. One of the demands listed by Evergreen students… is that something be done to resolve the “theft” of the video: “We demand that the video created for Day of Absence and Day of Presence that was stolen by white supremacists and edited to expose and ridicule the students and staff be taken down by the administration by this Friday.”
Bret Weinstein, the biology professor who unwittingly triggered the Evergreen drama by politely raising objections, is being interviewed live by Dave Rubin over here.
Posted by: David | May 30, 2017 at 21:08
Why am I not surprised that George Bridges has a penchant for bow ties? Whereas the Chairman of the Evergreen Board of Trustees, Fred Goldberg, prefers rose-tinted specs: http://blogs.evergreen.edu/evergreenmind/files/2016/03/goldberg1.jpg
Posted by: Richard Powell | May 30, 2017 at 22:02
HR Departments look at "___ Studies" majors, especially from colleges with a reputation for protests, as radioactive. It's openly discussed in the HR world.
It is? I find that surprising, as many of the HR drones I've encountered in corporate Canada are graduates of exactly those kinds of programs, usually with some kind of "certificate" in HR.
I expect the landscape is somewhat different here, though, as thanks to hate speech and anti-discrimination laws HR functions somewhere between a policy compliance enforcer and a political commissar.
Posted by: Daniel Ream | May 30, 2017 at 22:06
F. Paul Wilson! Nazis vs. vampires!
Posted by: Pogonip | May 30, 2017 at 22:51
’m George Bridges, I use he/him pronouns.
Hullo George . . . My personal pronouns are I, you, and one.
---I wonder if anyone's yet given 'im a formal nickname of Burning . .
Posted by: Hal | May 31, 2017 at 01:16
As for Discworld, Hal - the early books are satirizing a genre which, like comic books, is largely pointless to satirize; the later books are, as I said, pretentiously didactic metaphor (or did it escape your notice that "Moist von Lipwig" and "Ludwig von Mises" sound awfully similar?)
On my part, I'm currently finally getting around to reading through the entire series in one burst, where I'd actually only gotten to some of the early stories before, and so far I'm quite enjoying the ride . . . if nothing else, I definitely do not have a reaction of Ho Ho Ho, Golly, Pratchett is just So good with Satire---very ritualized respectful pause, make certain everyone's watching and thus impressed--- Rather more, instead of satire, what I get more of an impression of is Pratchett taking a traditional story concept and then pushing it to a completely logical extension and then playing jump rope with the results.
At the moment, I'm most of the way through Hogfather---Book #20 of 40.5, Take Santa Claus, turn 'im and the concept of Xmas inside out, and that's just the first of quite a few very convoluted and interlaced layers---and have been rather enjoying seeing how concepts of belief and expectation get very extended and stretched out and quite make absolutely perfect sense all the way through . . .
Posted by: Hal | May 31, 2017 at 02:06
yet because the Chechens are Moslems, they are automatically "oppressed brown people", you see?
Not really a great example, as the Chechen are actually oppressed.
We might argue about whether they deserve it, their behaviour as a group not being exemplary, but that doesn't stop the fact that the Russians bombed their country flat, killed a significant number of their men and raped a significant number of their women. And have no intention of fixing it up either.
Posted by: Chester Draws | May 31, 2017 at 02:16
Are these protesters aware that they are making themselves unhireable?
Well, on one hand, the question has already been rather discussed around here, but then on an other tentacle, the realization regarding likelihood of employment does tend to arrive . . .
Posted by: Hal | May 31, 2017 at 02:17
Add F. Paul Wilson to the list of authors who are well worth a look.
A few years back some emails went bouncing about where I was working.
FROM: Someone
TO: Everyone
Dear coworkers. I seem to have misplaced the F. Paul Wilson book that I'm currently reading. If anyone finds it or knows where it is, could you bring it to me, or at least let me know where it is so that I can get get it myself? Thank you!
FROM: Me
TO: Someone
CC: Coworker
Someone is at her desk in her cubicle. She is sitting quite upright, even though her head is missing. Blood is spattered all over the cubicle, except that it is turning to green and is dripping up the cubicle walls. Outside the door of the cubicle, Coworker is pacing back and forth. Coworker is dressed as the high priest of a subsect that hasn't been heard from for three thousand years, he is matter of factly reciting verses telling of the imminent return of the ancient gods, and his eyes have been gouged out.
FROM: Someone
TO Me.
CC: Coworker
No, that's not my book. But you've definitely got F. Paul Wilson absolutely spot on.
Posted by: Hal | May 31, 2017 at 02:34
F. Paul Wilson! Nazis vs. vampires!
Well, one proto vampire, in one book.
Do go ahead and enjoy the book.
Do also thoroughly refrain from the utter and absolute hipster scale abomination claiming to be a movie that got disgorged and claims to be related to the book.
---If you think that David's video selections are ghastly, you'll have to cube them and then keep running, where that link above even states Paramount adapted it into an incomprehensible film directed by Michael Mann . . .
Posted by: Hal | May 31, 2017 at 02:45
While I'm not much for gun porn and so don't read his stuff,
If you don't read it, how do you know it's nothing but "gun porn"? It is no more "gun porn" then many sci-fi books where the author spends time walking you through a space ship and how it works right down to the energy fueling the engines.
Holy moly, there is a lot to like about GRR Martin's Game of Thrones books, but after a while I just skipped over his 5-10 pages worth of lovingly describing every single dish in the banquet scenes.
Correia's more recent Son of the Black Sword doesn't have a gun in it and is quite good.
Posted by: Darleen | May 31, 2017 at 03:28
Larry's early books, the only ones I've seen, are definitely gun porn, and fine gun porn at that. It occurs to me we may have a confusion between English and English. Over here, "gun porn" means "book in which the guns are described in as much or more loving detail as the girls." Don't worry, I wouldn't dream of insulting The Mountain That Writes. He's a sweet guy.
Posted by: Pogonip | May 31, 2017 at 04:00
OT: Just finished watching Matt Damon's The Great Wall, directed by Zhang Yimou. Contrary to expectations, I liked it. A nice monster romp for a Tuesday night.
Carry on.
Posted by: R, Sherman | May 31, 2017 at 05:25
we may have a confusion between English and English.
Ah! We may have had, indeed. :)
Posted by: Darleen | May 31, 2017 at 05:36
Do go ahead and enjoy the book.
Sample now sent to my Kindle. Thank you, Hal, I'll give it a read.
Posted by: Darleen | May 31, 2017 at 05:40
Bret Weinstein offers a little background the Evergreen drama here:
It turns out that pandering to “critical race theory” and other postmodern hokum can really bite you on the arse.
The university’s spiral into psychodrama is almost funny. It starts with invoking “critical theory” and “critical race theory,” as if these were searingly intellectual breakthroughs and a way to heal the world, and ends up with racial hysteria, professors being chased off campus, and intellectual debate that consists of screaming “You don’t got shit to say!”
Posted by: David | May 31, 2017 at 06:43
and ends up with racial hysteria, professors being chased off campus, and intellectual debate that consists of screaming “You don’t got shit to say!”
#Progress
Posted by: Mike | May 31, 2017 at 07:49
NeoNeoCon has an interesting post on the Evergreen episode. The extracts from Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind seem particularly apposite.
Posted by: David | May 31, 2017 at 12:18
Again, Re: We Wuz Kangz!
Studies have recently been completed on the DNA of Ancient Egyptian mummies. Unfortunately, Hate-Science ™ has revealed they're closely related to Levantines and, horrors!, Europeans but don't share much DNA with Sub-Saharan Africans.
Posted by: Jonathan | May 31, 2017 at 13:09
Sporkatus,
Just downloaded a sample of Peace, looks like my sort of thing. Thanks for the tip.
Felix likes to party.
See Felix party.
Party, Felix, party.
Whoops! Elle est tombée!
Posted by: Ray | May 31, 2017 at 13:33
"The Star will not be capitalizing white or brown because “they do not describe a shared identity and experience the way Black does.”
Except that it is a fundamental tenet of SJE dogma that whites (or 'Whites') do indeed share an identity and experience, as all whites benefit from and participate in our racist society, consciously or not. This is why - in SJW land - it is OK to talk about 'white people' doing XYZ, OK to exclude white people and so on, regardless of what the individual whites people affected might actually have done or said.
Posted by: Flat Eric | May 31, 2017 at 13:41
SJW dogma.
W and E are suspiciously close together on my keypad. Clearly, the patriarchy did this deliberately to make me type inaccurately.
Posted by: Flat Eric | May 31, 2017 at 13:43
Chester,
Not really a great example, as the Chechen are actually oppressed.
Yes, very much oppressed. Except, what I meant by it was that the Chechens are white people. Perhaps I should have made it clear that "Moslems" are automatically "brown people", in the way that anyone making statements to the fact that Islam is inherently incompatible with liberal (in the original sense) Western culture is branded "racist".
Posted by: Spiny Norman | May 31, 2017 at 14:17
I very much enjoyed reading Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time - all written post-1984 and with very little gratuitous political-correctness.
Posted by: Zionist Overlord #73 | May 31, 2017 at 14:29
@Ray: The first Wolfe I ever read was a short story from Wolfe's Book of Days, assigned in an English class in college. This one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_I_Lost_the_Second_World_War_and_Helped_Turn_Back_the_German_Invasion
I immediately recognized it as not the work of an ordinary mind.
Posted by: Sporkatus | May 31, 2017 at 14:39
"It starts with invoking “critical theory” and “critical race theory,” as if these were searingly intellectual breakthroughs..."
It was a simple misunderstanding.
Posted by: PiperPaul | May 31, 2017 at 14:53
...but don't share much DNA with Sub-Saharan Africans.
I can attest, having spent more than a little time in Egypt among Egyptians, one sure way to start a fight is either to call one an Arab (unless that one is in fact a Bedouin), or black.
Posted by: Farnsworth M Muldoon | May 31, 2017 at 15:10
I couldn't find a non-paywall access to Mr. W's article, if anyone does, please let me know.
Posted by: Pogonip | May 31, 2017 at 15:44
It is? I find that surprising, as many of the HR drones I've encountered in corporate Canada are graduates of exactly those kinds of programs, usually with some kind of "certificate" in HR.
I expect the landscape is somewhat different here, though, as thanks to hate speech and anti-discrimination laws HR functions somewhere between a policy compliance enforcer and a political commissar.
I work in a large city in the broad middle swath of the US. Here, our HR departments still retain a shred of sanity.
At my company, we still have mandatory "Diversity" training, but we freely discuss the Harvard Business Review study from last year that shows that 'diversity' training frequently has the opposite effect.
Our recruiters have enough real-world HR experience to understand that hiring SJW's is inviting trouble, often of the expensive and time-consuming kind.
Positions that can be filled by recent college graduates with social studies majors are usually not lacking in applicants. When you have 10,20,30 or more applicants for an open position, why hire the applicant who is likely to tarnish your reputation and make your job more difficult?
Posted by: Calico | May 31, 2017 at 15:48
It is? I find that surprising, as many of the HR drones I've encountered in corporate Canada are graduates of exactly those kinds of programs
Was going to say this myself earlier, but seeing similar here in US. I've gone on college recruiting trips with HR. Very weak people there who came from social sciences, etc. There are notable exceptions, especially those with coding experience who just burned out on the tech grind but want to stay busy. But most of those are in external recruiting, not corporate HR. HR, from my observation, is becoming more and more about the Diversity and, God help us, Emotional Intelligence type classes, certifications etc. Call me paranoid but I see it as a power grab. Once they have those sorts of incidents to hold over the productive people's heads, they have free hand. They can destroy a company, and thus have power to destroy people at a lower level as they can hint to the CEO's and such how necessary they are to prevent PR disasters, which themselves are mostly overblown.
Posted by: WTP | May 31, 2017 at 16:48
This is a strong argument for just not letting stupid people go to university: http://bit.ly/29a8oXL
Posted by: Lionel Ebb | May 31, 2017 at 19:17
When these kids get through with school, they will be in for a very unpleasant surprise when they start looking for jobs.
If only. They'll be straight into government, tax-funded "charities", and academia.
Posted by: Tim Newman | May 31, 2017 at 19:23
But what about all those awareness-raising, planet-saving ClimateJobs™ that are coming due to the carbon tax?
Posted by: PiperPaul | May 31, 2017 at 19:31
I don't know how accurate it is, probably not very, but U.S. reporting makes Canada sound like one giant Human Resources department.
Posted by: Pogonip | May 31, 2017 at 21:03
(From the video at collegefix) "I’m tired of white people talking about what black and brown people need."
Then you should stop listening to the Frankfurt School and Herbert Marcuse, because these founders of "political correctness" were, to a man, white.
Posted by: Vince N | June 02, 2017 at 07:24
Apparently, the Evergreen campus has now been shut down.
Posted by: David | June 02, 2017 at 09:46