Friday Ephemera

Old, yes, but still good. || Intrigue. || The miracle of good lighting. || Greetings, human. || How many holes does a given object have? || Hazards of the highway. || Crab and coral. || Meanwhile, in Switzerland. || Everyday songs for the lady in your life. (h/t, Neocon Servative) || Athlete of note. || Stuntmen watching stuntmen doing stunts. (h/t, Elephants Gerald) || Today’s word is inadvisable. || Moment of doubt. || Long way down. || Employed as an educator, you know. || Airbag for the elderly. || A brief history of the drum machine. (h/t, Things) || “The definitive guide to the Doctor Who theme.” || Evergreen. || We live in strange times. || Portland’s finest. || And finally, they mostly come at night, mostly.

Comments

[Adam]

First?

I’ve always wanted to write that.

[Angus]

Airbag for the elderly and drunk?

[Assistant Village Idiot]

Linked over at Althouse. I thought you folks here would be a natural for this.
https://www.curbed.com/2020/11/mary-wollstonecraft-statue-london-feminism.html

[pst314]

Airbag for the elderly.

Only if they fall backwards?

"Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit", said the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet.

[Hal]

Hazards of the highway.

Oh, Brilliant . . .

[Sam Duncan]

“How many holes does a given object have?”

I'll never forget my biology teacher pointing out that most of the stuff you swallow never actually enters your body, it just passes through a hole in the middle.

[Hal]

Nice doggy, roll over, glare with glowing red eyes.

[JuliaM]

Consequences

[Felicity]

Greetings, human

That does it, how do you become a UPS driver? That is soooo cute I am giving up my day job and heading off for life on the road :)

[Mike]

Moment of doubt.

What was he planning to do?

[David]

Morning, all.

House tour of note.

[David]

This just in.

[Watcher In The Dark]

Don’t worry if you can’t get a doctor’s appointment, others can help

https://www.rt.com/news/506457-sweden-circumcision-soldering-gun/

[Watcher In The Dark]

I lIke the house tour of note. Basically a warehouse, complete with casually open bladed knife on table, possibly a soiled seat and an unused vacuum cleaner. Even germs wouldn’t live there.

[Jonathan]

Snowy nights in Switzerland

Switzerland is very lovely but frighteningly expensive.

[H]

Old, yes, but still good.

Still funny. :-)

[Jonathan]

House tour of note.

(In Lloyd Grossman voice) " So, who lives in a house like this?"

[asiaseen]

Soldering Gun

He presumably has already been snipped otherwise it would be good grounds for application of the eye-for-an-eye principal.

One shrivels at the very thought...

[asiaseen]

As well as the shrivel factor, the idea played hell with my spelling and html.

[WTP]

House tour of note.

As they say, there are never any looters around when you really need them.

[Toxteth O'Grady]

Today’s word is inadvisable

Today I learned that I have three grandads

[asiaseen]

Today I learned that I have three grandads

A Friday the 13th miracle.

[SumDumGuy]

Don’t worry if you can’t get a doctor’s appointment, others can help

How much topical anesthetic and wound gauze would nine people have to buy to make a pharmacy call the cops, I wonder...

He should have done it the old fashioned way.

[Hurry Harry]

...others can help

Instead, he received a suspended sentence and 180 hours of community service.

He was providing a community service.

[Hurry Harry]

To fight racism, Cornell renames its English department

The term “English Department” might give students the idea that English literature was invented by the English, which would mean that some people’s ancestors accomplished things that other people’s ancestors did not, which cannot be true.

The term “Department of Literatures in English” demonstrates that African-American literature owes no debts to English literature. They just are literatures that happen to be in English. It’s not like African-American writers have been influenced by, say, the King James Bible.

[David]

To fight racism, Cornell renames its English department

And so academia’s Clown Quarter ever more closely resembles a psychiatrist’s waiting room. The inhabitants seem to regard neuroticism as a goal, a credential.

[WTP]

The psychiatrist would likely think there is nothing wrong with them, but that you’re the crazy one. Ask me how I know.

[Hal]

I'm quite sure I have no idea why Incitatus as a name comes to mind.

[Uma Thurmond's Feet]

Home Tour of Note

By all means, take a look. Go down into the basement. It goes on forever.

Just avoid the dark places. You will be eaten by a grue.

[David]

Hazards of the highway, part two.

[John]

House tour of note.

There is a well fed white and black cat sitting placidly (on a box naturally) in what seems to be the living room. Those with nothing better to occupy their time* can have fun trying to find it.

* which of course would not include any regular visitors to this site he quickly adds.

[David]

Those with nothing better to occupy their time* can have fun trying to find it.

The whole thing has the air of a game.

[Captain Nemo]

Those with nothing better to occupy their time* can have fun trying to find it.

Found it. (I had nothing better to do...)

[Hal]

Today I learned that I have three grandads

Oh, that's nothing. More importantly, are you one of 'em?

[Nikw211]

In reading this Guardian interview with Otegha Uwagba, author of Whites: On Race and Other Falsehoods, the impression I got was not so much of an author keen on promoting sales of her book but that of some kind of 'Miss Whiplash' dominatrix holding out a promise to punish all those white middle class progressives for the sin of being white, middle class, and progressive.

For instance, she explains that the book is not actually intended for a white readership at all, but she nevertheless acknowledges that many white people will likely buy it.

And for those white readers:

"I want them to feel uncomfortable. I want them to feel challenged. I want them to feel confronted.”

And this is apparently because they have been very, very bad boys and girls:

“[White people] think racism is bad and they want it to be over. But the implementation and the facts of that require them to do things they are not willing to do. [They] talk a big game about allyship and dismantling racism but when it came to the prospect of maybe losing their jobs or getting in trouble at work in order to take a stance against racism, they weren’t willing to do it."

They're bad because they just have not realised that true "racial justice is “redistributive” – that they must give something up if black people are to thrive"; and that in turn means "giving up power, money, wealth, opportunities, things that will change the quality of your life and make it feel relatively worse".

[David]

I want them to feel uncomfortable.

It’s strange just how often the urge to inflict discomfort and anxiety on white people crops up. Even when the enthusiastic inflictors of said anxiety are obliged to admit that the reason for doing so is seemingly non-existent.

[Nikw211]

obliged to admit that the reason for doing so is seemingly non-existent

Racists do exist and it's not hard to imagine that Uwagba may have been on the receiving end of some ugly language or behaviour at times in her life.

But I reserve the right to be incredulous that racism has been a typical experience, let alone a defining or dominant feature in her life to date.

To be an Oxford graduate, bestselling author, and celebrated as a media and marketing entrepreneur by Forbes all by the age of 28 stands in sharp contrast with claims to have lived a life suffering under "the burden of whiteness" and "the mental and emotional trauma” it has caused. Rosa Parks she is not.

The target of the "restrained prose" under which we are told lies "an iceberg of rage and frustration" in that interview is not, as might reasonably be expected, actual racists such as Britain First, National Action, or Combat-18. It's not even against the Metropolitan police's 'stop and search' policies. None of those even get a mention.

Instead, the target for her "rage and frustration" turns out to be "white people", “progressive, liberal people", and even including her own "friends" some of whom she explains she has found herself unable to "sustain relationships or friendships with".

It's not that such “progressive, liberal people" are beyond criticism for the way they express their political convictions, far from it.

But to even suggest that their non-racism and even anti-racism is proof that they racist is preposterous up to and beyond the point of delusion.

[John]

Preposterous up to and beyond the point of delusion seems to be the establishment default position.

No sign of any pushback other than from Laurence Fox who accordingly is firmly in the crosshairs. I wish him luck, he’s going to need it.

[pst314]

It’s strange just how often the urge to inflict discomfort and anxiety on white people crops up

Because they themselves are failures, and instead of facing up to this they rage against those who are not failures. Prove me wrong. ;-)

[Smallish Bees]

Cornell's Department of Literatures in Enlish reminded me of this bit, with David Tennant as Catherine Tate's English teacher.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxB1gB6K-2A&ab_channel=BBC

[Darleen]

Naw, no bias in this headline at all ...

[John]

To paraphrase the president elect, if you’re protesting against me you ain’t gay.

[PiperPaul]

"The wrong kind of gays who are on the wrong side of history."

[Steve E]

"The wrong kind of gays who are on the wrong side of history."

People claiming their "existence" is being erased seek to erase the existence of others.

[David]

Naw, no bias in this headline at all...

The BAD WHITE GAYS strike again.

[Richard Cranium]

Home Tour of Note

Quite a few bathrooms. The one with two toilets that might have been within mutual wiping distance was a bit of a surprise.

[Lady Cutekitten of Lolcat]

The Bad White Gays would be a good name for a band.

[David]

mutual wiping distance

Also a band name.

[Felicity]

Not a bad white gay

https://twitter.com/OrwellNGoode/status/1327793827080515584

[David]

Not a bad white gay

We live in stupefying times.

[Captain Nemo]

We live in stupefying times.

Indeed. This isn't what I thought the future would be like.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

We live in stupefying times.

Indeed, from a link above...

"My hope is that the lessons I learned through my struggles will help you too."

"Mein Kampf", boy Boy Scout becomes boy Eagle Scout.

In addition to her Eagle Scout achievement, Jackman is set to earn honors from her sorority...

One may draw one's own conclusions.

[Steve E]

https://twitter.com/OrwellNGoode/status/1327793827080515584

de-colon-ize: to pull out of one's ass

[Darleen]

Doing the leftwing, crazed screamfest on camera -- not just for white chicks anymore.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

...not just for white chicks anymore.

I dunno, I identify him as a white chick.

[Lady Cutekitten of Lolcat]

He (it?) looks pretty chick-y to me.

[asiaseen]

looks pretty chick-y to me

The voice to go with it, too

[Felicity]

Not a big lolly eater, but I do like Chicos. They have been renamed to satisfy the identifreaks: https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/food/red-skins-and-chicos-lollies-renamed-due-to-racist-undertones/news-story/55478a6e041c4b6307f40bd6cbb7190f
What I don't understand is how the new name satisfies them....

[Nikw211]

not just for white chicks anymore.

Although I actually voted Remain in the 2016 referendum, it's remarkable how both complaints from that Tiktoker are identical to those made by similarly shrill die-hard Remainers over here - that both the elderly and those failing to live at addresses with more fashionably expensive zip codes should be banned from taking part in elections on the grounds that (allegedly) neither have anything of value to add to society.

Such charming people.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

They have been renamed to satisfy the identifreaks...

[Daniel Ream]

“The definitive guide to the Doctor Who theme.”

Any excuse to repost this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1SZs4xudf8

House tour of note.

Strongly resembles many of the student boarding houses in the town I grew up in.

[fnord]

To fight racism, Cornell renames its English department

The new name in actuality is more correct. Literature can be written in English without coming from England, but of course that's not what they actually mean. If they valued true speaking (don't laugh) it would be.

"To punish YT and show that we are GudWhytes, only writings by persons with the acceptable skin color and/or reproductive equipment, and politics, will be considered.