davidthompson

Friday Ephemera

“A lacquer fixative sees that it doesn’t sag.” || He does this at least as well as you would. || I struggle to understand modern music. || At last, amplified squirrels. (h/t, Damian) || Meanwhile, in Essex. || Practically flirtatious with a criminal mastermind. || Merry old London town. (h/t, Holborn) || London’s alleys and passages. (h/t, Things) || The dance they do. || Nicely done, but good question. || Aqueduct of note. || The thrill of Icelandic quiz shows. || Um. || Things you’ll find on a lesbian dating app. || For big earrings. || A little build-up. || Place your bets. || His beef wellingtons are fancier than yours. || Coffee foam. || Fifteen seconds of art. || And finally, festively, it seemed such a good idea at the time.

The Lockdown Diaries (9)

Or, His Neck Finally Buckled Under The Weight Of His Hair.

Let us share links and bicker. I’ll set the ball rolling, via Noah Carl, with an ingenious solution. 

As some of you may be shopping from home a little more than usual, please bear in mind that any Amazon UK shopping done via this link or the search widget top right, or for Amazon US via this link, results in a small fee for your host at no extra cost to you.

It does help to keep this place here.

Update: Today’s saucy topics include crime and punishment.

For those in need of further diversion, the Reheated series is there to be poked at. 

Fishing For Status

One sudden move and I would be shot.

A student at the University of Minnesota shares his first-hand experience of racial profiling and police brutality:

After multiple questions, they turned off their lights and left me alone: no apology, no explanation, nothing. Just me: mentally and emotionally tormented with an experience that will last a lifetime.

You see,

It was brutal.

Not only brutal, but,  

the most traumatic thing I have ever experienced.  

And so,

Defund these bastards.

But before you start signing petitions and making placards, you may wish to watch video of the actual interaction:

You’ve Seen What We’re Doing And So We Must Punish You

I paraphrase, of course. Though not by much: 

The hired facilitators asked each member of the department to respond to various personal questions about race and racial identity. When it was my turn to respond, I said “I don’t feel comfortable talking about that.” I was the only person in the room to abstain. Later, the facilitators told everyone present that a white person’s discomfort at discussing their race is a symptom of “white fragility.” They said that the white person may seem like they are in distress, but that it is actually a “power play.” In other words, because I am white, my genuine discomfort was framed as an act of aggression. I was shamed and humiliated in front of all of my colleagues.

I filed an internal complaint about the hostile environment, but throughout that process, over the course of almost six months, I felt like my complaint was taken less seriously because of my race. I was told that the civil rights law protections were not created to help people like me. And after I filed my complaint, I started to experience retaliatory behaviour, like having important aspects of my job taken away without explanation…

What passes for “progressive” today at Smith [College] and at so many other institutions is regressive… and I fear this is rapidly leading us to a very twisted place. It terrifies me that others don’t seem to see that racial segregation and demonisation are wrong and dangerous no matter what its victims look like. Being told that any disagreement or feelings of discomfort somehow upholds “white supremacy” is not just morally wrong. It is psychologically abusive.

Of the people being degraded and stupefied by “critical race theory” - and there are a lot of them - some, a few, are daring to object, albeit belatedly. Those who do, however - like Ms Jodi Shaw, quoted above – may find themselves being told that they are “in need of further training,” which is to say, more of the aforementioned psychological abuse. Iterations of which can be found here. By politely questioning the assumptions of “critical race theory,” and by drawing attention to its non-reciprocal premise, Ms Shaw is apparently a danger of some kind and requires yet more indoctrination, and more bullying, “before she can safely interact with students and fellow staff.” 

Update:

Friday Ephemera

Miracle breakthrough in rapid beer consumption. || Modern romance. (h/t, Holborn) || You never know. || Get woke, get robbed, repent at leisure. || It’s a bookmark, it’s a reading lamp. || A little nibble. || Heavenly beings. || Today’s word is Speibecken. || Behold, the basic social bonding unit of tomorrow. || “Can men control their balls?” || Beats walking. || A gift to remember. || Portuguese star fort. || “First and foremost.” || Faulty cat. || Acapella idents. || Treacherous human detected. || The thrill of tadpole migration. || “Essential seating only.” || Snowfall in Times Square, an ambient video. || Wall damage detected. || And finally, in D-list celebrity news, I believe this is called oversharing.

Elsewhere (303)

Douglas Murray on the “unconscious bias” hustle: 

[“Unconscious bias” testing] became the basis of an industry, propelled by people pushing divisive ideas about identity politics. These people either believed or professed to believe that the exercise was scientific and could actually correct the brains and behaviour of anyone who had beliefs they disagreed with. So far and fast did this run that soon the inventors of the monster realised what they’d created and tried to kill it. Two of the three Harvard academics responsible said publicly that the exercise was not capable of being used in the way it was being used. There are too many variables in peoples’ behaviour over any day, never mind over time, to quantify, pin down - let alone ‘correct’ anyone’s ‘biases’. But that is where the opportunists came in. For in recent years another group decided to claim that these ‘tests’ had some laser-like precision. They began to charge hundreds of pounds to people to tell them that they were biased. A very nice racket to get into. For if anyone objected then this was simply yet more evidence of unconscious bias.

The particulars of “unconscious bias” woo were touched on here, where we learned that guilt – and the need for correction - can be determined by the random positioning of a chair. Such is intersectional science.

Via Darleen, Christopher F Rufo finds more primary school indoctrination: 

A fifth-grade teacher at the inner-city William D. Kelley School designed a social studies curriculum to celebrate [Angela] Davis, praising the “black communist” for her fight against “injustice and inequality.” As part of the lesson, the teacher asked students to “describe Davis’ early life,” reflect on her vision of social change, and “define communist”—presumably in favourable terms. At the conclusion of the unit, the teacher led the ten- and eleven-year-old students into the school auditorium to “simulate” a Black Power rally to “free Angela Davis” from prison, where she had once been held while awaiting trial on charges of conspiracy, kidnapping, and murder. The students marched on the stage, holding signs that read “Black Power,” “Jail Trump,” “Free Angela,” and “Black Power Matters.” They chanted about Africa and ancestral power, then shouted “Free Angela! Free Angela!” as they stood at the front of the stage.

In news that will shock no-one, the school in question is not rated highly in academic terms, with only 3 percent of students proficient in maths by sixth grade, and only 9 percent proficient in reading. Still, fear not. Our peddlers of “equity” have a fix for everything.  

And via Mr Muldoon, whiteness has been helpfully classified. For children. By educators.

You May Indulge Yourselves

An open thread seems in order. So here it is. Share ye links and bicker.

Oh, and for those who like to play along at home, feel free to customise your own bar ambience.

The White Devils’ Work

When wokeness means gaslighting:

Asian Americans need to locate anti-Asian violence as part of a pattern of white supremacy… even if perpetrators of violence are people of colour.

No, really.

The strained use of the word locate is, I think, the first warning that horseshit will follow. And what follows includes an exhortation to not “fall back on racist assumptions” – from a man making, and taking pride in, racist assumptions. Such that a white majority population is deemed uniquely oppressive and objectionable, unlike the majorities of other, browner countries, and people can be categorised, pejoratively, as “white” or “white-aligned.” Mr Nguyen, whose words are quoted above, is of course an educator. Shaping young minds.

If the above isn’t sufficiently vivid and perverse, I’ll direct you to this, posted recently, and in which children are apparently expected to pretend similar things, quite hard, and pretend until they believe.

Because, you see, when a black thug assaults and murders a frail 84-year-old Thai man – attacking him, unprovoked, and slamming him into the ground – this can only be because of “white supremacy.” Obviously. The thug in question, Mr Antione Watson, apparently having no agency of his own, and no responsibility, on account of his magic blackness. And that’s why Mr Watson looked so satisfied with himself as he strode away afterwards, leaving a man to die.

To watch the footage linked above and then deduce that Mr Watson, the aggressor, is actually a victim, a mere puppet of Diabolical Whitey And His Infinite Cunning - and that Mr Watson’s malevolence is in fact, somehow, someone else’s fault – is, we’re assured, “intersectional empowerment.”

Update, via the comments:

Friday Ephemeraren’t

Because I’m just a big-hearted softy, a chance to throw together your own pile of links and oddities in the comments. I’ll set the ball rolling with the cunning of cows; scenes of nocturnal activity; how to sit on a chair; some traffic news; and via Holborn, proof, if more were needed, that the Tribes To The North are hardy folk.

Oh, and remember, kids. Always blame the white devil.

I’m Expecting Gasps, Applause

Today is this blog’s birthday. Fourteen bloody years. And the damn thing’s still here. Just sayin’.

Oh, and you may want a moment to process this.  

Consider this an open thread, in which to share links and bicker.

Our Betters Victorious, And Still Unhappy

In the Los Angeles Times, a tale of high roads not taken:  

Oh, heck no. The Trumpites next door to our pandemic getaway, who seem as devoted to the ex-president as you can get without being Q fans, just ploughed our driveway without being asked and did a great job.

The author of the above, Ms Virginia Heffernan, not only has a “pandemic getaway,” which must be nice, but also neighbours sufficiently thoughtful to clear her drive of heavy snow. Inevitably, this induces not gratitude or warm feelings, but fretting and resentment, such that the aforementioned act of kindness is framed, disdainfully, as “aggressive niceness.” Exactly how Ms Heffernan’s neighbours were being aggressive is unclear, but it seems that we, the reader, are expected to dislike them, quite intensely, on account of their being insufficiently leftist.

Of course, on some level, I realise I owe them thanks,

On some level, says she.

I’m not ready to knock on the door with a covered dish yet.

As readers may be a little confused by the air of displeasure, I should point out that no history of neighbourly rancour is offered as an excuse – no disputes over hedges or noisy pets. Nothing of that sort is mentioned at all. Ms Heffernan’s neighbours are, it seems, to be frowned upon, indeed despised, in print, in a newspaper they may well read, simply for failing to vote for Mr Biden.

I also can’t give my neighbours absolution; it’s not mine to give. Free driveway work, as nice as it is, is just not the same currency as justice and truth.

Absolution, indeed. What a grandiose creature she is. And so, instead of the customary thanks, Ms Heffernan extends to her neighbours – via the medium of a newspaper column intended to shame them – an ultimatum of sorts:

Friday Ephemera

Unforeseen consequences. || My money’s on the little guy. || He made his own. || New neighbours detected || Forming spheres. || Fun with sand, some rubbing. || Electro-pop. (h/t, Dr Westerhaus) || Today’s word is suboptimal. || She’s an educator, you know. || Modernity is a hell of a thing. || See also. || Screams stopping abruptly, a thread. || Reverse your videos. Or pretty much any video. || “Very disturbed people.” || Branding, baby. || Being woke, she is of course enraged. || Eye-catching, yes, but a bugger to dust. || A collection of found paper aeroplanes. (h/t, Things) || Today’s other words are lubricant and pen torch. || A love like no other. || Clouds. || And finally, some behavioural correction.