davidthompson

Activism Farms

We seem to be living in an age of extinction-level stupidity: 

There is no such thing as learning loss. Our kids didn’t lose anything [during the pandemic]. It’s okay that our babies may not have learned all their times tables. They learned resilience. They learned survival. They learned critical-thinking skills. They know the difference between a riot and a protest. They know the words insurrection and coup.

So says Cecily Myart-Cruz, president of the United Teachers Los Angeles union. A union representing 33,000 teachers and associated educational staff.

“Education is political,” says Ms Myart-Cruz, who boasts of her ability to act with near-impunity, and whose list of Intolerable Things includes cognitive testing, “structural racism,” border controls, policing, and the supposed “privilege” of parents who would like their children to actually learn things, including times tables. Our Mistress Of Higher Purpose struggles to comprehend why parents might object to their children’s education, even in basic skills, being supplanted by the nakedly self-serving and increasingly weird activism of the people paid to teach them those basic skills. Instead, she endorses claims that such objections must be driven by “white-supremacist thinking.”

Needless to say, the UTLA is vehemently opposed to voucher systems that would allow parents to spare their children a stay in what are not so much schools as activism farms. Where Ms Myart-Cruz and her “babies” can prioritise “fighting for… social justice.”

“We’re re-envisioning what the future of public schools will look like,” says she. 

Via Darleen. 

Thrilling Content Goes Here

It’s a bank holiday hereabouts, so before doing other things, I thought I’d share this guide to online advertising.

Provenance unknown. Also, open thread.

Friday Ephemeraren’t

Because it takes practice, a chance to throw together your own pile of links and oddities in the comments. I’ll kick things off with an answer to the age-old question of whether eyeballs bounce; an obliging doggo; a job that’s perhaps not for everyone; an inn of note; scenes of wartime London; and why a non-lethal knockout is harder than you might think.

Entertain me, I dare you. 

The Three Magic Words

Heard in class: 

“Can everybody look up from their phones? Hello, you guys, look at me.”

As someone quips in the replies, “Is this on the test?”

Mr Zoa is a “performer and educator” who uses the word black as if it were a credential, an obvious accomplishment. Preferred pronouns, because of course, are “she/they/he,” and areas of expertise, of which there are so many, include “loving myself,” “hair micro-aggressions,” and gyrating in heels like a stripper. Readers may note how these daringly individual people - the ones so busily, and so loudly, being themselves - so often default to the same tedious cartoon.

Update, via the comments:

Mr Zoa also thinks that employers shouldn’t object to him going backless at work, on account of his non-binary fabulousness. Which, it has to be said, doesn’t suggest an encouraging set of priorities, or a mind focussed on the task for which said person is being employed. The imagined right to parade around the workplace in a cloud of self-absorption, forever on the cusp of voguing, in some backless, strapless ensemble is a strange hill to die on. For a high-school teacher.

But Mr Zoa seems to regard his hashtags - #lgbt #nonbinary #gay – as amulets of some kind, as protections against criticism, while seeking ever-greater indulgence.

Also, open thread.

Yes, But Have You Purged Your White Devil Ectoplasm?

Or, She Works With Children.

Whiteness…. is hostile, it is violent… it is annihilating… That is something we always need to be mindful of as white people.

A reminder that woke anti-white woo doesn’t have to be convincing or coherent, just signalled often, regardless.  

Note the implication that “whiteness,” being white, equals racism and is therefore by default a thing to be discussed in terms of pathology, a thing to be cured. “Colour-blindness” - i.e., not being weirdly fixated by race - is, it turns out, deeply problematic, and must give way to deconstructing “the whiteness=greatness fallacy in white psyches.” Which is what “white psyches” are all about, you see.

This self-confessed “white lady,” Natasha Stovall, is a child psychologist, a stater of pronouns, and an avowed “anti-racist,” which is to say, a seeker of woke status. And hence the racism, of course.

Dr Stovall “specialises in warmth and empathy.” Her rates are between $120-$250 per hour. In case you were tempted. 

Update, via the comments:

Dr Stovall tells us that she is terribly progressive and a child of progressive parents – presumably, the Less Bad White People - and is therefore “part of the solution.” Though one can’t help wondering if the phantom bigotries she invokes and then casually ascribes to others, seemingly based on their pigmentation, may have more to do with her own racial neuroticism - what with her being so terribly progressive and a child of progressive parents.

Commenter sH2 asks, “What the hell is ‘psychic energy’?” - a term, one of several, deployed as if self-evident. Alas, with all of the nebulous rambling and unfinished thoughts - all the y’knows, likes, and kind-ofs - it’s hard to be sure. Beyond the claim that this energy is a thing being “drained” by “whiteness,” a malevolent phenomenon, and which in turn is like a “ghost.” Or something.

Readers who watch Dr Stovall speak, in her area of alleged expertise, may not be given an impression of mental clarity, or of ideas that have been thought through and subjected to stress, even of a routine kind. It seems we must make do with a series of disjointed pronouncements surrounded by rhetorical gas. Such that, were Dr Stovall to sit there chanting “Bad Whitey” over and over again, the dogmatism and idiocy might be slightly more obvious, but the informational content would remain much the same.

We’re All In This Together

The University of Utah has formed an “Anti-Racism” committee which will be tasked with “improv[ing] the overall campus climate regarding issues and events of racism across all intersections of identity.” The video, however, only mentions one race. 

It’s an “intergroup dialogue,” you see, spanning “all intersections of identity and bias.” And in which only one notional group is implied as by default chronically victimised, albeit in ways that are somewhat mysterious. The term “anti-Blackness” is deployed many times. Though particulars of this alleged oppression are not immediately forthcoming, indeed entirely absent, as if such details were unnecessary - possibly on account of the time spent needlessly declaring pronouns, and repeating the words “equity,” “diversity” and “folx.” Students are, however, steered towards a course on “whiteness privilege,” during which people of pallor can feel suitably ashamed for their collective skin – sorry, sin.

We are told, 

The Anti-Racism Committee recommends and evaluates measures to ensure that everyone enjoys a campus free of racism and hate. 

And this feat will apparently be achieved by singling out The White Devil as uniquely defective and deserving of correction.

Update, via the comments:

Given the supposed gravity of the supposed problem, such that it requires committees and an ever-expanding infrastructure, you’d think these keen, colossal minds might share at least a hint of what it is they’re planning to “interrogate” and purge from the Earth. Alas, in page after page, we get only airy waffle about “systems… policies and processes,” none of which are specified, even in broad terms. The university itself is mentioned as allegedly a venue of seething racial bigotry, but again, no particulars are offered – none whatsoever. The claim, and what it implies about students and staff - which is to say, the insult - is simply presented as in no need of explanation, or examples, or any supporting evidence.

The video features Dr Bryan Hubain, the associate vice-president of student development and inclusion – a man who boasts of being a “black, gay immigrant” as if this were a credential, an accomplishment, a triple whammy – and a reason for our eternal fascination – and whose LinkedIn profile tells us he is schooled in “critical race theory.” So, no reasons for suspicion there.

Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

Friday Ephemera

How to use a chair. || How to sell bread. || Biodegradable shoes. || These black holes are bigger than yours. || Suboptimal situation. || Incoming. || Kuru, the laughing death epidemic of Papua New Guinea. || How to kill weeds. || Wheelchair of note. || Wheelchair of note 2. || “He would put on the voice of an elderly woman, then ask the call handler to describe their feet.” (h/t, pst314) || Can I touch? || Candle smoke. || Cat trees. || Accidentally gigantic spiders. || Which kind of rain would you like? || Candy Wrapper Museum. || Jam session. (h/t, Darleen) || Life skills. || The sounds of learning. || Serving suggestion. || When The Pie Was Opened, 1941. || And in ever-updating pronoun news, “This makes perfect sense.”

Danger, Will Robinson

When the topic of gender and genitals came up…

In pre-school, of course. 

Koe Creation, the rather animated lady above, is, she says, a “second-generation queerspawn” - by which she means the product of a polyamorous household - and is allegedly, via some unspecified process, an expert in “sex-positive parenting” and “non-violent communication,” on which she offers “guidance.” She - or rather they, because pronouns - works within the “polyamorous and kink communities” and holds workshops in bondage and sadomasochism, and is therefore, obviously, spending lots of time with small children and talking about their bodies.

Update:

Ms Creation, also known as Valkyrie Jacobson-Smith, is now upset that “the trolls” have found her public announcements and have not been overly impressed or encouraged by them. Insufficient enthusiasm – and any kind of demurral – apparently warrants the designation troll. Presumably, the wider public – those outside of “polyamorous and kink communities” – should be thrilled to discover that pre-school children are being taught by a self-styled “expert” in bondage and sadomasochism, and being quizzed on their genitals, and being used as a basis for “intergenerational dialogue around relational identities (such as polyamory, sexuality… and kink).”

Because, hey, there’s nothing creepy or concerning about that at all.

Yes, dear reader, it’s terribly unfair when people fail to affirm your radicalism and subversiveness, with children aged three and four - a subversiveness of which you’re so proud - based on “moments when that rhetoric happened to come up in the classroom.”

It just happened, you see.

Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

Where Pretending Gets You

Via TomJ in the comments:

The head of one of Scotland’s biggest rape crisis centres has suggested “bigoted” rape survivors should be re-educated about transgender rights as part of recovering from their trauma. Mridul Wadhwa, a transgender woman, said people would not truly recover unless they addressed their “unacceptable beliefs” because “therapy is political.” She said: “We will work with you... but please expect to be challenged on your prejudices.” The comments imply rape survivors may be treated differently according to their political views.

So, a woman who has just been traumatically violated by a man pretending to be something that he isn’t, i.e., a lover, and been forced to submit to his fantasies, is now to face another man pretending to be something that he isn’t. And will be forced to submit to his fantasies. 

Update: 

Wadhwa, a self-styled “strategic thinker,” insists that “therapy is political” - which apparently means that a woman who’s been raped by a man and then seeks help from other women will be told, on the orders of a man, that she “can’t really… recover from trauma” until she “reframes” that experience to incorporate the most modish and deranging iteration of transgender ideology. Failure to do so is “unacceptable” and will of course be “challenged.” Because priorities.

The centre is currently advertising for a chief operating officer, who must also be a woman, and says applications from trans women would be “especially welcome.”

Must be a woman - or even better, not.

As STG says in the comments,

Imagine going to your first counselling session after being raped and realising that the counsellor considers their problems more important than yours. And then realising that, in addition, the therapist wants emotional support from you, and that if you don’t give it, you are considered a bad person. And this is policy.

Indeed. Readers are invited to imagine, too, the precise level of self-preoccupation required in the scenario above. To insert one’s own psychodrama into that situation, of all situations. It’s practically sociopathic. Yet here we are.

Friday Ephemera

Helping hound. (h/t, Darleen) || Major sheddage. || Adventure sheet offers wetness protection. || A guide to the immune system and its tiny, violent dramas. || Upscaled micro-organisms. || New York, 1900. || On the neurotic farce of woke classical music. (h/t, Sue Sims) || Sales may have suffered. || Field lines detected. || Colliding light. || “The toilet… can generate half a kilowatt hour of electricity.” || It ain’t the years, it’s the mileage. || Snack bar of yore. || Bicycles for animals. || London Picture Archive. (h/t, Things) || Leftist parenting. || A pathologically self-involved nightmare on legs. || Racial narcissism. || Lo and behold. || And finally, progressively, “I’m going to try my best to respect that.”

We’re Here To Help

By “suspending proficiency requirements” in the name of “equity”:  

An Oregon high school diploma does not guarantee that students who earned it can read, write, or do math at a high school level. Governor Kate Brown dropped the requirement that students demonstrate they have achieved those essential skills by signing Senate Bill 744 into law. She declined again Friday to comment on why she supported suspending the proficiency requirements… Charles Boyle, the governor’s deputy communications director… said in an emailed statement that suspending the reading, writing and math proficiency requirements will benefit “Oregon’s Black, Latino, Latina, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Tribal, and students of colour.”

You see, having one’s academic capabilities and fitness for employment thrown into serious doubt is now a benefit.

Meanwhile, in the public schools of Baltimore.  

And somewhat related, this. 

The Thrill Of Bralessness

From academia’s Clown Quarter, rumblings of radical import:

Gender and Women’s Studies Professor Sami Schalk suggested she may cease wearing a bra to work, citing, among other things, male “policing” of women’s bodies. “I don’t want to wear a bra to work,” Schalk said on Twitter. “It’s harder on my body & expensive AF.”

Nothing signals gravitas quite like a juvenile abbreviation for the words as fuck.

“All so [sic] some students think my tits don’t sag or don’t know I have nipples? Why?! As person with large breasts my body has always been heavily policed bc of how other people, mostly men, respond to it.”

An educator, remember. A shaper of young minds.

Schalk has gained notoriety on the UW-Madison campus for her outspoken opinions ranging from twerking to anti-police rioting. In 2019, wearing a cape that declared “I AM 100% THAT BITCH,” Schalk twerked with rapper Lizzo at a Madison show. In a column at Vox, she declared it “an act of political defiance.”

And a grown woman.

The event in question, this act of political defiance, and preparations for it, can be witnessed here. 

“When Lizzo joined in, booty to booty — my butt blessed — it was pure Black Girl Magic,” she recalled.

When not exulting in her blessed buttocks and their magic blackness, or sharing boudoir photoshoots, or referring to the police as “fucking pigs,” Dr Schalk offers snacks and advice to rioters and arsonists, including reminders not to video each other while indulging in said rioting and acts of arson, as this may be incriminating and result in consequences, and subsequently harsh the buzz of being so terribly radical.

Recently, Schalk has focused on her right to be freed from the constraints of clothing and undergarments. When one Twitter [user] counselled that it was okay to occasionally “show some ass,” Schalk heartily agreed. “My ass is great,” she responded. “Sometimes I like to share it with the world.”

American readers will doubtless find comfort in this use of their tax dollars. $102,000 per year, or thereabouts.

But hey, bras are expensive as fuck.