davidthompson

Elsewhere (312)

Anna Slatz on when an 80-year-old lady encounters the pointy end of transgender ideology:  

When [Julie] Jaman asked… why no signs had been posted informing women that males could potentially be in the locker rooms, she says she was told: “‘We post pride signs, and we assume that lets women know what to expect.’”

What is expected, it seems, is that women who are not entirely comfortable with dysmorphic men using ladies’ changing rooms and showers, and watching small girls undress, should simply pretend that it isn’t happening. As is the custom, a kind of farce ensues, including accusations of “hatred,” bigotry, and being “unscientific.”  

Heather Mac Donald on the woke capture, and corruption, of medicine:

Medical schools and medical societies are discarding traditional standards of merit in order to alter the demographic characteristics of their profession… Black students are not admitted into competitive residencies at the same rate as whites because their average [second year ‘Step One’] test scores are a standard deviation below those of whites. Step One has already been modified to try to shrink that gap; it now includes nonscience components such as “communication and interpersonal skills.” But the standard deviation in scores has persisted. In the world of antiracism, that persistence means only one thing: the test is to blame. It is Step One that, in the language of antiracism, “disadvantages” underrepresented minorities, not any lesser degree of medical knowledge…

The Progressive Hellscape, Part 203

Frances Widdowson on the “indigenised” Canadian university, where pretending is everything:  

In 2018, one of the co-directors at my university’s Office of Academic Indigenisation invited an Indigenous elder to give a presentation on “Western Medicine vs. Traditional Healing Medicine.” A member of the audience asked the elder what he recommended for the “gut problems” afflicting her child. In response, the elder stated that the parent should “rub corn pollen on his feet and do a sunrise ceremony.” A number of professors in the Faculty of Science and Technology attending the session acknowledged afterwards that this example of “traditional healing medicine” was completely inconsistent with evidence-based scientific medical techniques (as seems obvious, even to those of us who aren’t doctors). But they remained silent at the event, as did everyone else, out of “respect.”

Not quite the right word, I think.

Readers will note that the beneficiary of this “respect” is the peddler of primitive woo, the one being deferred to as a quasi-magical being, some kind of leprechaun. Not the mother whose child was in need of medical attention. I am, of course, assuming that gastro-intestinal ailments won’t actually be cured by rubbing corn pollen on your feet. But such are progressive priorities. There’s much more to chew, and some noteworthy contortions are performed, so do peruse the whole thing. It does rather convey the unhinged, neurotic atmosphere of woke academia. There are also other gifts of aboriginal piety and “indigenous knowledge.” For instance,

[A]t the University of Winnipeg in 2015… presiding Indigenous elders declared that it was in keeping with their traditions that women in attendance should wear long skirts. (Two years earlier, at the University of Saskatchewan, a poster promoting a similar event instructed women to skip the ceremony if they were menstruating.)

And,

[W]hen I attended an “Empowering Indigenisation Symposium” a few months later, an elder said that his “knowledge” included the belief that trees come out of dormancy in the spring because birds sing to them.

Please update your files and lifestyles accordingly.

Somewhat related: Guardian columnist denounces Western medicine as “outdated,” champions use of bush dung.

Via Nikw211.

Reheated (61)

For newcomers and the forgetful, two items from the archives:

The Blurting. 

A leftist compulsion is pondered.

A more subtle and common example occurred in January, when the family headed out to a Burns Night dinner at a restaurant adjacent to the university. Before the food appeared, we were treated to a brief poetry reading courtesy of a local academic. I was tempted to roll my eyes at the prospect, but he did get the crowd in good spirits. Until a poem about food and good company was somehow given, as he put it, “a political edge.” And so, we endured a contrived reference to Brexit - implicitly very bad - and a pointed nod across the ocean to a certain president, who we were encouraged to imagine naked.

At the time, I was struck by the presumption – the belief that everyone present would naturally agree - that opposition to Brexit and a disdain of Trump were things we, the customers, would without doubt have in common… The subtext was hard to miss: “This is a fashionable restaurant and its customers, being fashionable, will obviously hold left-of-centre views, especially regarding Brexit and Trump, both of which they should disdain and wish to be seen disdaining by their left-of-centre peers.” And when you’re out to enjoy a fancy meal with friends and family, this is an odd sentiment to encounter from someone you don’t know and whose ostensible job is to make you feel welcome.

Trust Me, I’m A Witchdoctor. 

Guardian columnist denounces Western medicine as “outdated,” champions use of bush dung.

Trust Me, I’m A Witchdoctor

Via Mr Muldoon, a peek into the comment pages of the Guardian, where Ms Ngaree Blow attempts to sell the merits of prehistoric healing:

Healthcare systems in Australia that are considered “mainstream” are fundamentally colonial organisations: designed, established and informed by Western paradigms and biomedical models of care. 

Going with what works and works reliably. How very dare those damned colonials. With their Western paradigms.

At present, the norm is those who will fit within the constraints of the Western worldview of health… Ultimately, this results in a health system which is not fit for purpose, 

The term fit for purpose is one to keep in mind. But first, some self-flattery - the urge to self-inflate being a Guardian staple:

First Peoples are the antithesis of colonial; we are inherently disruptive to how the healthcare system (and many other systems in fact) operate in Australia... As a doctor, I have embraced disruption and have chosen to reject conventional medical training pathways. 

How terribly daring. With other people’s wellbeing.

Our disruption has historically been, and continues to be, rejected by the mainstream.

Intimations of victimhood being another Guardian staple. Apparently, modern medical science, with its oppressive Western paradigms, is insufficiently deferential to “our ways of knowing, being and doing.” We must, says Ms Blow, “embrace all knowledge systems.”

Our unique lens, which views health as holistic and all-encompassing, has often been ignored or worse, considered inferior, as evidenced by a lack of traditional practices in these services.

Well, not everyone is happy trusting their recovery to healing songs and delusions of aboriginal sorcery, and there’s only so much you can achieve by pushing crushed witchetty grubs into a person’s ear. Likewise, the restorative properties of bush dung, as used in many of the practices invoked by Ms Blow - those “ways of knowing” - are somewhat unclear.

There May Be Some Swelling

Menfolk, avert your eyes.

The 23-year-old ended up in hospital where his penis had to be drained of two pints of blood – after suffering from an erection lasting 17 hours.

Blimey. 

Jason first woke up with the condition last Friday morning and initially didn’t worry about it. However by lunchtime he was beginning to get concerned and tried to address the situation by... 

No, don’t. Bad dog.

taking an ice bath and then going for a jog.

When these measures failed, 

He went to the hospital where his condition was diagnosed and doctors drew off two pints of blood to try and reduce the pressure. They also had to inject medication 24 times to restrict the blood flow. 

Mercifully, this tale has a happy ending.

All is now well with Jason, who described the pain of his treatment as “ten out of ten.” “It is completely normal now,” he added, “apart from the fact that it looks like it’s been through a war. It’s all a bit black and blue.”

Via Chris Snowdon.