The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘Just Being Around Men Is Exhausting’

Posted on | November 30, 2017 | 1 Comment

On her Twitter profile, Ali Thompson describes herself as “Fat Activist Bisexual Queer.” On her personal web site, she calls herself “a feminist artist from Philadelphia specializing in pop art that is influenced by riot grrl zines, punk flyers, tattoos and comic art.” She has another Twitter account called @Ok2BeFat and a Patreon account to fund her project “creating fat positive activism, art, fiction, essays and videos.”

 

 

 

Isn’t it a pity she’s so exhausted from “being around men”? Shouldn’t men do everything they can to avoid being around her at all? She’s in Philadelphia, so men should stay away from Philadelphia. Or maybe avoid the entire state of Pennsylvania, just to be on the safe side.

Bonus: Last year, Ali Thompson wrote a column entitled, “4 Ways Fat People Need to Be Included in Reproductive Justice.” Obviously, under no circumstance would we want her to reproduce (“ew”).

 

Category: Sex Trouble

In The Mailbox: 11.30.17

Posted on | November 30, 2017 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho


OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Al Franken’s Passionate Kisses
Twitchy: Rep. Marsha Blackburn Vows To Blow Lid Off Congress’ Secret Harassment Fund And Name Names
Louder With Crowder: Late Night Show Ratings Are Dropping, Hard
The Week: Ralph Nader Might Have Saved The Democratic Party (h/t NeoWayland)


RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Sam Dastyari Is Conclusive Proof Of Our Leaders’ Weakness
American Power: More On Matt Lauer
American Thinker: Not All Stings Work – On The War James O’Keefe Is Winning
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Matt Lauer Can Suck It News
BattleSwarm: Broadcasting Bigwigs Behaving Badly
Bring The HEAT: World Of Warships – TF Whiskey Dominates In Clan Battles
Da Tech Guy: Pelosi Turns On Conyers, also, Conyers & Franken Should Face The Voters
Don Surber: Defender Of Polanski Attacks Roy Moore
Dustbury: Level Headed
Fred On Everything: Absolute, Obvious, Unacknowledged Disaster – A Racial Snapshot Of America
The Geller Report: Car Explodes At Christmas Market Festival In North London
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day
Jammie Wearing Fools: Climate Of Hate Update
Joe For America: RIP Jim Nabors
JustOneMinute: Another Russian Spy Outed!
Legal Insurrection: Campus Newspaper Editorial Tells White Students “Your DNA Is An Abomination”, also, Matt Lauer Breaks Silence, Claims He’s “Truly Sorry”
Power Line: How Hateful Are The Democrats? This Hateful, also, Why Is Trump Picking A Top Clinton Aide For A Key Ambassador Slot?
Shot In The Dark: This Is The Profile In Courage That Could Be Your New State Rep From 61B
STUMP: Moving The Public Pension Goalposts – 60% Is The New 80%
The Political Hat: LOLGender!!1! – Bathrooms, Research, And Pronouns
This Ain’t Hell: Jim Nabors Passes, also, Marines Leave Syria
Weasel Zippers: Conyers Won’t Seek Re-Election, also, This May Explain Why Democrats Are So Desperate To Hang Onto CFPB
Megan McArdle: Must-Reads For 2017 – Mysteries Of The White Working Class
Mark Steyn: Many Happy Returns


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Category: Linkagery

The Insane Professor

Posted on | November 30, 2017 | Comments Off on The Insane Professor

 

Griffin Epstein teaches at George Brown College in Toronto. In 2009, she wrote her master’s thesis on “mad Jewish identity,” which began:

“Can we be accountable to privilege? Can we find a space for coherent anti-racist secular Ashkenazi Jewish identity in North America, where Jews have been deeply implicated in structural violence? Can we be agents of both complicity and change?”

This 200-page “autoethnographic” treatise is crazy on steroids. That someone could obtain a graduate degree on the basis of such work is damning testimony to the abysmal standards of contemporary academia.

Professor Epstein attracted public attention after she published a letter in the Toronto Star, criticizing the newspaper’s coverage of a controversy at Wilfrid Laurier University:

“Instead of taking a stand against hate speech, you have given dangerous credence to the views of (University of Toronto Prof.) Jordan Peterson and his supporters, flying in the face of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

This controversy involves people demanding to be called by gender-neutral pronouns. Lindsey Shepherd, a teaching assistant at Wilfrid Laurier University, showed her students a video of a debate between University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan B. Peterson and Nicholas Matte, a professor in the Waterloo University women’s studies department. Peterson has become “controversial” for refusing to address students by such pronouns as “they/them” or “ze/zir.” Shepherd said she was told “that you can’t debate something like this because it causes an unsafe or toxic learning environment. I ended up being called transphobic and someone who causes harm and violence.” If you don’t do whatever transgender activists demand, you’re Hitler, basically.

When Professor Epstein weighed in on the controversy — condemning Peterson, Shepherd and the Toronto Star as proponents of “hate speech” — Badger Pundit posted a Twitter thread with excerpts from Professor Epstein’s master’s thesis, full of startling revelations. Professor Epstein is mentally ill — diagnosed with anorexia, major depression, generalized anxiety disorder and PTSD — and her “autoethnography” reveals that mental illness runs in her family. (Her uncle Larry was treated by Bruno Bettelheim.) Her master’s thesis includes statements like these:

“As a queer person who has been psychiatrized . . . the marginality that I have experienced has always been experienced in this landscape of privilege. . . .My version of secular North American Ashkenazi Jewishness was stripped to its barest component part: memory. . . . When I renounced Judaism at fourteen, weeks after my rush-job Bat Mitzvah, my mother’s devastation did not arise from my refusal of God, but a refusal to raise my hypothetical kids with the ghostly memory.”

Question: Should mentally ill people be teaching at universities?

Readers will recall that the notorious Deb Frisch was once a tenure-track psychology professor at the University of Oregon. Isn’t it important to keep such lunatics away from impressionable young people? Do we really want nutjobs and wackos teaching our youth? University faculties are beginning to resemble a casting call for a remake of The Rocky Horror Picture Show or One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.



 

Category: Education

In The Mailbox: 11.29.17

Posted on | November 29, 2017 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 11.29.17

— compiled by Wombat-socho


OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Garrison Keillor Fired From Minnesota Public Radio For “Inappropriate Behavior”
Twitchy: Variety’s BOMBSHELL Expose Reveals Matt Lauer As “Super Villain-Level” Predator
Louder With Crowder: Did I FAKE The Amazon Alexa Video?
Ars Technica: Judge Rules Against 84-Year-Old Doctor Who Can’t Use Computer (h/t Loyal Commenter NeoWayland)


RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Studies Have Shown That Studies Are Bunk
American Power: Believe All Women? also, Eight Million Could Die In Nuke War With North Korea
American Thinker: NYT Targets Hannity
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
BattleSwarm: James Damore Vs. Google
CDR Salamander: Iron Domes And Wooden Doors
Da Tech Guy: Personal Honor, also, Repeating My Question To Liberal Feminists Post-Lauer #Pervnado
Don Surber: 8th Dimensional Chess? Trump Beats Them At Tic-Tac-Toe
Dustbury: Grey Fox
The Geller Report: Milo Leaves Muslima Journalist A Babbling Mess, also, No Justice For Justine Damond?
Hogewash: What’s Going On Under The Porch? also, Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day
Jammie Wearing Fools: NYT Opinion Twitter Account Campaigns Hard Against GOP Tax Bill
Joe For America: Senator Rand Paul’s Wife Sets The Record Straight
JustOneMinute: Matt Lauer Fired!
Legal Insurrection: Garrison Keillor Fired From MN Public Radio For Alleged “Inappropriate Behavior”, also, If Trump Really Wanted To Stick It To Fauxcahontas…
Michelle Malkin: Nancy Pelosi, Sham “Shero”
Power Line: Will There Ever Be An Accounting On North Korea? also, Donald Trump – Feminist Hero
Shark Tank: Curbelo Dreams Big For “Dreamers”
Shot In The Dark: Conundrum
STUMP: Which Public Pension Funds Have The Highest Holdings Of Alternative Assets? Has It Paid Off?
The Political Hat: Hobo Army of Social Justice
This Ain’t Hell: LTC Burnett Sentenced, also, Liberalism And Binders Full Of Women
Weasel Zippers: Congressional Black Caucus Leaders Don’t Want To Answer Questions On Why Conyers Hasn’t Resigned, also, Dems Rushing To Register Thousands Of Alabama Felons Before Deadline
Megan McArdle: Keep Churches’ Tax Break, With Strings Attached
Mark Steyn: Washington’s Redskin


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Category: Linkagery

Chomsky on Foucault (and Also, Exactly What Was Judith Butler Trying to Say?)

Posted on | November 29, 2017 | 2 Comments

Michel Foucault and his very wrong book, ‘The History of Sexuality.’

It’s not my habit to quote Noam Chomsky, whom I despise, but I happened upon something he once said about Michel Foucault:

You can make things look complicated, that’s part of the game that intellectuals play; things must look complicated. You might not be conscious about that, but it’s a way of gaining prestige, power and influence. . . .
The only way to understand Foucault is if you are a graduate student or you are attending a university and have been trained in this particular style of discourse. That’s a way of guaranteeing, it might not be his purpose, but that’s a way of guaranteeing that intellectuals will have power, prestige and influence. If something can be said simply, say it simply, so that the carpenter next door can understand you. Anything that is at all well understood about human affairs is pretty simple. I find Foucault really interesting but I remain skeptical of his mode of expression. I find that I have to decode him, and after I have decoded him, maybe I’m missing something. I don’t get the significance of what I am left with. I have never effectively understood what he was talking about. I mean, when I try to take the big words he uses and put them into words that I can understand and use, it is difficult for me to accomplish this task. It all strikes me as overly convoluted and very abstract. But what happens when you try to skip down to real cases? The trouble with Foucault, and with this certain kind of theory, arises when it tries to come down to earth. Really, nobody was able to explain to me the importance of his work.

It is a damning judgment of postmodernism that someone of Chomsky’s stature as an intellectual was forced to admit that he found Foucault’s writing impenetrable. And what Chomsky says about the deliberate mystification practiced by the purveyors of academic jargon is accurate. Truth tends to reside in ideas that are simple enough for ordinary people to understand without the tutorial guidance of professors. By writing in opaque jargon, intellectuals create a phony prestige for themselves and their colleagues in academia, who act as a priestly caste, interpreting these “sacred texts” for the students who are indoctrinated with the quasi-religious belief system of the intellectuals.

 

Anyone who has studied Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity knows that her 1990 book is nearly unreadable, and yet it also consistently ranks among the top sellers at Amazon (#9 in Gender Studies, as of Monday), simply because it is required reading for so many college students. Professor Butler’s fundamental idea can be summarized in a few phrases — the social construction of the gender binary within the heterosexual matrix — but it would require hours to explain what this means, and what logical consequences we can expect from the widespread popularization of this theory. However, Professor Butler certainly understood her own purpose in promoting the “subversion of identity,” i.e., the destruction of “gender,” the abolition of what anthropologists used to call “sex-role differentiation.” Professor Butler, like all feminists, is opposed to what many Christian teachers call the complementarity of male and female, particularly between husbands and wives.

Pull up a chair, and let me explain what I mean. Read more

Category: Intellectuals, Sex Trouble

NBC Fires ‘Today’ Host Matt Lauer

Posted on | November 29, 2017 | 1 Comment

 

Stunning news:

Matt Lauer, the anchor of “Today” for two decades, was fired by NBC News after a detailed complaint about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace.
“Today” co-anchors Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb announced Lauer’s firing Wednesday, telling viewers at the top of the show that they were processing his departure but didn’t yet know all of the details.
In a memo to employees sent Wednesday morning, NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack said the complaint, which was made by a colleague of Lauer’s, prompted a serious review and represented a “clear violation of our company’s standards.”
Lack said it was the first complaint lodged against Lauer, 59, for his behavior since he took over as anchor of the show in 1997, but there was “reason to believe” it may not have been an isolated incident.
“Our highest priority is to create a workplace environment where everyone feels safe and protected, and to ensure that any actions that run counter to our core values are met with consequences, no matter who the offender,” Lack said.

UPDATE: We are now about seven weeks into the Sexual Harassment Apocalypse that began in early October with revelations of Harvey Weinstein’s predatory behavior. As I have explained, the reason this is happening is because Hillary lost and Trump won. The zero-tolerance no-mercy attitude toward male misconduct is a product of feminist rage over Trump’s victory; they cannot destroy him, so they’ll destroy any man within range. The only way to save yourself? Avoid feminists.

UPDATE II: Because everybody is now speculating what it was Lauer did, I feel it necessary to share my hunch:

This is only a hunch. When we get breaking news like this, there is always a flood of online speculation, and I don’t want to contribute to that by claiming any special knowledge. However, it is obvious that whatever Lauer did must have been very serious, and possibly criminal.

 

Category: Celebrities

In The Mailbox: 11.28.17

Posted on | November 28, 2017 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 11.28.17

— compiled by Wombat-socho


OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box, Episode #89
EBL: What Do The Smoke Signals Say?
Twitchy: Guy Benson Nukes Dem Lies About GOP Tax Bill With One Graph, Triggers Dumb-O-Lanche
Louder With Crowder: Joy Reid Goes Full Crybaby, Blames Rural Americans For Getting In The Left’s Way


RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: The Unexamined Repressive Brutality Of Male Feminists
American Thinker: Repealing Obama’s Net Neutrality A Blow For Freedom
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Martian Chronicles News
BattleSwarm: Dear Jason Villalba -Enjoy This Festive Holiday Primary Challenge
Bring The HEAT: Logbooks For SWOs
CDR Salamander: So, What Do You Put In The NLOS Void?
Da Tech Guy: Cokie Roberts Shoots Down The Morning Joe “Old Man Conyers” Narrative, also, The Future Of Journalism?
Don Surber: Proving EducatedHillbilly Correct
Dustbury: Wankers Need Pictures
The Geller Report: ISIS Opens Sex Slave Market In Turkey’s Capitol
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, Looking Through Cold Interstellar Dust
Jammie Wearing Fools: Good Riddance To Lena Dunham
Legal Insurrection: Court Sides With Trump In Bitter Battle With CFPB, Fauxcahontas, also, Legal Insurrection Semi-Annual Fundraiser
Power Line: On Pocahontas, Sarah Sanders Gets The Last Word, also, How Democrats Turned On Charles McCullough
Shark Tank: Fant Backs Rubio’s Call For Franken Resignation
Shot In The Dark: The Dumbest Comparison
STUMP: Are Hedge Funds Or Private Equity Investments Appropriate For Public Pension Funds?
The Jawa Report: Use The Force Rey!
The Political Hat: The Transgendering Of Leviathan’s Children
This Ain’t Hell: U.S. District Court Judge Forces DoD To Accept Transgender Troops, also, Homeless Vet Johnny Bobbitt Left Marines After Abbreviated Tour
Weasel Zippers: Navajo Code Talker Not Offended By Trump Calling Warren “Pocahontas”, also, Columbia Sportswear May Close Portland Office After Death Threats, Public Pooping By Homeless
Mark Steyn: The Gay High-Water Mark, also, A World Without Courtship Rituals


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Category: Linkagery

Sex Panic and Its Consequences

Posted on | November 28, 2017 | 1 Comment

The downfall of Harvey Weinstein was fun, and it’s amusing to watch Democrats like John Conyers and Al Franken twisting in the wind. However, the Sexual Harassment Apocalypse looks uncomfortably familiar to those of us old enough to remember the McMartin Preschool story. Christina Hoff Sommers sounds the warning:

In the 1980s, a panic over Satanic abuse in day care centers put many innocent people in prison.
Soon after the Weinstein scandal broke, an anonymously sourced “S—y Media Men” list began circulating on social media. The blacklist accuses more than 70 male journalists of sexual harassment.
But the charges range from “weird lunches” to rape. The informants collapse important distinctions between criminal predation and unwelcome flirtation. The men couldn’t defend themselves — and anyone who tries can be accused of not believing victims, even anonymous ones.
Fortunately, the blacklist received criticism — especially from leftists who pointed out that these tactics can destroy innocent lives. But prominent feminist Jill Filipovic dismissed the scrutiny as “backlash.” Writer Roxane Gay disparaged “all the hand-wringing about …the ethics of anonymous disclosure.” As she explained in the New York Times, American women live in a state of siege. She suggested all men confess to “how they have hurt women in ways great and small.”

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.) Feminists hate all men, and want to use these specific revelations of wrongdoing as a general indictment of men as a class, in order to banish males from position of power — in academia, in media, in government, in business. Roxane Gay’s demand for a mass confession of how men “have hurt women in ways great and small” resembles nothing so much as the Moscow Show Trials of the 1930s, or China during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s.

Feminism Is a Totalitarian Movement to Destroy Civilization as We Know It, and feminists will not be satisfied until they control all positions of authority everywhere in society. In order to advance their agenda, feminists are deliberately exaggerating the prevalence of workplace harassment, to make it seem ubiquitous. They are conflating minor annoyances — the vaguely “creepy” guy’s awkward flirtation — with such grievous wrongs as those committed by Weinstein and Louis C.K.

Let us not deny that a witch hunt can have beneficial consequences. The period of so-called “McCarthyism” in the early 1950s did result in a heightened public awareness of the (very real) efforts by Communists to subvert our government. Likewise, the Satanic child-abuse panic of the 1980s caused parents to become more vigilant about possibly abusive conditions in day-care centers. However, there is a difference between reasonable caution — a wariness of genuine danger — and paranoia.

Furthermore, we ought to notice how many of the men now accused of harassment and even sexual assault are “progressives,” including liberal journalists and Democrat politicians previously considered allies of the feminist movement. Genderqueer feminist Laurie Penny says she has been flooded with inquiries from her left-wing male associates, worried if their own past transgressions might be exposed, and also wondering how — or even if — they will ever get laid again in the future.

Good. We should be glad that these guys are worried. Many decades of reckless promiscuity, going back at least as far as the late 1960s, have lowered our society’s moral standards. (Obligatory reminder that I was a Democrat in my youth.) As bad as a witch-hunt sex panic may be, we seem to require an occasional fit of hysteria, just to remind everybody of what happens when we descend into hedonistic anarchy.



 

Category: Sex Trouble
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