From that organ of Our Betters – the New York Times Magazine – a question of throbbing import.
In A Time Of Crisis A Great Leader Will Emerge
May Contain Drama
Or, Shakespeare For The Tremulous And Neurotic:
Readers will doubtless recall the Chichester Festival Theatre warning patrons that its production of The Sound of Music, one of the most famous and widely-seen musicals in the world, would contain references to Nazis. Which, for some, would apparently come as a surprise. More recently, the Royal Shakespeare Company felt it necessary to forewarn visitors that its production of Hans Christian Andersen’s dark fairy tale The Red Shoes features both loud music and “haze.” Because in a tale of mind-controlling shoes and amputated feet, the haze is the thing you really want to watch out for.
Also, Shakespeare’s Tempest includes bad weather. And no, I’m not joking.
Scenes From Current Year
A possible series on a theme of belated pushback.
What, These Knockers Here?
I bring news from academia. Just don’t stare at the breasts.
Liberal Cannon Fodder
Rupa Subramanya- ‘I Don’t Think My Business Can Survive These Tariffs’
Small businesses are especially at risk. In 2022, 81.8 percent of Canadian small business exports went to the United States. These companies are so dependent on cross-border trade that Trump’s 25 percent tariff, coupled with Canada’s retaliatory tariffs, will likely affect 82 percent of them, according to a survey by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
Just Two Weeks To Flatten The Tariffs
Sun- Trudeau announces 25 per cent targeted retaliatory tariffs on American goods
Trudeau held a news conference Saturday evening to announce that Canada will respond with an immediate $30-billion retaliation package, which will be followed by $125 billion in duties on American products in 21 days to give companies and supply chains time to find alternatives.
Canada’s retaliation plan will include everyday items such as American beer, wine, bourbon, fruits and fruit juices, including orange juice, along with vegetables, perfume, clothing and shoes, Trudeau said.
All You Have To Do Is Ask
Our Betters Issue Threats
A boast of impending vandalism, a struggle with logic.
But Paying Attention Is Hard
As we’re in the realm of the excruciatingly woke, the terms violence and trauma are of course misused and deliberately misleading.
On reinventing maths teaching to flatter the selfish and disruptive.
Great Success!
The Times- Labour’s tax plans trigger exodus of millionaires from UK
In total Britain lost a net 10,800 millionaires to migration last year, a 157 per cent increase on 2023, meaning it lost more wealthy residents than any other country except China. The actual number that moved out is even higher because the net figure also takes into account the millionaires who arrived in the UK.
Unreliable Narrators
Don’t Look Directly At It
During the lengthy interview quoted above, Walgreens CEO Tim Wentworth hints at the development of “creative” solutions for customers demoralised by unimpeded thieving and the subsequent lockdown status of many stores. Paying customers, a seemingly shrinking demographic, will, we’re assured, be offered a “better… in-store experience” via “new scheduling optimisation logic” and “leveraging our omnichannel capabilities.”
Oddly, Mr Wentworth, whose business is planning to close another 450 stores during the coming year, avoids any use of the words shoplifting, looting, or theft.
Shower Scenes
Rotatable Apparatus
Welcome Mat
In terms of ideology, “diversity” seems to be the belief that the less we have in common, and feel we have in common, the happier we will be. An unobvious proposition, to say the least. Yet the word is mouthed as if it were a self-evident good, a “strength,” a moral imperative, a thing of which one could never have enough.
This Is My Sad Face, Now Do As I Say
Dear reader, spare a thought for academics rendered tearful by “the undertakings of white people”:
Despite the theatre of “ongoing emotional pain,” the proponents of degree-course “decolonisation” seem quite enthused by their scolding and leverage. Their ability to wring pretentious atonement from fellow players of the game.
The Year Reheated
A compendium of progressive pretence and odd mental contortions:
In February, we learned, via a Canadian socialist podcaster named Nora Loreto, that habitual car theft is a “victimless” crime, a trivial thing. Even a third conviction for thieving someone else’s car should not result in incarceration or any physical impediment, because the victims of car theft – who do not exist, apparently – “get new cars though.” “I write books and I know things,” announced Nora, who lives in Quebec, where, in the last year, the rate of car theft has practically doubled.
Other topics included an educational effort in San Francisco, in which elementary school children were expected to “disrupt whiteness,” and to have – or at least regurgitate – strong opinions on the Israeli military. Needless to say, this focus on political indoctrination and imagining “a world without police, money, or landlords,” came at the expense of more mundane subjects, with English and maths scores hitting record lows, and with less than 4% of students considered numerate. All in the name of “removing barriers to learning.”
And we pondered the weirdly woke marketing of retailer John Lewis, whose customers were doubtless inspired to shop harder and more often thanks to photographs of store employees accompanied by details of their mental health problems and niche sexual leanings. Among them, Mr Marc Geoffrey Albert Whitcombe, now known as Ruby, who was thrilled by “the chance to express my true inner self,” and who was photographed in an enormous rose-adorned wig and while clutching a cat o’ nine tails. Customers intrigued by this in-store display soon discovered Mr Whitcombe’s social media presence, which consists of hundreds of selfies in which he attempts erotic poses, complete with ladies’ lingerie and while gripping sex toys in his mouth.
Selection Box
A tale of erotic mollusc-gobbling; some heated powder-room scenes; and a Guardian columnist attempts to “redefine the family unit” with limited success.
Christmas Financing Is Available
Sun- BoC delivers jumbo interest rate cut
Governor Tiff Macklem says in his prepared statement that the central bank opted for two large rate cuts in a row because inflation and economic growth don’t need to be restricted anymore.