Category: Forward!

We Mustn’t Let Them See The Facts

Forward! Media 7 Comments

On attempts by Flemish state TV to hide unsavoury migrant attitudes:

The seemingly routine attempt to deceive does rather invalidate the ostensible core function of this publicly funded organisation. It throws everything they do into question. How could one possibly trust them? It quite literally wipes out their credibility as a broadcaster. And by extension, any claim to public funding or favoured status.

In a saner world, it would be the end of them.

I say ostensible function because it’s not altogether obvious – to say the least – how one could reconcile some supposed broadcaster’s mission to convey the facts, and to bring into being an informed citizenry, with doing everything possible to prevent precisely that.

But remember, dear citizen, we must pretend even harder.

 

Literary World Unveils Doomsday Machine

Forward! The Arts 5 Comments

Fintan O’Toole, literary editor of the Irish Times, calls for a “national arts strike” to extort further cash from the taxpayer. “The public has to be reminded that it really does care,” says he. And until more wallets land on the bonfire of publicly funded art, the nation’s creative titans should “close the arts centres” and “hold no poetry readings.”

One of these.

When Your Country Is Just A Hotel

Forward! 6 Comments

Or some holiday resort:

Because, says Mr Gold, our pronoun-stipulating essayist, a sense of connection with one’s home, one’s territory, one’s ancestry and how one came to be, is “utterly arbitrary.” A thing of no importance, unworthy of consideration. Says he, or he/him, “The only sensible form of government is one-world government.”

You see, becoming even less important, even smaller in relation to the steering of the ship, one of billions instead of millions, is a good thing, it turns out. And that irrelevance is sensible, a thing to which the rest of us should apparently aspire. Star Trek, I fear, has much to answer for.

A glimpse into the mind of the scrupulously progressive.

 

Boutique Suffering

Forward! 12 Comments

Because, hey, cooking is hard:

An exchange of views ensues. In which, Ms Taylor Lorenz, an “online culture journalist,” struggles with causality. Including the seemingly difficult concept that a heavy reliance on delivered takeaway, and the mindset that implies, may have some bearing on how little cash one has left at the end of the month.

You see, preparing a simple meal, even a packed lunch, is a physical impossibility for those deemed downtrodden.

 

Like Cleverness, But Less So

Forward! Historical Events 5 Comments

In the nightmare, I’m held at gunpoint and for 24 hours am forced to read aloud works of “queer theory.” I begin with W. Benjamin Myers’ thoughts on “straight and white teeth as a metaphor for a straight and White identity” – and which allegedly reveal the “uninterrogated Whiteness” of routine dental hygiene and its role in maintaining “arrogant and ignorant straight and White identities.”

While you marvel at the naff, strained metaphor – teeth-brushing as an expression of “Whiteness,” an allegedly pathological state – and the irrelevant, space-filling anecdotal rambling, and the unearned, predetermined conclusion, and the invocation of Judith Butler – this Judith Butler – do spare a thought for your gracious host. As I poke at the smouldering wreckage of academia.

On “queer theory” and other wonders of Dumb Academia.

What Your Children Are Being Taught

Forward! Our Diversities 3 Comments

And why you mustn’t find out:

On the subject of parents being shocked to discover, belatedly, what their children are actually being taught, these three incidents came to mind. Among many others. Note, in the third link, the casual invention of a fake curriculum – yes, a fake curriculum – so as to deceive any curious parents. And all while insisting, “This is not being deceitful.”

In light of which, the “anti-fascist” snuff-video session mentioned above – the one for other people’s ten-year-olds – doesn’t exactly scream anomaly or aberration, or some unfortunate misreading of the room, so much as a ratcheting upwards.

Three snapshots of Very Modern Education.

But What If I Catch Their Whiteness?

Forward! The Arts 7 Comments

On efforts to “decolonise” folk singing; on claims of being oppressed by a rapidly shrinking minority; and on rap, the ‘N’ word, and dumb academia:

Having covered quite a few of these “decolonisation” efforts, which generally rely on a fig-leaf of widening access and removing barriers, it’s remarkable just how rarely any meaningful obstacle to access is actually mentioned. Typically, the humdrum is depicted as gruelling and somehow agonising, and motes are inflated to the size of boulders.

We were told, for instance, that racial minorities are being “deterred” from visiting the British countryside “due to deep-rooted, complex barriers.” Barriers such as the fact that rock-climbing instructors are usually white. And apparently this unremarkable state of affairs, in a white-majority country, is something that needs fixing.

Though it occurs to me that if a person with brown skin were being deterred from trying rock climbing by the fact that the instructor is likely to be white, then it seems somewhat unlikely that said person is interested in rock climbing to any significant extent. And a person deterred by such things may also want to reflect on their own racial assumptions. But we’re not supposed to mention those, at least not in an unflattering light.

One of these.

Take That, Conventional Family Structure

Forward! 4 Comments

On the non-random nature of who you are; on the apparently “problematic” Calvin and Hobbes; and on the family unit as reinvented by Guardian contributors:

“For us,” says Eleanor Margolis, “the ideal parenting setup would consist of three or four of us sharing responsibility for a child (the others involved would also be responsible for providing the sperm).”

Providing the sperm. A joyous and maternal turn of phrase.

Also of note, the idea of wanting a baby, but with only a third or a quarter of the responsibility. A kind of low-commitment parenting.

Bodes well.

All this and more.

Carney’s Canada

Canada’s Bolsheviks Forward! 7 Comments

The Food Professor- What many Canadians may not realize is how deeply our country relies on rules and regulations. While regulation is necessary, the sheer volume has become problematic.

According to Statistics Canada, federal regulatory restrictions increased by 37% between 2006 and 2021. This surge has been linked to a 1.7-percentage-point decline in GDP growth, along with decreases in business investment, productivity, employment, and the rate of new business formation.

The Hub- It’s time to rein in Canada’s red tape state: DeepDive

Not Going Boldly, If At All

Forward! Science 4 Comments

When space exploration is stupefied by progressive imperatives:

We are, however, told that we need more deaf and disabled people in space. Because space exploration just isn’t difficult enough and dangerous enough as it is. And choosing astronauts with hearing problems, poor eyesight and motor-control issues will make things much more exciting.

And frankly. when you’re asking, apparently in all seriousness, how a mission to Mars would benefit Black Lives Matter, as if it somehow should, I think we can say that the foolishness in the room has risen to hazardous levels.

Oh, there’s more. Much more.

Have You Listened To The Lichen?

Forward! The Arts 7 Comments

The class, since you ask, is Ecofeminist Poetry & Poetics. Taught by a Professor of English, Brian Teare, who will, we’re assured, situate relationships and encourage re-feeling. And who will also reveal how “chattel slavery, imperialism, industrialisation, settler colonialism, and militarisation” can be understood – and righteously tutted about – by listening to “birds, goats, willow oaks, and lichen.”

Wokeness and woo, together again.

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