Links - 10th February 2019 (2)

The Peterson Principle: Intellectual Complexity and Journalistic Incompetence - "What I was getting was precisely what was missing from virtually all the media coverage of the Peterson issue: intelligent inquiry, honest discussion, the exchange of views and the critique of ideas that is possible when really smart people talk about really difficult topics. In contrast were the flawed reporting and misinformed commentary that characterized respected mainstream media reports... I imagined what doctors, engineers, physicists, psychologists, lawyers and any informed person thinks of the quality of the stories that touch upon their area of expertise. No wonder people are jaded about journalism today. So much of it is lazy,– and just wrong – so much of the time... This reached its nadir when Cathy Newman had Peterson on Britain’s Channel 4. In this train wreck of an interview which went viral, you can see everything that is wrong with mainstream media today... journalists are not supposed to be in the business of buttressing ideologies; they’re supposed to be truth seekers. But in much of what has been written and broadcast around this subject, truth has been nowhere in sight... While mainstream media emphasizes quick hits, short interviews, and click-bait headlines, a significant proportion of the public is seeking something else... While mainstream media struggles with declining readership and a public that refuses to financially support what they are delivering, online audiences are lining up and paying."

BBC World Service - The Food Chain, Widowed: Food After Loss - "In some cultures, Fathi’s [sp?] heard about rituals where widows are made to drink a soup, which contains parts of their husband's body...
[On asafoetida as a substitute for forbidden onion and garlic] The creativity of widows like Chichetra’s [sp?] grandmother who improvised with limited ingredients recreating the flavors of prohibited foods is widely believed to be responsible for Bengal’s rich vegetarian cuisine."

BBC World Service - The Food Chain, The Ungarnished Truth: Restaurant Critics - "Australia… famously doesn't have that many negative reviews, the libel laws in Australia are such that you can sue for negative reviews and it has happened there so people are quite anxious about it. And I know colleagues who work for publications... they really out of a five star system they are not allowed to do less than 3 stars and 3 stars is seen as really risky."

Does Our Cultural Obsession With Safety Spell the Downfall of Democracy? - The New York Times - ""If it feels as though we no longer know how to speak or listen in good faith to one another, it’s because we don’t. This is the kind of controversy that might have seemed overblown as recently as the start of the Obama administration. Today it arrives with frequency and fervor — a marker of the country’s rapidly shifting mores, which are the product of new generations increasingly fluent in, in thrall to and in fear of the hyperspecialized language and norms of academia... How did we arrive at this fraught place where the use of nothing more sinister than a body metaphor can assume the power to cause harm?... In “The Splintering of the American Mind,” William Egginton, a humanities professor at Johns Hopkins, examines the competing costs and benefits of the country’s continuing shift away from a commonly accepted — albeit white — canon of shared narratives to an “exploration and celebration of marginalized racial and sexual identities.”... The fracturing and castigating discourse around identity, coupled with metastasizing inequality of both opportunity and outcome, leads Egginton to make the necessary if familiar case that a humanities education — however out of fashion and reach for many Americans — is still the “key in the formation of a public capable of democratic self-governance.” The liberal tradition, accessible to all and capable of generating an expansive common narrative that takes note of America in all her tribal guises and evokes sufficient “fellow feeling,” is, for Egginton, our only hope out of the bind... Members of iGen, according to the psychologist Jean Twenge, who coined the term, are “obsessed with safety,” which they define to include expansive notions of “emotional safety.” They began arriving on college campuses in 2013. Rates of anxiety and depression soon skyrocketed, along with demands for trigger warnings, safe spaces and disinvitations to controversial speakers, as well as sometimes violent confrontations with such speakers when they did appear on campus... This is a generation engaged in a meritocratic “arms race” of epic proportions, that has racked up the most hours of homework (and screen time) in history but also the fewest ever of something so simple as unsupervised outdoor play. If that sounds trivial, it shouldn’t. “When adult-supervised activities crowd out free play, children are less likely to develop the art of association,” Lukianoff and Haidt write, along with other social skills central to the making of good citizens capable of healthy compromise. Worse, the consequences of a generation unable or disinclined to engage with ideas and interlocutors that make them uncomfortable are dire for society, and open the door — accessible from both the left and the right — to various forms of authoritarianism... If we are going to beat back the regressive populism, mendacity and hyperpolarization in which we are currently mired, we are going to need an educated citizenry fluent in a wise and universal liberalism. This liberalism will neither play down nor fetishize identity grievances, but look instead for a common and generous language to build on who we are more broadly, and to conceive more boldly what we might be able to accomplish in concert."
In other words, identity politics, by denying what we have in common is poisonous

Caso Cerrado: Transgender woman sues over 'broken penis' - "A reality TV courtroom was left stunned after learning why a woman was suing the wife of her dead lover. On an episode of Caso Cerrado - meaning case closed - Jennifer, who is transgender and still has her male genitalia, claimed that the defendant Sylvia's husband, Miguel, broke her penis when he had a heart attack and died while they were having sex. Jennifer, who said she was hired by Sylvia to sleep with Miguel for his 60th birthday, appeared on Caso Cerrado in Miami to sue Sylvia for £16,000. She told host Ana Maria Polo: 'After we had sex he said I didn't fully fulfill his fantasy... She said that she thought Miguel was enjoying himself, but he suddenly had a heart attack and died while she was inside him... In the end, Jennifer and Sylvia decided to settle, with Sylvia paying $5,000."

Cody Payant - Respect in Saskatchewan : Time after time Justin... - "Time after time Justin Trudeau displays a complete lack of respect for Canadian taxpayers. Expressing a disdain for Canadian sovereignty in favour of a "post-national state", eager to sign away control of immigration legislation to supranational jurisdiction of the United Nations, and telling veterans that they are "asking for more than we can give", the Liberals have compiled a very unCanadian fiscal rap sheet:...
- $2 billion stolen from seniors pension for housing in Mumbai.
- $200 million to finance conflict in Afghanistan.
- $125 million to finance Tanzania hunting down and arresting homosexuals.
- $50 million to finance conflict in Palestine.
- $50 million this weekend, after ignoring the possibility of taking in South African farmers as refugees who are facing land seizures, physical assault and murder on a daily basis while taking a photo op with the President of South Africa, then tweets to a South African celebrity for attention and impulsively gives away money that's not his in a way that would make a dictator blush."

Being Classically Feminine - Posts - "I made a yarn butterfly today :)" - 2014, as a brunette
"So whose gonna take one for the team and kill Kavanaugh?" - 2018, with pink hair
"College will fuck you up."
The explanation for this is undoubtedly that she was being satirical and critiquing his privilege

The Worst of Twitter - Posts - "Humble Bundle is under attack from the NPC hordes for teaming up with Stardock for a charity benefiting victims of the California wildfire. Stardock CEO Brad Wardell's opinions and pro-consumer stance puts him on the "wrong side of history."
It's mostly Twitter, and Twitter is cancer."

- Marilynne Cathy Ousley - "Hey, if you're not gay, my friend thinks youre cute. Here's her her number (and if you are gay here's mine)"

Cop in panties-munching scandal speaks out: 'My career is over' - "The Brooklyn detective who says his salty sergeant shoved her panties in his mouth hasn’t been back to work since the Oct. 7 incident, and that he is now an outcast.“I’m the pariah of the precinct and the NYPD,” Detective Victor Falcon told The Post in an exclusive interview. “My career is over.“Nobody will ever take me seriously … I’m known as the panty-eater. To do my job is impossible,” he said... “In a world where we are looking for gender equality, I was abused for my gender,” he continued. “Picture a male doing that to a female. He wouldn’t have a job anymore.”"

Women Are Being Asked To Record 'Consent Videos' And What The Hell? - "A worrying new trend is seeing women being asked to record "consent videos" before having sex with men who fear they will be accused of assault afterward.This dating trend involves one partner filming the other giving them verbal consent before they engage in a sexual act.This then allows the person who recorded the video to use it as "evidence" that their partner gave consent before having sex."
Funny, I thought getting consent was a good thing. Then again consent can be withdrawn at any time so this is useless

Opinion | The Hypocrisy of Hanukkah - The New York Times - "Hanukkah, which at its heart is an eight-night-long celebration of religious fundamentalism and violence... as Jews have become assimilated into American society, the holiday has evolved into a kind of Semitic sidekick for Christmas, a minor festival pumped up into something it was never meant to be so that Jewish kids won’t feel bad about not having a tree... Hanukkah, in essence, commemorates the triumph of fundamentalism over cosmopolitanism. Our assimilationist answer to Christmas is really a holiday about subjugating assimilated Jews"

The $0.006 Object in Your Sushi Container Is Doing an Important Job - The New York Times

Louisiana School Made Headlines for Sending Black Kids to Elite Colleges. Here’s the Reality. - The New York Times - "the school falsified transcripts, made up student accomplishments and mined the worst stereotypes of black America to manufacture up-from-hardship tales that it sold to Ivy League schools hungry for diversity"
If affirmative action is a good thing...

Kansas City Health Department pours bleach on food meant for homeless people - "The food was going to be distributed by a group called Free Hot Soup KC. The Kansas City Star said that the food, which included home-cooked chili, foil wrapped sandwiches and vats of soup, was destroyed on Sunday, Nov. 5, during a coordinated sting at several parks where volunteers had gathered.The Health Department said the group did not have a permit and was putting people at risk. "E. coli or salmonella or listeria can grow in the food," department director Rex Archer said. "And then you give that to homeless people who are more vulnerable, they will end up in the ER and even die from that exposure.""
Better the certainty of starving to death than the possibility of getting food poisoning

You Want to Feed the Hungry? Lovely. Let’s See Your Permit. - The New York Times - "the risks of foodborne illness from charitable meals are real, food safety experts said.During a church gathering this month in Concord, N.C., hundreds of people were sickened by a Brunswick stew that was contaminated with bacteria. In several cities in California, outbreaks of hepatitis A, a food-borne illness, beset homeless populations and claimed 20 lives last year. Fifty homeless people were hospitalized in Denver six years ago after getting food poisoning from turkey served at a rescue mission."