Links - 16th May 2024 (2)

The Tories must change course, or be wiped out - "If we continue like this, we will hand over the keys of power to Labour without much of a fight, either because we have failed in the scramble for the centre ground or because we are destroyed from the Right by Reform. As I warned in November, the Prime Minister’s plan is not working and he needs to change course. Otherwise, we are heading for a Keir Starmer government with his band of hard-Left fanatics set to undo Brexit, open our borders and meddle pointlessly with everything from employment laws to the number of bins you put out each week. Any Tory who says otherwise is insulting your intelligence.  But all is not lost. The public are not rushing to vote for Sir Keir, though they feel sorely let down by us. They want a reason to vote Conservative, but we are failing to provide them with one. We need to be frank about this if we are to have any chance of fixing the problem.  On tax, migration, the small boats and law and order, we need to demonstrate strong leadership, not managerialism. Make a big and bold offer on tax cuts, rather than tweaking as we saw in the Budget. Place a cap on legal migration once and for all. Leave the ECHR to stop the boats. Tangible improvement to our NHS and tougher sentences for criminals. Start holding failing police chiefs to account so that antisocial behaviour, shoplifting and knife crime are actually sorted out. Take back control of our streets from the extremists. And instead of paying lip service in guidance on transgender ideology in schools, let’s actually change the law to ban the abuse of our children."

Suella Braverman says Tories will be lucky to have any MPs at next election - "Asked if she regretted supporting Mr Sunak’s bid for the Conservative leadership, Ms Braverman said: “Honestly, yes I do.  “Because I had assurances from Rishi Sunak that he was going to put a cap on legal migration, that he was going to do something about the European Convention on Human Rights, that he was going to fix this transgender ideology in our schools. He hasn’t done that.”"

Cold-hearted teens steal 8-year-old NYC boy's lemonade stand earnings - "A pair of “shady” teenagers sank to a new low when they looted an 8-year-old Upper West Side boy’s sidewalk lemonade stand, police said.  The cowardly crooks waited until little Julian Lin had his back turned on Sunday to snatch his money jar — containing as much as $150, his mom said — and made off on two scooters, according to police and a local report...   “I will not have my money out there for anyone to grab. I will be more alert. I will trust my instincts because I could tell that those guys were shady since one of them was wearing a ski mask,” he said."
Ski Mask Bans in Cities like Philadelphia Will Criminalize Black and Brown Youth

The lesson AI must learn from nature | The Spectator - "What’s the difference between a café and a restaurant? It’s not as simple as it seems. Yes, the food at a restaurant will be fancier and more substantial. But there is a social distinction too: a restaurant places you under an obligation; a café does not.  When you enter a café you order something out of courtesy – but it can be as insubstantial as a cup of tea. How long you stay, and what you choose to eat or drink, remains up to you. A café, as Nassim Taleb would say, is ‘high in optionality’. By contrast, entering a restaurant is like missing the Wrotham exit on the westbound M26 – you’re stuck there for ages with no chance of escape. Once you sit down in a restaurant, you’re in for at least two courses and a bottle of wine.   Jeff Bezos was insistent that his Amazon colleagues understood the distinction between an option and an obligation. Within Amazon, they still use his phrase ‘a two-way door’, which defines any course of action which can be attempted easily, then quickly reversed in the event of failure. Unlike a ‘one-way door’ (a restaurant), which demands a great deal of research and deliberation beforehand, a ‘two-way door’ (or café) is something which may be cheaper to try than to argue about. There is no point preparing an intricate business plan for something which can be tested in the real world and corrected on the fly. But I think there is also a third kind of door which is emerging in technology adoption. This starts as a two-way door but then maddeningly slams shut, leaving everyone trapped on the wrong side. What began as an option becomes an imposition. Parking apps come into this category. Originally a welcome alternative to coins, they are now almost obligatory in many places. Likewise self-checkout tills at supermarkets. Originally a handy alternative for impatient people buying only a few items, they are often now imposed on everyone regardless. The gradual disappearance of cash worries me, too. In ten years we have gone from the ridiculous practice of taxis not accepting cards to the opposite: shops which won’t accept cash. My experience of technology reminds me a little of visiting France or Scotland, where in the space of a single day you might encounter the best and the worst customer service of your life. When you obediently follow the system, and the system works, it is a joy. Make the slightest mistake, however, or encounter the tiniest anomaly, and you enter a Kafka-esque nightmare from which there is no escape. When a credit card of mine expired, it took me 25 minutes to pay to park my car. As I write this, my wife is engaged in an hour-long online odyssey to recover £29 from a credit-card company. Why does this happen? Some customers are simply cheaper to serve than others – but the reasons for this are circumstantial, innate or fixed.  Today’s typical MBA droid, however, hooked on the catnip of efficiency, believes it is a good idea to force every-one to interact in the lowest–cost channel – which typically involves outsourcing as much work as possible to the poor customer and forcing him or her to submit to your processes. What starts as an option to serve customers then metastasises to a point where the process dominates everything.  Technology is a great café but a terrible restaurant. There is a fundamental question here. Do you design for optimality or optionality? Nature designs for resilience rather than perfection, and tends to provide many different solutions to the same question, not just one."
Rob Henderson on X - "Dating apps fall into this category. Began as an option to help busy people get a date and transformed into the default way young people try to find someone. The goal of making life easier for a select few people ultimately increased the sum total of misery in the realm of romance."

Risk-Aversion Is Killing Romance - "New research shows that Gen Z are more risk-averse than previous generations. Apparently we perceive more dangers in life, are more likely to see situations as “black and white”, and see spaces as either safe or dangerous. Of course this isn’t surprising. I get tired of the whole snowflake trope being tacked onto everyone in Gen Z, but it’s also difficult to deny that we’re generally much more fearful than previous generations. Much of the attention on this goes to those calling for trigger warnings and safe spaces—which I’d say are an important but very vocal minority—but what’s actually endemic, something I see constantly among my generation, is a subtler form of safetyism, a reluctance to take risks in our everyday lives. Being terrified to talk on the phone. Being scared to order in a restaurant. And somewhere I think it’s really starting to affect us is being risk-averse about relationships. Gen Z are dating less. Having less sex. Settling for situationships that are empty and meaningless. And I think a major part of this is that human connection comes with a high level of risk. Among young men, for example, I’d say this risk-aversion is most obvious in fear of rejection. A recent survey found that almost 45% of men aged 18 to 25 have never approached a woman in person. Another Pew Survey found that half of single men between 18 and 30 are voluntarily single, which some suggest is in part because of fear. But I think young women are also risk-averse about relationships. We are naturally more risk-averse, for a start, and an even higher number of women are voluntarily single. But our risk-aversion plays out differently. Most obvious to me is the way we talk about relationships, the advice young women give each other, the therapy-speak and feminist clichés that I think often cloak a deep fear of hurt and vulnerability... Social media is full of young women warning each other and listing out red flags and reasons why you should dump him or dodge commitment. He compliments you a lot? Love-bombing. Says I miss you too soon? Run. Approaches you in person? Predator. It’s all so cynical. It’s all about how not to catch feelings; ways not to get attached; how “you’re not gonna get hurt if you have another man waiting”! We blunt romance and passion with this constant calculation of risk, this paranoid scanning for threats, and by holding back to avoid being hurt. We encourage each other to be emotionally absent, unfazed, uncaring. We even call it empowerment! It’s not. It’s neuroticism. I think we are a generation absolutely terrified of getting hurt and doing all we can to avoid it... Our childhoods weren’t spent toying with risk and danger, teaching ourselves we could cope with it, learning that it’s baked into life... Then, of course, there’s social media, dating apps—these mechanical ways we meet and find love. Fake spaces where we can avoid any form of discomfort... My other suspicion is that this has to do with changing cultural and sexual mores. Family breakdown, for example... Also, too, the sexual revolution, where the liberalising of sexual norms have made dating extremely confusing... Sometimes it seems to me we’ve become so suspicious of each other’s intentions that we pathologise romance and commitment, and end up psychoanalysing to death behaviour that’s actually decent. Now we take everything that comes with real love—being affected by someone else’s emotions, putting your partner’s needs first, depending on them—and call it damage or anxious attachment or trauma. No! It’s called deep connection! And God, yes, wouldn’t it be much easier if it was a pathology, a disease, one we could diagnose and solve because it’s scary and it comes without guarantees. But it isn’t. It’s tragic, all of this. Tragic because it’s putting us on a trajectory to miss out on what’s actually meaningful. There’s no love without vulnerability. There’s no life without fear. And you will no doubt derail romance if you are too risk-averse. I’ve written elsewhere about how I think this fear of discomfort is in part why young people are putting off major life decisions like marriage and having children. What’s interesting to me about all these #childfree TikToks everyone likes to dunk on isn’t that people don’t want kids—I don’t think everyone should—it’s that they often don’t want them out of fear. Like that TikToker who created “The List”—a crowdsourced list of reasons not to have children that’s been seen by millions—which includes every possible risk from swollen ankles to rashes to bloating to muscle cramps. Really? We’re willing to miss out on the richest and most beautiful moments of being human—what actually makes life worth living—because it comes with risk?... If you connect with someone and it comes with the risk of losing something, good. You’re alive! Otherwise what’s the alternative? Some soulless life of safety and consumption? Purging your own life of meaning because things might possibly go wrong? Sitting safely inside staring at screens, watching simulations of strangers live their lives? And staying anxious and alone and never seeing that as the ultimate risk? Never seeing that maybe the most dangerous life is one that demands nothing of you?"

in the spirit of revolution ✊🏽🍉 on X - "Unpopular dating opinion: The intense chemistry you feel with someone you just met is a huge red flag. Most likely, they are similar to an early caregiver that neglected you & your subconscious mind is attracted to them to try to fix an old wound"
QC on X - "this kind of trauma narrativizing was a phase i went through but i found it ultimately unsatisfying and had to discard it to make further progress. it demeans and makes petty something sacred. the intensity means something beyond any particular narrative you have for it"

Meme - Bojan Tunguz @tunguz: "SCANDINAVIA. GERMANY. UNITED KINGDOM & IRELAND. RUSSIA. MONGOLIA. EASTERN EUROPE. FRANCE. SPAIN. SYRIA. PORTUGAL. IRAQ. INDIA. IRAN. AFGHANISTAN. UZBEKISTAN. CHINA. UKRAINE. JAPAN. TAIWAN. PHILIPPINES, THAILAND. INDONESIA MALAYSIA"

Ryan Bourne on X - "There's a European upper middle-class cope which basically says "yes, America might look richer, but there's no work-life balance, culture, or accessible healthcare." What I've learnt moving here is that, no, for genuinely comparable professionals, America is just much richer."
wanye on X - "Probably the funniest aspect of this is with respect to healthcare. I just don’t know what I need to say to Europeans to explain to them that when your salary is $30,000 a year higher, you can afford a $12,000 a year health insurance premium and still be way ahead."
Hussain on X - "“Unwalkable cities” line too. DC where you are, New York, Boston, Chicago there’s plenty which are fine for walking and public transport."
M.D.R. on X - "I never understood this line. If you live in the city, aka downtown, then everyone mostly walks around even in Midwest cities."
Rafael R. Guthmann on X- "Depends on the profession. Economists with same qualifications make much more money in Brazil than in Europe. Doesn't mean Brazil is much richer. Manufacturing compensation is typically higher in several European countries:"

Watchdog finds 'strong perception of favoritism' toward McKinsey in some government contracts - "A report released by Canada's procurement ombudsman Alexander Jeglic last month examined government contracts awarded to McKinsey between April 2011 and March 2023... the amount of public money Ottawa has awarded to McKinsey has skyrocketed since the Liberals formed government in 2015. Jeglic's report echoes CBC's findings... Jeglic also noted that most of the contracts awarded to McKinsey were sole-sourced and primarily came through a "standing offer" — an agreement between the government and a contractor to provide goods and services under pre-established terms and costs. The government can then issue a "call-up" contract to the contractor to provide the services established in the offer when the need arises... he found two incidents where the procurement process was altered to allow McKinsey to bid on a contract it wouldn't have qualified for otherwise. In another case, Jeglic found that after an initial evaluation of two bids, a second re-evaluation was done that deemed McKinsey the only compliant bidder and disqualified the original "1st ranked bidder." Jeglic said there's a lack of documentation to explain why the second evaluation was conducted. "Collectively, these observations create a strong perception of favouritism towards McKinsey," Jeglic wrote of some of the competitive contracting processes. Jeglic's report on McKinsey comes as the federal government faces heightened scrutiny over its contracting processes."

Frank Stronach: Solving the productivity emergency - "Even when compared to G7 members like France, Germany and the United Kingdom, Canada has one of the lowest levels of labour productivity, according to the OECD ... Investing more in modern machinery, equipment and new technology is one surefire way of spiking productivity, at least in the short-term. Training workers and upgrading job skills is another. Both are viable options singled out by Rogers as potential remedies. But for me, the best way is still one of the oldest and simplest: make employees partners in profitability and let them share in the success of the business. The profit-sharing culture that we established at Magna, which we called “Fair Enterprise,” gave everyone at the company a stake in how the business performed and a share of the profits. After we started sharing profits with all our employees, productivity went through the roof, and we began generating spectacular growth in sales and profits. Magna is just one of many companies that have shown that sharing profits with employees is a tried-and-true formula for increased productivity. A landmark 2010 study from the National Bureau of Economic Research in the U.S. concluded that profit sharing can in fact boost productivity. The researchers stated that not only does profit sharing “raise productivity and profits,” it also contributes to reduced employee turnover and a “greater willingness to work hard.” What’s more, the report showed that profit-sharing programs lead to better pay, enhanced job security and better relations between employees and management. Profit sharing carries a number of other benefits, as well. For example, some studies have shown that profit sharing not only puts more cash in the pockets of employees, it can also improve job satisfaction."

I'm done with Reddit, I'm just done. : r/KotakuInAction - "The thing is, all those same people who ruined reddit, will ruin the new place too. Theres an army of pricks out there desperate to become mods just so they can fuck other people over. I saw one mod talking about Star Wars and he said he saw a guy say "woke" but he couldn't do anything because it wasn't against the rules. So he followed the guy waiting for him to say anything that he could he twist in action. And he did, and he posted about it like he was cool as fuck for doing it. Absolute fucking clowns some of them. "
"There are levels of pathetic... then there is this.... "
"These are the kind of people that gravitate toward unpaid labor in positions of "power""
"They don't realize they're a bunch of fascists. They're always the loudest claiming everything they don't like is fascism"

Identify Songs Online - Music Recognition Online - "We use ACRCloud Music Recognition Services to help you identify songs in audio & video files, such as recordings of radio, TV, Ads...
Recognize Music by Recording Online
Identify songs by sound like Shazam, Genius and Musixmatch ( which integrates ACRCloud Music Recognition Services ). Play some music and click the button to recognize songs now."

Woman arrested for wheeling corpse into bank to co-sign a loan - "A Brazilian woman has been arrested after she strolled into a bank pushing a corpse she hoped would co-sign a loan for her.  Disturbing video, captured by bank employees in the Bangu neighbourhood of Rio De Janeiro, shows Erika de Souza Vieira Nunes bringing the body of Paulo Roberto Braga into the bank branch, The Daily Beast reported.  Braga had died at the age of 68 just a few hours earlier.  In the video, Ms Nunes is reportedly heard calling Braga her uncle as she spoke to the body and propped up his head.  She also asked him to co-sign on a loan for approximately $3,400, The New York Post reported.  “Uncle, are you listening? You need to sign [the contract]. If you don’t sign, there’s no way, because I can’t sign for you,” Ms Nunes says in the footage.  She then grabs a pen and forces it into the dead man’s hands, telling the corpse to hold the pen “hard”.  “Sign so you don’t give me any more headaches, I can’t take it anymore,” she says.  At one point in the video a worker points out that the man looks ill and that his colour is unusual, but Ms Nunes waves off his concerns.  “He is like that. He doesn’t say anything,” Ms Nunes replies. “Uncle, do you want to go to the [hospital] again?”"

Why Coca-Cola's 'New Coke' Flopped - "If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The time-tested adage appears to be the lesson from Coca-Cola’s disastrous introduction of “New Coke." Except in 1985, Coca-Cola indeed thought its signature brand was broken. Although Coca-Cola remained the world’s best-selling soft drink, rival Pepsi-Cola continued to gain market share in the 1970s and early 1980s, thanks in part to its aggressive “Pepsi Challenge” campaign in which consumers taking blind taste tests were surprised to learn they preferred the flavor of Pepsi. To the shock of Coca-Cola, internal taste tests yielded the same results. Company executives grew convinced that its soda’s taste—not its rival’s advertisements targeting the “Pepsi Generation”—was the reason for its declining market share. Since its introduction in 1886, Coca-Cola’s secret recipe had been tweaked several times—such as when changing sweeteners from cane sugar to beet sugar to corn syrup—but its taste had remained constant. While the company was developing the unique formula for Diet Coke, which was introduced in 1982, it found in top-secret taste tests that a sweeter version of the concoction beat not only Pepsi but the classic version of Coke. Executives decided to make a risky change... New Coke tasted sweeter and more like Pepsi... While Goizueta and Keough toasted each other with cans of New Coke, the news was already beginning to fall flat. On the New York Stock Exchange, shares of Coca-Cola dropped, while those of its rival rose. Pepsi gave its employees the day off and declared victory in full-page newspaper advertisements that boasted, ‘‘After 87 years of going at it eyeball to eyeball, the other guy just blinked.’’ New Coke left a bitter taste in the mouths of the company’s loyal customers. Within weeks of the announcement, the company was fielding 5,000 angry phone calls a day. By June, that number grew to 8,000 calls a day, a volume that forced the company to hire extra operators... At protests staged by grassroots groups such as “Old Cola Drinkers of America,” consumers poured the contents of New Coke bottles into sewer drains. One Seattle consumer even filed suit against the company to force it to provide the old drink. The outrage caught Coca-Cola executives by surprise. They had hardly made a rash decision unsupported by data. After all, they had performed 190,000 blind taste tests on U.S. and Canadian consumers. The problem, though, is that the company had underestimated loyal drinkers’ emotional attachments to the brand. Never did its market research testers ask subjects how they would feel if the new formula replaced the old one... In spite of the blowback, Coca-Cola emerged from the fiasco with its market position actually strengthened as consumers rediscovered their attachment to the iconic brand... “The simple fact is that all the time and money and skill poured into consumer research on the new Coca-Cola could not measure or reveal the deep and abiding emotional attachment to original Coca-Cola felt by so many people,” Keough admitted. The blunder was so colossal that some thought it must have been an intentional marketing gimmick. “Some cynics say that we planned the whole thing,” Keough said. “The truth is we’re not that dumb and we’re not that smart.”"
Case studies of Coke and Kodak (digital cameras) yield opposite morals. Oops

‘Narcissistic billionaires’: Labor Senator slams Elon Musk after X refuses to remove Wakeley content : r/technology - "A priest got stabbed in Australia, the video was on X/Twitter.  Australia demanded that X remove the video / related content.  X removed the video / related content for all of Australia.  Australia demanded that the video / related content be removed from the platform globally.  Musk told Australia to fuck off.  Australian senator is mad at Musk for not removing the content globally, saying that "...that the public has had a “gutful” of the “narcissistic billionaires” trying to be above the law."  Thems the facts.  My own editorialization: Speaking as a Canadian, I'm perfectly fine without the Australian government having the authority to tell me what I should or shouldn't see on the internet."
"Imagine if Iran or North Korea made the same demand. everything negative about them has to be removed......worldwide."
Australia gets to make the law for the whole world. Of course, if anyone tries to impose foreign law on Australia...

DogeDesigner on X - "The issue is that Australia appears to be demanding censorship of content on 𝕏 beyond its borders."
Elon Musk on X - "That is exactly the issue. Should the eSafety Commissar (an unelected official) in Australia have authority over all countries on Earth?"

Elon Musk brutally mocks Australian PM as bitter fight over content on X heats up | news.com.au : r/australian - "It says a lot about our inane Federal government that they seem more worried about people sharing video of a stabbing incident, than they are about the incident itself. We have a massive problem with social cohesion and cultural integration right now, and it feels like Albo is trying to sweep the problem under the carpet. Of course no one should be watching these sorts of videos. But we need to be aware what is going on in our country. Also, it’s a ludicrous suggestion that a US company needs to apply Aussie law globally. Geolocking is more than sufficient to achieve the stated goal here."
Suppressing discussion of your failures is a good way to minimise them

Corviale: One-Kilometer-Long Residential Complex - "The Corviale housing complex, located in the south-western periphery of Rome, Italy, was designed in the 1970s as a solution to the growing number of dormitory districts in the Roman suburbs, caused by the significant population increase between the 1950s and 1970s – when the population grew from approximately 1.6 million to 2.7 million inhabitants – followed by suburban sprawl. Corviale is one of the most extended single-residential buildings in the world"

Tara💄 on X - "“would your sixteen year old self be proud of you” im not trying to impress a mentally ill child"

Meme - "Liking tomboys is gay because you like girls that are masculine."
"Then- Does liking femboys make you straight?"
"Hm."
"..."

Meme - "When she cheated on you but you decide to give her another chance" *Man in Hazmat suit spraying woman's vagina*

The Business of Bugs: Eating Insects Isn't as Scary as it Sounds - Bloomberg ("You Will Eat Bugs — and Like It", March 2024) - "We need a sustainable option for feeding nearly 10 billion people. Creepy-crawlies could be the way."
Damn conspiracy theories and misinformation!

Adam Ma’anit on X - "Jacob Rothschild – a Jewish philanthropist who has spent much of his life funding arts, culture and heritage work has died Z''L, and is now trending on Twitter because antisemites are insane."
Rachel Moiselle on X - "Jacob Rothschild is the great-great grandchild of Lionel de Rothschild: a man who saved thousands of Irish people. There will be no mention of this in any Irish obituary."

Meme - "Bro finally got that human update
*Pasty clean shaven Mark Zuckerberg* *Mark Zuckerberg with darker skin and beard*
"The 600 series had rubber skin. We spotted them easy, but these are new. They look human... sweat, bad breath, everything.""

Meme - Kristina Cowell @kristina_cowell97: "Mark really went from AI to ayyyy"

America's Overseers: How the Example of Harvard Discredits the Meme of Black "Marginalization"

From 2021. No wonder we got Claudine Gay:

America's Overseers: How the Example of Harvard Discredits the Meme of Black "Marginalization"

"Among the many spells the wicked witches of the woke West have cast upon us is the one that compels us to believe that blacks (and other minorities) are eternally “underrepresented” and “marginalized” in America. This shibboleth is repeated uncritically again and again until we are bludgeoned into accepting it as a cornerstone of the hastily erected, shoddily constructed, lightning-rod-tipped imaginary tower that goes by the name of “systemic racism.” But whatever truth it might have had in earlier epochs, the marginalization thesis is, in the 2020s, a patent exaggeration and, in many respects, a gross error. It is high time to dislodge this bit of bad code from the program.

I should confess, first, that I have never really understood what “marginalization” is supposed to mean or why it is problematic for any nation to have its default settings, whether institutional, cultural or linguistic, calibrated to the majority rather than to all its multifarious minorities. A majority of voters in a democracy will predictably seek to institute its preferences; this, indeed, is the very purpose of people coming together to form a nation in the first place, as the late conservative philosopher Roger Scruton has argued in England and the Need for Nations. So long as others are treated with dignity and respect and accorded an equal legal right to participate in significant opportunities, I see no particular reason for them to be “centered” rather than “marginalized.” Because of the logic of collective action and dynamics of block voting that are easier to navigate for smaller, more tightly knit interest groups than for the diffuse majority, any ethnic or racial minority that grows sufficiently substantial will rapidly gain the ability to wield political influence disproportionate to its population percentage, as the economist Mançur Olson has explained. The majority should not have the additional obligation to refurbish its entire culture to cater to all the disparate and conflicting preferences of all the possible Others who may live within the nation’s borders or who may later find their way in by hook or by crook.

But, be that as it may, taking “marginalization” and “underrepresentation” on their own terms, any intellectually defensible notion of these phenomena cannot content itself with merely throwing out numbers purporting to show facial disparities and blurting out “racism!” as Ibram X. Kendi would have us do, but rather, should consider why any disproportion exists. Thus, for example, one cannot look at a university physics department and complain that black faculty are underrepresented without dealing with the glaring fact that blacks account for only around 3% of bachelor’s degrees in physics, so that, if anything, it is the latter rather than the former fact that needs to be explained.

Even without delving down to this more granular level of analysis to look behind surface disparities, however, the reality is that, at this point in time, taking only bare population percentages, blacks are no longer underrepresented and marginalized in many respects that matter. First, despite the fact that the corporate media, especially lately, sometimes seems to be spending something like 90% of its air time on coverage of what it deems anti-black racism, blacks actually represent around 13% of the American population. Notwithstanding the endless gripes about purported racism in the entertainment industry, as of 2018-19, blacks accounted for 24% of all lead acting slots on broadcast t.v., 12.9% of cable t.v. leads, and 18% of cast members on broadcast and cable shows. Blacks were also cast in 15.7% of top film roles as of 2019. These numbers are, of course, from before the Great Awokening of 2020, and we should have every expectation that the numbers are still more skewed today...

Harvard, we can surely agree, is at the epicenter of institutional power in America. But like many contemporary universities, and especially elite universities, Harvard is hard at work using that institutional power to lead an attack upon the culture that created it. Harvard’s English major, for example, was revamped in 2008 to eliminate the chronological survey courses that had given our ever-more functionally illiterate and culturally ignorant students a fundamental background in English literature and substituted electives that would allow them to avoid substantial portions of the British canon and go globetrotting through the diaspora instead. In 2017, Harvard added a requirement that English majors take a victimology course in “marginalized” authors. As it stands now, the revamped English curriculum goes further still, requiring our already intellectually backward contemporary students starting with the Class of ’23, lacking any proper grounding in the English literary tradition, to begin at the end, with a class entitled “Literature Today,” i.e., since the year 2000, which “address[es] current problems of economic inequality, technological change, structural prejudice, and divisive politics.” The subtext is on the surface: this is a prescriptive class in contemporary progressive politics, with the pretext of literariness failing to disguise the bait-and-switch.

The radical agenda is not limited to the curriculum, of course. In 2016, Harvard’s law school, for example, shamefully caved to a student-led pressure campaign to cancel its official seal reproducing the family coat of arms of its founder, Isaac Royall Jr. The reason was Royall’s ties to slavery, despite the fact that the actual crest in no way indicated so much as Royall’s name, such that anyone wishing to uncover the tenuous link to slavery would have had to go to the trouble of figuring out what the design was about and then research the gentleman at issue. Illustrating the hypocrisy of these newly woke institutions, moreover, Harvard, while vanquishing its symbolic ties to Royall, did not see fit to sever its far more substantial material ties to Royall by returning the valuable piece of real estate that he had generously bequeathed to the university to found its law school.

Harvard has also notoriously discriminated against Asian-Americans...

I graduated from Harvard Law School in 2000. This is a fact that I used to be embarrassed to admit because of the usual “looking like you’re bragging” problem that graduates of elite universities face (yes, there are much larger problems in the world than that!) but which I am now also embarrassed to admit for a very different reason: as I have explained at length elsewhere, I have lost nearly all respect for these universities, once elite but now coasting on their reputations, because they have all-but-entirely abandoned their educational missions and their missions to serve the important goal (one T.S. Eliot saw as primary) of preserving culture against the unremitting incursions of barbarism and have become, instead, politicized ideological monocultures that are at the heart of sowing divisiveness across the land and unraveling the already-frayed political fabric holding this nation together. Motivated by this consideration among others, I have refused to give any charitable donations to this over-endowed institution and do not so much as keep my current address on file with them. All their mail goes to my parents’ address. This keeps everyone happy: my parents can go on receiving perpetual reminders that their son went to Harvard, while I can avoid those same reminders. Thus, in any event, it was only while I was visiting my parents on a recent occasion that I chanced to come upon one of Harvard’s mailings asking me to vote in their upcoming elections for the Board of Overseers. I decided to take a look.

Here are our candidates, consisting of three men and eight women. Among these 11 individuals, there are:

 exactly one white male... one white female...

As for the rest, we have:

two black men... two black women... two Latina women... two Asian-American women... and one Native-American woman...

So, there we go. We have a diverse panel (do we not?), albeit not at all politically diverse. These are the individuals vying for spots as the newest additions to Harvard’s leadership class...

But perhaps, one might object, this is just the Harvard Overseer Class of 2021, presenting a much-needed corrective to the old white male establishment undoubtedly comprising the bulk of Harvard’s Board of Overseers. Objection overruled. Here are the members of the current board...

We have here, out of 30 people — assuming the genders of these individuals can be judged by appearances — 11 men and 19 women. Judging, again, largely by appearances (i.e., names and faces), coupled with a bit of targeted Googling to clear up some ambiguities, there are four white men and seven white women (though one of these women, Thea Sebastian, seems intent on pulling a Rachel Dolezal on us by surfacing on lists like this), for a total of just 11 white people out of 30. There are four black men and seven black women, so 11 black people total, exactly equaling the white contingent, both in race and gender. There are four Asian-American women and one Asian-American man. There are two Latin-American men. And there is one Native-American woman.

For those interested in keeping score, what we have here, on one of the governing bodies of one of America’s most powerful institutions and its most readily recognized, most well-endowed university, is that white people, who represent over 76% of the American population, are under 37% of Harvard’s Board of Overseers, a percentage almost certain to diminish still further when the current slate of candidates is voted upon. Black people, representing, again, around 13% of the population, likewise stand at just under 37% of the Board. Marginalization and underrepresentation? No.

I would add here in passing — and to make clear that the demographic underrepresentation of white people that I am seeing is not some unique aberration limited to the Board of Overseers — that the candidates for Harvard’s Alumni Association Board of Directors, the ones responsible for nominating the members of the Board of Overseers for election to their posts, break down along similar racial lines...

Far from a place where blacks are marginalized, Harvard is one that has been completely taken over by woke politics and their aggressive “diversity” agenda that elevates a tribalist concern with superficial racial, gender and sexual characteristics to the highest value in the pantheon. We have every reason to expect the same set of norms and priorities to be in place in other, similar institutions, whether elite universities or professions where graduates of those same universities, and especially of their radicalized humanities departments, predominate, viz., journalism, education, politics and the entertainment industry. I have never seen any proof, however, that the dumbing down of educational standards and the infusion of identitarian tribalism into such elite institutions actually improves in any substantial respect the lives of the large contingent of black Americans disproportionately living in poverty and who are not the ones gaining entry to Harvard or its peer institutions. In that respect, the entire notion of “marginalization” is inherently, down to its rotten core, all about putting on a show to mollify intemperate activists and lighten the load on the guilty consciences of wealthy white liberals...

I would have no problem whatsoever with — and, indeed, would happily vote for — a 100% black Board of Overseers if all the members of that Board were committed to refocusing Harvard on its abandoned educational mission and to defending and restoring respect for learning and high culture rather than attacking these abiding values.

But how, you might wonder, am I going to vote on the current candidates actually on offer, candidates who, I have every reason to believe, will further the politicization and continuing self-destruction of a once-great university? Rest assured that as soon as I am done with using it for the purpose of writing this article, I will be throwing my ballot in the same place all of Harvard’s entreaties for my financial contributions go: the trash."

Links - 16th May 2024 (1 - Hamas Attack Oct 2023: College Campuses)

Thread by @Noahpinion on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "I'm incredibly bored of talking about the Palestine protests, but here are some results from the recent Generation Lab survey.  Key fact #1: College students just don't care about the Palestine issue that much. About 8% of students have participated in the protests on one side or the other. That's a substantial number, but less than the 21% who joined BLM protests in May/June 2020 (and the latter were pretty much all on one side of the issue). Only about 1/8 of students blame Biden for the conflict. 34% blame Hamas, and 31% blame either Israel in general or Netanyahu specifically. Many of the tactics that Palestine protesters have used are extremely unpopular among college students. 81% want to punish protesters who destroy property, 67% say occupying campus buildings is unacceptable, and 90% say it's not ok to block pro-Israel students from campus. And this is all DESPITE the fact that 45% of students are sympathetic with the protests to some degree!
Upshot: Most college kids don't care that much about the Israel-Palestine issue, don't blame Biden for the conflict, and wish the Palestine protesters would stop being jerks.  That's no surprise to me, but it might come as a surprise to many screamers on this website."

Robert X George on X - "SNL’s sketch was a bellwether. The pro-Palestinian movement realizes that the college protests have not only failed, but backfired in spectacular fashion — damaging not merely their cause but the broader progressive effort. Call it “inverse intersectionality.”"

Meme - Debra Lea @thedebralea: "This is a sign the NYPD found in the NYU encampments. These students are not protesting Israel - they are radical, jihadists who seek to destroy Western civilization like their role models (Hamas) in the Middle East. Wake up."
"ENTER THE TEMPORARY AUTONOMOUS ZONE. from NEW York tO GAZA and ACROSS TURTLE ISLAND DISRUPT / RECLAIM / DESTROY zionist business interests everywhere! DEATH TO ISRAELI REAL-ESTATE! DEATH TO ameRicA! UNSCHOOL! SQUAT OR ROT!  DO WHAT U WANT! LONG LIVE THE INTIFADA!"

Mark Changizi on X - "The greatest democides and crimes against humanity in the 20th century were results of revolutions that university students at the time vigorously agitated for
- Nazi Germany
- Chinese Cultural Revolution
- Khmer Rouge
- Islamic Revolution
No. University students, if anything, tend to be the most prone to social manias, irrationality, and support for despotism."

Palantir on X - "“We think these things that are happening across college campuses are a sideshow. No, they are the show.” “If we lose the intellectual debate, you will not be able to deploy any army in the West, ever.” #Palantir CEO Alex Karp at #SCSPAIExpo2024"
Left wingers want to destroy the West, so this is a feature, not a bug

Melinda Roth - Dear Campus Protestors I've seen other people... | Facebook - "Dear Campus Protestors I've seen other people write to you, but I just walked among you at one of your campus encampments (GW in DC).   Here are my thoughts:
Instead of hanging out in your nice brand new paid from unknown sources green and white tents, why not send them to those displaced in Gaza who really need them?  After all, you have dorms and apartments that mommy and daddy are paying for right now. You have catered food and an all you can eat snack bar, why not send food to those you claim are starving? Since you are skipping classes (if you are actually a student), why not go volunteer to help in Gaza?  Many American Jews have gone to help in Israel on farms and kibbutzes to provide missing labor as so many Israelis have been called up to military service.  If you really want to help, why don't you go where you really could make a difference for the people you profess to be supporting? Why don't you use all the time hanging out in the quad and in your tents to learn about what you are supporting?  You are supporting rape, as your signs "resistance by any means necessary" state.  You are supporting gender inequality and lack of any LGBTQ rights.  You are supporting a named terrorist organization.  Your call for an intifada revolution is a call for more innocent lives to be lost.   Let's address that for a second.  You claim to be against the war in Gaza given all the innocent lives lost -- but in your next chant you want bloodshed everywhere with your call for an intifada revolution.  It is glaringly inconsistent.   Why is there not a single sign or chant to release the hostages?  Innocent people have been kidnapped, including women and children and Americans.  How can you claim signs that say "final solution" or "zionists pigs get out" or chants like "Burn Tel Aviv to the ground" are not antisemitic?  I believe strongly in free speech, but this is hate speech.   You call each other comrades.  I spent a lot of time in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.  I can promise you that most people in the world prefer capitalism over communism. Why block people from coming in and or taking photos, why block the press and why taunt people like me trying to engage?  If you are so proud of yourselves, why hide those faces?  Why mask up?  I took photos this afternoon, and every single time a protestor noticed, they put their mask back on.  Real protestors are proud of what they are doing and ready to face the consequences, whether getting arrested or suspended or whatever.  You are not real protestors.  You are sheep.  You are indoctrinated to think Israel and Zionists and even Jews are evil.    You are not on the right side of history like you think you will be.  No one with hate in their heart ever is."

Steve McGuire on X - "NEW: Faculty at The New School have established “the first faculty led encampment in the country.”"
Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ on X - "In the past, students emulated their professors. The opposite is now true. The professors have adopted the full suite of left-wing youth culture: The matching tents. The neurotic masking. The activist self-absorption. Even the infantile clapping and chanting. Pure bathos."

Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇦🇹🇼 on X - "Today I interviewed two students at the University of Queensland anti-Zionist camp in Brisbane Australia.  I asked: ''How many civilians would it be justified to kill in order to liberate Palestine?'' They answered ''As many as necessary.''  Full interview on my YouTube: https://youtu.be/QKqUm43yHc8"
But of course, if Israel kills one civilian, "Zionists" are monsters

Bill Ackman on X - "Compare and contrast @Wharton  @UofPenn  response to protesters’ calls for the genocide of Jews, a global intifada, and the encampment with the faculty’s response to the removal of LGBTQ+ stickers from six office doors and/or desks in a faculty office suite on campus.   Do you notice any differences?"
Eyal Yakoby on X = "See how @penn reacts when another group is targeted. This was an email sent out to all faculty part of Wharton after six pride stickers were missing from the door of someone's office. The stickers shouldn't have been removed, but the difference in response is incredible."

Hillary Clinton: Anti-Israel protesters 'don't know very much' about the Middle East - "Under her husband, Clinton said, “an offer was made to the Palestinians for a state on 96% of the existing territory occupied by the Palestinians with 4% of Israel to be given to reach 100% of the amount of territory that was hoped for.” Arafat’s rejection of that offer — attributed by Clinton to his fear of being assassinated like past peacemakers, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and “our dear, dear friend,” Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin — was “one of the great tragedies of history,” said Clinton.  “This is a very important piece of history to understand if you’re going to take any kind of position with respect to what’s going on right now,” said Clinton.  The former Democratic nominee for US president continued to criticize student protesters’ knowledge of the conflict, much of which, she claimed, came from “willfully false… incredibly slanted, pro-Hamas, anti-Israel” propaganda sources.   “Propaganda is not education,” said Clinton, adding: “Anybody who is teaching in a university or anyone who is putting content on social media should be held responsible for what they include and what they exclude."... “Remember, there was a ceasefire on October 6, that Hamas broke by their barbaric assault on peaceful civilians,” she told ABC in November. “There was a ceasefire. It did not hold because Hamas chose to break it.”  Her criticism of the student protests follows comments she made in a February interview with MSNBC, in which she insisted that demonstrators need to obey the law.  “There’s a role for protest, and I think there should be rules set, guardrails set,” she said at the time. “People who violate the rules have to be held accountable. You can’t have a responsible debate about whatever your point of view is if you’re screaming at each other.”"
Richard Hanania on X - "Hillary has always had a deep disdain for leftists on her side, which stopped her from being captured by them. She should’ve leaned into it more. The Clintons look better as time goes on."

Swann Marcus on X - "It always strikes me as a little ridiculous when people say the Camp David deal wasn't good enough for the Palestinian side, as if what's happened in the decades since hasn't been so horrendous that obviously they would be astronomically better off had they taken that deal"

Steve McGuire on X - "UChicago President Paul Alivisatos ended discussions with protestors because their demands were incompatible with institutional neutrality:  “It is a principle animated by the idea that authority can’t establish truth for an entire institution dedicated to truth-seeking; rather, it is the imperative of individuals to seek truth without being limited by authority. Institutional neutrality vests freedom of inquiry and speech directly in faculty and students, where it belongs.”  “The protesters were determined that the university should take sides in the conflict in Israel and Gaza.”  “Faculty members and students are more than free to engage in advocacy on one side or the other. But if the university did so as an institution, it would no longer be much of a university.”"

David Bernstein on X - "You may be wondering, "why are the protest encampments and other university anti-Israel activism so prevalent in the US, but not in Europe where there is  much greater anti-Israel sentiment." The main answer is that the protests in the US are organized by Students for Justice in Palestine. SJP is essentially the PR agent of Hamas in the United States. Public opinion in Europe doesn't count for much for Hamas right now. What matters is undermining support for Israel in the US, and in particular in the governing Democratic Party. So just as Willie Sutton robbed banks because that's where the money is, SJP focuses on the US, because that's where Israel's crucial support comes from."
Whyvert on X - "In Europe, the pattern seems to be large protest demonstrations, featuring leftists and Muslims."

Tristen Strykert on X - "Board of University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands: Feeling very guilty about having to stop an occupation on campus so they pacify the activists by giving them a list of ‘Israeli’ scientists that they work with. Seemingly unaware of the symbolism and the intentions of activists"
James Lindsay, full varsity on X - "Imagine handing over a list of Jewish scientists to appease a mob of angry Jew-hating activists. History rhymes."

‘Le wokisme’ or spirit of 68? Campus protests sweep the world - "“The woke and pro-Islam left-wing ideology that is shaking American universities and their French auxiliaries didn’t come out of nowhere,” Luc Ferry, a philosopher and former education minister, said. “They come from far, from the heritage of May 68 [a period of civil unrest across France].” Michel Winock, a historian who teaches at Sciences Po, said that American thinkers had blended their puritan leanings with the doctrines of Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, the deconstructivist apostles, to create the intolerant “progressive” culture that was now seeping into Europe. Donald Trump told his supporters at a rally in Wisconsin on Wednesday: “We’ve seen what happened when Europe opened their doors to jihad. Look at Paris, look at London — they’re no longer recognisable. We can’t let that happen to our country.” Macron was said by aides to have been appalled when Iran posted images online of the protests at Sciences Po along with praise from the Ayatollah Khamenei for the student actions. Italy has experienced widespread protests against Israel, including clashes between students and police, and the American protests prompted a new round of demonstrations. In Berlin, 90 people, some of them wearing Palestinian scarves, staged a sit-in at Humboldt University. Julia von Blumenthal, president of the university, was shouted down as a “Zionist” when she tried to address the gathering."

Studying’s too bourgeois for these entitled clowns, but who doesn’t love a protest, right? - "Can’t she see that neither she nor anyone else who goes to Columbia (annual fees $89,587) is comparable to a starving, bombed, broken or dead Palestinian child? Yet these students perpetuate the fantasy: the tents they’re living in and protesting out of aren’t just tents, but “encampments”. The war in Gaza isn’t just the war in Gaza; it’s their “Vietnam” (another insult, by the way, to the students who did go to Vietnam, and actually died). One nepo baby protester, the pouting daughter of the congresswoman Ilhan Omar, sprayed at a rally with “Liquid Ass” — a kind of stink bomb — claimed she’d been the victim of a “chemical weapons attack”. Really? Meanwhile, students scream for food, space, “intifada”, “hammocks”; the latest demand from Columbia law students is “passing grades”. The university must cancel their exams and give them passes, they wrote, because they were “irrevocably shaken” by the “violence” when the university president asked police to turn up, arresting 100... The temptation, of course, is to laugh at them — at their vanity, their myopia, their tantrums, their Gucci/Balenciaga/whatever scarves (Omar’s daughter wore another pristine Palestinian shroud). But I just feel great fear and pity: how could these clever people be so incredibly stupid? What does that mean for us? There’s no doubt where it all comes from: a generation raised to be the most educated, enlightened, anti-racist, pro-equality ever. Well, guess where that ends up. A few years ago the same people might have been screaming, “Black lives matter” — now they’re wearing totally different outfits, listening to a muezzin, praying, eating lentils and telling black people, “You’re being an agitator on purpose.” “Look at these white liberals,” one black student said at UCLA, “cosplaying as the oppressed, stopping the African-American from accessing school. Nothing new.” Are these students aware they’re racist? To block Jewish students, to harass them, to demand “divestment” of Jewish funds from their seats of learning — how can they not see it for what it is? As for supporting the murderous, vile Hamas — I almost feel sorry for them. Don’t they have any better causes? At least I had tuition fees... the total collapse of education in the West — the collapse of critical thinking, of intelligence, of values, of free speech, even — is the biggest story of our lifetime. Yet no one ever speaks about it. Why? Is it because the very people we rely on to ask these questions — to have urgent debates on profound issues — have grown lazy, entitled and flush with money and decided they can no longer be bothered to fulfil their critical function in society? Instead they’ll take the funding and simply fall asleep, occasionally distracting us with increasingly bizarre, empty, vexatious positions on Gaza, race, trans. Or fatuous PhD proposals."

Steve McGuire on X - "Emerson College posted bail for its arrested students, asked that charges not be pressed, committed to not disciplining them, and offered summer housing until their legal issues are resolved. Now President Jay Bernhardt is apologizing and setting up a bias response team."

Hen Mazzig on X - "The Jewish students of Columbia have come together and written their earnest plea for a safer campus.  They do not ask for support for Palestinians to end or for all criticism of Israel to be quieted.  What they want, and what we should all want, is simply an end to the dehumanization of Jews and Israelis that's happening in Columbia.   I'm incredibly proud of them for coming forward to demand an end to the harassment on campus, especially when it's so much easier to put your head down and stay quiet."
More censorship of "pro-Palestinian" speech!

Jonathan Chait on X - "The reason the encampments never criticize Hamas is that they're not allowed to criticize Hamas, because the organizers support Hamas"
Richard Hanania on X - "Some have taken issue with calling the college protests pro-Hamas. But that’s literally what they are. The Columbia encampment required members to support armed resistance against Israel. They are objectively pro-Islamist by their own description."

Why Joe Biden Is Correct to Denounce Campus Antisemitism - "With very few exceptions, Jewish students do not face physical danger on American campuses. A handful of videos purporting to depict mob violence against Jews are mostly wrenched out of context. There are no pogroms. The crisis, instead, is the intensification of a long-standing phenomenon. For many years, it has been common for deep criticism of Israel to be a litmus test for participation in left-wing activist spaces... While students are often attracted to the anti-Israel groups out of admirable sympathy for the plight of Palestinians, the beliefs of the organizations behind the protests are murderous and horrifying. They support Hamas and the indiscriminate slaughter and rape of Jewish civilians.  As Jill Filipovic points out, the Columbia encampment’s list of mandatory principles one must align with to join includes support for the right to resist “by all available means.” The demands of the protest coalition at the University of Michigan, which has the support of 81 campus progressive groups, call for “power to our freedom fighters, glory to our martyrs. All eyes on Gaza, the Thawabit is our compass.” (Thawabit is a list of Palestinian political principles, including “the right to resistance in all forms.”)   Media accounts have often described these protests as antiwar, but this is flatly inaccurate. They support one party to the war and call for its victory. Likewise, news accounts have inaccurately depicted the protests as arising in response to Israel’s counterattack (i.e., the Washington Post: “Campus rallies and vigils for victims of the war in Gaza have disrupted colleges since October”). But the groups in fact mobilized in response to, and in support of, Hamas’s attack, and were preparing demonstrations to support what they anticipated would be a war to destroy Israel. (“This action of resistance shatters the illusion of Israel as an impenetrable, indestructible entity. The zionist entity is fragile, and Palestinian resistance is alive. The iOF are still in disarray and the resistance fighters are still launching new attacks into 48,” wrote Students for Justice in Palestine’s central organization in the plans for a “Day of Action” in the United States in the immediate wake of October 7. These beliefs, which are spelled out clearly in the protesters’ foundational documents, have received astonishingly little attention... the actual purpose of the demands is to place the university’s imprimatur behind the idea that Israel is a unique source of evil in the world.  After all, they are not planning divestment campaigns for any other state engaged in violence or repression...   Most of the encampments either formally exclude Zionists or submit them to harassment and surveillance. When they describe themselves as liberated zones, this is the liberation they envision: a community in which endorsing violence against Israelis is normalized and supporting Israel’s continued existence is vilified as a matter of course.  A brief glimpse of this future was evident on UCLA’s campus. The administration, still burned by the 2020 protests, had held back any police deployment, allowing anti-Israel encampment to control access to multiple points on campus. Videos emerged of protesters manning checkpoints and only allowing students to enter the library if they renounced Zionism.  Anti-Zionism might not be intrinsically antisemitic. But making anti-Zionism a precondition for equal membership in a community is functionally antisemitic. It is the way that antisemitism has most often operated historically in free societies: by forcing Jews to repudiate communal values in order to enjoy full social equality."
I remember the moral panic over "Jews will not replace us", and there was no physical danger then

Breaking911 on X - "Princeton hunger striker complains the administration is "not monitoring our health. They are not keeping track of our vitals. They are not at all taking care of us." "We will continue to starve until they meet our demands." 🤡"

Collin Rugg on X - "NEW: Pro-Palestine protester at Princeton says she is "literally shaking" because she is starving and "immunocompromised."   The woman accused the school of purposely "physically weakening" her and her peers.  "This is absolutely unfair. My peers and I, we are starving. We are physically exhausted. I am quite literally shaking right now as you can see."  "We are both cold and hot at the same time. We are all immunocompromised and based on the university's meeting yesterday with some of our bargaining team, they would love to continue physically weakening us.""
i/o on X - "A woman who has decided to go on a hunger strike is angry that she is "physically weakening" and has identified the party responsible for this predicament and this party is not herself."
"Look what you made me do!"

Thread by @aaronsibarium on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - " NEW: Middlebury College on Monday called for an "immediate ceasefire" in Gaza—but not for the release of the remaining hostages held there.  The one-sided statement comes as Middlebury faces a federal civil rights probe for allegedly discriminating against Jewish students.🧵 In an agreement struck with pro-Palestinian demonstrators, who had set up an encampment on the school’s main green, Middlebury president Laurie Patton issued a statementcondemning "the destruction and debilitation of educational institutions" in Gaza as a result of the carnage. "We call for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the violence," Patton wrote. Though she mentioned in passing the Israeli hostages in Gaza, she did not call for their release or acknowledge they are being held by Hamas, whose name does no appear in the statement. The one-sided statement comes as Middlebury, one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country, is under investigation by the Education Department for discriminating against its Jewish students, some of whom filed a federal civil rights complaint against the school in February. The complaint alleged, among other things, that shortly after Oct. 7, Middlebury sought to purge a vigil for the victims of the attack of any references to Judaism, suggesting it would be "more inclusive" to include language about “all the innocent lives lost."   The school eschewed that "inclusive" approach one month later when it approved a "Vigil for Palestine" hosted by Muslim students, which began with an Islamic prayer and included remarks from Middlebury’s top diversity officer, Khuram Hussain. Other examples of bias include the college’s refusal to approve more than one Jewish student group despite recognizing at least six different clubs for Christian students. Patton’s statement on Monday could thicken the school’s legal morass while empowering the activists who have created it. Beyond calling for a ceasefire, the college agreed to let students meet with trustee to "discuss investment practices"—even though the school does not invest in arms manufacturers—and to "explore avenues to host all students in the region displaced by war and violence."  It also promised "new forms of review" for faculty hires from Israeli institutions, according to a press release from encampment organizers. That concession was part of a comprehensive deal struck Sunday between the college and the campers, who have since claimed victory. "We’ve secured everything that we are going to get out of the negotiating," Oliver Patrick, a student at Middlebury who participated in the encampment, told VTDigger. Middlebury has agreed not to discipline the protesters, they said in their press release, and police were not called to clear out the tents, which the protesters took down after the school capitulated to many of their demands. The agreement followed a week of back and forth with protesters as the administration held "listening sessions" to "better understand their concerns," according to a May 3 update from Patton. "Given the volatile national situation," Patton wrote, "we decided to focus on our educational mission and dialogue with the students." The decision to negotiate and in large part cave has helped the school avoid one nightmare scenario: Unlike Columbia and USC, which cancelled their graduation ceremonies, Patton said Monday that "everyone and their families" would be able to enjoy Middlebury’s commencement."

Visegrád 24 on X - "Journalist using a drone have been able to film anti-Israel students at Emory University in Atlanta training riot tactics ahead of expected clashes with the police at their university"
End Wokeness on X - "Drone footage shows students in Emory College training for clashes with police. Imagine if MAGA got caught doing this."

Thread by @bonchieredstate on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Yeah, it's all a hoax, Glenn. No pro-Hamas protesters have assaulted anyone. All these news stories and videos are just a giant Jewish conspiracy.
🧵... nypost.com/2024/05/07/us-…
This video of a Jewish man being assaulted on a campus in NY isn't real. It's all CGI.
This Jewish girl wasn't actually injured at Yale by pro-Hamas simps. Totally made up.
And this Jewish woman who was kicked in the head and sent to the hospital at UCLA wasn't actually kicked in the head and sent to the hospital.  NBC News is in on the gag, apparently. The pictures in the report? Photoshopped, I'm sure.
This video of paramedics tending her wounds? Totally fake. Clearly, they are just paid actors doing the bidding of the Jews.
Moving on, this pro-Hamas protester at UCLA assaulting a Jewish man isn't real. Clever Hollywood-style effects created this.
Then there's this Jewish student being assaulted and held hostage (for over an hour according to reports), unable to leave because the mob surrounded him. Just smoke and mirrors.
I could keep going. Will Glenn care? Will he admit there have been assaults committed by pro-Hamas protesters?  Of course, not.  He'll probably try to equivocate at best or outright deny these happened at worst. It's always the Jews' fault."
Naturally, neither Greenwald nor the other terrorism supporters acknowledged all the examples people threw at them. This is the usual left wing playbook that terrorism supporters are also using - demand proof, then either ignore, mock or dismiss the proof when provided

Meme - annalise🇵🇸 @annaliselip: "They never share these “attacks” they continually talk about, and if you ask for a source then you’re a “Jew Hater”"
Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald: "Yes, or they say: "I've seen them. Do your own research."  It's a massive hoax that they've been perpetrating for months."
Ana Blake @Ana_thera: "Jewish students assaulted and Hillel targeted at Ohio State, prompting state to beef up ..."

Links - 15th May 2024 (2 - Comedy)

Comedian who mocked disabled child singer did not breach limits of free speech: Supreme Court - "A comedian who mocked a disabled child singer for years did not breach the limits of free speech guaranteed under Quebec's Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled.   In a 5-4 split decision, the top court ruled Friday that while comedian Mike Ward's act ridiculed Jérémy Gabriel, a young man with Treacher Collins Syndrome, he was chosen as a target not because of his disability but because of his fame.  In its ruling, the court found that Ward's jokes did not seek to incite others to mock Gabriel and he cannot be blamed for the actions of Gabriel's classmates and others who parroted the jokes"
Left wingers keep claiming there is no freedom of speech in Canada, only freedom of expression. Looks like CBC didn't get the memo. Nor did the Supreme Court of Canada

Lesbian wins $22,500 over comedian's insults - "A Toronto comic and a Vancouver restaurant owner have been ordered to pay a lesbian patron $22,500 in compensation over a tirade of insults, after the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal dismissed the comic's claim that his words were an appropriate response to a heckler.  Lorna Pardy filed a complaint in 2008 alleging she and her lesbian partner were the targets of the offensive comments made by Guy Earle, who was hosting the open mike night at Zesty's Restaurant on Commercial Drive in May 2007. Earle did not deny he was offensive, but claimed Pardy and her same-sex partner first rudely heckled him along with the amateur comics on stage that night. Earle claimed that Pardy threw two drinks in his face, and admitted he broke Pardy's sunglasses in a confrontation after the show.  Earle's lawyer later walked out of the Human Rights Tribunal hearing after claiming it was an illegal restriction on his client's freedom of speech."

Shane Gill - "The Left says that when it comes to comedy, you cannot punch down. Only up. But in order for you to punch up, you need to tell yourself that there are entire groups of people that are beneath you. The Left very often exposes themselves as incredibly racist the moment you give their positions anything more than the most cursory thought"

Melissa Chen - "I see that the Chapelle Discourse has outlasted news about Afghanistan, China, Taiwan, lab leak, and supply chain disruptions in the media cycle.  We have utterly lost the perspective on what is most consequential while hyper-focusing on the trivial pursuit of fixing perceived moral injuries."

Dave Chappelle Apparently Tricked “Saturday Night Live” Staff By Performing A “Fake” Monologue In The Dress Rehearsal Before Revealing New Antisemitic Material Live On Air
Modern comedy is just about pushing the left wing agenda

Why I showed up at Netflix to support Dave Chappelle - "Cancel culture is not just a threat – it has already succeeded. Comedy is basically in its death throes. Comedians are afraid to say anything that might upset a mob of college-age morons. All the sitcoms currently on network television are the most boring and stale programmes I have ever seen in my life...   So many people are reaching out to me privately – film stars, game developers, writers – to say thank you for being willing to go out and do this. I really hope that what has happened serves as an example to people that it is time to fight for our craft and for our right to say proudly that we like jokes."

Meme - "Female stand-up comedian
*Period blood*
*Fake orgasm*
*Dick size*
*Bra*
*Boobs (Cleavage)*
*Blaming men for everything*"

John Cleese on Monty Python and Political Correctness - "the thing about political correctness is that it starts as a good idea and then gets taken ad absurdum. And one of the reasons it gets taken ad absurdum is that a lot of the politically correct people have no sense of humor... they have no sense of proportion, and a sense of humor is actually a sense of proportion. It’s the sense of knowing what’s important. In my stage show I tell jokes that make the audience roar with laughter, jokes about the Australians or the French or the Canadians or the Germans or the Italians. I make all these jokes and everybody laughs — and we don’t hate those groups of people, do we? Take this joke: “A guy walks into a bar and says to the barman, ‘You hear the latest Irish joke?’ The barman says, ‘I should warn you, I’m Irish.’ So the guy says, ‘All right then, I’ll tell it slowly.’” That’s funny! But if you tell that joke and replace “Irish” with “barman who isn’t very intelligent” it isn’t funny at all. Why should we sacrifice laughter to the cause of politically correctness if that laughter isn’t rooted in nastiness? This actually reminds me of an idea I had: Every year at the U.N. they should vote one particular nation to be the butt of the joke... People find it hard to believe this, but unless we’re talking about puns and wordplay, all humor is essentially critical. So to eliminate jokes that are at the expense of other people is to eliminate most jokes. If you laugh at someone, it’s because his behavior is inappropriate. That’s why you can’t really be funny about Jesus Christ or St. Francis of Assisi, because everything they do is pretty appropriate... At what point are we allowed to make a joke? After the Charge of the Light Brigade, how many years had to pass for it to be acceptable to make jokes about the dead British?... if I can make jokes about Americans or English or Germans but I can’t make jokes about black people, then the question is this: When will we be able to treat black people in the same way that we treat Germans?... when will be able to say things are equal? Where’s the line? Here’s another example: Americans love jokes about English dentistry. Now that’s not very nice, is it? Have you ever heard an Englishman saying, “Stop persecuting me?” So where’s the line about what’s allowable? It’s very thin, wherever it is. Interviewer: I think the line is actually pretty thick: The people who historically have had more power in a society don’t get to decide what’s offensive to those who historically have had less power. Cleese: Eighty percent of people out there on the sidewalk will tell you they are oppressed by the system. All I’m saying is that all these definitions and rules are not cut-and-dried... Sometimes in my show I say, “There were these two Mexicans” and immediately the whole audience goes, “Oooh.” People think something is going to be offensive before it’s even been said... The Mexicans are actually the heroes! They’ve won! There are millions of Mexicans in America. Are we trying to pretend that isn’t the case? So is that a nasty story to tell? I don’t think it is. And isn’t it condescending to say that certain people can’t take a joke? "

BREAKING: AOC TRIGGERED by obvious parody account of her on Twitter, assessing how to 'move forward' - "Recent posts from the parody account include: "Feeling cute, might go to the southern border for another photo shoot", "If we tax citizens at a rate of 80%, we'd easily be able to pay 3 trillion dollars in reparations to transgenders", "Farming should be illegal", and "Cow farts are far more dangerous than fentanyl."... the parody account wrote, "This might be the wine talking, but I’ve got a crush on @elonmusk."  Musk responded to the post with a "fire" emoji...  The parody account posts content making fun of AOC's notorious response to Senator Cruz when she stated, "I don't want to date you" in response to criticism from the congressman."

Meme - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOC: "FYI there's a fake account on here impersonating me and going viral. The Twitter CEO has engaged it, boosting visibility. It is releasing false policy statements and gaining spread. I am assessing with my team how to move forward. In the meantime, be careful of what you see."
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Press Release (parody) @AOCpress: "I'm still not going to date you."
Once again, liberals are threatened by comedy, satire and parody
It's only okay if it's parody Trump accounts. Imagine if Trump had tried to shut down parody accounts

Meme - "Yes police? They're parodying me" *BBQ Becky*

Storm on Twitter - "Here ya go, Alex. I made this handy guide for all your genius supporters to use so they can tell you apart from the domestic terrorist impersonating you."
Ian Miles Cheong on Twitter - "It's clearly marked as a parody. You should also mark your own account as a parody because you're like a parody of a politician."
Shibetoshi Nakamoto on Twitter - "oh no, not obvious parody that’s criminal, all humor should be banned and anyone making a joke should be put into the electric chair"
Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 on Twitte - "AOC is mad that parody account @AOCpress is making fun of her. Now AOC is threatening to sue Twitter over this hilarious critic. That’s a pretty thin skin Sandy Cortez has — something you’d expect to find in a schoolgirl not a member of Congress."
Jack Murphy ⚡️ on Twitter - "The internet is a tough place lady Meaner than the streets of your hometown I guess"
Comrade Misty is Putin’s Buddy 🍀 on Twitter - "It’s clearly labeled as parody. Is this violence?"
Styxhexenhammer666 on Twitter - "It's hard to parody someone as brain damaged as you, Alexandria."
Noel Olinde on Twitter - "Who cares? Nobody takes you seriously anyway. The parody account can only make you look better…"
Richard Marshall on Twitter - "@AOC Can't wait to see what her "team" comes up with to "deal with it""
ALX 🇺🇸 on Twitter - "It’s clearly marked as a parody. I find it concerning that your actual Tweets and positions are so close to parody that it’s sometimes indistinguishable from reality."
Julia 🇺🇸 on Twitter - "She’s so mad Elon restored the parody account’s blue check—and even Politico is running cover for her. The account is following the rules of Twitter, which apply to everyoneeeee! Get bent, AOC 😆"
Jake 2.0 on Twitter - "The AOC team is worried that a parody account is being taken seriously and mistaken for the real AOC. Think about that."

Jailed for jokes he didn’t make - "Munawar Faruqui was accused of insulting Hindu gods and members of the Indian government with ‘indecent’ and ‘vulgar’ comments at a gig on 1 January.  But witnesses say he did not get to perform that night. Police have even admitted there is no evidence for the accusation. Apparently, the accuser – the son of a politician from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – overheard some jokes Faruqui was preparing for his performance. Faruqui and four others (including another comic) were arrested and charged with upsetting religious sentiments and – in reference to Covid – performing a ‘negligent act likely to spread infection of diseases dangerous to life’.  Despite not actually performing at the gig, Faruqui remains in jail. And police superintendent Vijay Khatri has – incredibly – said it ‘doesn’t really matter’ whether or not Faruqui made the comments, because he is guilty of ‘intent’."

Meme - Miri beaucoup @Miribeaucoup: "my hot take is that jokes in general are overrated. everyone should stop attempting to be funny. learn empathy first. i'd rather live in a cautious, sensitive world than a "funny" one."
Why liberals aren't funny

David Sedaris: ‘People say I’m terrible and cruel — but other people have terrible thoughts too’ | Saturday Review | The Times - "“Thank God I’m gay. I’m giving a commencement speech at the most PC school in America — Oberlin College [in Ohio]. Because I’m a middle-aged white male, it made me wonder would I have been doing it if I wasn’t gay? It has been a good career move.” Ah, political correctness. “I don’t know what is worse. To have a far-right audience or a far-left audience. I have a joke about Trump borrowed from Bill Maher [a comedian and talk show host], who said that if elected, Trump would change the symbol of America from an eagle to a turtle f***ing a shoe. People walk out.” If right-wingers walk out, “people on the left want to stay and tell you, ‘You can’t say that.’ Both of them are like this . . . [Sedaris makes a strangling motion] hands around the neck of comedy slowly choking the life out of it... He says of this spirit of censoriousness that “it’s a new thing: I’m going to go see you for an hour and a half, and if you say one thing that I don’t agree with, you’re off my list”. Some jokes that don’t work in the US, work in Britain, though... “Mother Teresa and Princess Diana are in heaven. Mother Teresa says to God, ‘It’s not fair, I served the poor and devoted myself to service; all she did was go to cocktail parties and wear fancy clothes — how come she gets a halo and I don’t?’ And God replies, ‘That’s not a halo, that’s a steering wheel.’ ” Yes, it’s bad taste, but Sedaris does not mind. “There are people who say I’m so terrible and cruel — but you can’t tell me other people don’t have cruel thoughts. Martin Amis argues that good taste is the last thing that writers should pay attention to. I have a lot of respect for that.””
Clearly, without "homophobia", he'd be even more famous
Obviously it's worse to walk out than to try to silence people, especially since you're silencing them for a righteous cause

Monty Python star John Cleese mocks Hank Azaria’s Apu guilt with apology to ‘English people’… but some don’t get the joke - "British actor John Cleese has been both cheered and chastised for ridiculing voice actor Hank Azaria over his apology to “every single Indian person” for his portrayal of Simpsons character Apu.  Azaria drew a mixed response this week when he said sorry for his portrayal of the long-running cartoon’s Indian shopkeeper Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, whose stereotypical identity, the actor said, had helped maintain “structural racism.”... “Not wishing to be left behind by Hank Azaria, I would like to apologise on behalf on Monty Python for all the many sketches we did making fun of white English people,” Cleese said in a tweet on Tuesday. “We’re sorry for any distress we may have caused.”... Other Twitter users similarly chimed in with well-loved examples of people mocked by Monty Python, including the French, the Chinese, “upper class twits,” Catholics, people from Yorkshire, and others. Some users questioned why white people are “trying to be offended” on behalf of ethnic minorities in order to “appear virtuous,” and suggested that comedy relies on being able to make jokes about different cultures."

Meme - Capt. Planet: "Gen Z the weakest generation because of them Rush Hour has to put this before the start of their movies"
"We all love our 90's buddy comedies... but this movie was created in a different time. FYI: Certain depictions, language and humor may seem outdated and at times offensive"

Ricky Gervais says being able to offend in comedy is a ‘good system’

In defence of Ricky Gervais and the right to offend people - "In 2004, a woman in Birmingham wrote a play about a disabled child who was raped inside a Sikh place of worship. Some Sikhs were offended that this fictional storyline was set at a Gurdwara (Sikh temple) and went on a protest that eventually turned violent. The play had to be shut down. Some groups wanted the writer, a Sikh woman herself, arrested for allegedly stirring up anti-Sikh tensions.  The second story is as follows. Several hundred years ago, when the region now known as India was ruled over by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, he was angry that Hindus refused to convert to Islam. To protect their freedom of religion – the right to believe in something the emperor found offensive – a Sikh guru gave up his life. He told the community: protect freedom of belief, because it affects all of us... Gervais says, very early on, that he doesn’t need to do this. He’s already rich, he doesn’t need to cause controversy to get richer. He’s doing it for an important principle. The show, essentially, is about him defending the right to be offensive. The offensiveness is the point. That’s where I’m with him 100 per cent, for two important reasons.  Firstly, without the right to offend, we lose the right to challenge ideas and norms. I’m not arguing about whether Gervais is good or bad, or whether he is offensive or not. It’s fine if you find him and his jokes distasteful. But I’d rather live in a world where people are offensive than one where everyone agrees. Then we would have no diversity of thought or ideas.  I was deeply involved in the Sikh play controversy, now nearly 20 years ago, because I defended the right of the writer to tell her truth. For that, we were both labelled “traitors” by some Sikhs. They had a right to find her offensive but they should not have the right to stop her from speaking out.  To take another example, even the idea of gay marriage was offensive to the norms of religious institutions... The second point in defence of offensiveness is even more important. When we clamp down on “offensive” speech, usually through the law, it’s always used against minorities first... Somehow, we went from not wanting people to discriminate, to not wanting people to be offensive at all. That’s dangerous enough as it is. What’s worse is the idea that people who are mildly offensive should be completely shunned – ie “cancelled” and never heard from again. Someone is either on the side of angels, or must be cancelled. They’re either “woke” or “racists”. But the world isn’t black or white, it’s in hundreds of shades of grey. I may not agree with everything – or even anything – Ricky Gervais says. But that’s ok, because it’s more important to protect the right of people to be different than to be inoffensive."

Rex Murphy: Bravo to Ricky Gervais for standing up to wokeism - "Gervais dared face the whirlwind. Good on him. And his Netflix special will be a hit. It’s interesting that comedy, in the ancient tradition of deploying the weapon of satire to correct or rebuke social mischiefs, may be the force that puts a halt to up-to-now triumphal wokeism."

Comedian says he was rejected by agent for being white - "Brooklyn funnyman Tyler Fischer, 35, was trying to find a talent manager in October 2020 when he first connected with AGI Entertainment Media & Management, a Manhattan outfit that reps comedians Samantha Bee and Colin Quinn, television host Julie Chen and journalist Natalie Morales... ” ‘We love you. Everyone here loves you and thinks you’re a star, but we’re not taking you because you’re white.’ And that’s when my stomach dropped,” alleged Fischer, who is now suing the company for discrimination in Brooklyn Supreme Court... “UPDATE: I will not settle. I will take this all the way even if I don’t get a dime. This ‘justified’ racism must end.”  Fischer wouldn’t detail the purported settlement offer.  “I have endless people reaching out to me privately saying, ‘This happened to me. I’m too afraid to speak out.’ I had an acting agent reach out the other day who said, ‘You have no idea how bad it is. They’re not hiding it’”"
The cope is that non-white people were discriminated against for a long time, so this is good

Comedy is being ‘nuked’ while reality TV gets away with sex and swearing, says ‘Allo ‘Allo! star - "Comedy is being “neutralised”, according to ‘Allo ‘Allo! star Vicki Michelle, while reality TV shows are allowed to get away with rampant sex and swearing.  The actress who played the French waitress Yvette Carte-Blanche in the series, has said that most viewers would welcome new comedies in the style of ‘Allo ‘Allo!, but a minority would take offence...   A string of content warnings for TV series was issued last year by streaming service BritBox - a collaborative venture between the BBC and other broadcasters - including one advisory note which told viewers that ‘Allo ‘Allo! featured “outdated” material.  “Comedy is being neutralised - or nuked,” Ms Michelle said. “I think 80 per cent of this country would love comedy like ‘Allo ‘Allo! to be made again, so 20 per cent might take aversion to some of the content.”...   The humour stemmed from innuendo and mockery of national stereotypes and accents, and in 2021 Britbox warned modern audiences about the supposedly dated content of the decades-old programme, with a note stating: “This classic comedy contains language and attitudes of the time that may offend some viewers.”  BritBox explained at the time that certain classic programmes required advice on the “potentially sensitive language or attitudes of their era”. But Michelle argued that contemporary television is far more offensive than the comedy now deemed worthy content warnings, telling the Daily Mirror: “People eff, blind and use the c-word on telly and that’s considered fine.  “And on reality TV people make love under a sheet, and that’s fine. There was none of that in ‘Allo ‘Allo!. I don’t think there’s anything in there that would upset a normal person.   She added: “‘Allo ‘Allo! didn’t send up anyone in particular – we sent up everyone.  “It was a family show where the adults got the double entendres and the children just thought the situations were funny. You can see someone on telly in a bikini and their boobs out.”"

Marlon Wayans hits back at cancel culture as he claims that movies such as White Chicks are 'needed' - "He's known for his role in a slew of wacky comedies, including 2004 hit White Chicks.  And Marlon Wayans has now explained that we 'need' these kind of movies in the world, as he struck down on 'cancel culture'. The actor, 50, claimed 'we can't laugh anymore' while discussing the 18 years since White Chicks' release, explaining that he won't change his ways or jokes... 'If a joke is gonna get me cancelled, thank you for doing me that favour. It's sad that society is in this place where we can't laugh anymore'"

Meme - "Mostly Strawman
Not funny
Never original
Motivated by butthurt
*wall of text*
A leftist meme"
Aka the left can't meme

Meme - "Jokes are funny"
"BUT IT CAUSES REAL WORLD HARM"
"How?"
*punches comedy champion*

Being Offended is Part of Living in a Democracy, Comedian Says - "comedians in particular have found it difficult to navigate the waters of a culture in which many people are easily triggered. A 2015 article in The Atlantic described how comics were censoring their own jokes before standup routines on college campuses. The article was probably prompted by Jerry Seinfeld, arguably the most famous comedian in the world, who had explained months before why he wouldn’t perform on “PC” college campuses...   Seinfeld is not the only comedian uncomfortable with the trend of easily offended people. (Perhaps it’s because comedians thrive on producing edgy material.) British funnyman Stephen Fry explained his distaste for the phrase a few years ago.     “It’s now very common to hear people say, ‘I’m rather offended by that,’ as if that gives them certain rights. It’s just a whine,” Fry said. “It has no meaning it has no purpose it has no reason to be respected as a phrase.”... when did it become accepted thinking that people have a right to not be offended by the words, people, or ideas around them?  As our culture grows more diverse and our means of communication improve, one might think it would be incumbent on people to become more tolerant of different ideas, people and opinions–at least if the people in that society wished it to remain cohesive and civil. But it seems that the opposite is happening... Is the expectation to not “be offended” practical in nations that have literally hundreds of millions of people with diverse life experiences, ethnic and racial backgrounds, educations, and worldviews? If people are offended, is there a healthier and more constructive way than shame to address the conflict?"

Do Blackadder and The Fresh Prince need trigger warnings? - "The BBC has slapped offensive-content warnings on classic comedy shows Blackadder and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air...   It is not clear what infringement of woke rules prompted the warning on The Fresh Prince. The show is hardly awash with profanity, and none of the characters in the all-black cast ever says anything racist.  Since the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, the BBC has gone into overdrive in identifying and atoning for potentially offensive shows on its iPlayer platform...   These offensive-content warnings are bad news for comedy. Comedy, more than any other genre, works best when it comes close to or transgresses the line of acceptability and convention. The BBC’s censorious attitude will no doubt encourage comedy writers and stand-ups to carry on producing boring, sterile shows that never risk offending anyone. This joyless war on comedy has got to stop."