Interestingly, you have to go back as far as 1984 to find a year in which the BP nominees grossed so little.
Tom posted this at 8:11 PM CDT on Tuesday, February 28th, 2006 as Uncategorized
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Perhaps attempted rape would be more accurate, but think the analogy works:
Why is diversity identity rape?
Diversity practitioners claim that individual life experiences matter, and contribute to various positive outcomes. The claim is understandable; but the practitioners do not follow their own claim. Instead, individuals are stripped of life experiences that matter, and an externally-applied group identification is substituted. Worse, the group identification is often antithetical to reasoned judgment based on facts, logic, or even empathy.
The group identification is applied involuntarily (that is, by force). It is an outrageous violation of its own fundamental principle, that individual life experience matters. It is a miscarriage of justice, in that benefits and penalties owed to individuals are applied by group identification, even if the individual did not participate in, or inherit the results of, the attributed behaviors and experiences of others. It is a plain misapplication of the concepts of sameness and objective reality. Its victims are individual persons. Thus, diversity (as practiced in American politics and education) is identity rape.
Although proponents of diversity often speak of “inclusion” in the same breath, these are not the same. When inclusion breaks down barriers to a group, it necessarily breaks down barriers to individuals of that group, without significant detrimental effect on individuals who do not belong to that group. But diversity, as identity rape, is frequently practiced by elitists who seek to exclude, not include, individuals. It is no coincidence that most organizations that regard themselves as elite are also outspoken advocates of diversity; it is simply another tactic for the exclusion of meritorious individuals who to not conform to the elitist agenda.
Tom posted this at 3:52 PM CDT on Tuesday, February 28th, 2006 as Uncategorized
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There’s been an ongoing effort in the EU to trademark the label “Not made in China.” Of course, the Red Chinese are not at all amused, claiming that it would be a disgrace to China.
Dorothy posted this at 3:34 PM CDT on Tuesday, February 28th, 2006 as Europa Universalis, Those Wacky Foreigners
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So I wanted to check out the latest in the Ponnuru-Sullivan spat (which is getting deliciously vicious), but I had had a smidgeon to drink and I missed Drudge’s link to Sullivan. Instead, I got the next link down, which is Helen Thomas.
Again, I had had a smidgeon to drink, so I actually read the column. Seems she thinks the US should have a woman president. A lovely sexist idea, but I digress. Surprise surprise, she thinks Hillary is good (as a bonus, “she would have the benefit of the savvy advice of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, one of the smartest politicians in America”–gotta love those independent women). But Thomas rains all over my Condi parade.
Why is it that Hillary is a better candidate than Condi?
Hillary:
As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the former first lady has shown she is a strong supporter of the military intervention in Iraq, calling for 80,000 more American troops to be sent there.
Condi:
Rice has a handicap because of her assiduous cheerleading for the disastrous war in Iraq.
Well that clears up the ’08 picture.
Apollo posted this at 1:37 AM CDT on Tuesday, February 28th, 2006 as Politics
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In 1967 liberals watched Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and cheered the idea that secluding people into boxes due to their race is a wrongheaded approach to the world. Today a faction among liberals takes the contrary view—that enlightened people must view those whose race, religion or cultural background is different through the prism of that trait.
Not just a faction, but the weight of thought on the subject on the Left is along these lines (and always comes from people claiming to be followers of MLK–who like the Founding Fathers–rolls over in his grave at such a prodigious speed that he has likely drilled a couple miles from his gravesite).
In all seriousness, the circular logic in this is sickening: First you encourage students to always keep race in the forefront of their social interactions, and encourage minority (read, “non-white”) students to seek company with their own kind. Then, you cite the racial segregation and lack of inter-race dialogue as evidence that you’re not doing enough to foster racial utopia, and that your multiculturalism center needs more funding. I really wish it were funny, but it’s not.
Tom posted this at 10:02 PM CDT on Monday, February 27th, 2006 as Uncategorized
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I really didn’t see myself posting on this subject again, but… In response to the Vanity Fair cover, Amber has a superb post on different attitudes towards male and female nudity. Pheobe (who’s blog I must read more often) also makes some excellent points in opposition to Andrew Sullivan’s take on the subject. One of the comments on the discussion thread, however, touched on my earlier post:
I doubt that the average American straight man, even with the greatest of good faith, can view the male nude free of the filters culturally provided to preserve his conception of himself as heterosexual. The reactions of an American woman looking at a female nude do not automatically implicate her sexual orientation, her femininity, her social acceptability, her status as agent rather than acted-upon. Thus, she is far freer to have a “pure” aesthetic response than any man is likely to be able to be.
This is regretably true; there is a cultural assumption that the mere willingness to look at a penis signifies something about one’s orientation. I am still amazed at the degree to which most young men today cover-up in the locker room. So far as I can decipher the logic, to allow another man the chance to glance one’s equipment is tatamount to tempting him with hereto repressed homosexuality. And there I was simply trying to dry-off outside the shower stall.
This attitude seems to be something unique to our generation, and I’m inclined to think it’s–again–the result of the gay lobby’s insistence that sexual expression and desire are always the result of immutable orientation; moreover, any deviation from this set orientation can only be an act of Freudian self-denial. Therefore, any conceivable homosexual temptation (such as drying oneself outside of the shower) threatens any other hetreo guy because if he finds that he’s not instantly horrified by the mere sight of male genetalia other than his own, it must be because he’s queer.
One of the things I really respected Brokeback for was its rejection of this false dichotomy. Ennis never showed the slightest sexual interest in any man besides Jack, and said as much (to the extent that Ennis said anything at all during the film). Jack clearly had a male preference, but also seemed to be content jumping into bed with anything that had two legs. More of a “Bisexual Shepherd” movie than a “Gay Cowboy” flick. It really amazes me how the gay-rights lobby has latched onto a movie that really doesn’t conform to their world view at all.
Tom posted this at 9:42 PM CDT on Monday, February 27th, 2006 as Uncategorized
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With all this movie talk I thought I’d post
my last column from the San Bernardino Sun and Inland Valley Daily Bulletin:
In the 1967 film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner actor Sidney Poitier plays an accomplished black doctor hoping to marry a beautiful young white woman…if only her staunchly liberal parents will approve.
The father of the bride respects his daughter’s fiancée, and doesn’t doubt that the young couple loves one another deeply. At first, however, he refuses to give his blessing, arguing that a bigoted society won’t accept their marriage.
“There’ll be 100 million people right here in this country who will be shocked and offended and appalled and the two of you will just have to ride that out, maybe every day for the rest of your lives,” says Spencer Tracy, playing the role of the father. “You could try to ignore those people, or you could feel sorry for them and for their prejudice and their bigotry and their blind hatred and stupid fears, but where necessary you’ll just have to cling tight to each other and say ‘screw all those people’!”
A modern viewer can’t help but feel gratified at how far society has progressed since those days. Today’s interracial couples may face difficulties, but nothing compared to what their predecessors faced even a generation ago.
At another point, however, I couldn’t help but feel pessimism.
“I love you,” Poitier’s character tells his father. “I always have and I always will. But you think of yourself as a colored man. I think of myself as a man.”
As modern America accepts immigrants from all over the world (and racial divisions remain even among those born here), it is as important as ever to think of ourselves as human beings rather than members of a racial group.
Yet a strain of thought exists—it is called multiculturalism—that encourages us to think of people whose race, religion or cultural background is different from our own as somehow essentially different from us. Read the rest of this entry »
conor friedersdorf posted this at 6:15 PM CDT on Monday, February 27th, 2006 as Uncategorized
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Here’s another example of dishonest wording skewing the issue:
A [Virginia] Senate committee rejected a bill that would have banned workplace discrimination against government employees who are gay.
Really? So if there’s some black gay guy, people are presently free to fire him because he’s black, or a guy? Judging by this lede, that’s the case.
Of course that’s not the case. This is a matter of whether it’s legal to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Gay people are presently protected exactly the same as everyone else. That is, it is no more legal to fire a gay black guy because of his race than it is to fire a straight black guy because of his race. It is, however, perfectly legal to fire a gay black guy because of his sexual orientation, just as it’s legal to fire a straight black guy because of his sexual orientation. There aren’t Nuremburg laws in America excluding certain peoples from protection, it’s just that there are certain categories we don’t protect.
But wording the issue as such (“gay people aren’t protected from discrimination”) definately makes it sound that way. In the same manner, much of the homosexual marriage debate has the same fault (“gay people can’t get married”). I specifically use the phrase “homosexual marriage” because that’s what it is–marriage between two people of the same sex. Just as the heterosexual marriage regime doesn’t care if the people getting married are gay or straight, neither would a homosexual marriage regime. The wording simply describes the people getting married.
The reporter I quote above could have easily written her story, “A Senate committee rejected a bill that would have banned workplace discrimination against government employees based on sexual orientation.” That’s honest, and it’s accurate. The way it’s written, it’s not only dishonest (gay people are protected from many kinds of discrimination), it’s also inaccurate, or at least incomplete (the law would have also banned discrimination against straight people, bi people, and, really, all people based on sexual orientation). As it is, from looking at the way she chose her words, it’s not hard to figure out what side she’s on.
Apollo posted this at 11:32 AM CDT on Monday, February 27th, 2006 as Politics and the English Language
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We live in a time with a lot of interesting new lingo and experiences in our shared popular culture. I think it’s therefore a shame that we still rely on tired cliches that no longer have a connection to our world, aside from the fact that everyone heard their grandparents say it.
My exhibit for the day:“The congressman believes there is more than one way to skin this cat,” said Robert White, [Virginia Republican Rep. Tom] Davis’s press secretary.
White is, interestingly enough, not actually talking about torturing some Democrat’s tabby, but about getting funding for Metro, Washington DC’s mass transit rail system. This issue’s relationship to cat skinning, why anyone would skin a cat (have you ever heard of a cat coat, or a cat skin rug?), and exactly how many ways there really are to skin a cat (my guess is that most are variations on killing the cat and removing its skin, although I’ve never tried such a thing myself) are all open questions. Is cat skinning something that was once reknowned for the number of ways that one could do it? At any rate, this phrase is wholly out of place in the modern world–even amongst us dog people I think there’s universal revulsion at the thought of actually skinning a cat.
There are numerous ways of rephrasing this (“There’s more than one way to fix this bug,” for the techies; “There’s more than one way to get information from a terrorist,” for the Jack Bauer in all of us; “There’s more than one way to drive to work,” for those familiar with Los Angeles traffic.), but I actually think this is a cliche best abandoned. Stating, “There’s more than one way to solve this problem” is pretty simple and easy to understand. I don’t think anyone needs a visual of Garfield losing his fur to get the point across.
Apollo posted this at 8:29 AM CDT on Monday, February 27th, 2006 as Politics and the English Language
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Another?
There was another rally in central London yesterday, this one against terrorism and extremism. Going on the pictures by resident photographer Kesara, the rally was against the declining situation in Iraq and the destruction of holy shrines by terrorists.
It had a wierd feel to it too (nothing hostile mind you). For one thing it was about the bombing of the shrine in Iraq and there were plenty of Iraqi flags flying. In fact I didn’t see too many anti-cartoon placards – ’twas all pictures of the Golden Mosque. … There was a lot of “Down with Bin Laden” “No to Terrorism” chanting going on …although it was primarily concerning terrorism in Iraq, there were no references towards the London bombings really. Loads of anti Wahabi sentiment. Peaceful…but still…slightly ‘odd’ and I cant explain it.
Um…yay!
Tom posted this at 1:33 AM CDT on Monday, February 27th, 2006 as Uncategorized
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I’ve about had it with the “I’m not an elite, and that makes me better than you!” meme that’s in vogue. What next: “Howdy, comrade”?
Tom posted this at 11:28 PM CDT on Sunday, February 26th, 2006 as Conservatism, Uncategorized
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Add me to the list of those annoyed and somewhat baffled by Apollo’s anti-elitist elitism.
I think the fact that nobody saw these movies is relevent to how good they are…A movie should convey something to the public, but it can’t do that if the public doesn’t watch.
Apollo, I have heard you rant and rave all year about what a great movie Cinderella Man was. How much did it make? About $90 million less than Fantastic Four, about $15 million less than Brokeback Mountain, and about $5 million less than Herbie: Fully Loaded. I doubt this influences your judgement of it.
But if that’s the case and we’re just choosing between “Good, but not quite great” movies, then I think the Academy is foolish to pick four obviously political movies and a biography of Truman Capote as its Best Picture nominees.
I sincerely object to referring to Brokeback Mountain as “an obviously political movie.” One of the most welcome aspects of the film was that it was not an agenda piece. That people on both sides of the homosexuality debate have approached it as propaganda really depresses me. Ang Lee made a better film than that.
The only other BP nominee I’ve seen is Munich, which most certainly was an agenda piece (and a very frustrating one at that).
As for films that should have been nominated, however, I’d like to second Batman.
Tom posted this at 9:22 PM CDT on Sunday, February 26th, 2006 as Kulturkampf
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Hey Apollo – Me love you long time.
Dorothy posted this at 8:06 PM CDT on Sunday, February 26th, 2006 as Uncategorized
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I have long found interracial marriages interesting, especially after Dorothy and I got together. One of the few people to write honestly on this subject is the strange Steve Sailer (see here and here). He summarizes the racial/gender disparities as such:
The general pattern to be explained is: blacks are more in demand as husbands than as wives, and vice-versa for Asians. The question is, what accounts for it?
Sailer comes up with an answer based on perceived differences in masculinity among the races. I’m not sure I buy that, but I think he’s correct that it points to some differences among races that we’d probably rather not think about. If it is, as we’re told, that women like successful men, why is it that black women even care about black men, who are far less successful than they? Why wouldn’t women flock to Asian men who tend to be more successful than whites? Either that old trope about women wanting successful men isn’t true, or it doesn’t cut across racial boundaries.
Since appearance is the primary difference among the races, I don’t think it’s controversial to state that this all comes down to looks. Perhaps the most interesting thing I can add to this is the observation that—stick with me, you pervs—size matters. Check out this chart:
Pretty dramatic, no? The rate of obesity among black women (35%, plus an additional 30% who are merely overweight) can’t help their marriage chances. On the other hand, Asian women have a total (overweight + obese) of 25% with only 5% qualifying as obese. The CDC’s definition of “overweight” catches a lot of people who are not, in any real sense, overweight; however, that would not affect the relative numbers, and I’m sure that anyone who fit their description of “obese” (30% above their supposed normal body weight) would actually appear overweight.
This would have a much stronger impact on women than men. If a woman’s overweight, that’s almost always unattractive; if a man’s overweight, it could be that he really has a big frame (which, I, er, hear is attractive in men), that he has a lot of muscles (which is more attractive on men than women), or he may genuinely be a slob but can play the beer belly off as funny or a sign of brew-chugging, football-watching, potato-chip-munching masculinity. Overweight women just can’t do that..
Sailer makes a similar point in his discussion of racial muscularity. However, he sees it in terms of people actively being attracted to others, whereas I see it in terms of people actively being repulsed by others. As always, I think our repulsion from the bad is stronger and more effective than our attraction to the good. Before we can go for a person with the type of body we want, we must first exclude those we don’t want (i.e. no fatties).
Apollo posted this at 5:30 PM CDT on Sunday, February 26th, 2006 as Uncategorized
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I think this particular topic is way too played out and has consumed way more of this blog than originally intended. I just want to point out that applying your logic to other things doesn’t seem to work. Is the DaVinci Code a masterpiece of literature? Should it be enshrined in the same pantheon as Twain or Faulkner? What about Britney Spears? Should her music be considered art in the same vein as Mozart? Are you going to tell me that Two and a Half Men is a better show than Firefly? (I know Tom will support me on this one.) If how popular something is indicates its artistic value then Joyce must be a horrible writer, Limp Bizkit must be some of the greatest composers of all time, and The Pacifier is quite obviously a better movie than Capote.
Hubbard – you won’t find too much argument from me about 1977. The other two – I’d give you a bit of an argument, mostly because I love those two movies, and appreciate them more than their contemporaries.
That said I’m going back to my scotch and cigar – its my birthday!
Jamie posted this at 3:03 AM CDT on Sunday, February 26th, 2006 as Kulturkampf, Nerdom, Ourselves
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