...the wearying, juvenile need to be seen as transgressing bourgeois proprieties... Actually, I quite agree with that. I hereby nominate "tenure" as the bourgeois value that could use some serious transgressing at this university. Fire these jackals. Force them to obey their own values, for once.

What I think most people outside this little ecosystem of sanity that Mr. Thompson so kindly provides for us, is that the term "postmodernism" isn't an area of academic study of anything at all. When writing something, or describing something, or creating "postmodernist art, the postmodernist isn't demonstrating mastery of a subject or producing anything. Rather, the postmodernist is demonstrating his power to subjugate the reader/viewer/listener to his will: "I, the postmodernist, have the power to force you to pay deference and respect to something that you know is utter crap. I can force you to act in a way that is directly counter to your self-respect, your dignity, your culture, your religion, and indeed, your very freedom of thought. And there's nothing you can do about it." Therefore, the further from reality postmodernism is, the more effective it is at demonstrating that power. Understood properly, what these academics are doing is demonstrating their power to force the university to act against its interest as a university. The only proper reaction to these postmodernists is to dispatch them with prejudice. Fire them from the faculty, remove the cancer from the institution and never let it return.

And we’re not just talking out of our ass, like we’re smart as fuck, you know what I mean? We read books, and we know shit; Uhm, yes, you are, in fact, talking out of your ass. You are, as a group, and as individuals, a strikingly banal gaggle of ass-talkers. In fact, listening to you, I can tell that you can't actually *do* anything, except talk out of your ass. You don't belong in university, at all. The only reason you are in university at all is because it makes a certain class of overly-credentialed white women and soft-as-silky-pajamas white men feel better about themselves. Well, that, and your skin color is currently fashionable. You are a drag on society. You add nothing and subtract a considerable amount. You don't belong in a trade school, either. They'd kick you out for being an arrogant pecker-headed moron who can't learn. You belong in a care home for illiterate sub-morons. You deserve to be ignored and/or scorned until you produce something that someone else is willing to pay for. Until then, fuck off.

Has anyone bothered to look at his photos? Lots of photographers take pictures of street kids. Here, for example: http://www.michaelsegalphoto.com/world-gallery/ But, this guy's real genius is using his vacation to take pictures of middle class local kids in poorly composed, low contrast, digital black and whites. He is clearly pushing the boundaries - literally daring his audience to fight off bouts of narcolepsy while looking at his pictures. I mean, really, could you get ANY more pedantic? A black professor, in a made-up field, with no academic publications, who styles himself as a cross-fit competitor, a narcissistic clothes horse, a pretentiously shitty photographer. Sheesh.

David - I too am constantly amazed at the uniformity of the liberal fascists. It is so curious to me that if you engage a group of conservatives (or, indeed any group of normal people) on some issue, you're likely to get a variety of thoughtful responses. But, when you engage a Liberal Fascist - and it doesn't matter if its a group or alone - the level of uniformity is absolutely creepy. They say the same things, in the same mind-numbed way, almost like they're reading from a script. I dated a girl, way back in college who was one of these mind-numbed types. Smart as a whip in real life, but when it came to anything political, it was like her reading comprehension regressed to a 2nd grade level. Couldn't formulate her own rational arguments, couldn't summarize an opposing argument. All she could do was spout slogans. In the end, it came down to her admitting that when she actually took time to listen to and understand my arguments (as above, she couldn't formulate a rebuttal) ...it meant she would have to change her mind (not necessarily to agree with me, but to give my argument some credence instead of simply calling me a poor-hater) or she had to give up the pretext of being a reasonable person. Her ego couldn't allow her to do it - change her mind that is. Last time I checked (decades ago) she married wealth and spends her time expressing concern for the poor by attending fundraising galas. I've since concluded the creepy, shallow uniformity is a defensive mechanism - a similar thing is built in to all humans at some level when faced with a threat. Liberal Fascists just use it for ego protection. Protecting the ego by refusing to engage ideas that have the power to force a person to change their mind. It's much easier to understand them if you view them as not particularly sophisticated religionists. Which, explains why their vitriol towards Christians.

This identity politics nonsense is in a contest with enviro-nutbag-ism to see which is the world's dumbest religion

Quite frankly, if I were running this police department, I would *encourage* this kind of behavior. Think of the cost savings alone. Whenever Abi shows up for work, you can pay her 30% less than when Callum is on the beat.

Oh look! They is fat, talentless, and needing of attention. How very precious and rare.

The sad thing about this young lady's rant is that it's distracting her from solving her problem. She's spending all her time justifying her self-pity and surrounding herself with people who enable and reward that self-pity rather than challenging her to improve and innovate and succeed. Placing all the blame on uncontrollable "others" and complaining about a situation, instead of solving her problem. I too graduated with a mountain of debt. I rented a shitty little room in a group house for several years. I too lamented and felt helpless under a mountain of debt, filling myself with doubt and fear. And then I grew the fuck up and stopped whining and started thinking about how to improve my economic situation. I'm no longer poor. Imagine that.

But, Lancastrian Oik if the Left did *any* of that they'd be individualists, instead of collectivists, now wouldn't they? And, once you place primacy on individual rights and responsibilities, one loses the ability to blame "men" or "whites" for the problems of women and minorities. And, once you're there, the entire edifice of graft and corruption that undergirds the Left collapses.

The modern world really has done an enormous disservice to women like Ms. Fab. Our culture has made it so easy to attain a certain level of luxury that humans with very little natural ability or skill can do quite well by themselves, despite their narcissism. We have effectively cordoned these people off from the natural process whereby dysfunction is punished and adaptation is encouraged. Effectively, we've subsidized her anti-social tendencies and allowed her to self-isolate from any feedback which might help her bring value to the civilization she lives in...which, sadly, means that she'll never gain any true satisfaction in her life.

Seriously, WTF is *anyone* going to actually DO with a degree in "Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies." It's not a scientific degree in any sense of the word. Nowhere does it appear to involve any study of biology or chemistry. One needs no background in logic, philosophy, or reason before beginning or completing this "major." And, quite frankly, no one with a degree in this field has ever produced ANYTHING that some other human on this planet would willingly purchase. Accordingly, I conclude that NO university in its right mind has ANY legitimate educational purpose in allowing such an overtly hostile and anti-intellectual movement to operate under its auspices and with its backing. This entire academia-wide enterprise of "ignorance and grievance studies" is nothing less than the work of several generations of liberal fascists (think Bill Ayers, Noam Chomsky, etc.) to build a "revolutionary vanguard" of weaponized ignorance they hope to manipulate into fomenting open revolution. These students' belief in the slogans they chant is so shallow they can't even form coherent thoughts, yet they appear willing to sacrifice their futures for this dangerous ideology they are too stupid to truly understand. That is the hallmark of indoctrination, not education. Someone in the West is going to have to understand that these students and their masters do NOT and will NOT respond to reason or persuasion. They've been propagandized to understand force and force only. Until the enemies of this fascist threat (me among them) are willing to use force to stop them, we will continue to see this threat grow. These universities need to be forced by the legislatures in their respective States to shut these programs down and to fire these pseudo-intellectual charlatans who staff them. If the States aren't capable, Congress and our next President MUST understand the threat and use any and every legal means at his disposal to evict this menace from our campuses.

Dr. Hollins doesn't appear to have included Prof. Shahjahan in her white privilege scheme. She's clearly doing her part to insure that her offspring don't face status or academic competition from the brown kids and their uppity desire to better their situations in life. She's busy handicapping them in order to reinforce white privilege and to insulate her children's social and class standing. How better to that than to ensure the poor brown dears can't read or write? Except, well, by teaching them that punctuality and rational thought are to be shunted behind dancing and incense. None, really. Or at least, none that doesn't involve an even more overt expression of racism. These people are to human progress what termites are to woodframe homes.

The primary purpose of language is to communicate information. Sophisticated users of language communicate large volumes of sophisticated and nuanced information in a relatively short time - allowing listeners to benefit from the collected knowledge transmitted by the speaker in a condensed fashion. This promotes intelligence, progress, efficiency, and, ultimately, a wider dissemination of value (useful information). Leftism, obviously, has decided to forego the wide dissemination of such valuable information, preferring instead to strip language of much of its information-conveying function. Which, in turn, ensures that the key egalitarian function of language (wide, efficient, distribution of valuable information) is controlled by an elite group of politically-correct, illiberal clergymen instead of by us unreliable (and un-controlled) individuals. To me, these leftists are seeking nothing less than a complete reversal of the effect Martin Luther had on the church. Except instead of limiting it to the Bible and the clergy, they're seeking to control ALL information, by controlling and limiting the information language is allowed to convey. Instead of democratizing knowledge and information by taking the sacred texts out of the hands of the clergy, these fascists want to restrict the transmission of knowledge and information (language) to an ever-smaller set of "approved" quasi-religious authorities. They're losing the argument, so instead of adapting their argument to the facts, they're seeking to change the rules.

The two guys in that video seem like quite the pair of poofters.

Good Golly, by Jeebus, nearly every comment on that linked page appears to have been left by a blithering moron-grade dipshit. Yeah, like the Dark Ages were called that because not everyone had a built-in Sub-Zero refrigerator and a Wolf Range. I mean, these people claim to have been educated...but by whom and under what definition of education? The Fidel Castro chair at the Hugo Chavez school of economic growth and worldwide toilet paper shortages?

Feminism: Busily proving to men that the worst thing a man can ever do for a woman is to listen to her and take her seriously.

Our precious correspondent blew it - and in the most lesbo-phobic manner possible. That wasn't a criticism or even a conversation starter...it was a pick up line: What she meant was, "you look sweaty and delicious, can I get a taste of that?" And, being the overly sensitive little lesbian-hater that she is, she felt shamed. When, in reality she was doing the shaming. And now there are two ladies in their cars crying about being shamed. But, alas, only one of them has a Grauniad column to cure that ill. L.

The thing I find most fascinating is the innate need of all humans to find a religion and a deity to worship. Yes, with the enviro-mental-ist crowd, the hypocrisy is interesting, the magical thinking is fun to dissect and laugh at, and the complete lack of introspection and self-awareness is awe-inspiring, actually. But, at the core, these people feel a deep and almost instinctual need to engage in a series of ritualistic cognitive and physical activities that they believe will provide order and meaning for their lives. And yet, with all of the options available, they choose to invent a new one that is somehow worse by being more egotistical, more apocalyptic and less rational than all that have come before it. An ancient religion (Christianity) lead us out of the Dark Ages, a new one will lead us back.

Since my very first listen to Mahler 1 (Chicago Symphony under Solti) in 2005, not a single day has passed without my listening to at least one complete Mahler symphony. And every time I listen I discover something new, something innovative, something wondrously beautiful. All that to say that the nitwittery on display here is absolutely world class.

I love the asininity of the commenters like this member of the young Comsomol: "To the naysayers: it causes a reaction. Mission accomplished =)" Drawing Mohammed causes a reaction too, you conformist bastards. I didn't see any of your kind standing up for Charlie Hebdo or Pamela Geller. Because that would take intelligence and moral courage.

I could give a FLYING FUCK if anyone is the "victim" of this kind of alleged "racism." If you are so incapable of dealing with some jerk who slights you based on your race that you need help from Penny are her pinhead friends, you DESERVE to suffer. I mean, really. Could you be a bigger wuss? Is there a clearer indication that you are a mentally enfeebled idiot who needs to be institutionalized? I think not. Get a life. Move. Grow up. Excel in school. Do something to insulate yourself from jerks. Whatever it takes. But sitting around and waiting for help from the very same people whom you claim are irredeemably racist, is not just stupid, it's transparently obvious that you are more interested in whinging than you are in improving your life.

My grandmother was the head cook at a public school for 35 years. While she was lacking in formal education and job opportunities, she insisted on sending her children to private school and it had nothing to do with the quality of the food. She didn't like the indoctrination that providing food entailed. To her, it was the duty of every family to provide for their own. And the food sucked too. But, more importantly, she knew that providing food REPLACED the family and taught children to expect things for free. She had the courage to act on what she and every other sentient individual human instinctively knows, but is afraid to acknowledge.

Two levels of Man of Steel: On the cinematic level, it was a bit too frenetic (not unlike another film I thoroughly enjoyed for similar reasons - "The Avengers" ).... On a cultural level it was a HUGELY refreshing experience. There was an unabashed celebration of individuality; manliness; self-sacrifice; liberty; personal responsibility; loyalty to family; and the exceptionalism of Western morality. No wonder the left hates it.

Is it as obvious to everyone else as it is to me that what these people are doing is creating gigantic mental and psychological distractions for themselves in order to avoid looking at the dismal failures they are? All of their blather is nothing more than an elaborate self-deception to protect their egos from the dismal reality of their shitty little lives.