Archive for the ‘culture’ Category

Why doesn’t the left cheer when they’re wrong about bad things too?

Posted: October 20, 2019 by datechguy in culture, dablog, education, media, News/opinion, Uncomfortable Truths

A few days ago I lead with a post about some apparent insanity in a school district in NH that I had seen at a site I frequent. Turns out the info in question was incorrect & I missed an email warning me of same so the post in question went up as scheduled.

When I saw the email I added an update as follows:

Update: Got a heads up that suggests there might be less to this than meets the eye, While that might be embarrassing for me it would be delightful as it would indicate that insanity does not reign at the school in question and that’s more important that a post getting hits. I don’t believe in pulling posts as it changes the record so for now I’m going to put the base post under a “more” tag until I get more data. For now we’ll wait and see and if a correction is warranted I’ll update the post with it.

Long story short the info was incorrect the author apologized to the people in question. I provided a 2nd update joining in said apology and rejoicing that the school in question was not in fact insane. As it’s likely who saw the 1st post but might never check it again a fresh post linking to the mea culpa was the proper and honorable thing to do which was the primary reason for this post.

Then it hit me. The reason why I wrote the base post was I don’t want public schools to be acting insane and the purpose of said post was to hold up a light to such behavior to stop this school & others from acting that way.

Thus when it turned out this school wasn’t doing so I was very happy regardless of any embarrassment from an erroneous post because my primary goal is schools not acting insane.

This is not the case with the Democrat/left media. Think about it for a second

  • The media/left went all in on the idea of a Supreme Court Nominee being a sexual predator, then the evidence showed the accusations were not credible
  • The media/left went all in on the idea that the President of the United State was colluding with Russia to steal an election, and even with an independent council, a staff full of partisans, the assistant AG working against the president it turned out their suspicions were unfounded.
  • The media/left went all in as various colleges being bastions of “rape culture with claims that as many as 25% of the women attending were assaulted but it turned out that the methodology of the studies and the definitions of assault were so stretched as to be meaningless.
  • The media/left went all in on various race hoaxes being furious that various individuals, some involving celebs, particularly at colleges were a bunch of racists and white supremacists, yet over and over these turned out to be hoaxes.

Now supposedly the left and media and the guests they brought in did this because they didn’t want a serial sexual predator on the supreme courts or a President conspiring with Russia, colleges being bastions of rape, gay black TV starts threatened with nooses or racist acts being committed all over the nation. That being the case all of these things turning out to be false should be cause for celebration for the left who can breathe a sigh of relief that none of these things that they considered beyond the pale had happened.

Yet instead their reaction has been at best been too ignore when such hoaxes are exposed as such or at worst to continue to insist they are true despite evidence to the contrary.

Now if you work under the assumption that the goal of the media/left is to prevent such behavior then you might be utterly confused at this reaction as it makes no logical sense.

However if you work from the assumption that the primary goal of the left/media is POWER and or WEALTH and that in search of said power & wealth the events and actions that they supposedly deplore are used to generate both the funds to gain them and the means to retain them, well it makes perfect sense.

To them the the only “crisis” in government is when they don’t control it and the only “abuse” of power is if it not in their hands. Work under that assumption and all the left/media does and you will never be shocked or surprised by anything they do ever again.

If Only she wore a “Little Drag Queen” shirt to school instead: Update (or not?) Update NOT

Posted: October 17, 2019 by datechguy in culture, education
Tags: , ,

Update: Well I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is apparently the school in question and the district in particular has not in fact lost their minds and that the initial information concerning this story was misrepresented to the author in question.

We do a lot of writing and when one of the Groksters gets it wrong, an apology is required.  Tonite, it is my turn and I apologize to Superintended Steve Tucker, Principal Eric Johnson, and Teacher Lindsey Packer.  I publicized bad information – information for which I fell for. 

Skip, being an honorable man is, unlike ABC is not running away from the difficult task of correcting the record nor the embarrassment of admiting the source of the misinformation which will leave a much larger personal mark than any reporting error.

 Subsequent to my asking my question in her FB post, her post was deleted. She won’t return my calls.
I am left to apologize to all concerned and all of the GraniteGrok readers – I got the story wrong. I also apologize to the other Groksters as the credibility of GraniteGrok as been besmirched which does affect them.  It’s all on me – this whole thing has turned out to be a fraud when I truly believed it was true.

The bad news is of course since I picked up the story I am left to apologize as well, I’ve deleted all of the quotes from the base post and put “strikethrough” on any information that is incorrect. I know I could have simply re-written the post but that would distort the record and if I’m admitting to a mistake it’s important to know the mistake I’m admitting to.

So I must join Skip in his apology while remaining pleased that for once the story of a school being a bad actor is wrong.

Closing thought: There have been a large spat of “hate crime hoaxes” over the years, have you ever noticed that those who sounded the trumpet of outrage on them the loudest never rejoice that the crimes did not take place?

Update: Got a heads up that suggests there might be less to this than meets the eye, While that might be embarrassing for me it would be delightful as it would indicate that insanity does not reign at the school in question and that’s more important that a post getting hits. I don’t believe in pulling posts as it changes the record so for now I’m going to put the base post under a “more” tag until I get more data. For now we’ll wait and see and if a correction is warranted I’ll update the post with it.

(more…)

Review: Season 5 of Peaky Blinders

Posted: October 13, 2019 by John Ruberry in Always look at the bright side of Trump, culture, entertainment, media
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

By John Ruberry

Earlier this month Season 5 of Peaky Blinders arrived on Netflix. If you haven’t heard of the BBC show, it centers on a Gypsy organized crime gang from Birmingham, England.

The Peaky Blinders are named for the razor blades the actual hoodlums,-they were an 1890s gang–wore in their flat caps.

The television Peaky Blinders, who usually refer to themselves as the Shelby Company, Ltd., are led by Thomas “Tommy” Shelby (Cillian Murphy), a World War I veteran. The first season takes place in 1919, Season 5 begins in the auspicious year of 1929.

Tommy, at the end of Season 4, is elected to Parliament as a member of the Labour Party.

A new season of course brings a new primary villain, this time it’s Sir Oswald Mosley (Sam Claflin), a minor member of the British nobility who also sits in the House of Commons. If you are American, it’s likely that you’ve never heard of Mosley, but he’s one of the most notorious figures of 20th century Great Britain. He didn’t go as far as Benedict Arnold did during the American Revolution, but had the Nazis defeated Britain in World War II, it’s probable that Mosley would have been prime minister—with Edward VIII restored to the throne. A 2005 poll of British historians determined that Mosley was the Worst Briton of the 20th century. Jack the Ripper took the title for the 19th. Mosley not surprisingly was a virulent anti-Semite.

Sir Oswald pursues Tommy as an ally while Winston Churchill (Neil Maskew) does the same. Maskew is the third actor to portray Churchill in this series. What’s up with that?

The Black Tuesday Wall Street Crash puts pressure on the rest of the Blinders, particularly Michael Gray (Finn Cole), who in the first episode of the season awakens from a stupor in Detroit to learn that the Shelby Company money he invested in America has evaporated. He wants a bigger say in the family business, as does his American wife (Anya Taylor-Joy). The family matriarch, Polly Gray (Helen McCrory), Michael’s mother, continues to struggle to keep the family from tearing itself apart, and their battles now directly effect her lover, Aberama Gold (Aidan Gillen). Tommy’s older brother, Arthur, continues to battle his “animal inside me.” While Tommy and Mosley, politically speaking, court each other, the Peaky Blinders face a new foe, the Billy Boys, a Scottish Protestant gang, who joyously sing their fight song, which is based on the melody of “Marching Through Georgia.” The Billy Boys hate Gypsies and Catholics–the Shelbys are both.

Peaky Blinders has always played loose with history. Lighten up, though, it’s fiction!

On the other hand…

As 1929 winds down, Mosely announces the formation of a new political party, the British Union of Fascists. But after leaving Labour, the real Mosley first formed another new party, called, well, the New Party. After that came his fascist party. I bring this up because in his introductory speech as leader of the BUF, Mosley, complaining about Indian competition forcing the closing of British textile mills, sounds a bit like Donald Trump, with a dash of UK Independence Party founder Nigel Farage thrown in. I’m not a fan of historical parallels with the present, particularly when it comes to individuals. And I get it, many people believe in “Orange Man Bad.” But sheesh, can TV scriptwriters give us a break from that for once?

I see Season 5, quality wise, as a step back for Peaky Blinders, but better than the Russian sinkhole two seasons back. But a Season 6 apparently is in the works, and maybe even a seventh. And perhaps we will see a couple of other men portray Churchill. The 1930s offers many plotlines as the world marches again to war. Still, even a below-par Peaky Blinders is worth your time.

Peaky Blinders is rated MA. It contains graphic violence, drug use, and overt sexual activity.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

The New Gender of “Traitor”

Posted: October 7, 2019 by datechguy in culture, Vive L'Empereur
Tags:

Since the Obama years when this stuff really began to blow up we have been told by our cultural and intellectual betters that it is not up to us but to individual to define their own gender and that anyone who does not go along with the whole ” Vive L’Empereur” business is a bigot.

Apparently according to our media, social and intellectual betters there is a caveat to this rule.

This new rule is applied if a person, who at one time defined themselves by a gender other than the one indicated by their birth has second thoughts, something that is apparently becoming more common: as they have discovered that hacking pieces of themselves off by professionals has not despite the approval of the right people brought them happiness.

In this eventually such people, rather than being able to self define their gender back to what it once was are now defined by a totally different gender.

Traitor:

Most concerning for Ms Evans, however, is the fact that there appears to be no support network to speak of for people who wish to “detransition”, with one biological woman who approached her saying she had “felt shunned by the LGBT community for being a traitor” when it became known that she wished to return to her birth sex.

Now some might look at this and conclude that the reason for open and tolerant people who have spent the last decade championing the right of people to define their own gender as a fearful reaction by people who are not actually secure in their own decisions and need affirmation of others, particularly society to keep themselves from collapse into a mire of depression and despair and confusion that led to said decisions in the first place.

But I’m sure all of the right people, in society, in media and particularly in the massively tolerant LGBT community will tell you that’s nonsense and that this new gender of “traitor” is simply the proper application of gender to those who are no longer enlightened enough to make such decisions on their own.

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