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“Russia does not want war,” says President Putin on 15 Feb. 2022 as he masses tanks on the Ukrainian border. Also “We just want to help the Ukrainians.”
The adoption of black and working-class “y’all” by upper-class Americans, and Brits, is “an attempt to disassociate from actual privilege”, says someone who says hearing it is like “biting on tinfoil”. She adds: "There are so many people who want to decorate themselves with fragments of other people's identities to make themselves appear other than what they are because they essentially don't like how the world perceives the people that they are. Sadly.” She started off with “It’s like holding up a sign saying ‘I’m an inauthentic, personality impoverished, patronising idiot.’” What do youse guys think?
The most atrocious Agatha Christie adaptation can be excused with “It’ll bring new readers to the author”. What they mean is “We can sell more books”. See “Perhaps nobody saw anything at Fatima, but it increased people’s faith and brought many back to the church”. Also “Perhaps nobody was cured at Lourdes…”
Brandon Lewis, former Tory housing minister, advised against including mandatory sprinklers in building regulations because it would "discourage house-building". Brandon Lewis admitted automatic sprinklers save lives, but said it was not the government's responsibility to encourage developers to fit them... Lewis admitted automatic sprinklers save lives, but said it was not the government's responsibility to encourage developers to fit them. (Daily Mirror)
Silly reasons for not providing single-sex toilets: We have to build gender-neutral toilets in all new schools in Inverness because building separate toilets would cost too much. Girls cope by not eating, drinking or using the toilets all day. (Likewise single-user cubicles anywhere would “cost too much”. I don’t know how past ages coped.)
Silly reasons not to get married: Marriage — and heterosexual marriage, certainly — is not a feminist act. Full stop. (salon.com) Why? Because it’s “an institution in whose original incarnation women were just part of a property arrangement that also involved farm animals.” In its original incarnation – yes, it has changed since then.
We should stop Covid testing because: the tests aren't 100% reliable, they're plastic and get thrown in landfill, they've been used to control us, they make people more afraid and anxious – and isn't that going to make them ill?
We can't give women the vote because: Her nature is too delicate to brave the fierce storms of public life. Woman is the power behind the throne. Unseen, she rules the destinies of men and nations. Her influence is the barometer of civilization. (Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler, 1888)
Women can't compete in the Olympics because: An Olympiad with females would be impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic and improper. (Pierre de Coubertin)
There were many liberal voters who felt that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party needed to be punished for not being progressive enough to embrace Bernie Sanders. These dissatisfied people either refused to vote, voted for a third party candidate, or even grabbed the third rail and voted for Trump. They felt the people of America deserved to have Trump. (Jeffrey Keeten on Goodreads)
Man in the early times was almost naked, and as his intellect evolved he started wearing clothes. What I am today and what I am wearing represents the highest level of thought and civilisation that man has achieved. (Tawakkol Karman. She is wearing a hijab. I have nothing against hijabs – it's her reasoning I disapprobate.)
As [minority group X] we shouldn’t complain because it will be divisive. It will cause more problems. We will become too high-profile. It will distract from our message. The Catholic Church shouldn’t prosecute paedophiles because it will cause a scandal/bring the church into disrepute (too right). (See George Orwell on “playing into the hands of the fascists”.)
Trump-loving Republican Governor Kristi Noem, of the settler-state South Dakota, is attempting to ban Native history in public schools. Her argument is that teaching it sows divisiveness. (@LakotaMan1)
I'm told someone resigned from the Chorlton Labour party over Andrew Motion becoming Poet Laureate; Ken Loach left when Labour stopped collecting subs in person. What's the daftest reason someone has left the party in protest? (@PolProfSteve)
Can’t remember the reason for the resignation but one of my colleagues was once told, by a comrade who read his mid-80s resignation letter, that he hadn’t actually resigned from the Labour Party so much as “expelled the rest of us for ideological deviation”. (@EquusontheBuses)
More here, and links to the rest.
