Society's ChildS


Whistle

Thought Police alert: Peter Hitchens slams University of Portsmouth after his talk is cancelled

Portsmouth Students' Union
© Facebook / University of PortsmouthPortsmouth Students' Union.
Conservative journalist Peter Hitchens has hit out at the University of Portsmouth after it postponed his talk because of his "unacceptable" opinions. He accused it of surrendering freedom of speech and rushing to silence dissent.

Hitchens was due to speak at the university on February 12, but its students' union has announced that the Mail on Sunday columnist's event will be delayed so that it does not clash with their month of LGBT+ celebrations.

They argue that Hitchen's views "are not necessarily aligned with the... LGBT+ community." The journalist has taken to social media to condemn the decision, accusing the university of taking on the role of the Orwellian thought police.

He added: "Censorship and thought policing are the future. Our schools teach their pupils what to think, not how to think. So they are afraid of dissent.

Comment:


Arrow Down

'Offended' journalist has Twitter suspend user after being faux-outraged at 'learn to code' career advice

learn to code
© Reuters / Marko Djurica
With all of the trolling and abuse that happens daily online, Twitter has revealed some odd priorities when policing its platform, suspending users who jokingly advise jobless journalists that they should "learn to code" instead.

Following recent major layoffs at BuzzFeed and HuffPost, a number of their former employees looking for sympathy online were met with derisive advice to "learn to code" - mirroring the "career advice" offered by journalists during the Obama administration to blue-collar workers who'd lost their jobs.


Hardhat

10 underground electrical explosions send smoke flying through Atlanta, Georgia

Electrical explosion in Atlanta, GA
© John Spink/AJC
Ten "very large explosions" sent thick smoke into the air in Atlanta's Midtown neighborhood and shut down major streets during the height of the Wednesday morning commute, according to authorities.

Atlanta Fire Rescue spokesman Sgt. Cortez Stafford said rainwater runoff may have caused an underground transformer to explode in the area. No one was injured in the explosions and there was no apparent damage to Emory University Hospital Midtown, which next to where the explosions occurred, he said.

When firefighters arrived at 8 a.m., Stafford said the breakers on another street had already tripped.

"That cut the power that was going to those transformers, which in turn put the fire out and caused the explosions to cease," he said. The smoke eventually dissipated.

Attention

New York's millennials are waiting tables to pay off student loans - fighting elimination of 'tip credit'

graduation diploma mortorboard
© Shutterstock
Nearly one in every two millennials in New York state owes student loan debt - and many are pulling pints while waging war on state plans that could lead to smaller salaries.

Thousands of these borrowers are working as bartenders and wait staff while paying off their loans and seeking more gainful employment in their chosen fields.

As they struggle to stay current with their repayments, many fear a reduction in their incomes if the state's present "tip credit" - which permits bars, restaurants and other establishments to pay staff less than the minimum wage because of gratuities - is eliminated, as state legislators are considering.

Comment:


Ambulance

Body recovered from wreckage of plane carrying footballer Emiliano Sala

emiliano sala
The Geo Ocean III specialist search vessel docked in Portland
The body "successfully recovered" from the wreckage of the plane that was carrying footballer Emiliano Sala and pilot David Ibbotson has arrived in Dorset.

Remotely operated vehicles in "challenging conditions" were used to pull the body out of the water "in as dignified a way as possible", according to the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB).

Images show an ambulance bringing the body from a ship into land at Dorset this morning, and it has now been brought on to land.

It has not been confirmed whether the body is that of Sala or Mr Ibbotson.

Comment: Previously: Argentine football star Emiliano Sala missing presumed dead as plane disappears over English Channel


Whistle

No, 'Cultural Marxism' is not just a buzz word

lukacs cultural marxism
A number of commenters on a recent piece questioned my use of the term Cultural Marxism, and so I thought I'd give a little explanation as to why I believe the term to be not just an apt one, but also historically accurate.

I rather got the impression - rightly or wrongly - that the assumption behind the questions was that by using this phrase, I am pinning a label on those who disagree with me on many of the important social questions of the day. Not at all. I am simply using the term to describe a very real ideology, espoused by a tiny number of people who can quite properly be termed "Cultural Marxists". The fact that they have been hugely successful in promoting their agenda does not in any way mean that those who have accepted it are themselves Cultural Marxists.

Nor is my use of the phrase anything to do with Jordan Peterson, who I have watched only in one or two interviews, and have not read any of his books. It is a phrase that I used long before I had even heard of him.

The soul of Marxism, according to the great Alexander Solzhenitsyn, is not to be found in the state ownership of property, but in the concept of Dialectical Materialism. According to John Laughland:
"...the true core of Marxist-Leninist doctrine, according to Alexander Solzhenitsyn, was the ideology of dialectical materialism. Derived from Hegel and ultimately Heraclitus, this doctrine - on which Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin all wrote extensively - holds that the world is in a constant state of flux, that nothing is absolutely true or false, and that progress comes from the constant union of opposites. Milovan Djilas, the Yugoslav communist intellectual who turned against the system, said in the opening paragraphs of his seminal work on communism, The New Class, that the key to communist ideology was the belief in the primacy of matter and the reality of change."
History, for the Marxist, is defined as a series of social and revolutionary struggles all leading inexorably to the final "truth" and the end of history - a stateless, borderless, globalised world; a New Earth with a New Man who has been thoroughly cleansed of his need for private property.

Attention

The irony! Former NY Times exec Jill Abramson accused of plagiarizing her book on - ethical journalism

Jill Abramson
Jill Abramson
Former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson, who is touring the media circuit now in promotion of her new book, Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts, has problems that extend far beyond her terrible interviewing techniques.

She has been accused of plagiarizing huge portions of her book, which, ironically enough, is about ethical journalism.

Vice News' Michael Moynihan, whose newsroom appears in a none-too-flattering light in Abramson's book, was the first to accuse the former Times editor outright of theft.

" All three chapters on Vice were clotted with mistakes. Lots of them. The truth promised in Merchants of Truth was often not true," he tweeted. "While trying to corroborate certain claims, I noticed that it also contained ... plagiarized passages."

Comment: The staff at the NY Times have certainly been on a roll - downhill - lately!


X

Sane choice: USA powerlifting org bans transgender women from competitions

powerlifting
© istock
The American organization in charge of setting up powerlifting competitions in the U.S. announced last week it will not permit transgender women to compete as women because of the use of testosterone in treatments for transitioning.

USA Powerlifting released a statement in late January outlining its position after JayCee Cooper, a trans woman, had an application to compete in a Minnesota event denied.

"USA Powerlifting is an inclusive organization for all athletes and members who comply with its rules, policies, procedures, and bylaws. USA Powerlifting is not a fit for every athlete and for every medical condition or situation," a portion of the statement read.

The organization added that, following the medical policies adopted by the International Powerlifting Federation, it does not permit the use of "testosterone or other androgens, commonly used to assist in transition from female to male."

After a transsexual woman won gold in a cycling competition, the women who won bronze objected sparking a heated debate.

Comment: See also: Common Sense: South Dakota to consider bill banning Transgender students from competing against opposite biological sex


Stock Down

Lack of interest: US shuts down American citizenship office in Moscow

US Embassy in Moscow
© SputnikUS Embassy in Moscow
Residents of the former Soviet Union seeking US citizenship will have to do so in Greece, after the US announced it would shutter the Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Moscow due to lack of interest in its services.

Citing a "significant decrease in workload," the USCIS announced on Tuesday it would permanently close the field office in Moscow on March 29, with February 28 as the last day it will accept applications and appointments.

A limited range of services will be transferred to the US Embassy in Moscow, but most will be taken over by the field office in Athens, Greece, USCIS said.

This will affect the citizens of not just Russia, but also Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan - all formerly part of the Soviet Union.

Regular visa services will presumably still be available through the embassy and the consulates. However, the US diplomatic presence in Russia has been sharply curtailed over the past two years, as a result of several rounds of tit-for-tat expulsions, started by the Obama administration at the end of 2016.

Most recently, the US expelled 60 Russian diplomats - including members of the UN mission - after the UK accused Moscow of a "chemical attack" on former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, and Russia retaliated by sending the same number of US diplomats home. The Russian consulate in Seattle and the US consulate in St. Petersburg were also closed at the time.

Red Flag

Twitter takes 20 minutes to protect a journalist's feelings, but 48 hours to remove death threats against Covington kids

twitter
© Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty
Remember the kids of Covington Catholic high school, who were bombarded with graphic threats of violence by verified left-wing accounts on Twitter for little more than wearing MAGA hats? Remember how Twitter waited for days to remove the potentially illegal threats, and failed to ban or even deverify any of the responsible users?

It turns out that Twitter has a much faster response time when a mainstream journalist's feelings are hurt. And they won't just make you delete your tweet - they'll suspend you.

According to NBC senior business reporter Ben Popken, whose feelings were so hurt by the mockery of a random Twitter account that he reported him to the platform's speech police, it took Twitter just 20 minutes to rush to his aid and suspend the account.

Breitbart News reporter Lucas Nolan reported last week that Twitter was mass-banning users who used the "learn to code" meme, which mockingly advises mainstream journalists affected by recent layoffs in the industry to learn a productive skill. The tweeted mockery, an expression of widespread popular discontent with the mainstream media, has been branded "targeted harassment" by Twitter.