Tuesday 1st September 2020

[refitman]

Morning all.

[tinyclanger2]

Buenas.

[RogerOThornhill]

Morning all.

Anyone expecting to see hordes of pupils heading off to school today might well be disappointed - schools will almost certainly have INSET today if not tomorrow as well.

Ours are doing three years in Thursday, three in Friday, six in from Monday, Nursery and Reception in later next week.

[RogerOThornhill]

Great article from David Olusoga by far the best historian out there right now.

It is not Hans Sloane who has been erased from history, but his slaves

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... his-slaves" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In less hysterical times, a minor act of curatorial reinterpretation and recontextualisation would be of little interest outside the museum world. Instead, it sparked yet another confected outbreak of needless hostilities in Britain’s ongoing History Wars. Writing in the Spectator, Charles Moore complained that the bust of Sloane had been “locked in a display cabinet”, hardly a unique fate for an artefact held by the British Museum. Although having never thought it a good idea to test if the cabinets in the museum are indeed locked, I am not in a position to determine if the bust of Sloane has been singled out for special treatment.

[gilsey]

The leftie BBC.

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Random reply, plenty along these lines

BreamwaterShark
@BreamwaterS
Replying to
@RobBurl

@Jo_Coburn
and 3 others
Why would you give a wider platform to Sikora? He represents a minority, politically tendentious position in science. You couldn’t get Dominic Cummings to come on wearing a lab coat?

[gilsey]

Re culture wars, Nesrine Malik's piece was good on the problem but short on solutions.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -elections" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

we fall into the trap of promoting fake culture-war stories by engaging in them, or allowing them to grow unchallenged because there is more serious real politics to attend to

[AnatolyKasparov]

The leftie BBC.

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Random reply, plenty along these lines

BreamwaterShark
@BreamwaterS
Replying to
@RobBurl

@Jo_Coburn
and 3 others
Why would you give a wider platform to Sikora? He represents a minority, politically tendentious position in science. You couldn’t get Dominic Cummings to come on wearing a lab coat?

New month, same Rob Burley being an arse

[RogerOThornhill]

No surprise to read that Sikora is a professor at the University of Buckingham which seems to attract all the right wing cranks.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Well its privately run, after all. Will note, however, that Frank Furedi is based at Kent and has a fair few of his acolytes there.

[citizenJA]

Good afternoon, everyone.

[AnatolyKasparov]

The same (belatedly) to you.

Anybody/anything out there?

[tinyclanger2]

Still wish we had a tumbleweed emoticon (though I am always grateful for the flicking the vs emoticon)

[tinyclanger2]

Oi - corona virus ...



(That told it)

[AnatolyKasparov]

My favourite smiley is maybe this one even if I have hardly ever used it.

(made available when a certain somebody was Chancellor, can't imagine why)

[tinyclanger2]

I remember those days.
They seem quite halcyon now.

[tinyclanger2]

[tinyclanger2]

These two smileys pretty much sum me up.

[tinyclanger2]

Emoticon algebra:

+ =

Or

+ conservative government emoticon =

[tinyclanger2]

(Tumbleweed emoticon)

[citizenJA]

[frog222]

I see we've descended to emoticonning !

[frog222]

Re culture wars, Nesrine Malik's piece was good on the problem but short on solutions.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -elections" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

we fall into the trap of promoting fake culture-war stories by engaging in them, or allowing them to grow unchallenged because there is more serious real politics to attend to

YES, it was very good on the 'problem' ! Also agreed that she's a little muddled here,below, but then, we ARE in new territory !

For all the clear appetite and motivation for concocting and believing these lies, we are terrible at defending against them. Either we accept their premise, and start debating the pros and cons of cancelling the lyrics, or we think it’s clever to rise above them and not give the right the culture war that it wants. Either way we fall into the trap of promoting fake culture-war stories by engaging in them, or allowing them to grow unchallenged because there is more serious real politics to attend to. This is the serious real politics. It is winning elections. It is fostering a siege mentality that can be easily converted, as Gaetz did, into fear of the other lot getting in and establishing an anarchic regime that vandalises history, opens the borders and embraces the thugs and vandals of Black Lives Matter.

The main challenge that faces any progressive forces over the next few years isn’t in convincing the electorate of the mendacity or incompetence of the Conservative party, it’s exposing the vast complex of lies that it is being sold every day, and those who sell them. We can either do that, or we can continue to stumble, out of credulity or cowardice, into culture-war traps as they pave the way to the next rightwing election victory.

On this bit -- "" Either way we fall into the trap of promoting fake culture-war stories by engaging in them, or allowing them to grow unchallenged because there is more serious real politics to attend to. ""
Why not treat attempts at culture wars with the contempt that they deserve? And then move on robustly , and BRIEFLY for god's sake to the more important stuff ?

I DO get the impression that so many Opposition polies, trade union leaders etc etc feel that they have to go on and on, piling up boring and completely forgettable allocutions , as tho they are paid by the word !

IF something is Bollocks, say so !

THAT will get through to the public .

[citizenJA]

Goodnight, everyone.
love,
cJA

[frog222]

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Encouraging stuff .

[RogerOThornhill]

Rightwing comedians not funny enough for BBC shows, says insider

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/ ... ys-insider" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The BBC comedy insider disputed this story, telling the Guardian there had already been substantial pressure from BBC executives over the last 18 months to find pro-Tory, pro-Brexit comedians. Instead, the source said the real issue is that many of the Conservative-leaning performers considered by BBC producers “aren’t very good”.

The insider added: “Internally we’ve been asked to make sure we have more balance across our shows – we are constantly on the look out but there aren’t many people who have those viewpoints on the comedy circuit. Tell me the names that we’re missing out on? Some people aren’t very good. The issue is a shortage of rightwing comics.”