So what really happened is that this austere religious scholar 23-year-old shooter yelled “Allahu Akbar” and shot a Jewish man walking to a synagogue in Chicago. EMTs and police came and he started shooting at them. Police returned fire. He was wounded.
Not that you would figure any of this out from the headline.
There are no words strong enough for this terrible, terrible journalism we get.
Actually, the headline did say there was a shootout (implying the person shot was a criminal) so it’s not as terrible. This is worse:
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On a related note, the left’s demand for police bodycams has to be one of the greatest own-goals of all time. Notice they don’t talk about bodycams anymore because the video evidence almost always shows they’re full of shit, and exceed the expectations of the farthest of far right-wingers lol.
No Anonymouses commenting? How come?
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Well personally I generally read the various blogs and other such places in the morning and after lunch at the office, so that’s when I comment. I can’t speak for the others though.
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“How come?”
“I can’t speak for the others, though.”
Nor can I, of course, but there are all kinds of reasons. One is general agreement. Now you can follow the story in Chicago news outlets as things develop, but the headline was indeed inept. Headline-writing is a skill, and I know, for example, that our school put an end to the journalism department–I’m guessing not as many skilled people are teaching younger folks how to distill the essence of a story in just a few words.
And there’s the general atmosphere of the blog–the “anonymouses” have to dress for chilly weather around here, to put it mildly. Heck, the very first thing you (that is, avi), wrote to me was a jaw-droppingly nasty, thoughtless, and hurtful insinuation that I was not really in academia, all because I dared to find something positive in a DEI training.
After enough insults and bullying, the “anonymouses” either decide they’re not welcome here and go some place more accepting, or they figure that an occasional comment is still an agreeable pastime and deal with the fallout as it comes. As for me, I pick my spots a little more, but I’ve been bullied off and on for a good 55 years or so, and I expect it will continue until my death; donc, je connais la musique.
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Once again, please notice that I never called you names, not once. But you keep calling me paranoid and a bully for absolutely no reason. Apparently, you consider this name-calling less “jaw-droppingly nasty” than a suggestion that one is not in academia, although I fail to see how that can be remotely hurtful.
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>lease notice that I never called you names, not once. But you keep calling me paranoid and a bully for absolutely no reason
He clearly is referring to Avi, it’s right in his comment. But he’s right about the general atmosphere of insults and bullying on the blog, and that’s on you. But you are a rude person, as you bragged on here recently, so it’s not surprising that you don’t see it.
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Being bullied implies powerlessness. You are not powerless. You can leave. If you don’t like “the atmosphere of insults and bullying” you can go away. I can’t because this is my space.
If you willingly seek out people who you know will be rude to you, that’s not you being bullied. It’s you being a masochist. You can’t claim victimhood in a situation that you aggressively and ceaselessly pursue. Why do you run after a rude, insulting person like me? Why do you pursue me so obsessively? The world is full of nice, polite people. Go to them. I hereby declare you completely free from your enslavement to me. You have my permission to go.
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Ok. Now I’m going to do something I rarely do–I’m going to protest.
Fasten your seatbelts; it’s going to be bumpy.
I have never called you paranoid. I have never called you a bully. Not once. And I never intend to.
Now here’s what I said about paranoia. Because we have what I actually said–not me trying to “explain” what I said, nor anyone’s interpretation of what I said. What I actually said. And what I actually said was:
“‘The DEI-ing of America is a paranoid fantasy.”
I’ll wait for you to show me where I said, “Clarissa, you are paranoid.” I’ll give you a minute or two.
Okay. Just as I thought. Moving on.
Now… you might have an argument based along the lines of… “Col. Potter knows I hate DEI, so he must be calling me names by making that statement.”
But if that’s where this is coming from, well, all of your regulars hate DEI, which I understand. (They also all seem to hate Borat, which I do not understand, as both Borat movies are consistently hilarious. But I digress.) There’s a big difference between not caring for or even hating a concept, and actively worrying about a group of people somehow using DEI to take over… something.
AND… if I use the same logic to some of the more interesting things you’ve had to say… well, two examples. On one occasion, you asked me if I was willing to admit to a group in a DEI training that I was racist. And I said sure, because at my worst, my most careless or thoughtless or selfish, I can be racist, and I have no problem telling the world. I try not to be, but I am sometimes. THE NEXT POST YOU MADE, you called people “Soviet,” and how sad it was, and how only someone with no dignity could say something like that to anyone.
Now, your response was not to me specifically, yet… I got the idea you were referring to me as some sad Soviet person.
One more example: I had tried to contribute something on DEI, and your next post–again, a general one, not specifically to me, but kinda suspiciously related to what I was trying to get at–was that there was an overproduction of Ph.D.’s, and the Ph.D.’s who really shouldn’t have gotten them cling to “lefty” ideas and then wonder what went wrong in their careers. So again, no specific response to me, and yet–all of a sudden my whole career was reduced to something that should never have happened, and I was some unhappy guy because I was apparently just smart enough to get a Ph.D., but not smart enough to… whatever you’re supposed to do next, I suppose.
So if I’m holding you to the same standard that you’re insisting for me (I didn’t address “bully” specifically because as the very intelligent “art lover” has stated below, I was directly addressing AVI. I believe AVI is a bully. In fact, Avi, if you’re reading this, you’re a bully.), you have “called” me a Soviet, and a failed Ph.D. who should never have gotten a doctorate in the first place. And maybe you did intend that. And maybe you didn’t. I’m fine either way, because I know what I’ve done and what I haven’t.
FINALLY… you mentioned something to me on another thread about the significance of being able to leave or not–terms like “twat” (a term Avi uses) and “retarded” (a term Stringer Bell uses) are not insulting or bullying because the target can leave anytime they want.
WELL, OF COURSE I CAN LEAVE. WE ALL CAN LEAVE. YOU CAN LEAVE.
Just like I could leave playgrounds when I was little. I could leave school. I could leave towns. I could leave jobs. I could leave my existence. And sometimes I do choose to leave and sometimes not. And if I leave, I am bullied away, because I choose to be. The term “bully” still applies. And just so we’re clear, I am now referring to Avi calling someone a “twat,” and Stringer Bell calling people “retarded.”
Are you, Clarissa, a bully?
Not for me to answer.
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“Choosing to be bullied” is a manifestation of masochism.
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For what it’s worth, I think Avi has set me straight, and opened my eyes a bit–apologies for cliches.
Sussing out the right and wrong and whether or not I’m a masochist, that’s another job for me for another day. For what it’s worth, I see a guy once a week and I’m supposed to be taking my lexapro… might have to rethink things there.
Your blog, your rules. I might or might not post more or less, but either way, I’ll work on… detachment. Probably healthier.
Long overdue, but I’m sorry for your horrible loss with the first pregnancy. It’s something, as you said, no one should have to live through. And your perseverance in giving birth to your pretty terrific daughter speaks to a great deal of bravery.
And I’m sorry.
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Good grief, I left this column 15 hours ago and when I come back, this is the aftermath of my not totally innocent comment above.
However, I feel there is a misunderstanding that must be cleared up from the start: by Anonymouses I was referring to a group of people that not so long ago had started commenting without choosing a moniker that could distinguish each of them, leading to quite a lot of confusion among regular commenters as well as the blog’s gracious host, until the latter did something that assigned some random names to those who had until then neglected to provide one themselves.
The reason I was calling on the “Anonymouses” – please, there is a jocular tone attached, since many of you are academics I expected people to see the irony in the term – because generally they seem to be very quick to find responses that might put certain ideas, and those who hold such ideas, in a bad light. This time, however, which called for some resipiscence, none was offered.
This must have been misunderstood as a personal attack against a Col. Potter who seems to assume that he too is one of the anonymouses. But everyone here is anonymous in the sense that Avi or methylethyl or cliff arroyo or Stringer Bell clearly refer to identifiable people without necessarily giving away their real identity. So, no, Col. Potter was not being singled out at all, though apparently he felt he was being targeted. Paradoxically, however, he is not anonymous to me at all, since in a previous post he dropped the title of a monograph he had written, which very easily led me to identify him as a professor at a university in Pennsylvania. I suppose this he did to prove his bona fide membership of academia.
Col. Potter then calls me directly into question “Heck, the very first thing you (that is, avi), wrote to me was a jaw-droppingly nasty, thoughtless, and hurtful insinuation that I was not really in academia, all because I dared to find something positive in a DEI training” and much as I would rather leave it at that I feel that I should answer the charge.
“nasty, thoughtless, and hurtful insinuation” is really much too much. To my recollection I was not so much disputing membership of the academic class, as calling into question the intellectual calibre of an academic who does not challenge the inherently tyrannical and evil nature of DEI practice and philosophy. For this I cannot apologise.
Now, Col. Potter, and anyone else, is entitled to his opinion on this as on any other matter, but on this blog – and those who have been readers for quite a while (in my case over 5 years, in the case of other people even longer) are well aware – the blog’s host has explained and described at length what is wrong with DEI and why. It seems egregious, and egregiously wrong, to come here and start singing paeans to DEI, and when challenged even insist on it. There is also a personal dimension to it, to do with the Soviet past and other, painful reminders of tyrannical behaviour that DEI practice awakens in many people, especially post-Soviet people and others from Communist dictatorships like China, Cuba and North Korea.
To address something more personal: “terms like “twat” (a term Avi uses)“. You will have seen from my peculiar spelling that British English is what I’m familiar with. I am sorry that you felt so horribly insulted by my use of “twat” – which I useD once only: “uses” implies that I do so regularly, which I do not – but in British culture it does have a connotation of endearment that might have been lost to you, like saying, “You silly thing”. For this I do apologise, even though, as everyone knows, tone is difficult to control on a written medium like a blog or social media in general, which explains the widespread use of emoticons and other devices to make sure that no misunderstanding occurs.
So, to sum up: no, it’s not that I doubted Col. Potter’s professional qualifications, of which I could have no proof until I read his monograph on the development of a professional class on Broadway (a colleague of mine with a specialty in musical theatre found it interesting and original), it’s that to my mind anyone who supports DEI or does not see it for the evil it is, is mentally challenged. I know it sounds brusque and peremptory, but that’s me and only me. I also wish that Col. Potter and others would start seeing things in a more detached way and that they would start learning more about the Soviet experience (unless they are already familiar with it) and how it impinges on the way in which certain people see things happening today through the lens of that specific cultural and historical knowledge
All the opprobrium that was heaped on Clarissa in this column [thread] and elsewhere on account of my words should have been reserved for me and me alone, and for this I sincerely apologise to Clarissa.
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Avi… wow. I know, as you said, that tone is hard to maintain on a thread, but I mean this–your answer was thoughtful, considerate, and… eye-opening.
You’ve really gotten me to see your and Clarissa’s point of view a bit more clearly, and to appreciate that point of view. It may not mean much at this point, but thank you.
And I’m sorry.
I will apologize to Clarissa as well.
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Thank you, no hard feelings, but I thought things were getting out of hand and all because of some misunderstanding that might have been caused by me using words injudiciously, so I felt I had to put it right somehow. We should all attack ideas and not people.
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Great joke, thank you!
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
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