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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| The mediating role of tolerance in the relationship between cultural intelligence and xenophobia |
I got sent this by my 'academic papers that will interest you' service. Not enough to read it because I know what it will say. That tolerance is a good thing. And so it may be but unfortunately it is not part of the human condition and I am fed up to the back teeth (plus halfway down my throat) with people who think it is.
Take the great football kneel-down debate. It's obvious to a three-year-old (not the usual six year old) that it has served its purpose, run its course and is now counterproductive to the point of making everyone slightly more racist than they were. Which we all are. Yes, the middle class (aka 'the intelligent' in the paper's title, including me) are sufficiently sealed off from everything to adopt the 'tolerance' in the title but they soon won't be because the government are planning a new policy, somewhat akin to what happened with evacuated children during the war.
Anybody with spare living space will have to take in a seventeen year old Nigerian evacuee who is an unaccompanied minor and either a refugee or an asylum-seeker (they're holding a series of court cases to decide which). He'll fit quite nicely into the family routine but will be puzzled as to why all his favourite footballers keep kneeling down.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Can you clarify. Do I take the knee whilst singing the national anthem? I am a bit worried I might spill my Lager.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The important question is how to end it with the least tears before bedtime. I suppose it is too much to hope that footballers will gradually adopt the Wilf Zaha position "I kneel for no man" (I hope to God Arsenal come in for me during the summer transfer window) which leaves a) a diktat from above or b) a clarion call from below. The first is clearly not going to happen. Neither the shadow government in Whitehall nor the real government at Football HQ would dare.
So, "Sir" [yes, promise] Marcus Rashford, it's down to you. All right, Lord Rashford if that's what it takes. No, not Prince Marcus, we've had very poor focus group reactions to the last time we tried blackamoors in the Royal Family. Something along the lines of a Cromwellian Protectorate might be managed but there will have to be a bit of an uptick in your own form before we contemplate going in that direction.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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It's a protest. They, the footballers, have a right to protest. Booing isn't racist but it is disrespectful to those who are protesting. Clap if you agree, if not stand tall and zip it, would be my approach.
But what do I know. I have never sing the national anthem, that is, since I finished my stint in the Scouts.
I dont like being herded.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Surely the central point. Everyone was happy to do it at the start, now they are doing it because everyone else is doing it. To the point where the Scotland team -- who aren't doing it -- have felt obliged to do it for the Wembley game against England.
I suspect this is the source of the booing. I don't think, in the present climate of maximum surveillance and minimum tolerance, anybody would boo for straightforward racist reasons, though in any football crowd there will be plenty that would. When I say 'plenty' it doesn't matter how many, nor for what motive, because it only takes one per cent of a football crowd to make a sound that will echo round the world.
So, youse guys who want to continue taking the knee, just remember that next season very single Premiership game will be giving heart to racists all round the world.
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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| Mick Harper wrote: | You haven't quite got the drift, Borry
a) rich kids don't come here
b) non-rich kids spend the money in Britain on tuition etc fees whoever pays them; people smugglers only accidentally live in Britain
c) if non-rich kids want a university education there are eight trillion cheaper universities, only they are in countries they either don't want to live in or have ID cards
d) you are a fool not for spending your money on their university education but for spending your money on university education. |
And you haven't got my drift either.
Despite all appearances, it's not the kids that are rich. They are as much of the Trust Fund package as the money itself. i.e a dependent part.
Until the parents have died and their clever tax-avoidance schemes kick-in, and the avaricious kids finally get their hands on all the dosh, not just the pocket money.
And I've never ever spent any money of my own on anyone's university education (including my own and my offspring) (and neither did my parents).
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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The Swiss have rejected a climate-protection law in a referendum. The problem was the laws were specific and required the population to make actual sacrifices, rather than sign up for future targets. This is the future. We are fed a barrage of climate disaster stories by the main stream media, eg the Great Barrier reef will be lost in 10 years' time. No more polar bears. Folks worry. Nutter protesters AKA Marshy, become natural treasures, by nailing their tesiticles to a fence. Young folks kill themselves by using cool scooters round city centres, without helmets. Politicians climb aboard the green bandwagon. A referendum is held etc.
"No, thank you." "Can't afford it." "The guy that proposed it had 14 foreign junkets"
Oh dear.
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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Lessons have been learnt.
No more pesky referendums (referenda?) for you!
What do you think this is? A democracy?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The next big crisis will be in the seas around Taiwan. You read it here first.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I haven't been following the Florida building collapse with much closeness but one curiosity keeps standing out. Always, five dead; always, a hundred and fifty or so people missing. This is simply not possible if all, most, possibly many, of the hundred and fifty are actually inside and rescue efforts are ongoing. Nobody seems to be commenting on this which is a clear case of 'careful ignoral'.
Something similar happened, though in reverse, with Grenfell but maybe for similarly political reasons. In the case of Grenfell it was felt insensitive to explore too fully the fact that the people living in the tower block bore very little resemblance to the people, and the numbers of people, that were supposed officially to be living there. It was difficult to account for the 'missing' when they weren't living there and possibly had a good reason to conceal why they weren't. It was also difficult to compute numbers when flats designed for few were actually being occupied by many.
I don't know what the Florida story is but one thing that might emerge is the involvement of organised crime. The New York mafia has always controlled large sections of the building trade which means that contractors have to either skimp on materials and standards or pass on the extra costs to the buyers. The New York mafia has always had sufficient clout at all levels to mean buildings are safe and the public picks up the extra tab. Whether the Cuban mafia in Florida has the same all round punch is something we shall (maybe) find out in due time.
It should also be noted that the 'tyranny of large numbers' is involved. A disaster involving a hundred and fifty is worldwide news and requires Andersen Cooper to be present in shirtsleeves. A building falling down with a handful of fatalities is more below the fold on page seven.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Two more snipperettes. The town commissioner of Surfside, Fla was quite unabashed about being helpless in the face of such a massive and unprecedent disaster hitting her medium-sized local authority. Neither was she reproached in any way by the media, the bereaved or anyone else. The bigger agencies -- state and federal -- seemed impressively eager about taking responsibility. Compare and contrast with Kensington & Chelsea's experience re Grenfell. They were blamed for everything by everyone and were left swinging in the wind by the next tiers up -- GLA and Whitehall, same political party and but a few miles down the road. However, in both cases, the 'residents association' seem to be being groomed for some kind of fallguy role.
CNN's Chris Cuomo finally got round to wondering about the stubbornness of the number of missing -- it is now 149 with eleven dead. He did not ask any AE type questions but AE-ists did learn one significant fact. A block of ocean-front flats in one of the world's premier tourist destinations is unlikely to have tenants in the ordinary sense. It is overwhelmingly likely to have Air BnB type people staying there. Now that is illegal when done on a permanent basis in any holiday resort I know of, hence the difficulties about identifying the 149. The parallels with flats intended for the poor and with rents to match, but having a panoramic view over one of the world's richest pieces of real estate, Kensington & Chelsea, are inescapable.
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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I wonder if (for both Grenfell and Surfside) the authorities ever got round to asking AirBnB "How many bookings did you have at this location at the time?"
And did AirBnB UK just say "Sorry, that data isn't in the UK, can't help you, hard luck".
And did AirBnB USA just say "Sorry, that's commercially sensitive information, you'll need a court order".
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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"We will never allow foreign forces to enslave us."
President Xi Jinping, celebrating a hundred years of Communism in China |
Where does he think Communism came from? Downtown Shanghai?
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | I haven't been following the Florida building collapse with much closeness. |
I have to confess that neither had I.
I did note, without a lot of attention, that Moribito Consulting (structural engineers I believe) had reported in 2018 that the building was weakened by sub-standard construction and lack of maintenance. With mention of cracking in structural columns.
I was, however, surprised to hear that CNN followed up with a report that listed potential factors in this order:
Climate change
Sea level rise
Higher storm surges
More frequent high-tide flooding.
The base of the collapsed condo is seven feet above sea level, and sea level rise in Florida is measured in millimetres per century.
Which is the more likely cause of the building collapse?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The important points are how bog standard the building was and how unique the collapse was. The cause will therefore be one of two things
1) specific in terms of local subsidence (which has been identified)
2) specific in terms of peculiarly interacting circumstances (probably to do with the building being put up next door and an unfixed leak in the swimming pool).
Altogether now: "The truth is always boring." Climate change
Sea level rise
Higher storm surges
More frequent high-tide flooding. |
Altogether now: "Goodbye Miami, how sad we were when we heard all your buildings had collapsed."
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