Janice Fiamengo, anti-feminist, is being hauled before Ontario's "Social Justice" Tribunal

"We are witnessing a powerfully malevolent force in ascendance" [academic feminism]:




And, in a demonstration of an equally powerful malevolent force working in lock-step with academic feminism:

Janice Fiamengo is being hauled before the Ontario "Social Justice" Tribunal:

A former student has accused Janice of a human rights violation which will go to trial before the Social Justice Tribunal of Ontario. The University of Ottawa is a co-defendant in this case and is of course represented by their own lawyer. Recent cases have demonstrated quite clearly that universities are quick to throw their employees under the bus in order to appease the Social Justice mobs so the university of Ottawa cannot be trusted to protect Fiamengo. The university of Ottawa lawyer is payed to protect the University of Ottawa NOT Janice Fiamengo. Any deal offered or struck will consider only the interests of the university, the social justice tribunal, and the student. Janice Fiamengo will be considered expendable throughout this process. 

The proper name for this "Social Justice" Tribunal process is "tyranny".

Her "trial" begins in six to eight months.  Her legal fees have already been successfully crowd-funded.

Academic totalitarianism

Janice Fiamengo:

The low moral and intellectual state of the left

Dennis Prager recently wrote a column in the Jewish Journal expressing his concerns:

"... about the Torah and the current unprecedented attempt to blur male-female distinction in biology and society."

It ignited a firestorm of hatemail from the Jewish left.

To which Prager responded "The hate is all in one direction":

... Virtually every one of them is shameful. If you care about the moral nature and intellectual viability of American Jewish life, they are actually frightening.

... I am accused of cruelty, intolerance, bigotry, hate, publicly humiliating someone, ignorance and more.  Yet, there is not a hint of any one of these things in my column.

... Other letters and comments accuse me of intolerance, bigotry, ignorance, transphobia, maligning, defamation, slander, xenophobia, foolishness, mean-spiritedness, inflicting “spiritual violence,” lacking compassion, anti-knowledge and more — all without providing a single example.

... It is these letters and comments that are filled with hate; it is these writers who intend to humiliate; it is these people who are intolerant of any view but their own.

And, yesterday he followed up with: "The moral and intellectual state of the Jewish left."

First, the low intellectual state. ... Bret Stephens ... succinctly put it recently in his Wall Street Journal column, “American academia is, by and large, idiotic.”

... characteristic No. 2: Instead of intellectual discourse, what we have is the dismissal of the decency of the left’s opponents. If you oppose the left, you are rarely debated. Instead you are dismissed as sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigoted and spewing hatred.

Third, and finally, there is a willingness to make up falsehoods in the service of progressive ideals.

Of course this isn't a problem just with the American Jewish left on the issue of male-female blurring, but with the left throughout the entire West over a wide range of issues.


[Via Blazing Cat Fur]

"A massive shift"in BC school curriculum

Vancouver Sun:

"... it is clear that schools will have to move away from a traditional model where all students read the same book at the same time, answer the same questions and write the same test.

There is a massive shift underway, and as students go back to school next week, a new optional curriculum will be in place for students up to Grade 9. It will be mandatory next year. Grades 10 to 12 are next, with a draft curriculum expected this week. ...

The need for "a massive shift" becoming "clear" seems to be based on an assumption that the internet, iPads, iPhones, etc have suddenly changed how kids learn what schools are responsible for teaching. Sure, the internet is neat and there some nifty new tools for accessing information but it is highly doubtful that kids' brains have evolved measurably since their invention and that what they need to know and how they learn it has radically changed.  But what the heck, an Education Minister has to make his mark, doesn't he?

Then there's this interesting assertion:

The shift will also bring in new methods of assessment that could see traditional report cards and letter grades disappear. A bit further off are new graduation requirements, which could mean the end of every student passing the same basic courses and exams in order to get a diploma.

Haven't teachers' unions been pushing these ideas for some time?  Students learn whatever strikes their fancy at their own rate with no tests and no report cards.  Also, no more measuring student progress and so no more accountability for their success or failure.  What could go wrong?

Then, if nothing else, this should be a huge alarm:

"there are no global examples to follow and this education transformation is untested."

Yikes! But why am I not surprised?  This seems to be the case for so many grand new educational schemes.  While there are no doubt some reasonably decent ideas in it, this "massive shift" appears to be yet another giant social experiment involving every child in the province as a guinea pig.  It's an experiment to test the latest radical progressive "thinking" coming out of academia.  And it'll take a generation before we have any inkling of how big a flop it is.

Evolution, not revolution, should be the rule in bringing about change in large crucial systems like education.

"White privilege" theory - academia a waste of time and money, and worse

Rex Murphy:

I’ve seen the captious phrase “white privilege” — a camp neologism by my reading — very often lately. It emerges from the intellectual marshes of social justice “educators,” a typical pseudo-concept from that roiling pastiche of academic pursuit.

... The obsession of seeing everything in race-coloured terms is itself racist. Anti-racism pursed by zealots transforms itself into the very vice it deplores. This is the cost of identity politics, and its close bedmate, victimology enterprises. ...

... It is to the great shame of modern universities that they have debased themselves to the pursuit of these follies ...

The radical academics who push this po-mo nonsense should be run off our campuses, and the faculties from which they push it should be shut down.  They are clearly a horrendous waste of taxpayers' money, but, much worse, they are polluting the minds of gullible young students and damaging society at large.

CIA "torture" report's "pathological sanctimony"

Wall Street Journal editorial writer, Dorothy Rabinowitz:

... [The Senate report] is "as good as any expression of pathological sanctimoniousness that has characterized every attitude towards every effort America has taken to defend itself.

... [It is] rooted to the hostility of the idea that America is anything but a flawed, deeply immoral nation.  You cannot go on the campuses of the United States without hearing this as the general opinion." ...

Take back the night!

Ann Coulter:

Sorry this column is late. I got raped again on the way home. Twice. I should clarify -- by "raped," I mean that two seductive Barry White songs came on the radio, which, according to the University of Virginia, constitutes rape.

...TAKE BACK THE NIGHT!

 ... Rolling Stone's fantasist rape victim told The Washington Post she didn't report her rape or go to the hospital because "she was new to campus and unaware of the resources available to her."

... The main threat to college students' physical and emotional safety these days comes not from athletes or fraternity members, but from the feminists. ...

Burnaby Mountain Unmasked

Greg Renouf has investigated and documented in minute detail what happened and who was involved in "protesting" Kinder Morgan's work on Burnaby Mountain.  He supplies pictures, videos and narrative.  He supplies the backgrounds of and links between the professionals protesters, the NGO's, the SFU academics and orgs, the Indians, the radicals, the extremists and the gullible useful idiots:

Part I: Is It Safe To Send Your Kids To SFU?

Part II: David Suzuki, Extremists And The RCMP

Part III - coming soon.

 Outstanding work, absolutely outstanding.

"Universities are islands of repression in a sea of freedom"

So said Dr. Arnold Aberman in an excellent convocation speech in which he cited several recent instances of prominent people, like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Condoleezza Rice, being prevented from speaking at convocations because of their "controversial" views.  Dr. Aberman went on to cite four examples from science and medicine in which proponents of "controversial" new ideas that ran counter to prevailing "settled science" were ridiculed and shunned but were eventually vindicated and honoured.  Dr. Aberman's conclusions and advice:

... claiming “settled science” is a statement, not an argument. Truth is not discovered by voting. What is “settled science” today may be labelled a mistaken belief tomorrow.

You can’t learn in an echo chamber, welcoming only your ideas. Listen to those who you do not agree with – in fact, I urge, seek them out. 

Oppose their theories with facts, not with censorship.  

Be very suspicious of those who want to cut off debate with “this is against settled science.” Appealing to authority is a sign of weakness, not strength.

The shoddy science of sceptic-bashing

Ben Pile of Climate Resistance in an interesting essay at spiked, "The pathologising of climate scepticism", dissects a controversial paper by psychologist Stephan Lewandowsky:

A recent study by Stephan Lewandowsky, a psychologist at the University of Western Australia, aimed to identify climate change sceptics’ tendency towards conspiracy theories.

... It seems fairly obvious that Lewandowsky was at best mistaken. The data simply do not support his conclusions.

... Lewandowsky worked from his prejudice — that all sceptics are, a priori, wrong. His objective was to expose the ‘motivated reasoning’ that lies behind climate scepticism. But in doing so, he managed only to expose his own bad faith. ...

concluding:

... A culture of intransigence has developed in the shadow of the compact between politics and science, which can be seen in the Lewandowsky affair in microcosm. Lewandowsky’s work unwittingly demonstrates that what is passed off as peer reviewed and published ‘science’, even in today’s world, is no more scientific than the worst ramblings of the least qualified and nuttiest climate change denier on the internet.

... The consequence of this should be alarming to everyone who takes an interest in the climate and other scientific debates, no matter what their view on climate change.  ...

A tad long, but worth the read.

"Nothing says 'inclusive' like racial segregation"

David Thompson on liberal arts indoctrination at an elite university:

Diversity and Inclusion - To be cultivated, obviously, with racial segregation: 

In order to create a safe space, this programme is open to people of colour only. A similar conversation for white students, faculty and staff is planned for the spring semester.

You see, it’s a “conversation,” one that’s all about “healing and mutual respect” and “engaging with diverse views.”

I’m actually rather tickled by the notion of students needing a “safe space” at Hamilton College, an elite New York liberal arts college with an endowment of around three-quarters of a billion dollars and where tuition is a mere $46,ooo, excluding room and board. This, after all, is one of the most cossetting and exquisitely PC environments on the face of the Earth. ...

If it were only Hamilton College infecting young minds with this kind of insanity it might be funny.  But nearly every university and college in North America has similar programs doing similar damage to millions of students and wasting untold $billions.  It's an unmitigated disaster.

Common sense education - how to fix an education system ruined by "romantic progressives"

Brian Lilley at Sun News' Byline has been running Michael Zwaagstra's excellent series of videos on Canada's totally botched public education system.  Some of the main culprits in the education debacle are the university faculties of education which Zwaagstra exposes in video number IX (of X):



Here are all ten videos in the series.

Last year Mr. Zwaagstra gave a comprehensive talk covering the whole problem (an education system that has been ruined by "romantic progressivism").   It's a hour long but well worth the time. 

Zwaagstra's website - all good stuff.

Related, from David Thompson:

Slate’s Allison Benedikt stands at the altar and demands sacrifice: 

You are a bad person if you send your children to private school… I am not an education policy wonk: I’m just judgmental… If every single parent sent every single child to public school, public schools would improve. This would not happen immediately. It could take generations. Your children and grandchildren might get mediocre educations in the meantime, but it will be worth it, for the eventual common good.

Climate lunacy

Peter Foster:

The Royal Society, the U.K.’s once-venerable academy of science, has arguably lost its collective mind over the theory of projected catastrophic man-made global warming. ...

... An ... egregious example of the Royal Society’s support for treating skepticism as the result of ignorance or psychiatric disorder came with the granting earlier this year of a Wolfson Research Merit award — designed to attract and keep academic talent in Britain — to Stephan Lewandowsky, an Australian “cognitive scientist,” who recently moved to Bristol University. ...

Live From Ryerson University - Violent, Racist, Anti-Semitic, Hate

Greg Renouf at genuiNEWitty:

... At about 2:45 Saturday afternoon the Livestream camera was handed to a young native man named Billy who says he comes from near the Conawapa Dam in Manitoba.

...  Billy explains his view on what indigenous people need to do to get attention for their cause:
“Us Indians have to do something really extreme to get the world’s attention, like forming a Taliban“

... He then moves on to discuss his feelings on Jewish people and Israel ...

Neo at halls of macadamia:

Seriously... where's a Human Rights Commissioner when you really, really need one? ... 

... Actually, [Billy]... I'm kinda hopin' you have a serious substance abuse problem... 'cos, otherwise, you're just full-on batshit crazy. 

David Suzuki: Alberta floods may not be due to global warming ... but

 David Suzuki, writing in the Huff-Po, tries to appear even handed but inevitably blames "climate change" absolutely:

"... caused by global warming? Maybe not but we can say we should expect more of the same - and worse if we don't do something to get our emissions under control."

Thanks to the likes of Suzuki, "climate change" has become the go-to excuse for all bad weather and related damage (it would never be mentioned in connection with a bumper crop).  Last night, for example, CTV's National news story on the Alberta floods had an 'expert' opinion from hydrologist, John Pomeroy, who predictably pointed his finger explicitly in that direction.

The worst of it is that "climate change" has been so thoroughly drilled into the public consciousness by an uncritical media and academia that it's accepted "wisdom" at all levels of government where you would be hard pressed to find a single plan or program that doesn't address it as a key issue.   Any citizen who tries to object or criticize is met by  'officialdom' with anything from a blank stare to the derision due a "denier".
 
Getting rid of this mass psychosis is going to be a long uphill grind.

[Via]

Orwellian thought control at Oregon State University

Climate skeptic instructor fired from Oregon State University:

In theory at least Oregon State University (OSU) seems to be a bastion of academic freedom, diversity, and tolerance. ... But it is all a fairy tale, because OSU operates under a politically correct regimen that dictates what is acceptable to say and what is not. Transgressors who dare to be different are eventually weeded out so that the campus maintains its ideological purity.

... We learned over the weekend that chemist Nickolas Drapela, PhD has been summarily fired from his position as a “Senior Instructor” in the Department of Chemistry. The department chairman Richard Carter told him that he was fired but would not provide any reason. Subsequent attempts to extract a reason from the OSU administration have been stonewalled.

... Five years ago, Oregon State Climatologist George Taylor went around quietly saying that he was not a believer. Then Governor Ted Kulongoski and many faculty at OSU including Dr. Jane Lubchenco made life impossible for Taylor, and he retired. (Lubchenco is now head of NOAA in the Obama administration.) Under those currently in charge, OSU climate research has grown to be a huge business, reportedly $90 million per year with no real deliverables beyond solid academic support for climate hysteria.

[...]

Happy May Day! A day to celebrate Marxist mass murder

R.J. Rummel:

Marxism, the religion of communism ... is alive and well in many countries still, such as North Korea, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, a gaggle of African countries, and in the minds of many South American political leaders. However, of most importance to the future of democracy, communism still pollutes the thinking of a vast multitude of Western academics and intellectuals [and other assorted idiots].

... Of all religions, secular and otherwise, that of Marxism has been by far the bloodiest ... In practice, Marxism has meant bloody terrorism, deadly purges, lethal prison camps and murderous forced labor, fatal deportations, man-made famines, extrajudicial executions and fraudulent show trials, outright mass murder and genocide.

In total, Marxist regimes murdered nearly 110 million people from 1917 to 1987.

[By comparison Marxism/communism's close cousins,Naziism and fascism, are pikers.]

Happy May Day!

An attack on Aussie freedom of the press

The Australlian Labour government's recent Report of an Inquiry into the Media and Media Regulation proposes draconian measures for regulating the press.  Andrew Bolt covered his and others' reactions in a series of blog posts.  The titles speak for themselves:

A foot on our throats

Even an online site read just by your relatives is threatened

Media inquiry wants to control even blogs with a reader a day

Finkelstein: dodgy excuse for dangerous power

Finkelstein’s media council: will sceptics be censored?

Why journalism academics are so hostile to our free press

The rise of the totalitarians

The totalitarian instinct in Finkelstein’s report

Next Finkelstein will quote Chomsky and Che

Your right to speak and read freely is in danger

To be “unbiased” would be to print government lies

An attack from the Left on the freedom of Gillard’s critics to speak

Another reason to fear the News Media Council

How dare the Press Council censor even politicians?

Freedom is our best defence against abuse of power

Stifling free speech won’t guarantee good speech

Good stuff.  If that doesn't kill the report, I don't know what will. More here.

[via]

U of M climbs aboard the apology bandwagon

The December issue of my alumni journal included the University of Manitoba’s statement of apology for its supposed role in the Indian residential school system. Some excerpts [subtext in brackets added]:

The University of Manitoba wishes to take a leadership role in helping expose the national shame of the Indian Residential Schools system and the consequences of such a system. [The back of the line is over there.]

... For over 130 years, the University of Manitoba has worked to create, preserve and communicate knowledge. Moreover, our academic institution has a long history of encouraging debate, building excellence and fostering innovation. [Admittedly, back in the day, the residential schools and assimilation innovations were all the rage in academia].

... it is clear that we did not live up to our goals, our ideals, our hard-earned reputation or our mandate. [Even though our predecessors’ goals and ideals included residential schools.]

... That was a grave mistake [with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight and currently fashionable political correctness]. It is our responsibility [No it isn’t]. We are sorry. [Boo hoo!]

...Instead of being positive influences on Aboriginal peoples, education and religion became tools of assimilation, thus undermining the rich diversities of First Nations, Métis and Inuit cultures, communities and families. [If only our crude and ignorant ancestors had known better.]

... Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized ... The next day, then Manitoba Premier Gary Doer ... and Northern Affairs Minister Eric Robinson ... Churches that operated schools – Roman Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian and United – have also issued statements of apology and reconciliation. 
[And we thought: “We’ll look really bad if we don’t climb on this bandwagon!”. And so,]

 ... Today the University of Manitoba adds our voice to the apologies ...
... We apologize to our students.
... We apologize to our Indigenous faculty and staff.
... We apologize to First Nations, Métis and Inuit leaders and Elders. ...
[We, the uninvolved, apologize to everyone.]

[There, that feels much better!!]

Signed,
David T. Barnard,
President and Vice-Chancellor 

There's something weird and unseemly about people who had little or no role apologizing for the decisions and actions of well intentioned predecessors who operated under different assumptions and knowledge. I wonder if they give any thought at all to the possibility that what they are doing today their distant future successors might feel obliged to apologize for - eg: suppression of free speech on campus; rampant political correctness, and; the indoctrination of students in highly dubious theories of multiculturalism, radical feminism and postmodernism (and that's the short list)? I think not.

Ann Coulter and free speech in Canuckistan

Predictably, Ann Coulter's Canadian speaking tour is stimulating controversy. Taking the cake is the laughably sanctimonious condescension of one Francois Houle, Provost, University of Ottawa, lecturing Miss Coulter on Canada's approach to free speech and warning her to watch what she says or risk criminal charges. Nice touch - Ann will be very thankful for the publicity for her speaking tour and the fodder for further ridiculing Canuckistan.

Mark Steyn's reaction. And lots more at Blazing Cat Fur.

Ann Coulter to U of WO Muslim student - "... take a camel". Heh :)

Also, today Marni Soupcoff claims the whole episode proves that Canadians just don't understand the meaning of free speech - which is a fairly well known fact confirmed by our "human-rights" laws, our "Human Rights" Commissions and Tribunals and today's poll in the Globe & Mail:



.
.
.
.
.
.
.
It's all very entertaining .... but at the same time, weirdly pathetic.

Anyway, Ann Coulter rocks! Too bad her tour doesn't include Victoria.

Update from BCF: University of Ottawa disgraces itself - cancels Coulter.

And here's the CBC poll: Ann Coulter: Should she limit her speech in Canada?
.
.
.
.
Note. The CBC poll results have significantly turned around since they were posted here.