The Spectator

Why did the Co-op debank feminists – but let Rose West keep her account?

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any madder, you find out the following: at the Co-operative bank, if you’re a murderer of women you c...

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any madder, you find out the following: at the Co-operative bank, if you’re a murderer of women you can keep your account, but if you accurately describe women as adult human females, you can’t. (I kinda think people — including Brendan — are missing the point here. Rose West’a account was reviewed a decade ago. It’s a sign of how quickly things have changed, both in terms of banking regulation and corporate ESG, not of murder being ok but feminism not being.)

In a statement, the zoo said: “Giraffe experts believe she is the only solid-coloured reticulated giraffe living anywhere on the planet.” (She is, as far as they can tell, completely healthy and has been treated normally by the rest of the herd.)

BBC News

Baby giraffe born with no spots

The spotless giraffe was born at a zoo in Tennessee and could be the only one of her kind on Earth.

Old lady medical question: She has a pessary for a prolapsed bladder. Last time she went to get it changed, it was damaged and came out in two pieces so couldn’t (as is usual) be washed and re-used. The letter to the GP said it had been washed and re-used, and further said that he had discussed “red flag day” with her. This is the same as the previous letter, so I’m guessing the doctor(‘s secretary) just sent the standard letter without checking. She has, however, never had a discussion about “red flag day”. Can anyone think what it might be? (I have not seen the letter, I didn’t have time to stop as I was racing the weather. It’s possible but unlikely that she has mis-read it, but was adamant it was “red flag day” not, say, “red flags to look out for” (as signs she should get it checked out).)

Listen, BDSM is not for four-year-olds

Why are the woke so obsessed with teaching kids about queer sex?

This is not the modern equivalent of getting 11-year-olds to read the confronting tale of George and Lennie. Steinbeck, Blume, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Dickens, and many more besides, can rattle the young, of course, but fundamentally they open young minds. The new LGBTQetc stuff does the opposite. It indoctrinates rather than enlightens. It instructs rather than informs. It is about social engineering, not literary illumination. ‘Step away from the heteronormative’ – this is about inculcating kids with correct-think, turning them into obedient subjects of the brave woke era who bow to the Pride flag and say stupid things like ‘sex assigned at birth’. We are witnessing a wholesale overhaul of education. Where once education was devoted to connecting kids with the past – through encouraging them to engage with the great tomes and ideas and discoveries of our forebears – now it wrenches them from the past and pushes them into a Year Zero world defined entirely by ideologues. Science, biology, truth itself, not to mention all those Dead White European Males and their archaic ideas, are being sidelined by the authoritarian urge to remake the young in the perfect image of the new ideology.

Nappy, dirty socks and what appears to be a padded bra insert. It’s not taking a poo in someone’s field, but come on people! Also: this is not “feeding the birds”. This is “feeding the rats”.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/18/impartial-news-organisations-failing-practise-what-preach/ So the CEO, who supposedly does not interfere in editorial independence, did intervene to prevent the editor seeing a bona fide group in the area on which his title reports. Where was Thomson Reuters’ foundational impartiality? I fear this story illustrates a real difficulty. Many powerful media organisations today regard LGBT+ and some other issues, such as climate change and aspects of race, as matters about which the normal idea of impartiality is suspended. There can only be one right approach, they believe. This is clearly the attitude of Openly, which may well provide a useful service to people interested in these matters, but is emphatically not impartial, invariably following the line of LGBT+ lobbies. So long as such organisations think this way – and that is how Nick Robinson’s own BBC thinks – projects like “Verify” will be more like vigilantism against rivals than the disinterested pursuit of truth. What they see as “disinformation” will often be little more than their preferred word for attitudes they dislike or stories they wish to suppress. https://archive.li/rKVGj

Oh, August, hi. Yeah, can we have a little chat? As you know, when you came on board we’d gone through a period of very lack-lustre performance. Now obviously July’s disappointing work wasn’t your fault, but we did make it very clear that we were after a good, solid mid-summer effort to try to get things back on track. We can all see the effort you were making after our last little talk, and we were really hoping you could pull yourself together and keep it going, but I’m afraid that you’ve taken your eye off the ball again today, haven’t you? I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to let you go at the end of the month. Maybe you should think about reapplying for one of our less intensive roles, mid-autumn perhaps? You do seem to have a very good grasp of mist.

@RETVRN OF THE KANG HoolaHoolaNope@spinster.xyz

Anyone got any ideas what this is? The top is bolted on and there seems to be something inside it. View quoted note →

I feel so sorry for this cohort of students, but equally I know that if I were once again in a position that involved hiring people then I would look askance at anyone with qualifications received over the last few years.

Lockdown has cast a long shadow over education

This year’s A-level students have paid a heavy price for our overreaction to Covid.

Three and half years since the virus appeared, exam results are still not a reliable guide to the academic performance of our young people. Grades no longer reflect how hard a student worked, but rather which year they took their exams in. Endless lockdowns and the push to keep schools closed for as long as possible have all but destroyed academic standards. We abandoned education during the pandemic. And now a whole generation of students is paying the price.