Yasujiro Ozu, Otona no miru ehon – Umarete wa mita keredo [I Lived, But] (1932).

Via Ratak Monodosico.

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

The poor chap is apparently afraid of getting virused, but more importantly he likes using WordStar 4.0. a word-processing program released in 1987. Martin is no fan of dancing paperclips, and dislikes (for obvious reasons) the spellcheckers embedded in more modern word processing programs.

WaPo article

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Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

Divorce rate in Maine
correlates with
Per capita consumption of margarine (US)

Correlation: 0.992558

Amusing web-site mocks statistical evidence by posting a daily graph and quantitative data demonstrating a meaningless correlation between two totally unconnected collections of events.

Hat tip to Scott Drum.

Tal Fortgang‘s rejection of collective guilt (“I have checked my privilege. And I apologize for nothing.”) in the Princeton Tory last month, provoked a Tsunami of media discussion.

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The classic condescending left-wing rejoinder, explaining to Fortgang that, just “because your ancestors dealt with some shit,” he is not allowed to forget that he is still just the “fully abled person in a race against a man with only one leg” came from “Violet Baudelaire” at Jezebel.

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Phoebe Maltz Bovy, in the Atlantic, for instance, took the position that Fortgang just didn’t understand.

A certain sort of self-deprecating privilege awareness has become, in effect, upper- or upper-middle-class good manners, maybe even a new form of noblesse oblige, reinforcing class divides. When Fortgang’s classmates admonish him to check his privilege, what they’re really doing is socializing him into the culture of the class he’ll enter as a Princeton graduate. Failure to acknowledge privilege is very gauche, maybe even nouveau riche.

Besides Fortgang, she contends, is taking it too seriously. Privilege-checking really only amounts to a method of class affirmation, combined with (what used to be called) One-Upsmanship.

The self-deprecatory, class-signaling approach might (but rarely does) serve as a first step towards genuine self-examination and, in turn, some broader social-justice commitment. But the main result of privilege talk is scrappiness one-upmanship among the privileged.

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Daniel D’Addario, in Salon, described the practice of even questioning leftwing PC as producing “an unsavory debate,” and then (descending to crude utilitarianism) scolded Fortgang for bad PR.

Princeton cannot control the public statements made by its students (and parents of students), and nor should it try to. But it’s amazing how neatly these unofficial spokespeople keep stepping into the school’s pop cultural caricature as a status-obsessed carnival of eating clubs and lawn parties. What Princeton seems to do uniquely well is to train people to say “I went to Princeton.” (Consider Reagan’s Secretary of State George Shultz — he of the Princeton tiger tattoo!) And it hardly seems ideal that the university’s place in the public conversation right now has absolutely nothing to do with academics and everything to do with embarrassing op-eds. “Princeton” is an adjective attached to a woman urging other women to compete for the most successful men in order to enjoy comfortable lives. And now, to a teenager bragging in print about how his ancestors had the unique idea to work hard, one other people’s ancestors evidently didn’t. Check your privilege, Princeton. Or at least: check your PR strategy.

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The only possible PC-response from the male white heterosexual is here:

Emanuel Leutze, Christopher Columbus on the Santa Maria in 1492, 1855

The Independent:

More than five centuries after Christopher Columbus’s flagship, the Santa Maria, was wrecked in the Caribbean, archaeological investigators think they may have discovered the vessel’s long-lost remains – lying at the bottom of the sea off the north coast of Haiti. It’s likely to be one of the world’s most important underwater archaeological discoveries.

“All the geographical, underwater topography and archaeological evidence strongly suggests that this wreck is Columbus’ famous flagship, the Santa Maria,” said the leader of a recent reconnaissance expedition to the site, one of America’s top underwater archaeological investigators, Barry Clifford.

“The Haitian government has been extremely helpful – and we now need to continue working with them to carry out a detailed archaeological excavation of the wreck,” he said.

So far, Mr Clifford’s team has carried out purely non-invasive survey work at the site – measuring and photographing it.

Tentatively identifying the wreck as the Santa Maria has been made possible by quite separate discoveries made by other archaeologists in 2003 suggesting the probable location of Columbus’ fort relatively nearby. Armed with this new information about the location of the fort, Clifford was able to use data in Christopher Columbus’ diary to work out where the wreck should be.

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HuffPo:

[The] team found and photographed the wreck 10 years ago, but did not realize what it was until recently, the paper reported.

The Santa Maria ran into a reef off the coast of Haiti with Columbus aboard, forcing him to build a small settlement for his crew — the first European settlement in the Americas since the Vikings’ 11th century village in Newfoundland.

He named it La Navidad — Christmas — and then returned to Spain on the Nina, leaving behind 39 crew members unable to fit on the ship.

The third ship, the Pinta, was separated from the other two at the time.

One year later, Columbus returned with 17 ships and some 1,200 men, but the settlement had been burned and no one remained. (This Smithsonian article has more on La Navidad.)

The 2003 discovery of the possible ruins of La Navidad led Clifford to the current location off the coast, where he re-examined the wreck that had been found by his team. He says the size and location in relation to the ruined fort match what he’d expect from the Santa Maria.

“I am confident that a full excavation of the wreck will yield the first ever detailed marine archaeological evidence of Columbus’ discovery of America,” Clifford was quoted as saying.

The Daily Star reports the confusion.

Procol Harum, who came to fame with their 1967 single A White Shader of Pale, have been blamed for the horrific kidnapping after people confused them with radical militant group Boko Haram.

Many across the internet have asked why the British progressive rock band would do such a thing and wondered how the hippie groovers had become “terrorists”.

One Twitter user said: “It’s shocking that Procol Harum’s records are still being played on the radio after what they did in Nigeria.”

Another wrote: “Wow! What happened to Procol Harum? Whiter Shade of Pale was a great song, but it doesn’t excuse terrorism.”

Yet despite the controversy, it seems most of the comments are tongue-in-cheek.

But it was reported that an expert with “knowledge of Nigeria” did also make the blunder too, calling Boko Haram “Procol Harum” throughout a radio interview.

This isn’t the first time that the band have been confused with the terrorist organisation.

Last July, vocalist and keyboard player Gary Brooker was forced to clear up the mess between the two groups whena US senator confused them live on Fox News.

Members of Boko Haram burned down churches and attacked a local community.

And Mr Brooker said: “We have had nothing to do with the church burning and bombing of district police headquarters in Northern Nigerian states, or any Nigerian states for that matter.

“You have us mixed up with the Nigerian terrorist organisation, Boko Haram.

“We are Procal Harum, completely different, just the name sounds a bit the same.”

The confusion led to the head of the Nigerian secret service calling for the band’s extradition.

He reportedly said on air: “As part of my investigation I have been listening to the back catalogue of Procal Harum and have to admit I am positively confused. Can somebody please tell me what on earth a ‘fandango’ is?

“We would be interested to start extradition proceedings ASAP.”

Brooker responded to the accusations, saying: “I don’t think Boko Haram have released any progressive rock albums, at least not to my knowledge, so that should prove our innocence.

“So please leave us alone. Peace and Love.”

These New Hampshire bulldogs actually broke through the porch railings to go after the bear robbing the family bird feeder.

Thezman:

A massive problem in contemporary intellectual discourse is that people don’t remember the past well and don’t have a critical attitude toward whatever is the latest conventional wisdom about the backwardness of the past. In the Obama Era, we see race and sex disparities all around us, and the only socially acceptable explanation for them is that the past was so incredibly racist/sexist until … well, nobody can quite remember when, but it must have been practically the day before yesterday. So, it’s hard for contemporary intellectuals to put themselves back into the shoes of their predecessors. …

[I]t is part of a greater war on the past, which is a manifestation of self-loathing.The modern Progressive hates his ancestors because they created the present, which the moral man detests and wishes to change. All that “leaning forward” stuff looked like pulling at the leash for a reason.

The left imagines themselves at war with the past, trying to break free from that which ties them to the present. It is why they deny biology, for example. The thought that we are the accumulation of genetic experimentation over millions of years is horrifying. Even accepting that we are the result of our parents is impossible. How can we break free when we are just a point in the time line? They never have solved the central dilemma of every religion. That is, how do you get to the promised land. Pagans believed a noble death was the ticket. Christians believed a noble life was the answer. Modern liberals believe amnesia is the solution.