untethered

Luke and I talk about alt right feuds, “optics” and stuff.

The very real crisis for young women wading into this sexual chaos is likewise ignored. But, give the feminists credit, they are trying, unaware, to bring sex back under control.

At least the universities once promoted moral virtue; Hollywood not so much. So the specter of that beast consuming itself in this fashion makes me think this is feminism’s inevitable end every time, hectoring impotently the sexual abandon it continually produces. But the pattern in Hollywood follows that set in the schools and boardrooms, where charges are quickly converted into seats or sinecures.

So if this practice migrated out of the same place as critical theory it’s only fitting that the prosecution of individual assault accusations should migrate out of the university and into the courts where they belong, where accusations have to meet some burden of proof.

From the New York Times:

A Yale student who had been suspended by the university was found not guilty on Wednesday of sexually assaulting a fellow student, in a rare college rape accusation to be tried in the courts. The verdict laid bare seemingly gaping divides in the national reckoning around sexual consent and assault.

Those “seemingly gaping divides” are between higher ed’s guilty-until-proven-innocent model and due process, of course, and probably don’t indicate a true divide in public opinion. Even the dependably liberal readers of the NYT were skeptical of the article’s (naturally) bias for the prosecution.

Over several grueling days on the witness stand in a New Haven courtroom, the woman described what she said was her rape by the accused student, Saifullah Khan, 25, on Halloween night 2015. The testimony, in open court, offered a glimpse into the kinds of encounters that are more often described behind closed doors, to university panels or among friends.

Indeed. Any rape allegation on campus should be treated like a rape allegation off campus; it should be reported immediately to police. Real police.
How is it universities aren’t required to report serious sexual assault allegations to police immediately any way? Because they’re not providing due process in the first place? How do they get away with that?

That the trial was happening at all was already noteworthy. Statistics on how many college rape cases go to trial are elusive, but experts agree that the number is exceedingly low; the Department of Justice estimates that between 4 percent and 20 percent of female college students who are raped report the attack to law enforcement.
But unfolding as it did in the wake of the #MeToo movement and the fierce, unresolved debate over whether campus rape cases are best handled by universities or law enforcement, Mr. Khan’s trial also took on political significance, with defense lawyers accusing Yale of making Mr. Khan a scapegoat for its own poor handling of previous sexual assault claims. Representatives from Families Advocating for Campus Equality, a group that has criticized university hearing processes as skewed in favor of accusers, attended the trial in support of Mr. Khan.
In an interview after the verdict, Norman Pattis, a lawyer for Mr. Khan, said he had tried to challenge “the outer limits of the #MeToo movement,” which he called “a form of mass hysteria.”
“Sex happens, especially on college campuses,” he said.
After a two-week trial, the six-member jury deliberated for about three hours before returning a verdict. In an interview afterward, a juror, Diane Urbano, said the #MeToo movement had not figured in the panel’s decision.
“It was not part of the case,” she said. “We put it aside.”
Instead, she said, they considered the evidence. “There was sufficient doubt on every charge,” she continued. “So we came to the verdict we did.”

Frame Games Radio

Babylonian Hebrew

This alliance–governed by statutes, the honour of compiling which has been given to a certain Ragot, who styled himself captain–was composed of matois, or sharpers; of mercelots, or hawkers, who were very little better than the former; of gueux, or dishonest beggars, and of a host of other swindlers, constituting the order or hierarchy of the Argot, or Slang people.
 Their chief was called the Grand Coesre, “a vagabond broken to all the tricks of his trade,” says M. Francisque Michel, and who frequently ended his days on the rack or the gibbet. History has furnished us with the story of a “miserable cripple” who used to sit in a wooden bowl, and who, after having been Grand Coesre for three years, was broken alive on the wheel at Bordeaux for his crimes.
One of his successors, the Grand Coesre surnamed Anacréon, who suffered from the same infirmity, namely, that of a cripple, rode about Paris on a donkey begging. He generally held his court on the Port-au-Foin, where he sat on his throne dressed in a mantle made of a thousand pieces.
The Grand Coesre had a lieutenant in each province called cagou, whose business it was to initiate apprentices in the secrets of the craft, and who looked after, in different localities, those whom the chief had entrusted to his care. He gave an account of the property he received in thus exercising his stewardship, and of the money as well as of the clothing which he took from the Argotiers who refused to recognise his authority.
As a remuneration for their duties, the cagoux were exempt from all tribute to their chief; they received their share of the property taken from persons whom they had ordered to be robbed, and they were free to beg in any way they pleased.

After the cagoux came the archisuppôts, who, being recruited from the lowest dregs of the clergy and others who had been in a better position, were, so to speak, the teachers of the law. To them was intrusted the duty of instructing the less experienced rogues, and of determining the language of Slang; and, as a reward for their good and loyal services, they had the right of begging without paying any fees to their chiefs.
The Grand Coesre levied a tax of twenty-four sous per annum upon the young rogues, who went about the streets pretending to shed tears, as “helpless orphans,” in order to excite public sympathy. The marcandiers had to pay an écu; they were tramps clothed in a tolerably good doublet, who passed themselves off as merchants ruined by war, by fire, or by having been robbed on the highway. The malingreux had to pay forty sous; they were covered with sores, most of which were self-inflicted, or they pretended to have swellings of some kind, and stated that they were about to undertake a pilgrimage to St. Méen, in Brittany, in order to be cured.
Besides these, there were the callots, who were either affected with a scurfy disease or pretended to be so, and who were contributors to the civil list of their chief to the amount of sevens sous; as also the coquillards, or pretended pilgrims of St. James or St. Michael; and the hubins, who, according to the forged certificate which they carried with them, were going to, or returning from, St. Hubert, after having been bitten by a mad dog.
The polissons paid two écus to the Coesre, but they earned a considerable amount, especially in winter; for benevolent people, touched with their destitution and half-nakedness, gave them sometimes a doublet, sometimes a shirt, or some other article of clothing, which of course they immediately sold.
The francs mitoux, who were never taxed above five sous, were sickly members of the fraternity, or at all events pretended to be such; they tied their arms above the elbow so as to stop the pulse, and fell down apparently fainting on the public footpaths. We must also mention the ruffés and the millards, who went into the country in groups begging.
The courtauds de boutanche pretended to be workmen, and were to be met with everywhere with the tools of their craft on their back, though they never used them.
The convertis pretended to have been impressed by the exhortations of some excellent preacher, and made a public profession of faith; they afterwards stationed themselves at church doors, as recently converted Catholics, and in this way received liberal contributions. Lastly, we must mention the drilles, the narquois, or the people of the petite flambe, who for the most part were old pensioners, and who begged in the streets from house to house, with their swords at their sides.
These, who at times lived a racketing and luxurious life, at last rebelled against the Grand Coesre, and would no longer be reckoned among his subjects–a step which gave a considerable shock to the Argotic monarchy.

I’ve answered the summons and got the spiel three different ways. I’m on jury duty all week. You can’t write about jury duty while on jury duty. It’s like Fight Club. I never got Fight Club.
So of course all I can tell you is I’ve got one that goes all the way to the Top, via Pizza Gate, Russian hackers and the See-Aye-A.
Not really. But it isn’t without its drama.
Posting will be (even) light(er) this week.