The Woke Temple Tacks Away From Clown Graphics, But Maintains Laser Focus

For the past year or so, The Woke Temple has carefully summarized the preachings of Wokeness using brightly colorful graphics decorated with clowns. I think this approach was often effective at getting the point across. What better way to ridicule the preachers of Wokeness than by refusing to take them seriously? The Woke Temple combined this packaging with text that carefully and accurately restated Woke teachings straight from the books of Robin DiAngela, Ibram Kendi and others. This tactic reminds me of a quote by Isaac Asimov. “Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.” This allusion to religion is apropos here in that the Woke flock seem to be under the influence of something very much like a fundamentalist religion. Exhibit A is the ubiquitous Woke teaching that either you proclaim that you agree with Woke preachings or they will declare that you are a bad person, a "racist."

As the Woke Temple has colorfully illustrated over the past year, people who are Woke claim that the best way to address racism is to enthusiastically judge people based on the color of their skin, a tactic that pisses on the central teaching of Martin Luther King. This the far Left's equivalent of saying that the threat of COVID is going away while death rates are dramatically increasing. It is that absurd, yet this absurd set of teachings has now been embraced by HR Departments, Government agencies and schools throughout the United States. I can't think of a clearer example of a hostile work environment and I hope lawsuits start flying to stop these practices. Contrary to the claim of Joe Biden, these sessions are not effective ways to address "racial insensitivity" or to encourage "self-esteem."

We need to consider creative approaches to nullify Woke preachings because engaging in conversation does not work. People who have embraced Wokeness are impervious to contrary evidence and reasoning because once these ideas take root, they nullify the ability to think, evaluate contrary evidence and self-critically discuss teachings. Somehow, these Woke proclamations parasitically invade the thought processes of smart and good-hearted people, taking them emotional hostage.  Once a person becomes Woke, they would rather do anything--anything--than be called "racist," even by the proudly racist people who preach Woke principles.

Recently The Woke Temple has modified its tactics. The clowns are gone and the look is streamlined and straight-forward.  Perhaps it will be more effective in getting the message across to more people.  I hope so.  We need all the help we can get. Here's the latest graphic from The Woke Temple:

Continue ReadingThe Woke Temple Tacks Away From Clown Graphics, But Maintains Laser Focus

Making Farming a Reality in Rose Bud, Arkansas

I met Steve Grappe ten years ago in St. Louis when I was attending a Lightroom course he was teaching. Back then, Steve was an excellent photographer who eventually became my photography mentor. He taught many other people too. He was the center of vibrant photography community. I quickly learned that Steve was an indefatigable man with an expansive skillset and nonstop creativity. A few years ago Steve left St. Louis to reconnect with Kelly, his prom date from many years earlier when they attended high school together in Arkansas. They were married in May 2018. He took a day gig as a car mechanic and she continued her job as a telecom executive. They settled down and lived happily ever after. The End.

Actually, that's not quite the end of the story. A few months later, they bought a dilapidated old farm in Rose Bud, Arkansas. It was actually much worse than dilapidated. I think Steve said he bought it for a bag of acorns. They worked around the clock to fix up the place and this took an enormous amount of sweat equity. Steve and Kelly were helped considerably in this project by Kelly's teenage daughter, Grace.

Steve and Kelly were still most definitely not farmers, but at about this same time they decided they needed to learn how to run a farm, so they attended one of the best farm schools available: Youtube. They also asked lots of questions and listened to others in the business. They jumped right in and brought in some livestock, including chickens, pigs, turkeys, rabbits and pigs. They named their special place "Forevermost Farms," a name based upon a syrupy romantic encounter that I don't have time for right now. All of that was such long time ago . . . To recap, Steve and Kelly got married all the way back in May of 2018. They then bought a run-down farm, turned it into a really cool place where some of the animals wear clothes and sometimes sing in little animal quartets. Steve and Kelly went to YouTube University in order to learn how to humanely and organically raise these eccentric critters. Their work has become their passion and I now realize that they were just getting started.

Fast forword: In the past couple weeks, Steve and Kelly said goodbye to their latest batch of 3,000 chickens that they raised over the past few months. They also recently said goodbye to 300 turkeys, 60 pigs and, if I'm remembering correctly, a partridge in a pear tree. Most recently, they announced that one of their dogs is pregnant, which will provide them with more dogs to help them raise their livestock. Things are always happening at Forevermost.

The above numbers boggle my mind, but I've visited Steve and Kelly and I've seen their beautiful place. I've seen many of their animals and I know that many of those animals have both personalities and names. Steve has also become an expert in the mating habits of their animals. He carefully (some would say voyeuristically) observes the animals to see who is doing what to whom. Beware. If you ask Steve a question about animal sex, he will speak to you much more directly than your parents ever did when they gave you the "sex talk."

As Forevermost Farms has become a reality, I've seen a special glow in the eyes of Steve and Kelly. They have accomplished something I would have thought impossible until I saw it with my own eyes, especially in that short time frame, and it was all done on a limited budget. But guess what? My two wonderful upbeat hard-working friends have now most definitely become farmers.

If you'd like to know more about the story of Forevermost Farms, you are invited to follow Steve and Kelly on Facebook or at the Forevermost Farms Website. Please do visit their website so that you can take in some of this celebration that has become their lives.

Continue ReadingMaking Farming a Reality in Rose Bud, Arkansas

Anecdotes v Statistics

When do a handful of anecdotal events observed in a complex system prove millions of unseen events? Almost never. Our vast time-tested literature on statistics must guide our extrapolations in these situations and anyone suggesting otherwise should be ignored. These were my thoughts as I read this Tweet by psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman. In a comment to this Tweet, Scott mentions these specific problem areas: "Tail ratios, normal distribution, statistical significance, probability, hypothesis testing . . ."

Continue ReadingAnecdotes v Statistics

John McWorter Draws a Line in the Sand When Ibram X. Kendi Publicly Labels his Ideas “Racist.”

One of the things I find most disturbing about "anti-racists" is their demand that you must either agree to everything they say or else you are a "racist." Popular authors Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo claim that if you are not an "anti-racist" you are a racist. There are only two options. Thus speak the anti-racists.  This false dilemma, this unjustified dichotomy, is just "because."

"Anti-racism" is not the opposite of racism, despite the misleading nomenclature. It is virulent new form of racism. To pull off this minor miracle of creativity, the "anti-racists" have invoked a new expansive definition of "racism" that has nothing to do with specific unfair attitudes or behavior of specific people. The "anti-racists" invoke a Manichean claim that it is OK to judge people as good and bad (respectively Blacks and whites) based on immutable physical appearance, just because. In doing this, they are dusting off that old disreputable idea that melanin should serve as a guilt barometer. This is something they have in common with racists of the Civil War and Jim Crow eras, although the new barometer is upside-down.

This "anti-racist" formula has worked all too well for the past several years. Well-meaning people who fervently disagree with this "anti-racist" claim, however, including the specific claim that "all white people are racist," are being held emotional hostage. They are afraid to speak up, to disagree in public places. It is truly bizarre to see so many people who disagree with these "anti-racist" claims who are afraid to speak up. I know this from numerous private conversations. It's starting to look like many religions, where the preachers preach at the flock and members of the flock merely nod their heads, even thought they know in every bone of their bodies that the Earth is not 6,000 years old, that virgins don't have babies and that (an example from my Catholic upbringing) eating the host is not literally eating bloody muscles and capillaries. Members of the flock sat in total silence when the NYT promoted claims that the American Revolution was primarily for the purpose of promoting slavery, a central claim of "The 1619 Project."

So this is where we are: the preachers are preaching and members of the flock keep sitting silently because they are afraid of going to "anti-racist" hell. For them, hell is what would happen is they were publicly called "racist."  Thus, members of the flock will sit in paralyzed silence, even when the anti-racists call all "white" people and their Black intellectual allies "racist" no matter how exemplary their lives have been. Isn't that weird? "White" people are already being called racists as a group merely by their skin color, yet they fear being called "racist" as individuals. And what drives this fear is, ironically, that they hate racism. This is stranger than any fiction any creative writer could concoct. These "anti-racist" threats of name-calling are successfully turning many people into Zombies (this reminds me of how many types of wasps sting and zombify other bugs to use as hatcheries). After getting stung by the threat of being called "racists," the fearful zombified flock is willing to sit in silence even when the "anti-racists" make patently false claims that no racial progress has occurred since 1619, since the Civil War or since the Civil Rights era.  They sit in silence while the "anti-racists" ridicule Martin Luther King's idea that we should not be judged by the color of our skin, but only by the content of character.

Once this creepy dynamic settled into place, anti-racists, such as Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo, began getting free rides from individuals who knew better but who were afraid to speak out. More troublesome, the anti-racists' fact-free and oftentimes false diatribes also began getting luxury free rides from corporate HR departments, government agencies (and here) and many members of our sense-making institutions, including left-leaning legacy media. In addition to securing the silence of people who disagree under threat of being called names, the "anti-racists" employ another big weapon: the rage of Woke mobs who are willing to destroy the careers of anyone who dares to dissent (recent example).

Linguist John McWhorter has not been afraid to call out the anti-racists.  He has done this in many places, including his article in The Atlantic,  "The Dehumanizing Condescension of White Fragility: The popular book aims to combat racism but talks down to Black people." McWorther, a professor of linguistics, has taken a lot of flack from the far left for repeatedly calling out that the Emperor Has No Clothes.

McWhorter had more than his fill, however, when Ibram X. Kendi recently and publicly called McWhorter's ideas "racist."  Kendi has made dozens of claims that should be vigorously scrutinized by academics, book reviewers and the general public, but he has been surfing on the waves of fearful silence. That silence meant that the normally unflappable McWhorter had to fend for himself.  He decided it was time to push back dramatically, in a public way. Hence these excerpts from the November 23, 2020 episode of The Glenn Show with Glenn Loury:

Continue ReadingJohn McWorter Draws a Line in the Sand When Ibram X. Kendi Publicly Labels his Ideas “Racist.”