Oh, look. The “race realist/scientific racist/just plain racist” gang is very upset that James Watson’s reputation has been besmirched. Errm, further besmirched. Um, OK, blackened to scorched ashes.

Brilliant DNA pioneer to be wiped from history books bcuz he said IQ differences exist between races & he was very sad about that fact. Cultural Marxist quacks hijacked his work, stab him in the back. It's only correct 'science' if it is anti-Whitehttps://t.co/Bxpmll1ckc

— Lana ❌ (@LanaLokteff) January 13, 2019

Let’s take this apart for the fun of it, shall we?

Brilliant DNA pioneer

True. It’s a good idea to use a bit of reality as a jumping off point for your swan dive into fantasy. But yes, Watson is an incredibly smart guy who accomplished a significant piece of work in the 1950s. That is not, however, incompatible with the fact that he’s also a delusional egomaniac bristling with lots of other bad ideas.

to be wiped from history books

False. We don’t throw away significant data or past scientific contributions. Watson and Crick will still be mentioned. Their famous Nature paper will still be cited. You know, one of the most famous developmental biologists of the last century was Hans Spemann, who was a literal Nazi supporter, and we still discuss his science. Watson will remain in the history books, it’s just that after “co-discoverer of DNA structure”, we’ll also add “and notorious racist”. See? More words, not fewer!

bcuz he said IQ differences exist between races

True. He said that. But he went further to make the unfounded claim that the causes were genetic. It’s that overreach (and also his unapologetic misogyny and racist contempt for non-white people) that led to the loss of honors conferred on him.

& he was very sad about that fact.

No, not particularly. He was pretty gleeful about the superiority of his race when I talked to him. He said stuff about how he was regretful that other races were inferior, but that’s about as sincere and persuasive as me saying that I am so sad that Lana Lokteff has her head stuck up her ass. We all know I’m not sad at all.

Cultural Marxist quacks hijacked his work,

When I see someone talking about “Cultural Marxist”, they have just confirmed that they do, indeed, have their head stuck up their ass. “Cultural Marxism” is a fiction.

But no, that’s false, no one has “hijacked” his work. The worthwhile stuff was all published and made freely available to the world. Everyone gets to use the information about DNA. And further, there has been so much work done to further illuminate the structure and function of DNA by others that it’s not really about him anymore.

stab him in the back.

We’ve known about Watson’s distorted and self-serving view of his history since the 1960s, when he laid bare his selfish little soul in The Double Helix. Everyone just said, “That’s Jim”, and let him babble on. Honor after honor was piled on, in spite of the fact that virtually everyone who worked with him knew he was a petty little shit on the subject of race and gender. He got old, rich, and famous. He only finally got slapped down when he made a lecture tour where he rambled about how melanin made black men into horny rape-monsters, which he illustrated with slides of women in bikinis, and declared that Africa was hopeless because everyone there had an IQ below 80. Finally Cold Spring Harbor stepped in because he was embarrassing the institution. The latest motion to strip of him of even his honorary titles was made because he reneged on his promises to stop dragging CSH’s name through the mud (they have a lot to make up for as a center of the eugenics movement in the first half of the last century, so they’re sensitive on this subject).

Rather than being stabbed in the back, I see a recalcitrant old man who was treated with kid gloves for over half a century, by an institution that only reluctantly rescinded his welcome when his petulant, nasty act became too much to bear.

It’s only correct ‘science’ if it is anti-White

Modern science sans Watson is not anti-White, except in the sense that “White” is not a valid scientific construct to be taken seriously. The study of human genetics is not well served by pandering to the hateful notion that some humans aren’t human at all.

Say “motherfucker” once, and the media melts down; but when a representative announces his allegiance to racist white supremacy, it’s business as usual.

I tried to rationalize this. Maybe “motherfucker” is more sound-bitey? But it’s also kind of generic, and lots of people have said far worse about various politicians. And you would think that a politician openly embracing a racist ideology would be far more newsworthy and would inspire a lot more discussion than a profanity, about which you really can’t say a whole lot.

I think it means the media, and our country, takes racism for granted. Add to that fact that Rashida Tlaib’s exclamation was an opportunity to exercise that racism by bashing a brown woman, and I think we’ve got the root cause of the discrepancy thoroughly covered.

And he’s getting worse, taking a big fat dump on his former fans. He’s gone full on Dennis Miller, throwing out bullying conservative crap.

He bemoans how younger people will tell him, in relation to gender identification, that he has to use specific pronouns preferred by the person. They’re like royalty! he said. They tell you what to call them. ‘You should address me as they/them, because I identify as gender-neutral.’ Oh, OK. You should address me as ‘there’ because I identify as a location. And the location is your mother’s cunt.

I listened to a chunk of it, and seeing it written down does not communicate the full awfulness of it. He affects a stereotypical ‘effeminate’ gay voice when he’s stating what those terrible young people are saying. It’s cheesy, low humor that isn’t even creative — people have been making these same stupid pronoun jokes for decades.

The closest he comes to topicality is to complain about the Parkland shooting survivors. How dare they complain about getting shot at? They’re supposed to be in a basement fingering each other and doing jello shots like he did as a teenager.

They testify in front of Congress, these kids? What are they doing?, he said. You’re young, you should be crazy, you should be unhinged, not in a suit… you’re not interesting. Because you went to a high school where kids got shot? Why does that mean I have to listen to you?… You didn’t got shot, you pushed some fat kid in the way, and now I’ve gotta listen to you talking?

Fortunately, I don’t have to listen to Louis CK talking — he’s dead to me. Even if he were to reverse course on this ugly trajectory he’s taking, this trash won’t be forgotten. He’s a conniving opportunist looking for an ever uglier audience to give him money. If you do track down the recording of this set, be prepared to be appalled at the audience — they’re shrieking like happy hyenas at the cheap shots and bigotry.

He might actually succeed, in other words.

It’s sad, too. He had the choice of the hard, slow, slog towards earning redemption, or the fast, cheap, easy path of pandering to deplorables. It’s clear what he has chosen to do.

The truth is, and we’re self-aware enough to admit it, that in the conversation about the paths to a comeback we’re talking about with so many male celebrities, Louis C.K. may have had the easiest one. The work he has created, be it Louie or his stand-up, is so celebrated by liberal, progressive critics that there would likely have been an eager leap to forgiveness had he handled the aftermath with any sort of contrition, education, campaigning or awareness.

Instead, we’ve been greeted by smugness, pettiness, offensiveness, and frustration, the kind that signals nothing learned—when the base level for some of our forgiveness is anything learned—and a pandering to the kind of community that will cheer his ignorance and amplify his message.

He’s had the opportunity to champion a lesson that leads us forward in this conversation. It may not be an opportunity he volunteered for, but he’s now obligated to perform the community service. And he’s not just ditching it. He’s rejecting it completely.

Another harm he has done is that at least some comedians have worked hard to do the respectable work of afflicting the comfortable — of satire as a tool to put authoritarians in their place. He has joined the well-populated ranks of comedians who blame “PC culture” for killing their acts, rather than that punching down is cowardly. We live in an ugly oligarchy/kleptocracy where inequities are everywhere, where there’s no shortage of targets for good satire, where the wealthy are investing in anti-science demagoguery and race-baiting, and if you choose to avoid the obvious and take nothing but cheap shots against oppressed minorities and helpless kids, then you are bringing all of comedy into disrepute.

"Our profession is to shine a light on uncomfortable truths!"

"Really, because from where I'm sitting it looks like you're getting paid to make a bunch of drunk people laugh and maybe get a character actor gig or two."https://t.co/MtLJ5jG47N

— Andrew Otis Weiss (@ThatWeissGuy) December 31, 2018

If you do listen to that Louis CK set, that’s what you’ll hear: he’s “getting paid to make a bunch of drunk people laugh”, like the guy in the audience who, when Louis CK says he’s going to mock the Parkland survivors, yells “FUCK THEM!”

If stand-up comedy is nothing but bigots shilling for homophobia, transphobia, and racism, well then…fuck them.

Wow. Alex McNabb is the personification of the worst smug assholes ever. He’s an EMT who also moonlights on the Daily Shoah, a blatantly racist, anti-semitic, neo-Nazi site, and he makes ‘jokes’ about the black citizens he is supposed to treat, calling them “gorillas”, “dindus”, “Harambe”, etc., and also joked about terrorizing a black child with a large gauge hypodermic needle.

Listen to his excuses:

• There’s no proof he’s a neo-Nazi. He’s spouting neo-Nazi tropes on a neo-Nazi site, but gosh, he’s a complex human being.
• He’s been smeared by the Huffington Post, which is a far-left terrorist organization.
• Free speech. Free speech. Free speech. It’s under assault in this country, don’t you know.
• All the media cares about is their latest witch hunt, because they know it will sell advertising.
• The media says the same stuff about our president that they do about McNabb, therefore they are liars.
• It’s all edgy shock comedy. It’s a joke.
• He’s not a racist, he’s an entertainer, and his audience finds him entertaining. Never mind that it’s a select audience of flaming racists.
• He’s got a bigger audience than the city council member questioning him.

And jesus fuck but he is so damn smug, for a guy mindlessly parroting shitlord noise. He cheerfully admits to making all of these slurs, and just excuses them because he thinks they’re funny, and his audience of assholes think it’s funny.

Also, he works for something called the “JEB Stuart Volunteer Rescue Squad” (or did, he’s an unpaid leave). So the black people in that Virginia county have to rely on emergency services named after a Confederate general? I can see where the problem starts.

It’s the formula for success, I guess. Megyn Kelly has found the recipe. She was bombing — her shows were dying for lack of an audience.

At the time, according to news reports, Lack had already informed Kelly her poorly-rated morning show would not last; her Sunday magazine show, launched last year, had never found an audience and was canceled after only eight installments. Weeks before her blackface gaffe, Kelly was looking for an exit strategy.

An exit strategy…hmmm. What to do. I know! Let’s defend white people wearing blackface on Halloween, on a broadcast show! It’s a totally unsurprising remark from someone who previously insisted that both Santa Claus and Jesus had to be white. And it worked!

Megyn Kelly is reportedly finalizing a $30 million exit deal with NBC and parent company Comcast, Page Six reports. She was ousted from the Today show last month after she defended blackface on national television, triggering outrage from her fellow hosts and the public alike for her comments, which included “I don’t see how [blackface] is racist on Halloween.” “Everyone wants this to be over—both Megyn and NBC—and Comcast has the money to pay off Megyn,” a source told the tabloid. The deal will reportedly close next week. “NBC decided rather than fight and face a lawsuit from her, they—and more importantly Comcast with all its money—decided to draw a line under the entire debacle and pay Megyn the full amount owed in her contract to go away,” another source said. Kelly was reportedly making $23 million a year to host her low-rated program.

Wait, $23 million/year for a failing show? Getting paid $30 million to go away? Those are totally unreal numbers, especially when you consider that she has no particular talent or insight that would make her stand out among all the other people reading teleprompters on cable news.

With $30 million dollars, I would be set up for life. I would rake that money in, set up some diversified investments, and lean back and relax and enjoy my sunset years. Maybe travel more. Read lots of books. Make lots of charitable donations to causes I care about. Set up college funds for my grandchildren.

And all I have to do is make vulgar, insensitive, stupid remarks about people with a different skin color, and white people would rush to support my lifestyle? United States of America goddamn.

It looks like I’m destined to die poor. Sorry, grandchildren.

Everywhere I go, there is news about the missionary who was recently killed on North Sentinel Island, a remote speck in the Indian Ocean. Generally, I agree with the sentiment: the man was a sanctimonious fool who wanted to bring Jesus to a people who have, over the years, made it absolutely clear that they want nothing to do with outsiders. The missionary didn’t even speak their language — no outsiders do! — so how he expected to teach them weird biblical theology is a mystery.

But another theme is that the natives of that island are totally isolated and haven’t had much exchange with Western culture, so it’s not surprising that they reacted barbarically to a naive visitor. As it turns out, that isn’t even close to true: there have been multiple visits, including by a nasty little colonial administrator for the British Empire, who landed on the island in 1880. He was not killed. The inhabitants didn’t automatically start fling spears at strangers. That behavior was learned.

Portman spent most of his time in the greater Andaman Islands, but in 1880, he landed on North Sentinel. The natives fled, and his party ventured inland to find a settlement which had been abandoned in haste.
But they located an elderly couple and a few children they were able to abduct. The couple quickly died, likely from ailments to which they had no immunity.
The children spent a few weeks with Portman doing god knows what, after which he returned them to the island. Portman returned on a couple occasions, but the Sentinelese hid from him each time.
The story related by the children was certainly passed down among the 100 or so inhabitants of the island, and even today, Portman’s fatal kidnapping is just beyond a human lifetime.

They also looted a grounded cargo ship in the 1980s — they now have metal tools. There were visits from anthropologists and Indian government officials, shown in a video at the above link. The inhabitants are a handsome and healthy-looking people, and it’s not clear what we could possibly do to improve their happiness. Bringing them Christianity doesn’t count.

But most importantly, these aren’t some brutal, primitive tribe.

And their aggressiveness is not the mark of savagery. It just that their conception of outsiders is mostly framed by some foot-faced English pervert who murdered some old people and did weird things to their kids. So let’s do them a favor and leave them alone.