Category Archives: Transhuman News

I told this storyin my book. Roughly six months before I broke the income barrier I needed to pave the path to quitting my full-time job, I was dead broke. A weekend of buying my kid a few fish and going to Chik Fil aput my account in the negative.

Even though my side hustles were bringing in money, I had bills up the you know what. Dont care if its politically incorrect. For me, as a man, it felt horrible to feel like I couldnt take care of my family.

Throughout the process of building my career from having to live with my pregnant partners parents to having$10,000 months on auto-pilot, I always knew one thing for certain:

I wasnt going to spend the rest of my life being broke.

Id die first. Literally, I knew in my heart I would die before giving up.

I didnt want to live out the statistics you often see:

I dont look down on people for not having money. In many ways, their lot in life isnt their fault at all.

Society is set up for you to fail. Without question, the gameisrigged. Sometimes I think people dont think I agree with them on that. I do.

You have toescapethis fate, make no mistake about it.

Lets take a look at some of the signs you have a fighting chance to do so.

Complaining about your current position in life is worthless. Have a spine and do something about it instead. Robert Kiyosaki

Nobodylikesbeing broke.

But in order to do the work it takes to become financially flexible, you have tohatebeing broke.

The only people who hate being broke but dont find their way out are the truly destitute. Middle-class people? They just dont want it bad enough. They dont hate the stress of living paycheck to paycheck enough to do anything about it.

I cant tell you how many times Ive projected out a future where I didnt have money and it scared me on a visceral level. Honestly, I was more afraid of being broke than I was inspired to make money.

Why? Because being broke isstressful.

Id have fights with my partner about money, stress about situations like the story I started the post with, and I just observed people who were struggling to get by and I couldnt fathom living the rest of my life like that.

You almost have to have a sense that being broke is beneath you, even though, of course, theres nothing wrong with being broke.

I remember working as a manager at a video store for $10/hr. Id go get tacos and Taco Johns. The sign on the door said hiring$11/hr. I put in all this work to make less than someone making god damned tacos. Nope. Not me. Not forever.

I used to listen to the book, Rich Dad Poor Dad, on repeat when I had to put on the signs for the featured movies out in the parking lot. Plotting. Patient. One day, I wouldnt be broke.

Now? Im not rich, but Im no longer broke. And it was worth all the work.

Let everyone else be content. You? Get pissed.Use that frustration to your advantageso you dont quit.

Earn with your mind, not your time. Naval Ravikant

Even if you have a job right now (which is the smart thing to do while you build your side hustle), you know that its impossible to have real financial flexibility and wealth with a job alone.

Youre putting your energy into something you can scale, something with leverage, something that can provide income for you without your direct work:

Having a sole source of income will leave you in a perpetual loop of middle class living at best.

See, its not just the risk,yes risk, of having a sole source of income thats the problem, but also thecounterproductive culturemost wage earners ascribe to:

Its a nasty trap.

If you want wealth, flexibility, whatever you call it, you need your money or effort to go to workfor youat some point.

But how do you put in the work required to build these asset vehicles?

Simple.

The thing about wealth pursuits? Theyre slow. Super slow.

Not only that, but you make little to no money in the beginning.

I talk about this all the time on myYouTube channel. I should just rename it exponential growth.

All the great things in life compound:

Warren Buffet didnt become a billionaireuntil he was in his60s. Those last 30 years or so of compounding took him to insane wealth.

Getting compounding to work is psychologically difficult:

I dont have the exact number, but five years is my educated guess.

If you tinkered around with some form of business, freelancing, or investing for five years without quitting, something good will happen.

Youre Humble Enough to be a Student of Life

Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Day by day, and at the end of the day if you live long enough-like most people, you will get out of life what you deserve. Charlie Munger

Ironically, broke people seem to be the most certain of everything. I recently watched an interview with Munger. What stood out most? Every time he wasnt certain or near certain of an answer, he immediately defaulted to saying I dont know.

Wealthy people are often much more intellectually humble than middle-class people. They have coaches, mentors, advisers, teams. They constantly soak in new information and never think they have everything figured out.

Watch this interview withDiddy and Ray Dalio.

Diddy, who has a net worth in the hundreds of millions, asks Dalio, his mentor, advice with a sincere level of humility. Diddy doesnt have to listen to anybody and he could blow money until the day he dies, yet he treats knowledge with a level of respect most content with what they have types cant fathom.

The only thing between most people and more money is knowledge.

Theres no grand conspiracy keeping you broke. Its definitely not the fault of billionaires. If you dont have money, its because you dont understand money. If you dont understand money, then learn how to understand it. Simple.

Just this week Ive started to devour information about:

Im going to eventually move all of this knowledge into my circle of competence.

I dont know much about any of the above, but Ill learn. Just like I learned to make money on the internet with no prior experience and become a professional writer with no writing degree.

How? I read hundreds of books, watched thousands of hours of video, and practiced every day for five years.

Back to the point of time commitment. Spending a decade learning this stuff isnt a problem for me. Why? Because I like to learn and I know that learningcompounds.

If youre willing to learn books, podcasts, courses, YouTube videos you can figure all of this out.

Free education is abundant, all over the Internet. Its thedesire to learnthatsscarce. Naval Ravikant

I dont understand how people who own smartphones with access to YouTube say they have no access to resources. B.S. YouTube is a goldmine most people use it wrong.

At some point, you just have to admit youre being lazy andstop.

In the information age, there are no excuses.

Wake up! No one is going to save you. No one is going to take care of your family or your retirement. And no one is going to make things work out for you. The only way to do so is to utilize every moment of every day at 10X levels. Grant Cardone

If youre good at math, you just know you need a lot of money. Yes, need.

You need millions of dollars to retire on time and successfully. Add in your kids and their financial future, the ability to have amazing experiences like travel, and the time to enjoy your life without needing to work all the time, and youll understand that making money is the only logical option.

Just look around and the way people live. The stress. You need more money than you have right now. More importantly, you need more flexibility and income-earning assets than you have right now.

If youre young like me (30), dont waste any more of your time. I can only imagine what it would feel like to be middle-aged or old with no money saved.

With a modest salary of $50,000 over a full work-life of say, 50 years (2272),you will have made $2,500,000. To make all of that money and end up with little to none of it seems soul-crushingly sad and insane, but it happens. Thinking about it makes me sick.

See, its these people who claim to not care about money who care about it the most. They fuck up the math. They keep up with the Joneses their whole lives and level up their lifestyle as their income increases, piling up debt along the way.

Be smart.

Look at the math it takes to be successful and create a plan. Earn more money and keep your living expenses low. Thats the recipe. Im greedy, but I drive a $2,500 car and live in a $1,300 two-bedroom while people who make less than me drive BMWs and have giant homes.

Ive done the math. Im fine to appear broke for this decade to be wealthy by the next one.

As Marshawn Lynch, who famously spent none of his NFL contract money and lived only off endorsements, said:

Take care of yo chicken.

Let the content people stay blind to financial literacy. Wait them out. Theyll see soon enough.

Stay humble, grind, reinvest in yourself.

Itll all work out.

Ayodeji is the author ofReal Help: An Honest Guide to Self-Improvement. Want a free copy of my first book?Get it here.

Original post:
5 signs you're going to make (a lot) more money in the future - Ladders

Family watching television, circa 1958(Evert F. Baumgardner, National Archives and Records Administration/Wikimedia)

Welcome to The Tuesday, my new newsletter. I decided to call itThe Tuesday because I wanted to kind of bake the deadline into the cake and keep this thing on a more regular schedule than Mad Dogs & Englishmen.

In case you missed it, you might enjoy my National Review magazine article on the Aspen housing market, part of a three-story package on American housing and why it is or at least seems so expensive. An excerpt:

The bus stops in front of a house that is for sale not a time-share or a condo but an honest-to-goodness free-standing house, albeit a two-bedroom, one-bath affair that is less than 1,000 square feet. It is listed at . . .$3 million, making it one of the cheapest houses on the market in Aspen. The houses for sale within a few blocks range from $6 million to $31.5 million. One-bedroom condos commonly command a million bucks.

And that is why a family earning nearly $300,000 a year with just under $1 million in assets enough to put it well into the nations 98th income percentile is, in this absurd and absurdly beautiful place, eligible for housing assistance.

Aspen is a city that needs more affordable housing for millionaires.

In the same issue, you can also read Michael Gibson on theBay Areas housing problemsand Kevin Erdmann on The Unbuildable American Home.

Here is my review of Ezra Kleins new book inCommentary, in which I report that the volume contains some interesting social science (choosing sides seems, even for not-obviously-rational reasons, to be deeply imprinted in our DNA) but that Kleins analysis is predictable, unimaginative, and mostly wrong. Look for my review of Eleanor Randolphs excellentThe Many Lives of Michael Bloombergin the forthcoming issue ofPhilanthropy, which published my review ofWinners Take Allin the fall of 2018.And here is my latest in theNew York Post, on Bernie Bros and their blacklisting campaign.

From the archives a few things Ive been up to in the past year or so: An interview inNeue Zrcher Zeitung,which is fun for a Helvetiphile such as myself. (The article is in German.) Heres me being a littleoverexcited on the Bill Maher show. Here is that nice young man Ben Shapiroreviewing my most recent book,The Smallest Minority, inCommentary. And here is a fun essay I wrote for theWall Street Journaltrying to figure out what to think about a man judging him by the books on his shelves.

My National Review archive can be found here.

MyNew York Postarchive can be foundhere.

My Amazon page ishere. You may not have seen:Livro Politicamente Incorreto da Esquerda e do Socialismo (Em Portugues do Brasil).No, I dont really know why, either. I didnt know this existed until I started seeing ads for it on social media. Apparently, theres a Korean version, too, but Ive never seen it. The originalPolitically Incorrect Guide to Socialismremains horrifyingly relevant.

My sense of timing is, sometimes, pretty terrible. I decided to start writing more about language right at the same time the great Bryan A. Garner (author ofGarners Modern English UsageandThe Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation, and editor in chief ofBlacks Law Dictionary) began writing about language for National Review:See his wonderful essay on the evolution of they.But Im going to do it, anyway.

This weeks bugaboo: advocate for. Do not write this. The for is already there:advocate=ad vocare, to speak to or to speak for or to call for. Grover Norquistadvocatestax cuts; he does not advocatefortax cuts. Advocate for is a redundancy, like ATM machine or dirty hippie. The question here isnt so much Is it wrong? but Is it ugly and stupid?

Please send your language questions or remarks to thetuesday@nationalreview.com.

Some jabroni atSalonwrites: With William Barr at the Justice Department and Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court and Senate Republicans voting in lockstep with Mitch McConnell, living in Donald Trumps America feels like the South won the Civil War.

That is a very peculiar claim.

Bill Barr, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch are men of Irish Catholic background hailing from New York City, D.C., and Denver, respectively: citadels of establishment liberalism, not centers of Confederate revanchism. Gorsuch comes from a prominent Colorado family but moved to the D.C. suburbs for prep school and spent most of his life there; moving away to prep school is not one of the traditional rituals of Southern life. The attorney general is the Manhattan-born son of a Jewish convert to Catholicism who was headmaster at Dalton not an obvious candidate for General Lees army. Barr went to Columbia and GW Law; Kavanaugh, Yale and Yale Law; Gorsuch, Columbia and Harvard Law. None of these is a hotbed of neo-Confederate sentiment.

Senator McConnell comes from Kentucky, which would have been inconvenienced by a Confederate victory in the Civil War, since it was not part of the Confederacy.

Donald Trump is from Queens, but he apparently thinksGone with the Windwas a good movie. If you happen to find yourself in Austin, at the University of Texas, you can see the dress Scarlett made from the draperies at the Harry Ransom Center.

South, in the minds of some progressives, now simply means evil. I suppose we are meant to believe that these men are secret admirers of chattel slavery, which is, of course, preposterous.

Funny thing about Barr and Kavanaugh et al. There are two prominent groups of Americans who believe that there are too many Catholics in public life progressives, who complain that there are too many Catholics in the courts, and the Ku Klux Klan. Perhaps it is not Bill Barr of New York City whose heart beats in a southerly way.

Taking the South as a kind of shorthand for reactionary tendencies in American life is silly and illiterate. But people who write those kinds of sentences might just barely have a point. The more intelligent version of that notion is the idea that some kinds of nostalgia bring with them an odor of repression, that white men who are nostalgic for the 1950s or the 19th century or the 15th century (this is a National Review newsletter) might be accused at the very least of being insufficiently attentive to the daily abuse and humiliation (and worse) visited upon African Americans, women, homosexuals, and others during those good ol days. Thats part of what it is about Make America Great Again that creeps out a lot of people.

Of course, it is entirely possible to indulge wistful and romantic attachments to agrarian life in antebellum Georgia, or to frontier life in the Old West, or to Hoover-era or Eisenhower-era small-town America while simultaneously appreciating that slavery was a genuine horror, that Indian massacres were crimes against humanity, that Jim Crow was an intolerable wrong, that life in the 1950s and now was marked by petty bigotry, recreational cruelty on the part of the powerful, sexual exploitation of vulnerable women, etc. Mentally and emotionally normal adults if you can find them are able to walk and chew psychological gum at the same time.

The same dynamic shapes our conversation about race. There are a great many white people, and conservative-leaning people of all races, who are inclined to say: Things are a lot better now than they were in the 1960s, and racism in the United States is nothing compared to racism in a lot of other places. And thats true. But what a lot of people hear in that is, Why cant you shut up and stop complaining? And they arent wrong to object to implicit chiding. You will encounter much more open, plain, and rancid racism in other countries than you normally do in the United States, where racism of the plain kind isdclassin addition to being sincerely rejected by most people. And the United States of, say, 1970 is very much a foreign country, racially. But at the same time, life remains radically different for white and black Americans. African Americans remain much more likely to end up poor, imprisoned, or sent to an early grave, and if many black Americans are not especially eager to endure homilies on how much progress we have made or how much worse things are in Brazil, it is difficult to fault them for that, just as it is difficult to fault them for being suspicious about the nostalgia of white men.

Nostalgia in politics is a poison. Right-wing anti-capitalists such as my friends Tucker Carlson and Michael Brendan Dougherty are at heart, I think, nostalgists, attached to an idea a fiction about middle-class and blue-collar life in the postwar era. But asYuval Levin and others have persuasively argued, many figures on the Left are nostalgists of the same kind and nostalgic for the same years: the post-war years. They simply attribute the golden character of those years to different things. Conservatives see the 1950s as a time of social and political conservatism, booming business, and American confidence; Bernie Sanders et al. remember those years as the apex of the American labor unions, a time of high tax rates on the wealthy, an expanding welfare state as the New Deal gave rise to the Great Society, etc.

We are the spoilt brats of history. It is true, as I and my colleagues document in the current issue of National Review, that housing has become very expensive in many parts of the country, often for reasons of artificial scarcity. At the same time, I wince a little when I hear men of my generation, or men in their thirties, complaining that their grandparents were able to easily buy a house when they were in their twenties, but that they cannot do the same. In truth, you can buy my grandparents house, or one very much like it, for almost nothing. But none of us wants to live in a 700-square-foot house in Borger, Texas, with no air-conditioning and one bathroom. That 1950s standard of living some of my right-wing friends claim to covet can be had and it can be hadcheap. What cannot be had is the culture and social life of the Eisenhower era. But if it could would you really want it? The iPhone in your hand suggests to me that the answer is not so obvious.

Also: Some of my conservative friends who are always looking to disprove evolution spend their free time researching carbon-dating methodology or the configuration of the optic nerves in domestic chickens, looking for evidence that evolution is false. I would bring to their attention the fact that theSalonjabroni mentioned above is, if his biography is to be believed, the great, great, great, great grandson of Thomas Jefferson.

Today is Mardi Gras, which used to be a Southern Catholic thing (and, hence, a New Orleans thing) but now has joined Halloween on the list of American holidays that are simply a pretext for adults to dress like clowns and get drunk. I am not one to complain about cultural appropriation, but Mardi Gras really does not make any sense without Ash Wednesday and Lent. It may be that the more austere penitential Christian observances simply suit my non-demonstrative personality better than does dancing in the street, but I welcome the quiet of this season.

Winston Churchill, hearing Clement Atlee praised for his modesty, supposedly grumbled, Hehasa great deal to bemodest about. Perhaps Lent is less interesting for those who do not have a great deal to repent of or to atone for. For me, Lent could be twice as long it could be all year. I have a good friend who is a Presbyterian pastor, and he is devoted to Spurgeons devotional. Spurgeon makes good reading: By perseverance, he writes, the snail reached the ark. I identify with that snail. Spurgeon, a man of the 19th century, never got to meet the prophet Tom Waits, who sang, Were chained to the world, and we all gotta pull. Somewhere between those two poles, I think, one might catch a glimpse of the truth.

Until Tuesday,

Kevin D. Williamson

Originally posted here:
The Poison of Nostalgia - National Review

24/02/2020 - BERLINALE 2020: We sat down with Mikael Wulff and Anders Morgenthaler to talk about Monty and the Street Party and their dramatic change in direction

Published daily in newspapers around the world, the Wulffmorgenthaler comic strip is easily identifiable through its distinctive look and its highly off-colour and decidedly politically incorrect humour. Retaining the look but toning down the cheekiness slightly, the two creators have now ventured into the childrens and family genre, presenting the animated feature Monty and the Street Party[+see also: filmreviewtrailerinterview: Mikael Wulff and Anders Morfilmprofile] in the Generation section of the 2020 Berlinale.

Cineuropa: A family film? Readers of your comic strip may be surprised...Mikael Wulff: Actually, Peter Aalbek Jensen at Zentropa proposed an animated feature to us, featuring our usual raunchy stuff. No thanks, we said, but we would be happy to do a family film. By then, we had toned down some of the worst things already, which we did when we got American syndication. But we still wanted to be wild and crazy and silly and imaginative and unpredictable, and in a way that others cant. But this time around, we wanted to do something Well, almost edifying.

Anders Morgenthaler: The regular WuMo thing would be to kill Montys parents and give him some kind of tumour at the end, but not this time around. That said, we still think we have a fresh approach. I mean, how many Pixar or Disney films are there where the main characters parents are getting a divorce and where you get to laugh all the way through? We have drawn inspiration from Scandinavian authors like Astrid Lindgren and Ole Lund Kirkegaard, who could make something entertaining out of a serious theme.

This Northern tradition is rightly held in high esteem internationally, not least by the Berlinale youth film programme, and has been throughout the years. Why do you think that is?AM: I recently read a good piece on Danish childrens films and television, and realised that our position is unique. What we do does not look like anything else. There are no didactic fingers raised whatsoever: we have made some really incorrect and risqu things at times in our corner of the world and its all good. I think thats part of the secret.

The film has thus far only screened in Denmark. How was the reception?AM: Well, a number of children have said that its the first time that they have sat and laughed at a film with a divorce theme and at least half of them have already been through one in real life. The film has sold 175,000 tickets, only in theatres. And lets see what happens here in Berlin

How long have the two of you known each other now?MW: A little over 20 years. We were asked to create animated sequences for a television talk show. I did stand-up comedy, and Anders went to film school. Someone put us together, which turned out to be a great idea. We were very anarchic, very offbeat. Then we submitted a couple of comic strips for a competition held by the Politiken daily using a female pseudonym and we won. Part of the award was that we got to do a month of daily strips for them, which later turned into a steady gig. Technically, I write and Anders draws, but in reality, our ideas go back and forth. We still have fun.

How many countries are you now published in? And could you practically retire on what you make from it?AM: Im not quite sure. Our American agent sells it all over the place. Were in a lot of American papers and on many websites; were in Spanish and in the Bangkok Post in Thailand Easily 200-300 different windows, some big and some small.

MW: As for financial security, not really, although everyone tends to think so. You dont make that much. But we do get some okay money from time to time.

Is there a second Monty story in the works?AW: There is. There are three films in the pipeline, as we like the serial format. The second is called Monty and His Strange Brain, and here, Monty gets a diagnosis and is home-schooled by his mother. We hope to get it out in 2022. Its pretty wild.

See original here:
Mikael Wulff and Anders Morgenthaler Directors of Monty and the Street Party - Cineuropa

The 2020 presidential race has got the Democratic Party, the oldest political party in the world, twisted in knots. Its basic character and enduring values its political DNA which have enabled it to rebound from multiple political disasters, may be producing another disaster this year.

Consider the Democrats concept of fairness in representation. The partys delegate allocation rules, not just this cycle but going back years, favor proportionate representation.

This comes naturally to a party that has always been a coalition of out-groups, of segments of Americas always-diverse population that can form a majority when they stick together.

This can be carried to extremes. From its second national convention in 1836 up through 1932, the Democratic Party required its presidential nominees to win a two-thirds supermajority of delegates. That gave each of its various subgroups segregationist Southerners, big-city Catholic immigrants an effective veto over the choice of nominee.

Republicans, a party always centered on a core constituency of people thought of as typical Americans but who are not by themselves a majority, have a different concept of fairness: winner take all. Theyve always given near-unanimous support for a Republican president, even a Republican as initially unconventional as Donald Trump.

Four years ago, winner-take-all delegate allocation enabled the party interloper Trump to go from amassing less-than-50% primary victories to a nearly insuperable delegate lead, even before he got his first 50%-plus win in New York on April 19.

That will be harder for Democratic Party interloper Bernie Sanders. National polling shows him leading with 28% of the vote, but with four other candidates Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg not too far behind with 10% to 18%. Others Tom Steyer, Amy Klobuchar reach that level in polling in soon-to-vote Nevada and South Carolina. Proportionate representation could give each a bunch of delegates.

But theres a catch. Democratic rules tend to require candidates to get 15% to get any delegates at all. That makes sense when there are just two or three serious candidates. But when there are five or six, a poll leader like Sanders might be the only candidate to get 15% and win delegates. Possible result: a Sanders leading in delegates but far below 50%.

Its no secret that Democratic Party leaders and their confreres at MSNBC and CNN consider Sanders a disastrous nominee and are searching for someone else. Unfortunately, at that point they come up against the Democrats traditional professions of abhorring money in politics.

Republicans were never embarrassed by their partys fundraising advantages in the early and mid-20th century. Democrats are embarrassed to the point of denial at their partys fundraising prowess over the past 30 years. They continue to denounce the Supreme Courts 2010 Citizens United decision, which overturned limits on corporate political spending, even though studies have shown its had zero impact.

Democrats still love to see themselves as representing the little guy against the big corporations. But in this century, their presidential nominees have outraised and outspent their Republican opponents, and theyve been running ahead of Republicans in the highest income groups.

Yet as Democratic pols and pundits search for someone to stop Bernie Sanders, whom do they alight on? Not Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren, whose support has been visibly waning. Probably not on Pete Buttigieg, whos struggling to win any perceptible support from blacks, or Amy Klobuchar, whose support seems confined to white college grads.

Instead theyre looking to Michael Bloomberg, with his $56 billion fortune. Over the past several weeks, he has passed some $400 million in campaign expenditures the same amount former President Barack Obamas reelection campaign spent over two years.

Bloomberg wasnt on the ballot in Iowa or New Hampshire and isnt in Nevada or South Carolina. But his heavy spending has made him competitive in big states like California and Florida, where no opponent can come close to matching his ad buys.

Even before he has won a single delegate, his backers are calling on other candidates to drop out so he can take on Sanders one on one. But this isnt going to happen at least until after Super Tuesday (March 3), and maybe not then.

In the meantime, Bloomberg may be roadblocking the paths upward for Buttigieg or Klobuchar (or back upward for Warren or Biden), while revelations of his politically incorrect and, in some cases, repellent past utterances may impede his own rise. Which would leave things open for Sanders, who is beating the other Democrats in Yahoo News/YouGovs one-on-one pairings? Feel the Bern?

Michael Barone is a senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.

See the original post:
Barone: Democrats' DNA makes them feel the Bern - Daily Herald

Carnival 2020 hits full tilt in the Baton Rouge area this weekend, the final one leading up to Mardi Gras.

Whether you decide to catch the family-style Southdowns Parade on Friday night, take in the adult-themed Spanish Town Parade on Saturday, or head over to the west side for Good Friends or Comogo on Sunday, be safe out there, be respectful of others, and, as Wayne and Garth would say, party on!

There are also two parades in New Roads on Tuesday, wrapping up the revelry before the sun rises on Ash Wednesday.

Here's what you need to know (and a little extra) about each parade:

Krewe of Southdowns, 7 p.m. Friday, starting at Glasgow Middle School and ending at Acadian-Perkins Shopping Center. Children and pets welcome.

Fun facts: The Southdowns Flambeaux, flickering torches in hand, always lead the neighborhood parade, which first took to the streets in 1988.

More info: southdowns.org

Spanish Town, noon Saturday, starting on Spanish Town Road and ending on River Road. This year's theme is "Hiney Sight is 2020." The partying starts at breakfast for this saucy, politically incorrect bunch, so if you're bringing the kids, there's an alcohol-free family zone on the north side of Convention Street between 5th and 7th streets.

Fun facts: The residents of Baton Rouge's oldest neighborhood began parading in 1981. Parades from 1982 on have featured a theme, the first being "Everyman a King." And their mascot the pink flamingo.

More info: spanishtownmardigras.com

Krewe of Good Friends of the Oaks,1 p.m. Sunday, beginning and ending at the corner of the La. 1 Service Road and Oaks Avenue in Port Allen. Good Friends is rolling for the 36th year, with the theme"Wild Kingdom."

Fun facts:Residents of The Oaks subdivisionestablished the krewe in 1985. Want to join the krewe? You must live between the boundaries of Avenue A to Oaks Avenue and La. 1 to River Road.

More info: kreweofgoodfriendsoftheoaks.com

Krewe of Comogo, 7 p.m. Sunday, beginning at Court and Eden streets and ending on J. Gerald Berret Blvd., downtown Plaquemine. The krewe was formed in 2013 in memory of Brenda Comeaux.

Fun facts: Comeaux loved Mardi Gras, was involved with the Krewe of Okeanos, and was also the first woman co-ball captain of Krewe du Roi in 1988 and again in 1995. Shealways dreamed of starting a parade krewe in Plaquemine.

More info: kreweofcomogo.org

Community Center of Pointe Coupee, 11 a.m. Tuesday, starting and ending at the Community Center, New Roads. This year's theme is "At the Movies."

Fun facts: Founded in 1922, this is the third oldest Mardi Gras parade in Louisiana.

More info: facebook.com/ccofpcmardigras

New Roads Lions Club, 2 p.m. Tuesday, starting and ending at Park Avenue, New Roads. This year's theme is "Movies Made in Louisiana."

Fun facts: This is the state's oldest Mardi Gras celebration outside of New Orleans. The town's population is 6,000, but on Fat Tuesday, as many as 100,000 parade-goers converge on the town.

More info:facebook.com/New-Roads-Mardi-Gras

Read the original here:
Mardi Gras in Baton Rouge: See details on the last parades to roll in 2020 - The Advocate

Actor James Woods and Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) came to national prominence two utterly different ways but both have found themselves in recent years thriving in the same space, social media. Both men have became must-follows for conservatives online and, since Woods made his big return to Twitter a few weeks ago, the two conservatives have been drawing attention at times to each others posts.

With socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) increasingly looking like the prohibitive favorite to take the Democratic nomination, Woods and Cruz have weighed in recently on Sanders and what his rise means about the direction of the Democratic Party, and the two conservative voices have found a lot of common ground.

In response to former Democratic candidate Andrew Yang telling CNN, as Sanders was cruising to victory in Nevada over the weekend, that the Democratic Party is no longer the party of the working class, Cruz agreed and expanded on Yangs premise.

Yang is right: This is the most fundamental political shift of the past decade, Cruz tweeted. The Democratic Party has abandoned the working class, has abandoned union members, and the GOP has become the blue-collar party of jobs.

Woods, in turn, noticed Cruzs tweet, likewise agreed with the premise, and offered his own, less senatorial and a little more dramatized take on the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party has been hijacked by screeching socialists, ranting intersectionalists, whatever they hell they are, and masked Antifa street thugs, he wrote. Republicans stand for jobs, borders, and national security. The Democratic Party is a vampirized husk, gone forever.

Cruz, who eventually retweeted Woods response,followed up his abandoned the working class post by highlighting Sanders anti-Israel stance, pointing his readers to Mark Levins highlighting of an article presenting eight of the candidates anti-Israel outrages.

This is the Democratic front runner, wrote Cruz.

Cruz, a Cuban-American, then addressed Sanders most recent praise of a dictatorial communist regime, his defense of murderous Cuban communist dictator Fidel Castro. Were very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba but its unfair to say everythings bad, Sanders told 60 Minutes on Sunday. When Castro came into office you know what he did? He had a literacy program.

It really makes a difference when those you murder at the firing squad can read & write, Cruz replied.

Woods likewise continued to offer commentary over the weekend about Sanders. After his Cruz-retweeted post, Woodsblasted out an even more politically incorrect summary of the current state of the commie curmudgeon-supporting party he once backed.

The election of [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez], [Rashida Tlaib], and [Ilhan Omar]was a perfect storm that destroyed the Democratic Party, the actor wrote (posts below). Nancy Pelosi rolled over for them like a two dollar hooker, and the Democrats are now stuck with a commie curmudgeon screaming at billionaire boogeymen under his bed.

He followed up that post with a mocking image of Commie Bernie holding up a baby version of his most prominent advocate, Ocasio-Cortez, gleefully waving a Soviet flag.

As for Sanders fellow democratic socialists, Woods had this to say about Ocasio-Cortez in a subsequent tweet: Whats critical to remember about democracy is that stupid people also get to vote. Whats dangerous about that is that stupid people feel comfortable when they vote for other stupid people. Its a vicious circle.

Later, a Sanders tweet offered Woods a chance to sum up what he suggested was the fundamental flaw of the senators socialist policies.

What would free, quality child care and pre-K mean for you and your family? Sanders tweeted.

More taxes, Woods replied.

Woods continued to voice his complaints about the Democratic Party on Monday. In response to somebody announcing online that they were leaving the Democratic Party, Woods took a moment to explain his rationale for doing the same some years back.

I was a Democrat my whole life, he wrote Monday morning. The party in my youth stood for strong national defense, jobs for the working American, strong borders, the sanctity of human life, and equal rights. I never left the Democratic Party. It left me. And you. Welcome to sanity.

Related:Democrat Congresswoman Of Cuban Descent Rips Bernie After Castro Defense: Absolutely Unacceptable

Related:Sanders Praises Fidel Castro; Kaepernick Did Same Thing; WATCH How Miami Fans Responded

Original post:
James Woods, Ted Cruz Team Up To Take Down Sanders - The Daily Wire

2020 has not been a good year for Wendy Williams. In the short time since the new year has started, Williams has come under fire three times for controversial things she said on her talk show, The Wendy Williams Show. First she made fun of Joker star Joaquin Phoenixs cleft palate scar, then she said gay men shouldnt wear womens clothes, and the one she has yet to apologize for, a gruesome joke about Price Is Right host Drew Careys ex-fiancs murder.

Williams is no stranger to controversy. She got her start as a radio shock jockette, with all the trappings that came with it. Williams forte was outrageous, politically incorrect opinions, often at the expense of the celebrities she covered. When she first joined the daytime talk show circuit, it seemed like Williams had toned down her old shock jock tendencies. Those old habits are making a comeback in 2020, and audiences arent as charmed as they once were by them.

First came Williams comments about Phoenixs facial scar. On her show, she pulled at her lip, obviously mocking the actor. This mean affectation didnt go unnoticed and many called on the talk show host to apologize, including Cher, who tweeted images of herself visiting children with cleft palates. Theres even a petition to have Williams fired for her comment. Williams later apologized on Twitter and announced that the show would donate to two charities that helped those afflicted with the condition.

On Galentines Day, the unofficial holiday the day before Valentines Day in which women celebrate their friendships, Williams incited more outrage. She went on a tangent about why men shouldnt celebrate the informal holiday before zeroing in on gay men specifically. And stop wearing our skirts and our heels, she demanded. Just sayin girls, what do we have for ourselves? Though the audience applauded, the backlash online was swift and severe and once again, Williams issued an apology through social media.

One incident Williams has yet to apologize for are her comments that directly followed the news about Amie Harwicks tragic murder. Harwick was pushed from a third-story balcony by her ex-boyfriend. Come on down! Williams smirked at the audience, in a clear reference to not only the gruesome way Harwick was killed, but a ghoulish reference to Harwicks grieving ex-fianc, Drew Carey.

Though Williams involves herself in enough drama all on her own, tabloids still insist on coming up with new and inventive stories to tell about her, all false, of course. In 2019, the blog Naughty Gossip claimed Williams was afraid Nick Cannon was trying to steal her talk show. Gossip Cop checked in with a source close to Cannon, who assured us this story couldnt be further from the truth. When someone courts scandal as much as Williams, its pointless to make up stories.

See the article here:
Wendy Williams Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Year - Gossip Cop

However, without scandals has not managed. So, a March in the Belgian town of Aalst came under a barrage of criticism for parody of Orthodox Jews organizers accused of anti-Semitism, the city Council is already laying claims. At the time, as some need to reconsider the acceptable dress code for holiday, others lament that political correctness erodes laugh culture, which was so proud of Europe.

Among the targets of the carnival of satire be some kind of sacred cow

because of the accusations of nationalism, the celebration of 600 years of history in the past year were excluded from the list of world intangible cultural heritage of UNESCO. The newly rising political storm in Aalst has split not only our countrymen, but, as is often the case with Belgium, the whole country. The mayor, Christoph DEze, who plays for the independence of Flanders, declared that is not going to become the mayor of censorship. This parade charged social themes that are exhibited in a humorous way. I dont want to tell people something they laugh. Aalst grant the right to remain who you are, snapped the mayor, who, incidentally, quietly refers to the parodies of him.

the Holiday has changed: whats wrong with the Brazilian carnival

what is acceptable and What is unacceptable in carnivals, actively discussed and in neighboring Germany. Radio station Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk reminds us that formal law only prohibits unconstitutional Nazi or extremist symbols. In other words, it is impossible to change into Hitler or bin Laden. However, there are other unwritten restrictions. Now it is considered indecent to paint the face with wax, wrapped in leopard skin with bone beads and even make cornrows. Or come dressed as Indians with feathers by the way, they recently banned in kindergartens Erfurt and Hamburg. About an official ban, I have not heard, but the last time we really try to avoid politically incorrect outfits under the Africans or, for example, Mexicans, has confirmed RG one of the participants of the Cologne carnival.

furthermore, among the targets of the carnival of satire be some kind of sacred cow. If Cologne entertainers found nothing wrong with that, to depict Angela Merkel in the form of a spider a black widow devouring political opponents, then laugh over the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg was nekomilfo. Showing her giant doll embodies a rather pathetic image of the girl-a prophet with uplifted to the sky hands holding the ear of lilliput from generation of parents. Greta is another story. Just because you can not say that do not take it seriously, says compatriot Tatiana, many years living and working in dsseldorf. Can not understand. That is censorship at all, but somehow shes a little bit there.

Medieval monks wrote parodies

As a born carnival tradition in Europe, what is possible and what was impossible to laugh at the participants of the mock processions, RG said culture expert, co-author of the book Suffering middle Ages: the Paradoxes of Christian iconography Sergey Zotov:

Where it all has went European carnivals?

Sergey Zotov: Medieval carnivals appeared quite early, they were born from the Church, liturgical views that are initially held right in the Church. It was that kind of plays on biblical themes, they are very fond of simple lay people who have never opened the Scriptures, but really wanted to submit as it was described in the event. Was simple scenes such as Moses climbs mount Sinai and receives the tablets of the Covenant. Moses could decorate the sacredICA, but could a guest actor. But gradually there was a growing indignation at the fact that sacrality is so boldly violated by plays for the common people. Already in the 13th and 14th centuries, the theologians write, that, say, they need to be banned. So under the strong pressure of the submission brought to the street.

In Venice because of an outbreak of coronavirus canceled carnival

what about the famous feast of fools?

Sergey Zotov: This phenomenon, which wrote Bakhtin, is also widely known. It is believed that it dates back almost to the Roman Saturnalia, when the commoners at least one day freed from the shackles of laws that weigh on them, and the world was turned on its head. In the Middle ages people once a year could forbidding to ridicule the Church. Conducted a mock service, which looked quite provocative. For example, a special Pope was dressed as a donkey. From the 15th century such action was officially banned. Meanwhile, the parodies were born within the monastery walls have survived many mehovih of sermons and prayers, for example, when the monks are asked to send them a lot of alcohol and joyfully preparing it to drink. It was a mockery not over God, but over some elements vnutrisustavno the routine of life, and in such humor her there was nothing blasphemous.

Sort of the skits?

Sergey Zotov: You could say that. Another thing is that they call criticism. However, the broad carnival tradition has never been interrupted constantly held fairs, festivals, accompanied by costumed parades. It was one of the few ways of mass entertainment, which could involve people of all ages and social strata. These processions and laid the basis Carnavalin the modern Europe.

That is some taboo images, themes still have ?

Sergey Zotov: We see that a certain frame, taboos still existed then, and now just for the history they were transformed. So, spectroanalyt medieval culture was allowed to laugh at the enemies by the Turks who in the imagination of Europeans often not imagined by human beings. In Germany almost every town has preserved historical names of streets, houses, pharmacies, derived from the word moor. They have now become politically incorrect, and in the country there are discussions about how decent these signs. Similarly, the Germans began to abandon some of the images that now seem they themselves are not funny.

a View from Brazil

Almost all the countries in the Latin American region at this time of the year covered by carnival extravaganza. The Grand carnival in Rio de Janeiro in addition to paints, dancing and fun is almost always accompanied by controversy. Samba school, Sapuca sambodrome on defiliruya often include in their statements certain elements appealing to the current political or socio-economic situation. And it can be a ironic, mocking sketches, and quite tragic, thoughtful images. According to school officials, any censorship on the part no, there is only common sense. But this does not mean that everything is permitted, especially on such a large broadcast to the entire world event.

At the carnival in Germany, the car drove into a crowd

According to Brazilian experts, in recent years, the main carnival censor become social networks. If before insulting or abusive way may have gone unnoticed, but today a photo or video instantly spread across the network. Therefore, the participants of processions, in order not to fall under a barrage of criticism, trying to responsibly choose not outdated or out of context of the time look. For example, no one paints the face in black or red color in an attempt to portray brought from Africa as a slave or a local Indian. Also almost gone out of fashion politically incorrect now but very popular in the last century music, where the lyrics featured references to racial, cultural and national differences. Such control on the part of users, in addition to positive aspects, it also carries negative. So says Brazilian historian and composer Luis SIMAS, pointing to the danger of total political correctness, inevitably leading to the already-present censorship. Carnival is a celebration of inversion, where each may appear desirable manner, adopting the personality of this character. Of course, there are issues that should be treated with attention, but we must be very careful in banning topics related to our cultural and historical identity, sure SIMAS.

Prepared by Alexey Churikov

More:
How does the culture of street festivals in Europe - The KXAN 36 News

Do you frequentlyneed someone to defend you because you've made "politically incorrect" (racist, sexist or homophobic) jokes online and your children are threatening to emancipate themselves?

Are you afraid of what "cancel culture" means for you - a person who is unlikely to ever be "cancelled" due to not actually being a public figure?

Well we've got just the thing for you.

Journalist and professional contrarian Toby Young has announced he is now the general secretary of something he calls the Free Speech Union and he's charging near 50 a year for the privilege of joining it.

Unfortunately we cannot tell you how the union describes itself, because our work computers think its official website is a security risk.

But the general idea is that the Free Speech Union will defend you from no-platforming, cancellation - all that fancy modern stuff.

Announcing the scheme with a Twitter video, Young says: "We can't continue to appease the enemies of free speech.

"As Churchill said, an appeaser is someone who keeps feeding the crocodile in the hope it will eat them last.

"Many good men and women died fighting for our right to speak our mind and exchange our ideas without being persecuted by the enforcers of intellectual conformity and moral dogma.

"This is our precious inheritance and we owe it to them as well as our children to come to its defence."

Given Young's immediate defence of Andrew Sabisky, the former Downing Street adviser caught in a eugenics row, last week, it seems he is willing to overlook anything to stand up for your right to free speech!

READ MORE:Andrew Sabisky made vile claims about women and sex on Reddit

Though of course the people who criticised Sabisky's claims and called for his sacking were also using their free speech to say he was unsuited to a government position. But he did not see it that way. They were the "enforcers of intellectual conformity", to use Young's own words.

The reality is nobody needs to spend 49.95 to protect free speech (or even 24.95 for students and retirees).

And you definitely don't need to give it to Toby Young to do it for you.

If you're in a situation where you feel your free speech is truly under threat? Perhaps it's time to call a lawyer, not a journalist who is best known for slagging off a teenage climate activist.

Read the original:
Toby Young launches 50-a-year 'Free Speech Union' - The National

The largest national minority group in the United Kingdom today is Polish. More than 900,000 Polish citizens currently live in the UK, accounting for more than 1.3 per cent of the population. Many other Britons can claim Polish descent, as the plethora of Polish surnames in British national life attests. Actual Polish citizens are more common in England and Wales than people claiming Bangladeshi, Afro-Caribbean or even Irish descent (Scotland and Northern Ireland publish less detailed summary statistics). Poles are everywhere you look.

But you wont find them in the national statistics. Unlike many other national statistical agencies, the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) does not try to collect comprehensive data on population by national origin. Instead, it collects data only for 18 recommended ethnic groups. Recommended by whom? By government agencies and interest groups. In other words, the squeaky wheels get the data, while the quiet go uncounted.

The ONS and other UK statistical agencies produce detailed data on Black Caribbeans, Black Africans, Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and a complex web of mixed identities, while ignoring other groups that, frankly, dont attract the attention of people in power. And where the ONS leads, organisational checklists follow. Thus the BBC has successfully pushed its on-air Black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) on-screen representation up to more than one-quarter of total TV time, despite the fact that these groups make up just 14 per cent of the England and Wales population (even when including mixed-race people as BAME). British Poles are hardly visible.

It can be (and often is) argued that members of racial minority groups require special intervention because of the historical burden of poverty and discrimination. But at a time when by far the highest earning ethnicity in the UK is Indian, and White British people actually earn slightly below the national average, this hardly holds water. It can also be argued that racial minority groups have been treated unfairly because their ancestors were forcibly removed from their home countries, but this doesnt really apply to the UK in the same way it does to the US. Nor does the UK host minority indigenous populations of the kinds found in the settler colonies of the old dominions.

The real reason why particular minority groups are marked out and counted is that they are useful useful to elites, useful to those who would be their leaders, and useful in ways that other, less visible minority groups are not. No one particularly benefits from identifying and enumerating hundreds of thousands of hard-working, well-assimilated Poles. But theres a lot of money (and even more political capital) to be earned on the backs of BAMEs. And so, in Britain, BAMEs the game. Look abroad, and it becomes clear that BAME is just a name that British elites give to the people they want to groom for long-term dependence.

History is full of terrors and tragedies, but if one minority ethnic group has a special claim to restorative justice, it is the Jews. And for a brief period in British history, roughly corresponding to the second half of the 20th century, there was a distinctively Jewish claim to anti-defamation. Overt anti-Semitism was beyond the pale of polite society. No longer. Elite sympathy for the plight of the Jewish people is now waning, and as the troubling rhetoric of todays Labour Party demonstrates, tacit anti-Semitism is once again becoming (sadly and strangely) acceptable among otherwise respectable people. Overt anti-Semitism is only a tweet away.

British Jews, who have completed the full arc from social exclusion to protected group to assimilated whiteness, illustrate well the phenomenon of the sympathetic minority. Sympathetic minorities are distinct groups in society that receive the protection and sponsorship of societys elites. Before the Second World War, anti-Semitism was a routine reflex of British elites, but after the horrors of the Holocaust became widely known, the vilification of Jews became a social anathema. For a while, Jews continued to be excluded from full participation in White British society, but as the ONS statistical category demonstrates, that social exclusion has now largely disappeared. The days when gentile parents were shocked by the idea of their children marrying Jews are long gone.

With social inclusion came the loss of the special status of Jews in British society. Jews no longer needed the sponsorship of elite patrons and protectors. As a result, they no longer constituted a distinct political constituency, and no longer voted as a united bloc. Community leaders could no longer credibly claim to speak on behalf of all Jews. In effect, the Jewish community as such has disappeared: today, there are only individual Jews and the organisations to which they personally belong. They are still the members of an identifiable minority group, and they are still the targets of anti-Semitic vitriol, but they do not constitute a single, controllable, politically operational minority constituency.

Now that they are independent and assimilated, Jews no longer elicit the sympathies of political elites, because they are no longer useful to them. Some minority groups, like Australian Catholics and American Mormons, have never elicited elite sympathy, despite severe and well-documented historical discrimination. Others, like indigenous Canadians, have flipped in one generation from being unsympathetic to sympathetic. And it all has to do with the society, not the minority. A sympathetic British Indian becomes, on immigration to the US, a boring Indian-American. There is a clear minority pecking order in every society, but minorities themselves have little say in where they stand in it.

In the US, the legacy of slavery has made African-Americans the archetypical case of the sympathetic minority. Even though African-Americans no longer have legal impairments imposed on them by the majority white population, they remain sympathetic in the sense that white elites still find it possible to override majority opinion in the name of racial justice for African-Americans. Racism and racial discrimination certainly persist in the US (as they do everywhere), but these do not explain the special, sympathetic status of African-Americans. What makes African-Americans a sympathetic minority is their usefulness to white American elites.

To see this, consider the plight of Chinese-Americans. Though never literally enslaved, Chinese-Americans once faced similar levels of repression in California as those suffered by African-Americans in the South. But Chinese-Americans are no longer so socially excluded as to be ghettoised into a manageable political constituency. Thus, although Californians voted in a binding referendum in 1996 to ban all forms of discrimination on the basis of race, sex, colour, ethnicity, or national origin in public education, University of California administrators persist in looking for ways to boost African-American student numbers at the expense of Chinese-American students. Not being particularly useful to political elites, Chinese-Americans simply arent a sympathetic minority.

It is deeply politically incorrect to admit it, but we all have a general idea of the minority pecking orders in our own societies. For example, in the US, where race outranks indigeneity, Native Americans have long lobbied unsuccessfully to convince the Washington Redskins football team to change its offensive name. But in Australia, where indigeneity is the crucial minority identifier, it is impossible to imagine a major commercial sports franchise calling itself something like the Blackfellas. In most developed countries, the disabled are a sympathetic minority, while the obese are not. Women are not literally a minority, but feminists are. Yet in the emerging battle between feminists and transgender activists, transgender minority status outranks feminist. Thus the feminist tennis star Martina Navratilova has been vilified for arguing that trans-women should not be allowed to compete in womens sports.

Vilified by whom? Its difficult to say. Not by the majority, thats for sure. The professions of the pen exercise an outsized influence: academics, journalists, lawyers, lobbyists and the like. The expert class as a whole tends to arrogate to itself the authority to decide which minorities matter and when. Political elites dont sit as a body to judge the status of minority groups, but individual members of the political elite do see similar opportunities and incentives. When a minority group is easily identified and socially excluded, it can be politically activated and used through coopting a small number of community leaders. That makes it useful, and nothing elicits sympathy so much as usefulness. When the same minority group goes mainstream (as Jews have done and feminists are doing), it loses its utility. You cant get much political leverage out of promoting women when other women are just as likely to support your opponents as they are to support you.

So BAMEs are in, Jews are out, and Poles never stood a chance. At least, thats the situation in the UK. In the US, blacks are still in, Hispanics are on their way out, and the Chinese never stood a chance. Down under, its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians (to use their formal label) who form the only genuinely sympathetic minority, so sympathetic that there is strong (white) elite pressure to give them a constitutionally enshrined voice in parliament. What all of the sympathetic minorities share is their political usefulness to white elites in their own societies both via their votes and (more importantly) through the moral claims that white elites can make in the names of marginalised others. Dont like Donald Trump or Boris Johnson? Just label them racists on behalf of blacks or BAMEs.

As Boris and the UK Conservatives have discovered, despite the election victory, clearly demonstrable charges of anti-Semitism no longer pack the same political punch as vaguely argued charges of racism. For that matter, the US Democrats discovered the declining power of feminism in 2016, when Trumps sexist personal history was overlooked by the majority of (white) American women. Jews and (feminist) women are no longer socially excluded groups. By joining the mainstream, they lost their political usefulness. They are still minorities, but they are no longer sympathetic minorities or at least, they no longer excite the sympathies of those in positions of power.

Homosexuals are fast following feminists on the road to normalisation and political irrelevance. Gay and lesbian activists are desperately trying to hold their place in the ever-expanding LGBTQ+ alliance, but these days mere homosexuality is old hat. With gay-marriage rights widely embraced in developed democracies, and a gay prime minister in Ireland (of all places), it is becoming more and more difficult to characterise homosexuals as a socially excluded minority in countries like the UK, the US and Australia. Thats why transsexuals, despite their vanishingly small numbers, have become the sexual minority du jour. Despite their increasingly high profile, transsexuals remain profoundly socially excluded, and that makes them useful. Political elites now routinely use the threat of transgender suicides to push through their preferred education and healthcare policy agendas.

In the UK, look for the BAME category to disintegrate as British Indians increasingly prioritise assimilation over grievance politics. And when Brexit happens, look for a new category to emerge: British Europeans. British Poles may not be eager to relocate into a 21st-century ideological ghetto, but many other British Europeans are. And when they do, theyll find a large segment of the British political establishment chafing at the bit to take up their cause: the Remainer elite. The supposed rights of British Europeans have already been used as a parliamentary bludgeon by the Remainer resistance. Demands for policies to alleviate their post-Brexit suffering have the potential to drive politics for decades to come.

Salvatore Babones is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Sydney, and the author of The New Authoritarianism: Trump, Populism and the Tyranny of Experts, published by Polity Press. (Buy this book from Amazon(UK).)

Pictures by: Getty.

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Read more:
The use and abuse of ethnic minorities - Spiked