Happy Friday, Gentle Readers,
I pray this missive finds you well. My goal last weekend was to do nothing. Then, Mrs. Brown said, "We should clean the garage." So that plan was scuppered, tout de suite. But this weekend, I am doing absolutely nothing. I have copies of Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms" and Faulkner's "Absalom, Absalom!" and some good scotch. That is my plan — for now.
Huh?
By now, you should be ready to send your son or daughter to or back to college or university this year. If you raised them right, you are sending them to a trade school or an actual job. But if your offspring is college-bound this fall, I hope they will avoid the particular fate I describe below.
The Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department at the College of Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of Massachusett Amherst (and with a name like that, you know you are in for a real intersectional rodeo) is offering a class to UMass students this year. The name of the class is... wait for it...
“Geographies of the ‘Imaginaire’: Blackness, Worldmakings & Intersectional Futures.”
The course description reads as follows:
This course will explore the spatiality of African descendant people in the United States and in the larger Black diaspora, rethinking power, society & culture, knowledge production, and social movement through Blackness.
I know, I know. I have read the course name and description three times now, and I still don't know what the hell they are talking about, either. Truth be told, I don't think the instructors, faculty, or students have the faintest idea of what the course will cover. My guess is they will make it up as they go along. Word salads such as these make Kamala Harris look like a rank amateur.
According to Campus Reform:
The listed faculty member for the course is Beaudelaine Pierre, an author and scholar who specializes in “decolonial thought” and “Feminist epistemology.” As of publication, Pierre appears to have a primary position at the Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies Department at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities.
Pierre also made an appearance at a school event entitled, “Black Feminisms Lecture Series: Beaudelaine Pierre, Tout Moun Se Moun, Experiments in Beings, and Ecologies of Waste.”
At this point, they are pretty much just playing a progressive version of Mad Libs or a version of Scrabble from Hell. They are hoping no one will notice that someone strung some leftist buzzwords together in an attempt to convince immature and emotionally compromised students that this class is worth three credit hours and to help faculty members hang in there long enough to get another year closer to tenure. After all, you can't spend every day shouting "Free, free, Palestine" and throwing smoke bombs.
Pity the poor students who will file dutifully into their seats to be indoctrinated. They really don't understand that the only reason they are there is to be agents of chaos. Once the new regime is in place, they will learn they have no useful skills to offer the state. Then they will be packed off to labor camps where they will last all of five minutes before learning that their guards don't give a rat's famished fandango about safe spaces.
If UMass really cares about its students, it will offer a cohort-based learning course on proper spatula-handling techniques and the correct way to ask, "Do you want fries with that?"
Wine recommendation
Because now that Kamala Harris has been officially enthroned, the clock is ticking on our imminent destruction, and you can't face that sober. I did check into the Live Blog briefly, only to see the Dixie Chicks singing the National Anthem. At that point, I knew all I would be able to offer would be a steady stream of profanity, curses, and imprecations. I did dip back in a few times until I could feel my blood pressure starting to red line.
This week, it's back to the whites, specifically the 2023 Pine Ridge Chenin Blanc + Viognier White Blend.
According to the vineyard, blending Chenin Blanc and Viognier was an experiment since these are two grape varietals that traditionally are never mixed. But I have to say they are on to something here.
This is the perfect end-of-summer wine, meant to be enjoyed in the last blast of heat in August and September. It has a low alcohol content; if you chill it to about 50ºF, you should have a nice, relaxing treat. It hits all the right spots in terms of dryness and acidity and offers notes of peach, green apple, and citrus, especially lemon and lime. There is also a dash of honey to give it a little sweetness, but it isn't overwhelming and makes for a nice accent.
It retails for right around $14, and you will get some good wine for the price point. Yes, you can pair it up with the usual chicken, pork, or seafood, but it works best on the patio or deck right around sundown with some cheese, crackers, and grapes.
That's it for me. Have a great weekend, and I'll see you next time.
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