Why is the West obsessed with anime? Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images
When it comes to softening a stern public image, the Japanese have a special trick: just introduce a cute-looking cartoon mascot. High security prisons have them, as do the Tokyo Metropolitan Police and the Japanese Sewage Association. Such mascots have their origins in kawaii visual culture, otherwise translated as “cuteness” or “adorableness”; and in Japan, cuteness is very big indeed.
Perhaps the Catholic Church should give it a try. What better way for the Vatican to shake off its harsh and forbidding reputation among the faithless young than by designing a winsome kawaii mascot for the Church’s forthcoming Jubilee Year?
Such was the apparent thinking of the high-ups who this week unveiled Luce, a character designed to put the adorable into religious adoration. Along with a raft of identically proportioned sidekicks, Luce is an unfeasibly large-headed, big-eyed, short-limbed cartoon child whose proportions are dictated by the chibi tradition in Japanese anime — also known as the “super-deformed” style. Blue-haired and snub-nosed, her enormous eyes brim with saintly sweetness as she guides young pilgrims towards the faith.
The Vatican masterminds are surely right that kawaii culture is popular with youth across the globe. Starting in the Seventies, with the massive success of Hello Kitty, it has since been fuelled by international crazes for manga, Studio Ghibli films, and Pokémon characters. Vaguely sinister soft toys with neotenous features, pointless pastel-coloured plastic tat, and decorated notepaper too small to actually write anything on are like crack for pre-teen girls worldwide.
According to one theory, Japan’s national obsession with cuteness has roots in Sixties Japan, as representations of the ageing Emperor Hirohito started to depict him as endearingly enfeebled. This was arguably a cultural coping mechanism, as the Japanese faced post-war realisations about the limits of their military and economic power. Other commentators have made connections with the classical tradition of Japanese aesthetics, according to which sadness is an appropriate response to beauty: cute things are often thought of as enjoyably “pitiable” in kawaii discourse. The Shinto religion is also thought by some to be a relevant background factor, with its emphasis on innocence and play. And feminists have pointed out that traditional models of Japanese femininity construe women as small, powerless, and vulnerable — all features heavily present in the kawaii tradition.
Somewhere in all that, perhaps, is Japan’s excuse for its obsession with anything endearingly small, innocent, and childishly appealing. But what’s ours? For cuteness is increasingly not just an obsession of Generations Z and Alpha. The same nauseatingly sugary aesthetic is creeping — or rather, perhaps, playfully skipping as fast as wobbly oversized heads will allow — into Anglophone adult worlds. In this, it is no doubt encouraged by local conditions, in which “adultescence” can yawn into one’s thirties and distinct cultural boundaries between generations barely exist.
Consider that we are now in the season of adult Halloween costumes — in itself, a giant exercise in tooth-aching whimsy — and whole articles are being written, apparently seriously, about how sinister clown costumes have gone cute this year. Middle-aged textspeak is scattered with cartoon emojis, and phone cameras have filters that make owners look like puppies or princesses. Grown humans watch Pixar films or go to Disney World without the excuse of accompanying offspring. And, believe it or not, there are even “maid cafes” selling “kawaii culture” in UK cities, where youthful-looking young women in maid outfits will draw smiley faces on your pancakes or play boardgames with you, allegedly with no sexual undertones whatsoever.
Noticing the trend, this year Somerset House put on an art exhibition exploring what its curators called the “irresistible rise of cuteness”. And then there’s the ubiquitous concept of the “meet-cute”, now part of the contemporary lexicon to describe a first date. In terms of relationship ideals, it’s no longer considered sufficient to encounter a prospective partner by means of a firm handshake at a rendezvous planned in advance. Instead you should do something that would elicit gooey-eyed “awws” from your friends in the retelling: accidentally chuck a cup of coffee over him, say, or find yourself in a furious bidding war over the same antique vase. And if the meeting goes wrong and no sexual attraction is thereby experienced, modern parlance now has it that you have “the ick”. At both ends of the spectrum then, adult agency and mature sexual attitudes are being smothered in cooing, babbling, and clucking noises.
Indeed, the fact that cuteness has the capacity to reduce grown women and the occasional man to babytalk is a frequently observed feature of its strange power. In her great book on minor aesthetic properties of our time, cultural theorist Sianne Ngai quotes a 19th-century journalist attending the society wedding of Lavinia Warren and “General Tom Thumb” Stratton — two people of very short stature — who observed that the onlooking enraptured female crowd emitted “small-sized adjectives and diminutive ejaculations” as they gazed upon the adorable spectacle. In such a way, Ngai suggests, “cuteness generates ever more cuteness”. Or, to put it bluntly, cuteness kills vocabularies and, ultimately, brain cells. No surprise, then, that it should become totemic of this most stupid of eras.
There is another thing about cuteness that seems to make it irresistible. Namely, as noted, it implies vulnerability and powerlessness: aspects our culture is intoxicated by. Luce holds a pilgrim’s stick, but to eyes hungry for emblems of weakness it could just as easily be mistaken for a disability aid. Everything about her speaks to smallness and defencelessness. Some warped souls will find this an outright turn-on; more, though, will be non-erotically gratified by the projected image of the self.
For there is something obviously self-regarding in the pleasure to be had from exaggerated caricatures of human vulnerability. In a susceptible observer with enough mirror neurons firing, cute representations make her feel both maternal and meltingly childish, unsure if she is imaginatively positioned as watching subject or as adorably smol-bean-like object. For the same sorts of reason, cuteness can produce profound ambivalence in an onlooker. Do I want to hug this thing? Protect it? Buy it? Be it? Destroy it?
Pace the Vatican then, it seems to me that cuteness is a bad vehicle for the traditional elements of religious experience. Whatever else Luce achieves — increased brand awareness, perhaps, or even the physical presence of more young people in churches — she is unlikely to directly draw them closer to God. For, in comparison to the more traditional aesthetic categories of beauty and sublimity, cuteness seems essentially secular. Ngai agrees, writing that because cuteness “dramatises” its own “frivolity and ineffectiveness”, it is “fundamentally non-theological, unable to foster religious awe and uncoupling the experience of art from the discourse of spiritual transcendence”.
Even when affected by the sight of Luce as presumably intended, viewers will still only be in the realm of small bursts of manageable feeling, with no loss of self but rather an intensification of queasy self-awareness as just described. In some ways, this makes the mascot a weird strategy on the part of the Church. The one thing everybody knows about teenagers — and especially girls — is that they have an enormous capacity for engaging in ecstatic, swooning acts of self-abandon and absorption in the absolute. Just ask Saint Teresa of Ávila or Joan of Arc.
Yet unlike traditional religious paintings or pieces of music, full of awe-inspiring power, grand drama, or painful intensity, one cute representation is exactly as affecting as the next — which is to say not very much. Looking at Luce might make you feel pleasantly squishy in the solar plexus; but then again, so might looking at Bambi or Pikachu. It is for this reason that cuteness sells so well — it’s cheap and easy, in every sense. Even the tackiest of Catholic kitsch tries harder to whip up a sense of God’s immanence than this.
No doubt there will be those who say I’m overthinking. Can’t I just be happy that an out-of-touch institution is making relatable overtures to a new generation? I’m afraid I can’t. The modern cult of cuteness is too revolting. We get the aesthetic properties we deserve, perhaps; but surely the Church can do better than metaphorically placing potential converts in soft play. Many manifestations of religious experience are available, but I’m fairly sure saying “awwww” isn’t one of them.
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SubscribeThe Death Spiral of Deliberate, Consciously Crafted Mediocrity…inexorable, irresistible….it ends only with death and dissolution amidst the ashes of utter, unmitigated disaster… and the terrifying reality of professionally weaponized incompetence. Here we are. Los Angeles has arrived,
Tens of thousands of acres burned, thousands of structures incinerated, block after block of homes turned to smoking piles of rubble, piles of bodies, trillions of dollars of waste…. Why? And what could have been done to — if not avoid — significantly mitigate the scope and pain of this catastrophe?
It starts with little things; it always does.
Seduced by the Progressive lie that ‘disparate impact’ means racism, means sexism, means evil White Supremacists oppressing the under-represented ….the governments we form to protect us, serve us, and keep us safe, turns and tears at us. For our own good, they say.
Rather than looking for the best, to train the best, to build the best, to maintain the best and make it better….regardless of skin color, genital configuration, or sexual preference (a task difficult enough when that is, indeed, your goal)….we begin the seductively easy and entirely self-righteous process of bringing in those who — while not the best — are of the ‘right’ color or sex…because Diversity, because Inclusivity…because Equity & Social Justice. We know the rest.
If you’re lucky they’re maybe just as good…but nobody really believes that, even if they are. They’re tainted from the get-go with the broadly, though silently, shared expectation that they’re hired because they make the quota (even when there is no quota). We all know where the bread is buttered and by whom, for what. The odds are better that they’re not as good. They don’t have the background, or the interest, or the talent. The lacks are painfully obvious, but what the heck, they’re a small cog in a larger and generally successful organization…so we can compensate, bring ’em on.
And so it continues.
And the Mediocre who perform in an exceedingly average way are promoted. If it’s good to have a DIE-Guy at Level 1, it’s even better to see them at Level 2 & 3 & 4. They then propagate, begatting even more mediocre sub-hires (don’t like feeling threatened). And on and on and before you know it, the generally successful organization is sputtering and increasingly failing. Call it the Fire Department, the Government, the Water Management Groups, whatever. Things don’t work quite as they should….and the people who used to be able to fix it, aren’t there…or just don’t care anymore. More dollars spent on DIE Training, Inherent Bias, and Anti-Racism Initiatives than on improving emergency response times, getting better equipment, and better training. After all, priorities are priorities.
Throw in the Climate Change insanity which has allowed fanatics to dictate countless laws and regulations that prevent, slow, outlaw, or hobble any and all efforts to build more reservoirs, or capture snow melt, or clear flammable organic debris, or improve access to vulnerable areas, or or or or.
After all, there are E-car incentives that must be established. Homeless initiatives that must be launched. Parties in Ghana that must be attended: DIE DIE DIE, the chorus sings.
So bluntly: we don’t have the right people leading any of these organizations which have themselves been hollowed by decades of AA hires and confused & contradictory operational priorities….all that hamstrung by decades of Progressive, Hyper-Climate programs which have choked-off even a chance of building the kind of real-life ‘firebreaks’ that could have slowed, prevented, or significantly ameliorated this disaster.
Welcome to the Death Spiral. Maybe now it can begin to change, now that they’ve destroyed what they’re charged to protect.
Among other things; the endless suppression of small forest fires will lead to very big forest fires in the long run- especially when fuel clearance is not taking place, as the article suggests it wasn’t.
Should you be moved to disagree, my pronouns are thou/thine…
Did anyone else commenting here on this LA fires post have to verify their identity with “select all images with a fire hydrant”?
The focus on DEI in relation to the California fires is a red herring meant to scapegoat minority groups. If DEI is truly the issue, why are we reaching across the world to bring in South African experts who are highly skilled in firefighting? These same South Africans helped Canada a few years ago with great success. Fires like these result from systemic failures, not from who was hired. This scapegoating is just another distraction from the reality of a declining empire unable to manage its own issues—is not it very Christian like, always finding a sheep to sacrifice. Let’s focus on real solutions, not manufactured blame.
This ridiculous article and all the truly stupid comments in reply are exactly why I’m letting my UnHerd subscription lapse. Have fun in your echo chamber, morons!
Why blame DEI? It’s like blaming an arm for a brutal attack. Whose arm is it?
‘AfD endorses controversial ‘remigration’ as German election race tightensParty’s co-leader pledges ‘total closing’ of borders and mass deportations of immigrants if it wins power next month’ The Telegraph
Sounds bit N—
Right on. As a former police officer in my younger days, I have always laughed at movies and shows that portray a 130 pound female police officer taking bigger men down with dazzling regularity. Didn’t happen, doesn’t happen and it is a real risk for an excellent police officer, male of female, to engage in physical altercations. It can be a crap shoot for a man and a terrifying event for a woman. Blue Lights, the excellent police series set in Belfast has an episode when a hood punches one female officer in the nose and she goes down hard, the other female police officer pushes the hood on the ground, but he soon overpowers her. Her use of mace was the only way she had to keep from being badly injured.
This is real, not bullshit DEI propaganda. A properly trained and physically fit police officer doesn’t have the nightstick, sap, or baton I did but mace and other tools can be used from a distance without physical contact. There is absolutely nothing wrong with diverse hiring of gender, nationalities, or cultural differences, they have to be competent. If not, you end up with the situation in LA, and countless other cities where the citizens who pay taxes for police and fire services to be protected end up homeless or victims of violent crime due to incompetence. The other negative outcome is that the DEI hire who is not competent can suffer injury or death when placed in these life-threatening situations. Not really fair or good for good for them either.
Time will tell if the shit will hit the fan in LA, and what the possible outcomes will be. It certainly won’t be the same but will it be enough to rid us of the inept, angry, and greedy bastards that have held sway over the last 10 years?
Indeed. Who is being far to whom?
AI
“Yes, “Der Ring des Nibelungen” is widely considered a tragedy of power, as the central narrative revolves around the destructive consequences of the pursuit of absolute power through the possession of a magical ring, with characters succumbing to greed, betrayal, and ultimately, their own downfall due to their obsession with its dominance. ”
Is this article Mamet speech ?
And “Women were admitted into American police forces to correct discriminatory practices.” I think that in practice, women are better at many aspects of policing than men; in the UK we don’t have many women on those racist/sexist disgusting WhatsApp groups sharing crime scene photos for kicks. I don’t think that women pcs would have been quite so quick to dismiss the stories of those abused girls etc
Social workers are mostly women, many did dismiss the grooming gang stuff. In fact, they could see it right before them but did nothing.
You are very likely correct, Tony. It’s in front line policing roles that many women seem less suited . In back room, detective and analysis roles they potentially have equal or even sometimes superior potential
Even front line policing where the probability of violence or confrontation is low they might be an asset I can imagine.
But sending them out on Saturday night pub closing patrol, or on riot control duty, is just perverse.
Here’s another one: ” in the 2020s California District Attorneys had shoplifting decriminalised. Any theft under $1,000 was allowed,” It didn’t take me long to check that out – https://www.guidelinelaw.com/shoplifting-in-california/ . If you disagree please link to something authoritative to say otherwise, don’t just downvote.
There’s this: https://www.ppic.org/blog/commercial-burglaries-fell-in-2023-but-shoplifting-continued-to-rise/
And this: https://www.hoover.org/research/why-shoplifting-now-de-facto-legal-california
And the fact that the new laws (passed in late ’24) are designed, evidently, to plug the holes which previous legislation dug.
But beyond the stats and the wording of the laws themselves, there’s the question of police practice and prosecutorial behavior. Even if a theft is illegal…will the police be called….if called, will they pursue the thief…if arrested will Gascon (no longer there) and his acolytes spend the time and $’s to chase the tiny-dollar-criminal in the courts.
I think the answer demonstrated over and over again out there in LaLa Land is no…probably not.
Oh dear, as usual DM writes beautifully but does talk some nonsense! I’ll post individually starting with “police use their firearms rarely, and only as weapon of last resort, to stop a lethal threat or attacker.” One would hope and expect that to be so in the overwhelming majority of cases, but evidently that is not “only” so.
Defund the politicians!
Even ignoring the human impact to all the burnt out families etc the pure financial cost of the destruction will surely mean that decent funding and prevention of such a huge fire/s would have been a massive financial saving. But hey progressive Govt doesn’t care about such things when it can pretend to look out for nature etc (a nature which inevitably has frequent fires and is a vital part of the cycle).
One wonders if living with the consequences of their voting decisions will make people think twice next time. Somehow, I doubt it. The average partisan would rather be boiled alive that admit that his team was wrong.
“what happened to the taxes we pay to insure public safety?”
=>
what happened to the taxes we pay to *ensure* public safety?
Does anyone in power give tuppence for “public safety”? Not much evidence of it I can see.
Until you arrest and publicly beat every celebrity who lost a home and who demeaned us for voting for trump, nobody will change…
I’m finding it very difficult to summon up much in the way of sympathy for these Hollywood celebs who have lost one of their houses.
It really is time for DEI and EDI to DIE
It’s a shame that the few adult, sensible people like David Mamet in that part of the world have had to suffer because other people seem only able to learn the hard way.
Clearly the USD 17.8m were misspent but let’s not pretend that if they hadn’t been, the fire would have been put out straight away – that’s a facile and fatuous inference.
It would be a poor inference. However, if $$$ had been spent on forest management and water supply the wildfires may not have got such a grip in the first instance. In both cases there’s evidence that state authorities didn’t spend those $$$ because of ‘environmental concerns’….
That’s a fair point but the article is framed differently – just look at the title.
Was it Mayor Bass or Fire Chief Crowley who was responsible for the diversion of fire dept cash to DEI? It’s not clear from the penultimate paragraph versus the fourth from the end. Or do I need another coffee this morning?
I’m sure this is a great article but the poor grammar makes it so difficult to read.
I’ve heard many people who rail against DEI claim that we will see services collapse as a result of poor hiring and promoting. Is this an example of this? It seems likely.
I’ve often looked at some of the female uniform officers in the UK and thought “I’m not sure they’re physically up to the job”. The much circulated video of the female officer receiving a broken nose at Manchester airport (and the resulting boot to the head of the assailant) may not have happened had it been a large fella attempting the arrest.
Like so many theories, DEI sounds nice. Sounds fair. And on a piece of paper. Or a laptop screen it almost works. In reality, it’s laughably bad. Bordering on ridiculous.
Women should not be in combat infantry, firefighting, or police. They cannot cope physically.
The problem isn’t the DEI hires etc, and it’s far worse than that. That “didn’t earn it” crowd are useless and incompetent, we know that, they themselves know that for all their “can do anything the white man can do” rubbish.
The real concern is, once you distort incentives, make a mockery of ability and disparage masculinity and masculine virtues such as heroism, stoicism and patriotism, the productive male population’s morale and willingness to sacrifice themselves also collapses.
Hence, just 110 years after millions of Brit men happily signed up for a deadly war and trench warfare, today Britain has it’s smallest standing army in a couple of centuries or more, and still can’t find enough men to enroll.
Women aren’t going to fight wars, as Ukraine has shown, but that a given. The problem is, the men won’t as well now, for a nation that doesn’t respect them.
And similarly, you don’t have enough men willing to be truck drivers, builders, or men willing to slog away to feed and house their families.
DEI is not just a few useless workers, it’s societal rot.
. . . once you distort incentives, make a mockery of ability and disparage masculinity and masculine virtues such as heroism, stoicism and patriotism, the productive male population’s morale and willingness to sacrifice themselves also collapses.
A good phrasing that sums it up.
I think it’s more complex than that. A lot of jobs are fake it till you make it.
An issue with dei hires is that they are beholden to those who hire them above others who are more qualified.
At least the silly headline made me llol,; otherwise, Mament’s gotta get caught up on what research shows surrounding female cops and de-escalation
Please enlighten us.
So, in other words, female cops are equivalent to social workers. Most bad guys understand social workers – they know that physical force beats whining and bleating.
As the Manchester Airport incident illustrates, female police officers have no de-escalating effect on individuals from a culture that deprecates women.
Surely it was her fault for putting her nose right where his fist was aiming?
In a democracy, the citizen is sovereign and the voter is king. Just one foolish king can bring down a nation. How much more so for a populace composed of many foolish sovereigns …..In the Golden State, the people vote for these “wise” leaders, whether they perform well or poorly. Ask yourself, what impetus do they have to perform, when they know that there is no failure of office which will suffice to cause their citizenry to “throw the bums out”?
These people don’t need democracy, they need the whip.
Down vote was from the leabian dei gire chief who wants so e short sexy crew cut short chicks and not those big beefy and sweaty and fratty men…
Live by dei…burn by dei.
What is a “gire chief”? What does “who wants so e short sexy crew cut” mean?
It takes a complete moron to NOT understand what “gire chief” is. How stupid are you, Mikey-boy?
If you persist in voting for stupid politicians you get stupid outcomes. It is not as if California voted in stupidity on the basis of 33% of the voters as we in the UK did.
Ah, that would be a little over 30% of the votes cast – schturmer only had 20% (1 in 5) of the eligible voters give him their assent. I wonder how many of them now have buyers’ remorse? Paraphrasing Ms Kate Moss, (peoples’ philosopher) “no joined up policy works as well as smugness feels” . Further i think the “stupid” excuse is starting to look a little thin – rape gangs, arson, etc etc? – Even if leftists start stupid their attempts to carry on despite the dire effects of their hate based policies means venal, wicked or evil are more accurate now. They don’t have a monopoly on stupid but certainly seem to be the GOAT compared to other political movements.
Eventually, this social experiment that is progressive politics will run out of steam and common sense will prevail. And there will be a correction back to where the government does actually work in the interests of the governed. For a while at least, or until there are sufficient deluded voices who cry ‘but it wasn’t done properly last time’ and petition to have another crack at lunacy.
This is, after all, the Golden State, a place like the past where they do things differently.
Historically there is very little evidence of despots, tyrants or oligarchs giving up voluntarily. (Apartheid RSA and some Eastern Bloc states are the only ones i can think of and both had big caveats – former stasi or mafiosas in plain view and doing well from the new deal).Common sense will hopefully prevail but likely at the cost of many lives.
Greece came close in 1974 when the colonels gave up the struggle. How the country went from right wing dictatorship back to democracy is a fascinating read.
As the saying goes, “socialism ends when they run out of the money of others”.
You get the government you deserve
So i guess the logical corollary is “you get rid of the government you don’t deserve?” When i heard about the govt cancelling local elections it did occur to me that UK has form fighting that sort of ruler – De Montford, Cromwell and William of Orange are examples. Drilling down into the story it seems as well as Labor’s kneejerk “too stupid to vote” view of their opponents there are also Tory boroughs desperate to avoid democracy as they will get trashed by Reform, or the limp dims. If they keep this up the “Overton Window” will have to include black powder recipes and the works of Debray or Guevarra lol
Democracy as a form of government is always the best form of governance. The problem is democracy is not merely the right to vote, but the ability to affect change and kick out underperforming governments.
Those large cities, and California, don’t have democracy, as a large population – blacks, some Hispanics, single college educated women – will vote for demrats come what may.
Hence its really the equivalent of Rome or Sparta, but instead of the soldiers and productive citizens controlling the state, it’s the least productive and useful segments.
It will be interesting to see now how keen Hollywood is, in backing the latest fashions in ‘social justice’.
I’m entirely persuaded by this article but, as the author knows better than me, California has been mismanaged for decades by the “progressive” left, but still Californians vote for leaders such as Bass and Newsom. Does he really believe things will be any different once the current outrage dies down?
My sense is California has to reach rock bottom before change will come. And by rock bottom I mean its principal money-makers, and Democrat supporters, notably the major tech companies and VCs, will have to quit the state and let the fiscal coffers, like the hydrants, run dry.
When your city is burning down, it’s important to know your pronouns.
Are the fires “he/him” or “she/her”?
Probably one of those recently made up which nobody can pronounce.
When your city is being burned down, it’s important to know your pronouns.
No, it’s important to know other people’s pronouns.
This excellent article offers a profound examination of a society crippled by misplaced priorities and the abdication of accountability at every level. It reveals a dangerous trajectory where political correctness, bureaucratic incompetence, and a fixation on “fairness” have systematically eroded public safety, leaving citizens and frontline responders vulnerable. From under-equipped police officers hamstrung by illogical policies to firefighters denied critical resources due to budget cuts masked as equity initiatives, the repercussions of leadership failures are laid bare.
Politicians and bureaucrats deflect blame while the fundamental institutions designed to protect the public falter under ideological experiments and gross mismanagement. The lesson is clear: societal “fairness” without accountability leads not to justice but to chaos and human suffering. The ultimate betrayal lies in the false promises made to taxpayers, who bear the brunt of failures disguised as progress, while leadership evades scrutiny with empty platitudes.
This is not just a policy failure—it’s a moral one that demands a seismic shift in priorities and accountability.
I’m sorry, citizens voted for them. I read the stories of the fire victims in the Free Press. Here are quotes from one woman, age 51:
.
On Tuesday when the winds picked up, I took some videos of my enormous Newfoundland dog, Hugo, sitting in the front yard, his fur blowing dramatically and his body standing firm even in 60 mph winds. A few hours later I saw there were deadly fires in the Palisades, some 25 miles away, and felt badly for posting fun videos on Twitter, though not badly enough to take them down, since they were getting a lot of likes. Around 6:30 I learned of a fire in Eaton Canyon, a few miles to my east. I learned of it on Twitter.
There were still no phone alerts so I didn’t think too much of anything until I walked into the front yard around 7:15.
…
I live in Altadena (it seems strange to put that in the present tense but even stranger not to, so we’ll stay in the present). It’s a foresty enclave at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains, north of Pasadena. The elevation is about 1,500 feet, the population is about 42,000, the racial makeup is relatively diverse. There’s always been a significant black population.
.
These are the thoughts of a college freshman (freshwoman in her case). She chose her leaders. She chose her priorities:
.
The tweets were getting a lot of likes and it’s a pity to delete them!
The racial makeup is relatively diverse, …significant black population.
.
She deserved what was happened with her
Nobody deserves to have their house burn down just because we disagree with their politics. Where is your compassion?
The in relation to these fires is the same as that we have here in relation to grooming gangs: impunity. The State of California will not punish these cut-and-dried cases of misfeasance in public office any more than the British state will make accountable the police officers and public officials who enabled the grooming gangs for so long. Throughout the West the ethos of public service has been irreparably damaged by post-modern ideology.
We need, in both countries, to explore the use of class action in MIPO (Misfeasance in Public Office) claims. It’s no use criticising institutions, the individuals corrupting them must be made accountable.
“This is not just a policy failure—it’s a moral one that demands a seismic shift in priorities and accountability.”
Very nicely put.
If wildfires don’t care about DEI, it can only be because they’re racist and probably sexist. I’m sure that the media will back me up on this; any day now I expect to see headlines proclaiming CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES: WOMEN, MINORITIES HARDEST HIT.
I recall the disproportionate deaths in poorer parts of cities during COVID in UK. Clearly a racist disease.
Rather than poorer people, likely with more underlying health conditions, living in higher higher populate housing in higher density areas meant more deaths.
Thre was a thing about Covid at the time that said people in the UK are old, fat, cramped, unequal and much visited, all things that increased the impact of the disease.
Wildfires are white-adjacent.