I’m back up in Cambridge to teach. I thought it might be worth checking out one of the places that made Cambridge pleasant (Darwin’s sandwiches/coffee is closed): the Regattabar live jazz venue. Here’s the web site, captured on 12/30/2022:
It’s been a three-year temporary closure (Yale graduates: note the failure to use the word “temporarily” by folks who sit three blocks from Harvard Yard).
For comparison, the schedule at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach:
What about Harvard’s American Repertory Theater? Before they began excluding audience members based on skin color (see this November 2021 post) I was a regular there. Their “plan your visit” page:
Followers of Fauci will be cheered to see that cloth masks meet the mask requirement (though N95 is recommended):
Here’s their “Blacks-only” policy from 2021:
What do people who refuse to sell tickets to white people call themselves? “Anti-racists”:
(They “pay respect” to the rightful owners of the land they occupy, but do not pay rent.)
@philg: Best wishes for the course this year! You may be back in Cambridge to teach, but it looks as though you’re also learning quite a bit. I have a question: You lived in this area most of your adult life. Did you ever think you’d see anything like this in Cambridge? I know it’s not difficult to see some strange things in and around an Ivy League University, but did you ever think it could be this vexed and weird?
If more people boycotted these places with their outlandish policies and practices maybe they would change — though presumably what they are doing, whether it is masking or black only audiences, is what their patrons want.
The blog has a renewed energy since it returned to the motherland. The Greenspun global headquarters was never the same in Fl*rida.
It seems likely the Regattabar hasn’t reopened because the economic, staffing, marketing, programming, etc impact of the pandemic closure causing an ongoing business hangover. About which one might also have something to say, just seems terribly unlikely to be due to out of step excessive Covid precaution. And seems pretty odd to call for a boycott of a completely closed business. About as intelligent as the Darwin’s strikers asking for guaranteed employement and pay scales as a condition of allowing the business to close down.
I still don’t care about Black Lives Matter.
I totally thought that said “REGRETTABAR”, which honestly sounds way funnier.
I was told that “Blackout” is a racist term and there is no such thing as “Black-identifying”! Different rules for different people.
I always thought it would take a war and/or violent revolution to turn western democracy into totalitarian state (like eastern Europe after WWII, or Russia after WWI). It is sad to watch how it is happening slowly in “boiling frog” style. Maybe that is what happened in 1930s Germany. It is also sad to see how many people love to have powerful authorities which tell them what to do, even if that are obvious stupidities (COVID19 measures). It seems to me that we hear words “leader” and “leadership” more and more often lately, and people wishing “strong leadership”. It might be useful to remind them that German word for “leader” is “Führer”, and that they should be careful what they wish, they could get another “Führer” to lead them into not so bright future.
It us the same pattern as in Germany and China…totalitarism starts with little steps the well-meaning fools wholeheartedly support, and then snowballs into orgy of sadism and mass murder. The fools create machinery of soft oppression. Then the psychopaths take over (it’s easy.. it’s easy to fool the fools). The well-meaning fools, being fools, believe they are somehow different from the rest of humanity, despite all the evidence to the contrary, so “it cannot happen here”. It can, and it will, and the fools will be the first to be herded into the concentration camps.
Do you wear a bullet proof vest after spouting these radical ideas? At least a sturdy leather jacket please.
@BM: I have to say that after several years of reading this blog and some of Philip’s more outlandish ideas, juxtapositions, counterintuitive questions and incisive criticism that your post is the single most fuc**d up, bad-faith post I’ve ever read here. Philip is a believer in free speech, so let’s see how he handles it, because you manage to tiptoe just one side of the line.
What, pray tell, is untrue in his original post? What is “radical” about it? These are things that are actually happening or have happened! It’s an eyewitness account! So Greenspun has a controversial blog that he hosts himself with his own server, and somehow he should watch what he says when he tells it like it is and fear for his safety?
Fuc**d up. I think you should apologize to him. I’ve seen this: “You better watch your mouth, smart guy!” shenanigans here before, but this one is the most blatantly offensive.
I think Bruce was referring to the possibility of the righteous shooting me, not threatening to do it himself (he’s a friend in real life!).
@philg, @Bruce: I’m glad to hear that! Thank you. I’m a little bit sensitized to veiled threats involving firearms. Say those words at my local Rod and Gun Club (esp. as a visitor/guest) and you’d better have a big smile on your face (and be away from the ranges with a couple of beverages in hand.) Carry on!
This is all why Phil is a hero. Publishing thoughtful analysis of the government with a slightly conservative bent. It’s just seen as outrageous nowadays. Elon musk is putting a vast fortune on the line to show the dirt of Twitter and the government manipulation of the data, ll we all see, he should be a darling of the left, but they’d like to see him 6 feet under.
You missed Sarcasm 101.
Actual thought displayed here is heresy to millions on the left.
@Bm: I actually took Sarcasm 101 and got a B+ (back when grades meant something) but then I took “Memory Consolidation: Sleep Deprivation Seminar” and the entire class forgot everything they’d learned that semester. 😉 And I agree that Philg is a hero. It’s hard to explain how much his blog has meant to me. I actively anticipate his posts.
From one masky state to the next one. Get your KN95s direct from Twitter! https://bid.hgpauction.com/auctions/8421/herita10194/lot-details/ec56cc22-426a-494a-818a-af890180b184