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Three Wise Monkeys Are Racist Now, Says Woke University of York

Academics at the University of York removed a depiction of the three wise monkeys from their website after they determined it could be seen as an insult to ethnic minorities.

The Three Wise Monkeys, which embody the Japanese proverb “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” and are often used to describe those turning a blind eye to wrongdoing, have become the latest victims of the Black Lives Matter iconoclastic movement in the United Kingdom.

The organisers of an upcoming art history conference at the University of York in England have apologised for their use of the three monkeys in their call for submissions and removed it from their website.

“Upon reflection, we strongly believe that our first poster is not appropriate as its iconology promulgates a longstanding visual legacy of oppression and exploits racist stereotypes,” the organisers wrote in comments reported by The Times.

“We bring this to your attention, so that we may be held accountable for our actions and, in our privileges, do and be better.”

Experts in Japanese history and culture were shocked by the academics insistence on likening the three monkeys to racist iconography.

The former curator of the British Museum’s Japanese collections, Tim Clark, said that he had “no idea” why they would be seen as offensive.

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Our Post-9/11 Response Deprived Us of Liberty and Didn’t Stop Terrorism. Let’s Not Venerate or Expand It.

Writing at The Daily Beast, Jeff Stein asks whether America needs a new federal spy agency focused on domestic threats in the wake of the attack on the U.S. Capitol by Americans who refuse to accept that outgoing President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.

But we already have such an organization. It’s called the FBI. Stein argues that the FBI is so focused on solving and clearing crimes that it’s not able to effectively engage in domestic intelligence gathering. He asks whether a new federal agency should be created for that purpose.

In reality, the FBI is set up just fine for intelligence gathering. In fact, under Trump, the FBI’s authority to secretly snoop on American citizens was actually expanded. The intelligence failures that preceded the attack on the Capitol involved a lack of communication between law enforcement agencies about the intelligence that had been gathered. It’s not entirely clear how yet another federal surveillance agency would fix that problem.

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Nazi Ravensbrück camp: How ordinary women became SS torturers

“Healthy, female workers between the ages of 20 and 40 wanted for a military site,” reads the job advertisement from a 1944 German newspaper. Good wages and free board, accommodation and clothing are promised.

What is not mentioned is that the clothing is an SS uniform. And that the “military site” is Ravensbrück concentration camp for women.

Today the flimsy wooden barracks for the prisoners are long gone. All that remains is an eerily empty, rocky field, about 80km (50 miles) north of Berlin.

But still standing are eight solidly built, attractive villas with wooden shutters and balconies. They are a 1940s Nazi version of medieval German cottages.

That is where the female guards lived, some with their children. From the balconies they could overlook a forest and a pretty lake. “It was the most beautiful time of my life,” said one former female guard, decades later.

But from their bedrooms they would have also seen chain-gangs of prisoners and the chimneys of the gas chamber.

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That’s All Folks!

As they used to say at the end of all those wacky Looney Tunes cartoons, that’s all folks! The show is over. Literal Russian-Asset Hitler, the Latest Greatest Threat to Western Democracy, the Monster of Mar-a-Lago, Trumpzilla, Trumpenstein, the Ayatollah of Orange Shinola, has finally been humiliated and given the bum-rush out of Washington by the heroic forces of the GloboCap “Resistance,” with a little help from the US military. The whole thing went exactly to script.

Well … OK, not quite exactly to script. Despite four years of dire warnings by the corporate media, the Intelligence Community, Hollywood celebrities, the Democratic Party, faux anti-fascists, fake-Left pundits, and pretty much every utterly deluded, Trump-obsessed liberal with an Internet connection, there was no Hitlerian “Reichstag Fire,” no Boogaloo, no Civil War II, no coup, no white-supremacist uprising. Nothing. The man simply got on a chopper and was flown away to his Florida resort.

I know, you’re probably thinking … “Wow, how embarrassing for the GloboCap ‘Resistance,’ being exposed as a bunch of utterly shameless, neo-Goebbelsian propagandists, and liars, and hysterical idiots, and such!” And, in any other version of reality, you’d have a point … but not in this one.

No, in this reality, “Democracy Has Prevailed!” Yes, it was touch and go there for a while, as there was no guarantee that the Intelligence Community, the military-industrial complex, Western governments, the corporate media, supranational corporations, Internet oligarchs, and virtually every other component of the global-capitalist empire could keep one former game show host with no real political power whatsoever from taking over the entire world.

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BWI Airport Embraces LiDAR To Enforce Social Distancing

Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI) has welcomed in the new year with Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology informing travelers at one security checkpoint whether they’re properly social distancing, according to Airport World.

The LiDAR technology measures travelers’ movements with laser sensors, including the number of people waiting in line. Automated tracking software firm CrowdVision installed the new sophisticated technology at Security Checkpoint B of BWI.

The system notifies travelers on a giant screen whether social distancing is satisfactory. If lines at the security checkpoint are too dense, the system will encourage those waiting in line to practice more social distancing.

“Safe, healthy travel remains our priority,” said BWI’s executive director, Ricky Smith.

“Since the outset of the pandemic, BWI Marshall Airport has implemented many measures to help protect passengers and employees. This innovation provides real-time data on passenger flow so we can notify travelers and manage separation,” Smith said. 

Among other global airports, BWI could be one of the first to embrace LiDAR technology to enforce social distancing.

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