corruption in the UK? Say it isn't so...

 I vaguely had read about the Muslim grooming gangs in the north of England: but didn't realize it was that bad. 

However, I was aware that some Muslim guys (even the docs I worked with) considered all Christian girls as sluts and thought it was okay to have sex with them, even aggressively. (a relative in Canada was raped by one at her college: No he never was charged, since he claimed she came on to him and was lying, and never was punished even after she got a restraining order on him for stalking and sexual harassment that others verified he was doing).

So anyway, suddenly the British scandal about the Pakistani and Asian grooming gangs who abused young poor white girls is in the news again, with Elon Musk putting his two cents (or should I say two billion) into the discussion.

It is the holiday so I wondered why all of a sudden this (?old) scandal exploded: Is it anti immigrant prejudice (I hope not: We have Filipino relatives there who are now proud UK citizens, but still are obviously not Anglo ethnics). Or is it about an aggressive Islam? The groomers were mainly Pakistani Muslims, yet one wonders why those from the same area and presumably the same culture who are Hindu or Sikh are not involved. Then you have the question: Are these guys immigrants, or second generation types who were inflamed by (Saudi fundamentalist) preachers at local mosques who teach hatred?

Don't ask me.

Presumably the resentment against Muslim immigrants came to a head was because of the attack on young girls at a dance class, where the UK government tried to cover it up and said the perpetrator was a Welshman Christian, when it turned out he was the child of African immigrants and had lots of jihadi stuff in his possession.

Then the government started arresting parents protesting, probably because the good old boys there who tend to be rowdy, were threatening to the innocent or something.

So anyway, after that, the party in power got booted out and another party took over. 

Yeah. The Labour party loves the working class, right? 

So why is the story of the grooming gangs blowing up again? Maybe new reports? Maybe because one extremist who had a film about it was jailed? Anyone? Anyone.

 Canadian journalist David Warren (who also writes on culture on the Catholic Thing) mentions what was the problem:

...the British prime minister, Keir Starmer... rose to power as the prosecutor protecting Muslim “grooming gangs,” and now puts people in gaol who protest on behalf of their rape and murder victims.

The idea that Mr Starmer should have a rôle in the government of a civilized country, is as absurd as the idea that the 14-year-old narcissist who has ruled Canada, or the 82-year-old senescent who has ruled the United States...

Duh.

from a UKTelegraph story 

Ms Oliver, who now runs a foundation supporting abuse victims, said that, while previous inquiries had led nowhere, she did believe it was now time for a fresh independent investigation into grooming. She added that as a former DPP, Sir Keir had to bear some responsibility for the widespread failure to bring those responsible to justice.

Writing on X, she said: “Those leading these ‘enquiries’ have always wanted to cover up the truth, to hide it. And I’d say it’s become even worse in recent months with those who dare to speak out finding themselves in prison within a couple of days… when victims wait 6/7/8 years for a trial! Corrupt and just wrong....

so who in the USA is pushing the UK to investigate the story? 

...Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman urged Mr Trump to “consider appropriate sanctions against the UK” over its handling of the grooming scandal.  .... He wrote on X: “Who was the head of the CPS when rape gangs were allowed to exploit young girls without facing justice? Keir Starmer, 2008–2013. “Who is the boss of Jess Phillips right now? Keir Stamer 

 Here is a discussion by some well known podcasters (lotuseaters) of what is going on:

,

sigh.

====================

 this wouldn't be the first time the elites ignored injustice against normal people in the UK, and then tried to block inquiries.

It brings to mind the Post Office Scandal, where a computer software glitch caused many ordinary people running post offices to be accused of theft. 

 That story finally was publicized by a miniseries Mr Bates vs the Post Office: 

The Real Story chronicled sub-postmaster Alan Bates’s legal battle against the Post Office, which had falsely accused him and some 3,500 others of defrauding the UK’s postal service. Following the airing of the four-part mini-series, the number of signatures on a long-running petition calling for an official honour to be stripped from former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells rocketed to more than one million.

more details at Wikipedia  

Vennells was head of the Post Office from 2012 to 2017... of positions despite the rumors about what had happened on her watch.,

 Vennels is still unpunished and got plenty of jobs after the scandal was known but not well publicized.

but the strangest link here is that Vennells is an Anglican priest and almost got appointed to become the bishop of London in 2017.

So it's not just politicians: The head of the CofE Welby also said I know nothing. 

But then of course he resigned recently for being silent about sexual abusers, so I guess there was a lot going on he preferred not to notice.

what both these scandals have in common is that years later, it was the small people who stubbornly pushed for justice who finally got a smidgen of justice. 

as the African proverb warns: Even a small snake has a fang.

Alas, so far the ones who should have stopped these things are still free and have never been punished.

games? Fantasy? Role models? Why memes matter

 I am falling behind in the times: 

 like most elders I didn't know or care a lot about Gamergate, where the woke tried to reform the game industry, the incels fought back on line and the left exaggerated their trolling as being an extremist right wing conspiracy instead of guys just wanting their games to continue to be fun and who liked ridiculing the gaming equivalent to nagging girlfriends aka Karens.

To me, gaming seemed to be just another shoot em out thing like wrestling or John Wick, where the good guys fought the bad guys but since gamergate overlapped with other trends trying to destroy free speech it caught my attention.

Essentially we saw censorship: done by cyberbullying of those whose opinions are not politically correct. But it went beyond mean tweets:  by libeling those who disagree with them they marginalized their opinions, and this influenced the industry and led to the woke Karens taking over the adventure/superhero stories to use them as propaganda instead of entertainment. Of course, it also led to the customers not using the product anymore, and financial problems for the gaming (and later comicbook and film industry) but the woke Karens didn't worry about such things.

So Gamergate and  sad puppies in sci fi,  was a precursor to the destruction of Hollywood franchises, e.g. the destruction of Star wars etc by woke... and a similar fight could be seen after covid hit, and we saw not the Karens but the government  censoring qualified medical data on covid by libeling true experts as anti vax crazies (something that continues to this day).

so how to fight back? Humor and satire.

Trolling with memes is a big way to fight back, and the left wing hysteria of the experts to being trolled is laughable.

But the censorship was worse when it came to science:  some prominent physicians not only were censored but punished.

And since the usual methods of discussing things was being censored, a lot of folks drifted to alternative sites: true, some are crazy but some were just saying things that some people in government didn't want to be said. 

But with Trumpieboy taking over, the hope is that the push back will include free speech, and that means that mature types will be able to take over the culture wars before the crazies do.

This freedom of speech  means letting us discuss medical illnesses and treatment. You know, we used to do this in our hospitals, where we had meetings discussing and analyzing journal articles. These published articles were often biased or laughable, but back then, aside from a letter to the editor, which was slow and clumsy, we had no way to push back against what was being published.

Now we can discuss our questions and tweet our objections without being censored.

A lot of the MSM/government monopoly was destroyed not just by crazies but by pushback: thanks to podcasts and the twitter files.

And this is good.

the destruction of the woke censorship complex goes beyond medicine, and goes beyond politics, but into culture itself.

Because I have worked in various cultures both in the USA and overseas, I have an interest in mythology and how mythology and psychology impacts culture (and religion). Jordan Peterson has a lot of lectures about this, People forget that he started on the internet by posting to discussion  boards answering questions for boys, and saw the need to teach boys to be mature men.

But then something unexpected happened: Trumpieboy won, and suddenly things changed.

The culture wars, which appeared to be lost on many levels, has seen a revival of traditional ways of looking at things.

 

 Fast forward to Kekius maximus, an icon that Elon Musk is using on Twitter/X.

I know Kek from the Q conspiracy pages, and Maximus is a bow to the Gladiator I character played by Russel Crowe.

But not being into gaming, I was not aware that this meme had many other connotations.

 The catchphrase "Kekius Maximus," used in a way similar to "lol" to react to something funny, is a portmanteau of "kek" and an Ancient Roman name such as Flavius Maximus.

"Kek" originated as a translation of the acronym "lol" when written by members of the Horde faction and viewed by Alliance members in World of Warcraft and became a popular alternative to "lol" in the late 2000s and early 2010s, primarily on 4chan.

Kekius Maximus likely references Maximus Decimus Meridius, the main character in Ridley Scott's film Gladiator, and has been associated with imagery of gladiators and soldiers of Ancient Rome for many years. Additionally, "Kekius" translates to "the greatest" or "largest", with the phrase therefore literally translating to "the greatest kek" (while "great kek" is itself a common expression).

more details at link.

But it also has to do with a game that is now being released: Path of Exile 2.

I saw a discussion of these games on a Joe Rogan podcast that mentioned these games are ways to relax the mind for geeks.

These multi layer games are not just shoot em ups, but include strategy and planning that overlap into war gaming, which is a way to teach people to think strategically.

Hmm... sounds interesting.

Wonder if they are using this to teach medical students to think? thirty Years ago, we did have a primitives game to teach us about CPR, and apparently there are still games being used to teach thinking.

So if nothing else, Elon Musk's using Kekius Maximus is not just a troll, but a heads up to we old folks that this gaming subculture exists and like movies and books can be used for good or bad ends.