Queens University calls these guardians of tolerance “student facilitators” — a title so perfectly Orwellian that, in all honesty, I can think of nothing more biting to add.
So instead I’ll just take a moment to pay my last respects to the moribund ideal of free speech, then go and start crossing out all of Lenny’s bits from Of Mice and Men.
You know, just to be on the safe side.
(via Dust My Broom; h/t Geoff B)

















Comment by mojo on 11/19 @ 5:09 pm #
I’m trying to get a bet down on how long it takes for one of these busybody buttinskis to get their ass kicked.
Comment by Rusty on 11/19 @ 5:13 pm #
mojo. Its CANADA! They’ll talk yer arm off,but nobody’s kickin anyones ass.
Comment by Sdferr on 11/19 @ 5:19 pm #
Is social justice in any way something other than an empty concept? And yet, though I fear it is not, I’m equally convinced that we all will be seeing the term ever more frequently over the next few years.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/19 @ 5:19 pm #
I would stay in my quiet place I think if I went to college in Canada.
Comment by Bob Reed on 11/19 @ 5:22 pm #
A model for the national O!-force!
Comment by geoffb on 11/19 @ 5:32 pm #
Hockey isn’t non-contact.
Comment by peter jackson on 11/19 @ 5:36 pm #
Somebody, convince me that Canada remains fit for liberty. Quick.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/19 @ 5:41 pm #
It’s no gayer than a lot of American universities I don’t think, peter. I don’t think you’re supposed to take things that happen at universities seriously anymore.
Comment by B Moe on 11/19 @ 5:53 pm #
Progressive missionaries. About damn time.
Comment by Sdferr on 11/19 @ 5:58 pm #
Can’t you see a couple of beat-downs coming on in the future where both the arguing contestants join together to whack the hall monitor with their bookbags?
Comment by happyfeet on 11/19 @ 6:13 pm #
I don’t know how you go about not beating down the hall monitor Canadian nazi people. Probably better to just accuse one of them of sexual harassment straight off instead though.
Comment by ccoffer on 11/19 @ 6:18 pm #
I think Canadian street gangs are still break-dance fighting.
Comment by MAJ (P) John on 11/19 @ 6:28 pm #
“We are trained to interrupt behaviour in a non-blameful and non-judgmental manner, so it’s not like we’re pulling someone aside and reprimanding them about their behaviour. It is honestly trying to get to the root of what they’re trying to say – seeing if that can be said in a different manner.”
Yeah. Right.
I wonder what the compulsory portion of this ‘programme’ will end up being called? Canadinice? Kindness or Else?
Comment by Rob Crawford on 11/19 @ 6:31 pm #
Why would anyone take a report that uses the word “whiteness” seriously?
Comment by B Moe on 11/19 @ 6:32 pm #
Probably better to just accuse one of them of sexual harassment straight off instead though.
There you go! Any Canadian college students reading this, our man ‘feets just gave you your mission: as soon as one of these pinheads mentioning anything sexual, file a harassment complaint against them for making you feel uncomfortable.
Comment by Ann on 11/19 @ 6:45 pm #
Several years ago we were in Washington, DC. As we walked across a large footbridge we saw a sign posted in grand isolaton about halfway across and it simply said, “No standing here”. Well, I looked at our teenaged son and just said, “You know what that means?” He just nodded, went over to the sign and STOOD there, I took the picture to document the event and then we went on our way.
I’ll probably have to stay clear of Canada, because I just know that if I smell a conversation facilitator anywhere within 50 yards of me, I’m going to immediately verbalize my non-acquiescence to anybody facilitating me.
Idiots.
Oh well, gets our radar up for the Obama facilitators who I’m sure are being identified and assigned to columns even as we speak.
Comment by Spiny Norman on 11/19 @ 6:52 pm #
The infantilization of Canada: campus “speech code” political correctness practiced at a national level.
Comment by B Moe on 11/19 @ 6:56 pm #
Well, I looked at our teenaged son and just said, “You know what that means?†He just nodded, went over to the sign and STOOD there…
OUTLAWS!
And on the other side?
it didn’t say nothing,
this land was made for you and me!
I think this meme has real potential, JG.
Comment by twolaneflash on 11/19 @ 6:58 pm #
Subjugation, not infantilization.
Comment by JohnAnnArbor on 11/19 @ 7:12 pm #
Ann, my sister reported something similar happening at her small, PC, liberal-arts college in Ohio. Some campus feminist group posted a near-comprehensive list of words they found offensive that they wanted not to hear. The list was posted on dorm bulletin boards.
Several guys took the lists to the nearest dorm window and screamed each as loud as possible across campus.
Comment by Lyndsey on 11/19 @ 7:14 pm #
What is it that makes colleges seem like islands? In what situation in the real world is it ever okay to insinuate yourself into others’ conversations and “interrupt behavior”?
Bizarre, but mostly disturbing. It means that people sent their kids to college with empty heads. These “facilitators” don’t understand that what they are being trained (and rewarded) to do is wrong.
Comment by Lyndsey on 11/19 @ 7:17 pm #
I’m not talking about situations in which someone is being threatened or something like that,of course.
Comment by Timstigator on 11/19 @ 7:27 pm #
…as the cafeteria serves up hot, steaming bowls of Soylent du jour.
Comment by pdbuttons on 11/19 @ 7:41 pm #
i tuned in and dropped out
went to the junkyard and bought an old patridge family bus and converted it so that it would run on used fast food grease
but no way am i heading to canada
Comment by Percy Dovetonsils on 11/19 @ 7:57 pm #
A “culture of whiteness”?
You know, I increasingly think much better of the Black Panthers. Their racial hatred was upfront and honest, as opposed to these pussies who adorn it in academese.
Comment by geoffb on 11/19 @ 8:16 pm #
The next step down is to just take down the names and other, rougher, people will handle it from there.
The first step is always made to seem easy and so “right”. It’s only for their own good you know. Taking back that step is the hard part, the slope steepens to the precipice.
Comment by Timmmayh! on 11/19 @ 8:16 pm #
C’mon you guys. Any of you who grew up playing hockey know that NOBODY loves to fight more than Canadians. I’m with mojo on this one.
Comment by lee bh on 11/19 @ 8:17 pm #
“This is not about preaching. It’s not about advice giving. It’s about hearing where students are at.”
“It’s not trying to stifle something. It’s trying to foster something,”
“They’re not disciplinarians. They’re called facilitators for a reason,”
“If somebody is yelling something across the dining hall that’s a racial slur, yes, we will intervene in that situation.”
“unique among Canadian universities,” but modelled on programs in the United States”
OOOO K then, nothing to see here.
*shudder*
Comment by Seth Williams on 11/19 @ 8:18 pm #
This sort of leftist totalitarianism would be amusing if not for the fact that it has gone so mainstream. It’s doubly chilling when we have elected a far left President with an evident authoritarian bent based on little more than a cult of personality.
If there were ever a time to have a concerted effort to rally to the defense of the enlightenment, it is now.
Comment by JohnAnnArbor on 11/19 @ 8:33 pm #
U. of Michigan tried speech codes in the early 1990s. you could be brought before secret tribunals for “conspicuous exclusion from conversation,” amongst other offenses.
The Supreme Court had to remind them of the First Amendment on more than one occasion.
Comment by McGehee on 11/19 @ 8:49 pm #
I’d say these
political correctness commissarscommunity organizersfacilitators might risk getting into a fight if they root for the wrong hockey team in the wrong beer joint, but not under any other circumstances.Comment by mojo on 11/19 @ 8:50 pm #
Of course you realize…
This means WAR! We must subjugate the wily Canuk for his own good!
MANIFEST DESTINY!
Comment by The Sanity Inspector on 11/19 @ 8:53 pm #
If the campus thought police in both our nations wanted to be honest and save a lot of trees, they could boil their totalitarian rules down to two brief sentences:
“Everything that offends leftists is forbidden.”
“Everything that offends conservatives is compulsory.”
That would cut all the tapdancing around their pc enforcement being anything other than it is.
Comment by McGehee on 11/19 @ 8:53 pm #
Did you hear the one about the dyslexic physics grad student auditing a history course? He manifested density.
Comment by The Sanity Inspector on 11/19 @ 8:56 pm #
mojo:
This means WAR! We must subjugate the wily Canuk for his own good!
Careful….
Comment by Garth Wood on 11/19 @ 9:33 pm #
Ahem.
It’s “Canuck,” thankyouverymuch.
And besides, nobody up here takes Queens seriously anyways. You want a real education, you go somewhere — anywhere — else.
I suspect that this little exercise in irrelevance will go the way of the dodo in due course. We have more important things to fight up here — like the Canadian Human “Rights” Commission…
Garth
Comment by Jeffersonian on 11/19 @ 9:34 pm #
What’s Canuck for Central Scrutinizer?
Comment by J."Trashman" Peden on 11/19 @ 9:39 pm #
Maybe the targets when confronted should try to start a room chant of something like, “Thou shalt not put lipstick on a pig”, just to, you know, facilitate discussion.
Comment by Rich Cox on 11/19 @ 9:49 pm #
We must send an elite cadre to lean their techniques and weaknesses. We will be battle hardened and blooded.
Next, Antioch, OH and Berkley. Move in now, under the radar, and prepare our caches.
Comment by lcp on 11/19 @ 10:49 pm #
Hey, FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKIN’ STUPID MINDFUCKING THOUGHT POLICING BRAINLESS FUCK. AND TAKE YOUR FUCKIN’ FASCIST FUCKING PROPAGANDA AND SHOVE IT UP YOUR FUCKIN’ CORNHOLE.
Comment by peter jackson on 11/19 @ 11:06 pm #
It’s no gayer than a lot of American universities I don’t think, peter. I don’t think you’re supposed to take things that happen at universities seriously anymore.
Thanks Happyfeet, that helped. It really did.
yours/
peter.
Comment by Spiny Norman on 11/19 @ 11:24 pm #
Before much longer, job interviewers are going to be asking “you got a degree, where?” and it won’t be at all complimentary.
Comment by J."Trashman" Peden on 11/19 @ 11:54 pm #
“Dust My Broom” – Elmore James and his Broomdusters, edited:
I’m gonna get up in the morning
I believe I dust my broom
[...]
I don’t want no woman
Want every downtown man she meets
She’s a no good facilitator
They shouldn’t allow her on the street
Comment by Russ on 11/20 @ 12:21 am #
Before much longer, job interviewers are going to be asking “you got a degree, where?” and it won’t be at all complimentary.
I decided years ago that if in the position of interviewing or hiring, an Ivy League grad is going to have to do significantly better than anyone else in the process if they expect me to hire them. To be honest, if I saw a recent Harvard degree listed on a resume in my inbox, I’d likely toss it.
On the other hand, I’m in network engineering, so it’s not likely ever to be an issue.
Comment by thor on 11/20 @ 12:35 am #
Harvard grads and Ivy league’rs apply to for jobs at the White House. You monitor hardware alarms and run BIOS updates.
“Not likely,” you can say that again.
Comment by bmeuppls on 11/20 @ 12:52 am #
“It’s not trying to stifle something. It’s trying to foster something,â€Â
“They’re not disciplinarians. They’re called facilitators for a reason,â€Â
Why is it that when someone starts off a point by making sure we don’t get the wrong point, it is the wrong point I automatically assume is the true intent…
Comment by JohnAnnArbor on 11/20 @ 1:05 am #
Not that you’re an elitist or anything, thor.
Comment by geoffb on 11/20 @ 1:21 am #
If you’re going to mention Elmore James you might as well listen.
Comment by J."Trashman" Peden on 11/20 @ 2:00 am #
#47
Yes! But for some reason I more prefer another version he did. The commenters there didn’t, though.
Comment by geoffb on 11/20 @ 2:05 am #
Which one?
Comment by J."Trashman" Peden on 11/20 @ 2:11 am #
Which one? I don’t know how to name it. It starts as I quoted it, is perhaps a little faster, and ends with a couple of gituar thunks.
Comment by geoffb on 11/20 @ 2:14 am #
Ok, thanks I’ll look for it tomorrow.
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Comment by Mr. Pink on 11/20 @ 5:12 am #
Why is this guy still a grad student he looks 50 something? I guess if he is going to spend his entire life in a college in Canada and never hold a real job this is a perfect avenue to validate his self worth. I mean being alone, unmarried, unemployed, and still in school after 50 has to suck. If you want to look on the brightside if he was down here in the states he would have been volunteering for O! for the last year and posting online as a “lifelong Republican for Obama”.
Comment by B Moe on 11/20 @ 5:40 am #
Harvard grads and Ivy league’rs apply to for jobs at the White House.
Was Lewinsky an Ivy Leaguer?
Comment by Carin on 11/20 @ 5:41 am #
Not that you’re an elitist or anything, thor.
You can tell by the way he called me a warehouse worker’s wife the other day. heh. He likes the underclass theoretically. You know, like when they’re a character in a book.
Comment by B Moe on 11/20 @ 5:54 am #
Or a Russian peasant girl desperate to get the fuck out of Dodge.
Comment by Garth Wood on 11/20 @ 6:37 am #
The grad student pictured is a 46-year-old Master’s of Divinity student. This tells me immediately that he’s a dilettante (or going for the ministry with the United Church of Canada, which, with a few honourable exceptions, is pretty much the same thing, except with better pay and lower expectations). Serious ministerial students go to specialized theological colleges in Canada or the U.S., but never a freakin’ University.
Unless, of course, they’re trying to become atheists but need an excuse for making the transition (“honest, I was a believer until those intellectual gods at University showed me the error of my ways! Religion’s crap, man — at least, that’s what they keep telling me down at the ashram…”).
Comment by SDN on 11/20 @ 6:43 am #
FTFY. For some reason, choosiness and thor just don’t go together. I suspect he’s utterly baffled by Jif peanut butter ads.
Comment by Ric Locke on 11/20 @ 7:30 am #
He may have been doing that anyway. We’ve been outsourcing to Canada for a lot longer than anywhere else.
Regards,
Ric
Comment by Mr. Pink on 11/20 @ 7:38 am #
46 years old? Shouldn’t you be entering the latter stages of your career by then with a couple of kids? I think what I am getting at is who would want this guy’s advice on anything let alone how to think. Hell just ask him what he has done all his life and do the freakin opposite you will be alot better off.
Comment by MarkD on 11/20 @ 7:44 am #
What if one reported the facilitators to the Human Rights Commission?
Comment by Mr. Pink on 11/20 @ 7:47 am #
The only advice this guy should be giving is on how to go 46 years without getting laid and without killing yourself. I am sure he could clue you in on how to do that very well.
Comment by SarahW on 11/20 @ 8:36 am #
“46-year-old Master’s of Divinity student”
I humbly observe Gay Face. NTTAWWT.
Comment by N. O'Brain on 11/20 @ 8:39 am #
Comment by B Moe on 11/20 @ 5:54 am #
Or a Russian peasant girl thor is desperate to fuck.
FTFY. Part 2.
Comment by Mossberg500 on 11/20 @ 8:39 am #
I can’t imagine “intervening in conversations” with college students in a dining hall or common rooms. Love to see’em try it after a South Park, Family Guy, or Chapelle Show marathon.
“I’m Rick James, bitch!”
Comment by N. O'Brain on 11/20 @ 8:40 am #
Oh……
Fascism with a smiley face.
Jonah Goldberg is a frikkin’ PROPHET, man.
Comment by Mossberg500 on 11/20 @ 8:43 am #
Daniel Hayward soon to be featured on To Catch A Predator 2009.
Comment by sylvie_oshima on 11/20 @ 8:55 am #
Pardon, Jeff, this is really good.
Comment by sylvie_oshima on 11/20 @ 8:56 am #
I think you could mount the same sort of attack on Huckabee with classic liberalism.
Comment by N. O'Brain on 11/20 @ 9:05 am #
Shut up, kate.
Comment by Mossberg500 on 11/20 @ 9:20 am #
The bullshit bandwidth bandit is back.
Comment by Slartibartfast on 11/20 @ 9:22 am #
In thor’s defense, I thought he had a great deal of reverence for all of those Russian hookers he was banging. Maybe it’s only the underclass he’s in a cash-only relationship with.
Comment by Ronnie Dobbs on 11/20 @ 9:32 am #
Maybe they can call themselves members of the Committee to Prevent Vice and Promote Virtue
Comment by Mossberg500 on 11/20 @ 9:40 am #
In thor’s defense, I thought he had a great deal of reverence for all of those Russian hookers he was banging. Maybe it’s only the underclass he’s in a cash-only relationship with.
You forgot that they’ll have acheived the ability to recite poetry while drearily forging ahead with their depressingly literate lives.
Comment by Mossberg500 on 11/20 @ 9:42 am #
Ministry of Literate Debauchery
Comment by Techie on 11/20 @ 10:07 am #
yes, the appropriate response is to turn around and say “See, I’m Rick James, bitch. I’m one of the baddest motherfuckers of all time. One of the best singers, one of the best looking motherfucker’s you’ve ever seen. Hold my drink.”
Or is that a bit overboard?
Comment by Mossberg500 on 11/20 @ 11:08 am #
eSodomy
Comment by Slartibartfast on 11/20 @ 11:10 am #
Rick James?
Comment by happyfeet on 11/20 @ 11:15 am #
oh. I thought the same thing, SarahW. I bet the conversation squad is a rainbow of flava like that.
Comment by McGehee on 11/20 @ 11:20 am #
Okay, I am never buying Skittles® again.
“Taste the rainbow.” <shudder>
Comment by J."Trashman" Peden on 11/20 @ 11:26 am #
I think you could mount the same sort of attack on Huckabee with classic liberalism.
Maybe you should try it, then present the results. It just might actually be helpful to everyone!
Comment by Andrew the Noisy on 11/20 @ 11:28 am #
“We are trained to interrupt behaviour in a non-blameful and non-judgmental manner, so it’s not like we’re pulling someone aside and reprimanding them about their behaviour. It is honestly trying to get to the root of what they’re trying to say – seeing if that can be said in a different manner.”
And what happens when the
victimprospect for enlightenment refuses to participate in his own re-education? I’ll bet things get more judgemental then.The tyrant always smiles so long as you obey.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/20 @ 11:32 am #
It used to be the rainbow what was on the cars of the people that drive around gay-identifying but now it’s an equals sign. It’s a yellow equals sign on blue I think. here… My friend P has one. hmmm. It is not without controversy I guess. This would be great to talk about I think. Anyone seen the facilitator?
Comment by Mr. Pink on 11/20 @ 11:34 am #
Seriously though, look at this guy’s picture. He is a 46 year old waste of life. What can this guy boast of as an accomplishment besides wasting 28 years of government grants for free college? What day can he point to and say “that was the greatest day of my life”? If this guy ever came up to me and started lecturing me on how to think and act I would laugh in his face. They should put his picture in the hallways of high schools as a public service announcment against being a douchebag.
Comment by mojo on 11/20 @ 11:56 am #
Ahem.
It’s “Canuck,†thankyouverymuch.
SPELLIST!
Comment by J."Trashman" Peden on 11/20 @ 11:59 am #
This would be great to talk about I think. Anyone seen the facilitator?
Here I am: repeat after me, “Man does not equal Woman.”
Comment by Diana on 11/20 @ 12:04 pm #
“Look into the face of Canada, and you’ll see our collagen implants are way too puffy.” … Mark Steyn
Comment by N. O'Brain on 11/20 @ 12:08 pm #
SPELLIST!
“I don’t give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way. Shows lack of imagination!”
- Mark Twain
Comment by Mossberg500 on 11/20 @ 12:19 pm #
I’m sure drinking helped out with Mark Twain’s imagination.
Comment by steph on 11/20 @ 12:29 pm #
“It is just one of many recent efforts to promote diversity – such as gender-neutral washrooms…”
So removing urinals promotes diversity? Who knew?
Can I sue my company for having gender-specific “washrooms”, based on the theory that the presence of a urinal chills diversity and is downright m-e-a-n.
Comment by J."Trashman" Peden on 11/20 @ 12:30 pm #
Both of those sure are personal reliefs.
Comment by Dan Are on 11/20 @ 12:57 pm #
…barely on topic, but enjoy it while you can-I cried by the bottom of the page.
http://onlineslangdictionary.com/thesaurus/words+meaning+to+defecate.html
Comment by Mossberg500 on 11/20 @ 1:12 pm #
“Burning a mule!” Hahahahahaha!
Comment by mojo on 11/20 @ 1:15 pm #
“See a man about a dog”
He’s my psychiatrist. I have this phobia.
Comment by Mossberg500 on 11/20 @ 1:29 pm #
“See a man about a dogâ€Â
Wasn’t that a quote by David Berkowitz?
Comment by Dan Are on 11/20 @ 1:44 pm #
Somehow, “Pack a Bowl” was left out, though it appears elsewhere.
Comment by Garth Wood on 11/20 @ 1:44 pm #
Huh.
They forgot “bend a fresh biscuit.” One of my favourites, actually.
Garth
Comment by Dan Are on 11/20 @ 1:47 pm #
I just laughed so hard, now I’M turtle-heading.
Comment by Slartibartfast on 11/20 @ 1:53 pm #
They forgot “prairie-dogging”, which is trying to hold it in, and just barely succeeding.
Comment by Dan Are on 11/20 @ 1:55 pm #
I wish I could cite the comic with the accent, who would “Huff out a Havana.”
Comment by Slartibartfast on 11/20 @ 2:05 pm #
“hork up a growler”
Comment by happyfeet on 11/20 @ 2:11 pm #
Jeff can’t get back soon enough really.
Comment by Slartibartfast on 11/20 @ 2:19 pm #
Ok, time for the splash weight loss program.
Comment by alppuccino on 11/20 @ 2:27 pm #
“If somebody is yelling something across the dining hall that’s a racial slur, yes, we will intervene in that situation.â€Â
“Hey hosehead! While yer oop dair, can you grab me a brownie? OK.”
Comment by McGehee on 11/20 @ 2:37 pm #
Nobody offered “take the Browns to the Super Bowl?” One of my favorite Larry-the-Cable-Guy-isms!
Comment by Dan Are on 11/20 @ 3:15 pm #
“Is social justice in any way something other than an empty concept? And yet, though I fear it is not, I’m equally convinced that we all will be seeing the term ever more frequently over the next few years.”
The intended end result of “equal opportunity” is “equal outcome”- quotas, and good old wealth redistribution. “Social Justice” is just equal outcome, writ large.
I think progressives will ride that horse until it dies. Which is to say, until the doublespeak no longer works, and everyone knows what the hell they’re saying.
If there actually were justice in social justice, Asian kids wouldn’t be held to a higher standard in college admission.
Comment by ccoffer on 11/20 @ 3:19 pm #
hello
Comment by McGehee on 11/20 @ 3:42 pm #
…the word “social” would be unnecessary.
Comment by Dan Are on 11/20 @ 3:56 pm #
It’s just short for “socialism’s lame idea of justice”.
Comment by Garth Wood on 11/20 @ 4:36 pm #
mojo on 11/20 @ 11:56 am wrote:
SPELLIST!
===== end of quote =====
Spellist? Moi?
Bight mi. ;-)
Comment by Garth Wood on 11/20 @ 4:37 pm #
Harrison Bergeron.
Now more than ever.
Comment by Rob Crawford on 11/20 @ 4:52 pm #
Naw. It’s just that the surest way to suck the meaning out of any word is to put “social” in front of it: “social science”, “social studies”, “social security”.
Comment by Mikey NTH on 11/20 @ 4:55 pm #
The Dream Police are next.
Comment by sdferr on 11/20 @ 5:07 pm #
Rats, Rob, sucking out the meaning that way, cause i was going to answer your question from the new thread
with the neologism “the social orifice”, which I had thought more or less appropriate.
Comment by Mikey NTH on 11/20 @ 5:10 pm #
What is social justice? It is whatever you want it to be.
Comment by Obstreperous Infidel on 11/20 @ 5:53 pm #
My 9 year old daughter tells me her peeps call taking a dump, “dropping the kids off to the pool”. And being a Cleveland Browns fan, McGehee, that sounds about right.
Comment by McGehee on 11/20 @ 6:48 pm #
I seem to recall when I was a kid somebody referred to it as “laying skunk eggs.”
Comment by CGHill on 11/20 @ 6:48 pm #
This explains much about “social diseases.”
Comment by mojo on 11/20 @ 8:32 pm #
Bight mi. ;-)
“Havatchu!”
“Gesundheit!”