Books Dissecting The Dark Descent Sometimes We Don’t Come Back: “The Beckoning Fair One” by Oliver Onions A haunting story of mental instability and isolation… By Sam Reader | Published on May 6, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share Welcome back to Dissecting The Dark Descent, where we lovingly delve into the guts of David Hartwell’s seminal 1987 anthology story by story, and in the process, explore the underpinnings of a genre we all love. For an in-depth introduction, here’s the intro post. “The Beckoning Fair One” (1911) marks an interesting point in our discussion of The Dark Descent. For the past two stories, we’ve seen the results of the alienation and disconnection from humanity that intense psychological stress can cause. Going further back, we’ve seen the way a mind can twist itself into so many knots that it snaps from external horror through both a masculine and feminine lens. Oliver Onions combines these elements into a dark and gothic story fraught with modern themes of alienation, exploring the idea of living space as inner landscape in a much darker way than James’ “The Jolly Corner,” which was published three years earlier. This synthesis, and the twisted way it inverts James’ brighter and somewhat less strange story, drags its tale of haunted houses, alienation, paranoia, and eventual loss of humanity into a more modern space, exploring in devastating detail the self-inflicted feedback loop of trauma on Paul Oleron, the damage to those around him, and his toxic relationship with “The Beckoning Fair One” in his house. Paul Oleron is a writer, fifteen chapters into his magnum opus, a novel called Romilly Bishop. One day, while passing an abandoned house he sees on regular walks, he notices that it’s available to rent and immediately falls in love with the place. While he can’t afford the whole house, he rents a single floor as an apartment and moves in, hoping to enjoy a change of scenery, a bigger space, and a place to write Romilly undisturbed. As he settles in, strange incidents begin to occur, friends distance themselves, and the house itself seems to want Oleron entirely at its mercy. It’s the start of a long spiral for Paul Oleron that in the end might cost him his sanity, his humanity, and even possibly his life itself. As there’s no real way to tell where Oleron’s madness ends and any “actual” haunting in “The Beckoning Fair One” begins, much of the horror comes not from the fantastical circumstances but from our experience of watching uncomfortably from a front-row seat as someone loses all sense of self and connection with the outside world. There are a few moments that remain inexplicable, especially in the way the house seems to react to Oleron’s friend Elsie Bengough, slashing her hand with a nail (a clear sign that Clive Barker’s read this novella) and shredding her foot when she falls through a seemingly solid porch step. There are also unusual moments like when Oleron starts whistling an old folk tune he’s never heard before, or his obsession with the house’s previous tenant, who died under mysterious circumstances. Make no mistake—most of Oleron’s misery is self-inflicted—but the idea that there are supernatural elements in play further twists the story into knots, ratcheting up the sinister atmosphere of the single-floor apartment that soon becomes Oleron’s prison as well as his home. Knowing there are things that, at even his most lucid, cannot be explained adds a feeling of doom as he slowly alienates himself from everyone—a tightening of the noose around him on a larger existential scale. As he withdraws into himself, his delusions grow more manifest until he develops a toxic codependency with the presence—real or imagined—in his house. Bit by bit, friends start to leave, people avoid him on the street, and as things seem to grow ever more sinister, there’s a nonspecific “evil” that drives his housekeeper away. It’s an ominous sequence, and piles on paranoia with each bizarre negative interaction, each time someone acts slightly off-kilter. Once it seems like the environment itself is against him, the contrast between the outside world and Oleron’s internal landscape becomes more stark. The twisting of that internal landscape is the centerpiece of “The Beckoning Fair One.” It starts small and in ways few would notice, with Oleron developing writer’s block on Romilly and deciding to abandon all fifteen chapters to work on an entirely new version of the story. Elsie responds by questioning him and asserting that he needs to get out more, even offering to help him find some way to get out of the house. He turns her down, of course—he has a perfectly good job writing and needs to finish Romilly—but underlying this exchange is the grim reality that Oleron rejects the outside world for more time spent cooped up in his house. It’s a harrowing and realistic portrait of a downward spiral, with the narration around Oleron giving no hint of danger while the subtext and incidents that remain unseen start to pile up. “The Beckoning Fair One” is ruthless in its execution, as Oleron’s escape routes from his own troubled psyche and the presence in his house dwindle away, often in small ways or in ways the limited viewpoint on Oleron offers no explanation or answer for. Onions actually references agoraphobia as Oleron further sequesters himself inside his apartment, buying flowers to counteract the stale air from not opening any windows or doing any of his own cleaning, until eventually he can’t even stand going to the store, getting everything delivered so he doesn’t have to go outside. His thoughts turn internal, obsessive, manic, and depressed, though he’s confused as to why that’s the case since nothing should depress him. It’s horrifyingly accurate enough that anyone who’s been in such a situation knows exactly what this feels like. The confused thoughts, the way social interactions feel abrasive, the outright helplessness as you do less and less for yourself and therefore can do less and less, are all hallmarks of deep depression and alienation. It’s clear there’s something seriously wrong with Oleron that he can’t fix on his own, but with him rejecting all help and everyone else willing to just chalk it up to “he’s crazy” and turn away, eventually it all collapses. In a sardonic passage about abandoning the mentally unwell to their demons, the narration notes with considerable venom that “[t]he lost must remain lost,” as his protagonist rambles through incoherent and blurred thoughts. While Onions allows Oleron a final moment of clarity, even this is just to twist the knife, letting his protagonist see that he’s wrecked his life beyond all repair by cutting everyone and everything off. Between the realistic portrait of a man’s breakdown and the final knowledge that there is no escape, the horror of what the audience just witnessed slams home. Worse still, Oleron was rational before the house drove him insane. Under the right circumstances, the story suggests, this could happen to anyone. “The Beckoning Fair One” is both indictment and warning, one that human beings need connection to the world to function. Oliver Onions draws the reader in with the gothic framework, only to give them front-row seats to his protagonist’s mental breakdown, both from an inability to understand his own mind and from the toxic feedback loop of his own solitude. It brings together the haunted house narrative, the wrenching mental breakdowns of overt psychological horror like “The Yellow Wallpaper,” and the obsessive monsters of the id found in stories like “Clara Militch” in a twisted synthesis more unnerving than most “extreme” horror works. It’s a horrifying cautionary tale admonishing the reader never to get “lost.” After all, sometimes we don’t come back. And now to turn it over to you. Was there anything anyone could have done to help Paul Oleron before he hit that final stage of complete isolation? Did the house really play a role in driving him insane? Please join us in two weeks for Civil War-era science fiction writer Fitz-James O’Brien and his tale “What Was It?”[end-mark] The post Sometimes We Don’t Come Back: “The Beckoning Fair One” by Oliver Onions appeared first on Reactor.

A new book exposes how California’s leftist political machine is unraveling the Golden State—and, sadly, how socialist policies could be exported nationwide if Americans aren’t vigilant. The book is “Fool’s Gold: The Radicals, Con Artists, and Traitors Who Killed the California Dream and Now Threaten Us All,” co-authored by investigative journalists Susan Crabtree of RealClearPolitics and Jedd McFatter at the Government Accountability Institute. “Violent crime is surging in California. Illegal drug use is off the charts, and it is subject to a daily invasion of illegal migrants crossing its southern border,” the authors write, mincing no words. “Homeless addicts in once beautiful San Francisco shoot up, sleep, and defecate on its streets when they’re not stealing from what shops are still open in the city. Its economy is struggling. Tent cities block the sidewalks of Los Angeles as businesses leave the state’s crushing regulations, extortionate taxes, and unchecked property crime. Its police force is demoralized by negligent ‘Soros prosecutors’ who turn repeat criminals loose. Its universities, always a source of foment and dissent, have metastasized into playthings and espionage targets for America’s greatest adversary—the communist regime of China.” “Fool’s Gold” is timely, given that polling shows two of the top five potential 2028 Democratic presidential primary contenders hail from California—former Vice President Kamala Harris (a former San Francisco district attorney and state attorney general) and former San Francisco mayor and current California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Newsom is currently running an image-rehabilitation podcast after botching the fatal wildfires that ravaged his state earlier this year. McFatter and Crabtree, a California resident and my former colleague at The Hill newspaper, also dig into Newsom’s alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party and his involvement in corruption. The book describes a nonprofit organization initiative started by Newsom called ChinaSF, which the authors report served as a gateway for Chinese Communist Party officials and Chinese criminals to exploit California. “Fool’s Gold” is already having an impact, with Newsom publicly denying the book’s claim that he secretly funded a controversial City Hall bronze statue of his own bust. The statue commemorates Newsom’s stint as mayor of San Francisco from 2004 to 2011. Newsom used what’s known as “behested payments” to fund the monument, with a reported three private organizations donating to the nonprofit designated for “Mayoral Bust at San Francisco City Hall.”  “Fool’s Gold” reports two of the three reported companies are companies owned by Newsom: Balboa Cafe Partners and PlumpJack Management Group donated a combined $10,000 to the $97,000 bust fund. “We 100% stand by our Gavin Newsom bronze-bust vanity project story,” Crabtree replied on X in response to Newsom’s claim that the donations were not secret. “Team Newsom is afraid of the shocking revelations in FOOL’S GOLD—which is backed by more than forty-five pages of endnotes containing more than 1,000 open-source, reputable, and verifiable citations with zero anonymous sources—and that is why they are trying to smear this book.” Crabtree also said “Newsom’s team has thus far refused to answer whether his companies got a tax break for funding this ‘charitable’ statue.”  “Fool’s Gold” also explains how Newsom’s horrific release of thousands of prisoners during the COVID-19 pandemic created a huge spike in crime throughout the state. Its impact is still felt today as residents and businesses continue to flee California for better-managed red states, such as Texas and Florida.  It’s no wonder, in light of a new report from the United Ways of California finding that 35% of households across the state—more than 3.8 million—are struggling to cover basic living expenses. The Committee to Unleash Prosperity noted that a 2024 national survey found only 15% of respondents felt that California was a model for other states  The Public Policy Institute of California also found that only 1 in 3 Californians think the state is a good place to achieve the American dream. McFatter and Crabtree pithily sum up the problem of exporting California’s policies nationwide: “if the fifty states are still America’s ‘laboratories of democracy,’ California is the Wuhan Institute.” Carrie Sheffield is a senior policy analyst at Independent Women’s Voice and author of “Motorhome Prophecies: A Journey of Healing and Forgiveness.” We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post New Book ‘Fool’s Gold’ Warns Against Exporting California’s Policies Nationwide appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Despite its mission to challenge Big Tech dominance, Mozilla now finds itself tethered to one of its largest rivals in a paradox that could threaten the very survival of its flagship browser, Firefox. As the Justice Department pushes forward with remedies aimed at curbing Google’s monopoly over online search, Mozilla’s financial dependence on the search giant is surfacing as a glaring vulnerability, one that the organization admits could become existential. More: The fall of Mozilla Mozilla’s Chief Financial Officer, Eric Muhlheim, testified in court on Friday, describing the potential fallout of the DOJ’s proposals as dire. “It’s very frightening,” he said if Google were barred from paying to remain the default search provider in Firefox. That payment, ironically, forms the lifeblood of a browser that was created to stand as a counterweight to corporate control of the internet. Firefox generates roughly 90 percent of Mozilla’s revenue, and Muhlheim confirmed that about 85 percent of that comes from its agreement with Google; an arrangement that funds both Mozilla’s for-profit arm and, by extension, the nonprofit foundation behind it. While the court has already determined that Google’s use of default search engine contracts amounts to illegal monopolistic behavior, Mozilla’s testimony underscores the tangled consequences of dismantling those deals. Mozilla, positioned as a David to Google’s Goliath in the browser wars, depends on the very dominance the DOJ seeks to unwind. Muhlheim didn’t mince words about what severing the deal could mean. The immediate loss of that income would require sweeping cutbacks. He spoke of a “downward spiral” in which reduced funding for product development would degrade Firefox, prompt user attrition, and potentially “put Firefox out of business.” The ripple effects, he warned, would hit Mozilla’s other initiatives—such as its work on ethical AI and open web standards. The contradiction is hard to miss: Firefox, hailed by digital rights advocates as a rare independent in a browser market increasingly shaped by Apple’s WebKit and Google’s Chromium, is only able to survive because of a search contract with Google. Its own browser engine, Gecko, was developed precisely to prevent a single corporation—then Microsoft—from dictating how the internet worked. Now, two decades later, Mozilla’s survival hinges on the largesse of another tech behemoth. The DOJ’s broader vision involves creating a more competitive search landscape where multiple companies could vie for placement in browsers like Firefox, eventually replacing Google’s dominant position. But Mozilla isn’t banking on that happening soon. Muhlheim warned that even in a best-case scenario, such a transition would take years, years Mozilla may not have if its revenue stream evaporates. “We would be really struggling to stay alive,” he said. During cross-examination, he acknowledged the downside of being overly reliant on a single partner. He also conceded that Opera, another independent browser, has managed to generate more revenue from ads than search deals, suggesting a path Mozilla could theoretically follow. But, Muhlheim argued, Firefox’s focus on user privacy complicates efforts to build a similar business model. While Mozilla supports giving users more options when choosing a browser on new devices, a so-called “choice screen,” it resists requiring a similar interface for selecting search engines. Muhlheim said Firefox already provides multiple ways for users to pick their preferred search tool, adding, “Choice is a core value for us, but context matters…The best way to get to choice is not always a choice screen.” Toward the end of his testimony, Judge Amit Mehta posed a hypothetical: Would Mozilla benefit from a world where another company could match Google in both quality and monetization? Muhlheim didn’t hesitate: “If we were suddenly in that world, that would be a world that would be better for Mozilla.” Yet for now, that world remains out of reach, and the organization that once set out to break tech monopolies remains deeply entangled with one of the largest. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Mozilla’s Google Dependence Threatens Firefox’s Survival appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Renewable Energy Killing British Power Security

BREAKING: Trump Pauses Houthi Campaign After 'Capitulation'?

The hellish storm was a sign that things had to change in America’s “dust bowl”.

This is the first survey to actually ask Olympic-level athletes what they think about the subject.

A former housing official who served under President George H. W. Bush has claimed that the U.S. government has spent years funding a secret underground “city” for the wealthy and powerful to seek shelter during a “near-extinction event.” Catherine Austin Fitts made these claims on former Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s podcast. There is no concrete evidence to support her allegations. Fitts, 74, cited research by Michigan State University economist Mark Skidmore. In 2017, Skidmore released a report stating that he and a team of scholars had uncovered “$21 trillion in unauthorized spending in the departments of Defense and Housing and Urban Development for the years 1998-2015.” Skidmore noted he began his investigation after hearing Fitts “refer to a report which indicated the Army had $6.5 trillion in unsupported adjustments, or spending, in fiscal 2015.” He added, “Given the Army’s $122 billion budget, that meant unsupported adjustments were 54 times spending authorized by Congress. Typically, such adjustments in public budgets are only a small fraction of authorized spending.” Skidmore initially thought Fitts had made a mistake, assuming she meant $6.5 billion. “So I found the report myself and sure enough it was $6.5 trillion,” he said. According to Fitts, an investment banker before joining the Bush administration, this money was used to develop what she called an “underground base, city infrastructure and transportation system” hidden from the public. She stated, “One of the things I’ve looked at in the process of looking at where all this money is going is the underground base, city infrastructure, and transportation system that’s been built.” Fitts also claimed, “We have built an extraordinary number of underground bases and, supposedly, transportation systems.” She told Carlson she researched the $21 trillion for two years and estimated the existence of 170 secret facilities in the U.S. alone, including some under the oceans. She explained, “We systematically went through and tried to guess estimate our guess—this is totally a guess—of how many underground bases [there are], both underground in the United States, but also underground under the ocean around the United States. And our estimate was 170 with a transportation network connecting them.” When Carlson asked about the “purpose” of these underground bases, Fitts responded they would be used during a “near-extinction event.” She also suggested they could be used for “secret” projects like a “secret space program.” Carlson claimed he knew “a contractor who worked on one in Washington, D.C.,” adding, “I remember him telling me about a power box, like a transformer box, on Constitution Avenue. … He told me [that] was actually the exit, the egress from the White House. And I thought, that’s kind of crazy in the middle of this big city where I live … you could build something like that without me knowing it.” Carlson assumed such bases were only in D.C. for “nuclear war.” Fitts responded, “Some of it is. It’s preparation for catastrophe.” Fitts also claimed the government has a way to generate breakthrough energy to power these facilities. She stated, “I’m convinced that this energy exists. If you look at a lot of the really fast ships, flying around the planet, they’re not using classical electricity.” The text concludes by mentioning that a Virginia-based company called SAFE recently unveiled plans for a $300 million luxury doomsday bunker called “Aerie” for members only with a $20 million membership fee. SAFE plans to build these bunkers in all 50 states, starting with Virginia due to its wealthy demographic. The post Bush Official Claims Trillions Spent on ‘Near-Extinction’ Bunkers for the Rich appeared first on Anomalien.com.

Last week, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from seeking to deport anti-Israel, pro-Hamas Columbia University student protester Moshen Mahdawi and ordered his release from prison. His arrest sparked a slew of liberal media attention, particularly on CBS’s lead shows, CBS Mornings and the CBS Evening News. On the latter’s Monday edition (and then the former on Tuesday), correspondent Lila Luciano reunited with this kindred spirt on the far-left for another sympathetic sit-down.     CBS Evening News co-anchor John Dickerson solemnly set the table: A Palestinian activist at Columbia University who was detained and ordered deported by the Trump administration tells us he plans to continue to speak out against the war in Gaza. Our Lilia Luciano spoke with Mohsen Mahdawi, hours before he was taken into custody in Vermont last month. Now she has his first TV interview since his release. Of course, Luciano never said a word about how, along with saying he felt sympathy for Hamas’s animalistic attacks on October 7, 2023, he’s previously said he “used to build…submachine guns to kill Jews while he was in Palestine.” Mahdawi said his “freedom signals a light of hope” and, after being asked what he “felt” when he learned he’d be released, added he “was reassured in my heart of the belief that justice will prevail and the justice system is functioning.” Give him the Nobel Peace Prize must have been Luciano’s implicit argument with this framing (click “expand”): LUCIANO: After 16 days in detention, he walked out of the courthouse and spoke to a group of supporters. He had a message for President Trump. MAHDAWI: I am not afraid of you. LUCIANO: Why was it important for you to speak directly to Donald Trump as you were walking out free? MAHDAWI: There is this philosophy of intimidation, of punitive justice. So, I wanted to share to them that you can do whatever you want. You will not silence me. We stand tall. She gave the failing newscast’s paltry viewership a brief recap, lamenting he “led student protests against the war in Gaza” and “was arrested last month while attending his final citizenship test.” “Masked agents, loaded with guns, separated me, isolated me from my lawyer, did not allow for any conversation of like -- let me see the order that you have or what’s happening – and I said, I am a peaceful man,” he complained. Luciano left aside other rhetoric such as a letter by the group he led at Columbia that seemed to endorse the October 7 atrocities: “If every political avenue available to Palestinians is blocked, we should not be surprised when resistance and violence breaks out.” Having left things like that on the cutting room floor, Luciano allowed Mahdawi to combat a strawman and insist he himself is the person “advocating for justice and peace” (click “expand”): LUCIANO: We were there as federal agents took him away on orders by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, alleging the Columbia University protests were anti-Semitic. [TO MAHDAWI] He accuses you of potentially undermining the peace process underway in the Middle East. MAHDAWI: It’s laughable. A person who has been vocally advocating for justice and peace is undermining U.S. policy? LUCIANO: Despite his imprisonment, Mahdawi says he will continue to protest. MAHDAWI: I wasn’t afraid when they detained me. I was not afraid when I get out of detention, and I am not afraid to share my voice. It made sense in further validating the prediction by our Jorge Bonilla that Mahdawi was seen by some in the liberal media as a far-more-compelling hero/victim of mass deportations compared to the man they’ve tried to paint as father of the year, El Salvador’s Kilmar Abrego Garcia. With more establishment sites like Axios and USA Today opening the door to Garcia being a bad hombre, it was time they flocked to someone else. To see the relevant CBS transcript from May 5, click “expand.” CBS Evening News May 5, 2025 6:33 p.m. Eastern JOHN DICKERSON: A Palestinian activist at Columbia University who was detained and ordered deported by the Trump administration tells us he plans to continue to speak out against the war in Gaza. Our Lilia Luciano spoke with Mohsen Mahdawi, hours before he was taken into custody in Vermont last month. Now she has his first TV interview since his release. MOHSEN MAHDAWI: My freedom signals a light of hope. LILIA LUCIANO: Mohsen Mahdawi says he was hopeful but surprised when a federal judge ordered his release last week. [TO MAHDAWI] Do you remember what you felt at that moment? MAHDAWI: I was reassured in my heart of the belief that justice will prevail and the justice system is functioning. LUCIANO: After 16 days in detention, he walked out of the courthouse and spoke to a group of supporters. He had a message for President Trump. MAHDAWI: I am not afraid of you. LUCIANO: Why was it important for you to speak directly to Donald Trump as you were walking out free? MAHDAWI: There is this philosophy of intimidation, of punitive justice. So, I wanted to share to them that you can do whatever you want. You will not silence me. We stand tall.  LUCIANO: Mahdawi, a Palestinian green card holder, led student protests against the war in Gaza. He was arrested last month while attending his final citizenship test. MAHDAWI: Masked agents, loaded with guns, separated me, isolated me from my lawyer, did not allow for any conversation of like – let me see the order that you have or what’s happening – and I said, I am a peaceful man. LUCIANO: We were there as federal agents took him away on orders by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, alleging the Columbia University protests were anti-Semitic. [TO MAHDAWI] He accuses you of potentially undermining the peace process underway in the Middle East. MAHDAWI: It’s laughable. A person who has been vocally advocating for justice and peace is undermining U.S. policy? LUCIANO: Despite his imprisonment, Mahdawi says he will continue to protest. MAHDAWI: I wasn’t afraid when they detained me. I was not afraid when I get out of detention, and I am not afraid to share my voice. DICKERSON: That was Lilia Luciano reporting from Vermont.

Barstool Sports owner Dave Portnoy clashed with an ABC affiliate during an interview about an incident at his bar in Philadelphia.A video from inside Barstool Sansom Street went viral and showed employees displaying a sign that read "F**k the Jews," which was brought out for customers who had purchased bottle service. This means the sign was requested by a customer and fulfilled by members of the bar staff.Portnoy responded to the incident in disgust, which should have been expected by employees given that he himself is Jewish. After contemplating whether or not to expose his employees and others involved publicly, Portnoy decided to fire two waitresses and send the customers on a paid trip to Auschwitz in exchange for not condemning them by name.On Monday morning, Portnoy said he decided to speak with an ABC affiliate from Philadelphia, WPVI, after the outlet allegedly "begged" him to do an interview on the incident. Portnoy said he agreed and, among other claims, alleged that the outlet switched reporters on him and subsequently tried to blame Barstool Sports, and white men in general, for the anti-Jewish sign."The reporter tried to say Barstool and I and white men were responsible for the incident," Portnoy wrote on X, alongside a video.The entrepreneur then included a portion of the interview from his side of the camera, which seemingly picked up after the alleged accusation.'I'm the journalist. I'm asking you.'"Here's what I would say is causing that type of environment," Portnoy told the reporter. "All these colleges would let Jewish kids get harassed on campus 24/7. I've been speaking out about this since it started."Portnoy then asked the ABC reporter where her claim came from."First of all, that sounds like a made-up thing. I don't know what that quote is. The society of school. Where are the professors from?""I [could] go back and see, if you want to waste time," the unnamed reported replied.The reporter soon revealed that her claim came from a source at the University of Virginia."I totally disagree for what you just said," Portnoy replied. "Who's creating more hate right now in in the world? Would you say Barstool Sports and white men or college campuses?" he asked.The journalist, seemingly not happy with the role reversal, refused to answer any questions."I'm the journalist. I'm asking you," she said.Portnoy retorted, "Well, I don't play by those rules. What does that mean? You're a journalist? I'm a journalist. I run a big media organization. I just asked you a question. Answer the question.""You're not running this interview," the ABC reporter replied.Portnoy then declared the interview was over and closed his laptop.The video clip then went back to Portnoy in present time, who then said, "F**k ABC. It makes me mad. I forgot how much I hate f**king journalists, this f**king piece of shit."It is unclear where the journalist's claim originated, exactly. In 2022, a University of Virginia publication called Iris published an article titled, "5 Things You Should Know About Barstool Sports if You Care About Being a Good Person."The article referred to Portnoy as sexist and racist and said Barstool Sports published "repugnant" articles.The post was written by Eryn Rhodes, a student who described herself as "she/her/hers" while studying "History and Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies."In the piece, Rhodes referred to a book called "Sidelined." A Kirkus review of the book stated, "[The author] aims much of her anger at Barstool Sports, the online media company that 'definitely engages in advanced-level trolling.' Some may assume the author is just settling scores, but Barstool has a long reputation of harassment."Furthermore, an NBC News article from 2019 included quotes from a professor named Lisa Nakamura, who said that Barstool Sports related to young, white men because it casts them as "persecuted ones" who feel disadvantaged and therefore see the platform as a safe space to voice offensive opinions.However, Nakamura was a professor at the University of Michigan, Portnoy's alma mater, not the University of Virginia.As well, a student from Temple University was reportedly suspended as a result of the sign incident at the bar.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!