February 7, 2018
"Trump is ruining me"
This must be a spoof. Right?
Middle-aged Ruth Mayer, of Charlotte, North Carolina, and her 16-year old daughter attended the latest "Women's March" in D.C. Both of them are "angry" every day that Trump is President.
My fury has been bottomless. I drink my morning coffee from a cup that says, "I hate to wake up when Donald Trump is President." The constancy of my outrage has been exhausting, yet I have not yet found a way to quell it - nearly each day has brought a new reason to stoke the fire.
But on the way home she had car trouble in her ________ (bonus points if you guess what she drives) and they found themselves parked on the side of the road, helpless.
He did all of this so quickly that I didn't have time to grab the prominent RESIST sticker on the side of my car, which suddenly felt needlessly alienating. As this man lay on the ground under my car with his miracle zip ties, I asked if he thought they would hold for four more hours of driving."Just ask any redneck like me what you can do with zip ties - well, zip ties and duct tape. You can solve almost any car problem. You'll get home safe," he said, turning to his teenage son standing nearby. "You can say that again," his son agreed.
The whole interaction lasted 10 minutes, tops. Katherine and I made it home safely.
Our encounter changed the day for me. While I tried to dive back into my liberal podcast, my mind kept being pulled back to the gas station. I couldn't stop thinking about the man who called himself a "redneck" who came to our rescue. I sized him up as a Trump voter, just as he likely drew inferences from my Prius and RESIST sticker. But for a moment, we were just two people and the exchange was kindness (his) and gratitude (mine).
As I drove home, I felt the full extent to which Trump has actually diminished my own desire to be kind. He is keeping me so outraged that I hold ill will toward others on a daily basis. Trump is not just ruining our nation, he is ruining me. By the end of the drive, I felt heartbroken.
One is left to wonder if Mr. Redneck and his son would have done the same for Ms. Hatemonger and her daughter a scant year or two prior, while His Awesomeness was still our President. Which leads one to wonder, if there is really an ideology prone to hatred, isn't it those who "Resist" everything that their opponent seeks to achieve, even when a case can be made that she would personally benefit? Instead, she writes:
I have been angry at my country for electing this man, angry at my neighbors who support him, angry at the wealthy who sacrificed our country and its goodness for tax breaks, angry at the coal miners who believed his promises.
Because there's obviously no such thing as a "good" country that doesn't tax its people beyond their breaking point.
Did she just assume his gender?
Posted by: jk at February 8, 2018 3:29 PMGood point! But, in fairness, I assumed hers.
Posted by: johngalt at February 9, 2018 4:01 PMJanuary 10, 2018
Boo Hoo #MeToo
Catherine Deneuve is among the first group of women to publicly express that #MeToo might not be what women really want.
Iconic French actress Catherine Deneuve is among 100 women who have signed a public letter blaming the #MeToo anti-harassment movement for creating a "totalitarian" climate that unfairly punishes men for flirting "insistently or clumsily," infantilizes women and undermines sexual freedom.The letter says that #MeToo, the hashtag that emerged in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, has led to a campaign of public denunciation and summary justice. The victims have been "men who are sanctioned in their work, pushed to resign, etc., when their only wrongdoing was to touch a knee, try to steal a kiss, speak about intimate things during a professional dinner or send messages that are sexually loaded to a woman who wasn't attracted to them," the letter says.
The backlash has been swift, if not smart.
The letter was published Tuesday in French newspaper Le Monde. It sparked its own backlash from readers, including from Asia Argento, one of the women who accused Weinstein of sexual assault and helped bring down the Hollywood mogul. "Deneuve and other women tell the world how their interiorized misogyny has lobotomized them to the point of no return," Argento tweeted.
But I would like to ask MS. Argento, "If you forbid men you aren't attracted to from making advances, what are the men who you are attracted to to do?" But then, that question is irrelevant if the answer to "what men are you attracted to" is "none."
RELATED: Camille Paglia on Hugh Hefner's Legacy, Trump's Masculinity and Feminism's Sex Phobia
The entire article is fascinating, particularly the parts about Trump, but here's a germane snippet:
And American women don't know what they want any longer. In general, French women - the educated, middle-class French women, I mean - seem to have a feminine composure, a distinct sense of themselves as women, which I think women in America have gradually lost as they have won job equality in our high-pressure career system.
August 24, 2017
"I may be Hitler, but I'm still not Trump"
The segue machine is set to kill.
I may have set a personal record in tagged categories for this post. It's part five of a YouTube original creation by Chris Ray Gun called "Social Justice: The Musical"
I post this one first because it's the first episode I found [while searching for "modern protest songs" after listening to Buffalo Springfield's 'For What It's Worth' following 'The Night They Drove Ol' Dixie Down' as referenced in the previous post] and also because it is timely and entertaining. The guy seems very talented and well worth a look at his other work.
Enough. On with the show!
June 13, 2016
Women, Artists, Gays... Who Ya Gonna Call?
If I may attempt to return the focus, away from guns, gays and "Islam is not to blame" back to where it belongs, i.e. Trump v. Clinton, I will at least do it in the context of current events.
Milo Yiannopolous sez:
The Christian Right may not be totally down with homos, and Trump may say things that hurt our delicate feelings, but they aren't going to kill us or put us in camps. Only Islam would do that -- the same Islam that, bizarrely, now stands at the top of the left's hierarchy of victimhood.
And the leading spokesperson for that leftist hierarchy, seeking to grab the baton from a gasping President Obama, is Hillary:
Let’s be clear: Islam isn't our enemy. Hateful rhetoric against Muslims isn't just wrong—it plays into terrorists' hands. #GOPdebate
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) January 15, 2016
I owe you an answer on two thoughtful posts concerning the Presidential contest. I am not ducking you. Here's a short one and I will expand in the future.
There is much time but -- at this moment -- Sec. Clinton is strangely attractive because of her corruption. The corporate interests which "own" her will not allow much of the mischief I fear in a Trump Administration.
"But we will lose all our rights!" Yes. Rights are not going to be protected in the next four years either way. I wish to have the largest possible remnant of a nation and economy for the occupant in 2021 or 2025.
Posted by: jk at June 14, 2016 2:29 PMWow. That's a novel way of looking at the situation.
What about the Supreme Court? Are you as sanguine about letting either of them botch the nomination of the next 1-n Justices?
Posted by: johngalt at June 15, 2016 5:05 PMI do not trust Mr. Trump to make better picks than Sec. Clinton. I did get good reviews on his list, but he backed off it before the ink was dry. Making good picks -- and, more importantly, defending them -- requires conviction. Of which Trump has a paucity.
Posted by: Jk at June 15, 2016 9:03 PMApril 27, 2016
more thought on bathroom wars
Had a hard time with a category for this, but reckon it outta include Culture Wars, and perhaps Donkey Rescue.
1st: we cannot allow such a travesty as bathroom-choice via Gender Identification to go unchallenged. It's simply ridiculous, "absurd" as my preferred candidate says, and a greased-up precipice hiding as a slippery slope. It's another route for leftism to destroy sensical standards.
2nd: I side with JK's inference that it will abide predation, and if not conclusively proven, I think the case must be made is this really worth it?. I don't think all the stats summed up in this emotional editorial are fully true and vetted, but agree strongly with her conclusion:
it is nothing short of negligent to instate policies that elevate the emotional comfort of a relative few over the physical safety of a large group of vulnerable people.and
the priority ought to be finding a way to keep everyone safe. I'd much rather risk hurting a smaller number of people's feelings by asking transgender people to use a single-occupancy restroom that still offers safety than risk jeopardizing the safety of thousands of women and kids with a policy that gives would-be predators a free pass.
The simple solution is single restrooms; there are plenty already. The complicated solution is to make the case in today's hypersensitive media space. And, yes, perhaps rant also fits, as I have two daughters and am already thinking about the local rec center's locker room!
What's all this talk about solutions? We have and always will have a solution: boys/girls. Men/women. Guys/dolls. Hombres/senoras. Use whichever you want, as long as you look like you belong there. Otherwise market forces will take over and a cop will be called. Even then, do your business fast enough and the worst you'll receive is an admonishment.
This issue isn't about solutions or even fairness or discrimination. It is about transformation. Personally I think it is an overreach by the left - nearly every other transformation in the name of multiculturalist relativism has passed by with relatively little backlash. But make a big deal out of letting guys go in the ladies room and you've pissed off (pardon the pun) the wrong demographic.
Most of all I'm curious which self-serving position Hillary has/will (if she dares) take on this.
One last pun: This too, shall pass.
Posted by: johngalt at April 27, 2016 2:30 PMLeft unanswered this becomes another club, labeled "Hate", with which to beat the right and its supporters into submission... it needs to be ground down.
Posted by: nanobrewer at April 28, 2016 11:00 AMI challenged that notion in the "All toilet, no humor" post. Don't we just play into the left's hands by fighting back? Trying to "grind down" the leftist opposition's looney ideas? We look petty and reactionary and uncaring - all the things that they unfairly paint us as.
I suggested we accede to their plans whenever possible, the loonier the better, as long as they were explicitly labeled "Brought to you by: Democrats." When normal people realize the looney ideas are abnormal and want "change" they'll know just who to blame.
Posted by: johngalt at April 28, 2016 12:18 PMFebruary 18, 2016
Motherhood
Still socially acceptable in most circles - barely.
Adele:
Adele tells interviewer Hamish Bowles about how her life has been completely transformed by becoming a mom. Her son, she says, "makes me very proud of myself. When I became a parent, I felt like I was truly living. I had a purpose, where before I didn't." Later on she adds: "My main thing is Mum, then it's me, then it's work."
The Federalist's Mollie Hemmingway:
But what's the problem with what she said? And how out of touch are feminists to wrestle with this? We're constantly told that feminism doesn't hate motherhood or bristle against children, but it has the most unconvincing ways of demonstrating that.
February 11, 2016
IT'S THE EGALITARIAN SOCIALISM, STUPID!
I was hopeful for greater insight from this article. I think I have found it.
"Dear Older Women Insisting All Women Vote For Hillary,(...)
Because of you, we promise never to let anyone take away or compromise the freedom we have today... not even you.
(...)
But understand that based on the principles you've taught us, we know having a female presidency is less important than gaining true gender equality.
(...)
Our experience following in your footsteps has taught us what real equality means and we will not be distracted by sexist attacks, even from you. With the strength you gave us, we will refuse to be guilted or shamed into voting for Hillary based on gender alone. Because of you, we will vote for policy, for mind and heart, not genitals because we know that to do anything less would undermine everything you've fought for, everything your mothers and your mothers' mothers fought for and won.
Thank you for everything you've taught us and know that we won't let you down. We've got your back, even if you don't have ours.
Love,
A Millenial Woman Feeling the Bern."
A curious mixture of principled independence, emotion, and hypocrisy.
Apparently, in the name of the principle "real equality" today's young Democrat woman abandons the guilt or shame of traditional "women's issues" for Bernie's socialist equality policies. Coincidentally, infringing the freedom and property rights of every American taxpayer is somehow divorced from "compromising the freedom we have today." (I suppose because she believes she will come out on the long end of the redistribution stick, revealing that it isn't really about the entire "we" - even the entire female "we" - after all.)
Just when I was thinking this was some sort of gender discrimination issue I am to dense, and too male, to recognize or even understand - the mask comes off: IT'S THE EGALITARIAN SOCIALISM, STUPID!
January 5, 2016
Life Imitates ThreeSources
Events on New Year's Eve in Cologne, Germany, appear to reflect the "license to rape" I wrote about over a year ago.
...Ayaan Hirsi Ali's claim in a WSJ piece that a central part of what the jihadists are about is the oppression of women.The central issue here, morally justified by the "pure principles of the Prophet" is a profound illiberalism. One which permits one class - devout Muslim men - to do anything his heart desires to every member of any other group. A "license to rape" is a popular selling point to young men.
Flash forward sixteen months:
Police in the western German city of Cologne responded on Monday to outrage over a string of sexual crimes over New Year's Eve. According to police, the series of assaults in one of the city's busiest thoroughfares represented a "completely new dimension of crime."Some 90 criminal complaints, including one allegation of rape, have been brought to the Cologne police department after women said they were molested by a crowd of men who had gathered in the city's famous square between its central train station and towering Gothic cathedral. Authorities expect more victims to come forward in the next few days.
Fortunately, German authorities are not taking this lying down:
Mayor Henriette Reker, who made international headlines in October when she was stabbed on the campaign trail, has called a crisis meeting, which will include local and federal police, for Tuesday to address the crimes.Reker told the local press she found the men's actions "monstrous."
"We cannot tolerate this development of lawlessness," Reker told the "Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger" newspaper.
Speaking with local newspaper "Express," Ralf Jäger, the state interior minister for North Rhine-Westphalia, promised swift action.
"We will not accept that groups of North African men gather expressly for the purpose of debasing women by sexually assaulting them," the paper quoted Jäger as saying.
Memo to "2016's young feminist crusaders" - You're doing it wrong.
Joking aside, if I have one message for 2016's young feminist crusaders, it's this: stop fiddling while Rome burns. If you really want to defend the rights of women, stop the navel-gazing and open your eyes to the real abuse of women in the world.Pick your fight with Islamic State; or the barbarians who publicly caned that young woman in Indonesia this week for being 'caught' near to a male fellow student; or the people who mutilate young girls' genitals in the name of religion; or the Sharia courts spreading across Britain, with their systematic bias against women.
Or with gangs of a thousand Muslim refugees getting sauced (is that Sharia compliant, by the way?) and feeling up (or worse) western women in public.