Reheated (57)

For newcomers, more items from the archives:

Her Loveliness Revealed.

Slate’s Christina Cauterucci has discovered a “brilliant new weapon of progressivism.”

You see, those “right wing, centrist, or politically complacent parents” - the parents you love, presumably - must be purged of their “ill-informed allegiances” and made to conform politically, with the threat of never seeing grandchildren. Which is how well-adjusted adult offspring behave, of course… Ms Cauterucci’s parents are no doubt proud of their daughter and her charming, terribly enlightened fantasies of coercion, in which children are imagined primarily as a form of political leverage, a tool of rather sadistic emotional punishment. And all in the name of progressive piety.

Your Failure To Enthuse Is Violence, Apparently.

Roy G Guzmán is oppressed by the “violence” of people not liking his poetry.

After dismissing the recent, rather negative appraisals of his work as driven by “toxic masculinity” and “(white) male fragility” - no other possibilities being conceivable, of course - Mr Guzmán has apparently retired from Twitter. We are, it seems, a terrible disappointment to him.

Hear The Lamentations Of Unstable Leftist Women.

Their marriages failed, they have psychiatrists on speed-dial, and it’s all Trump’s fault. Oh, and white men, obviously.

A woman named Samantha complains that her husband of 25 years, a fellow lefty, has “much less rage” than she does, specifically about “white privileged men,” and doesn’t wish to spend every evening equally infuriated by the existence of people whose politics differ somewhat. “Anger,” says Samantha, is her “de facto mode.” Though she’s trying to “get rid of it through therapy.” Another lady named Sarah tells us that her marriage became unsustainable “after the 2016 election, when I ramped up my political activism.” Sarah’s husband is described as “completely aligned” politically - a feminist, even - albeit one who doesn’t care to spend every waking hour raging about politics. “Talking about the Trump election,” says Sarah, “makes me more emotional than the end of my marriage.” And presumably, more emotional than the thought of her children losing the stability and reassurance of a family structure. But hey, priorities. 

There’s more, should you want it, in the greatest hits.

Also, open thread.

Comments

[Tom]

Slate’s Christina Cauterucci has discovered a “brilliant new weapon of progressivism.”

"Yes, a world in which unhinged lefties don’t reproduce in order to spite their own parents. Imagine the horror."

LOL. Brilliant planning.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

So what you are saying is the current crop is only in it for the spondulix ?

Racial and ethnic minorities, especially Black women, face serious shortages...

Needn't be said.

[David]

So what you are saying is the current crop is only in it for the spondulix?

I thought these empowered ladypersons were supposed to be picking up the slack.

[Hal]

Also, open thread.

New backup alarm:
Hipsters, dogs, by apartment.
Scream at each other.

[[+]]

Speaking of unstable leftist women...

"If you can't lose an election without going crazy, you're unfit to participate in democratic society"

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/341390/

[David]

“If you can’t lose an election without going crazy, you’re unfit to participate in democratic society”

Heh. Well, yes. Quite.

Ms Goldberg, of course, has been mentioned here before.

[David]

Our betters.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

Speaking of unstable leftist women...

Call on the white courtesy phone...

[Hippogryph]

Roy Guzman's poetry is truly at the Titania McGrath level.

[Bill de Haan]

children are imagined primarily as a form of political leverage, a tool of rather sadistic emotional punishment.

I am reminded of the HR director who, as one co-worker pointed out, actually managed to successfully turn "drive carefully" into a threat in a missive to underlings.

I guess when you live your life being offended by pronouns, are angered by hairstyles, and go white with terror at the thought of the weather changing, it's natural to see everyone and everyone as an enemy.

[aelfheld]

Where is Charles Mackay when you need him?

[mikesixes]

Ms. Cauterucci has apparently decided to implement the "Spay and neuter liberals" program I recently saw advocated on a bumper sticker on a jacked-up 4x4. Good on her, I say, although I think she is either insincere or amazingly callous, given her stated willingness to bring a few sacrificial munchkins into the dystopian nightmare that she foresees, in return for some political posturing from her parents.

[Darleen]

We need more of these moms.

[WTP]

We need more of these moms.

True. But was it really necessary of PJM to include so many pictures of this guy? One would have sufficed to get the point across. Any more than one and it just feeds his narcissism. I gave up on the article at the second picture.

[David]

We need more of these moms.

The term fannying about was what won me over.

Somewhat related.

[Darleen]

One would have sufficed to get the point across

Actually, the numerous pictures for me really did underline that this guy's "DON'T STARE, YOU BIGOTS" is schtick. I suspect the who drag/cosplay/upstep-the-normies routine has nothing to do with his actual "gender identity".

He's elevated a Halloween Party look done for the laughs into a career. He can't allow anyone to just ignore him!

[David]

Re my previous link, one of Mr Cremin’s deep insights.

He’s an educator, you know.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

We need more of these moms.

I was a bit surprised that the commenters at Buzzfeed took him to the woodshed.

...one of Mr Cremin’s deep insights.

In a socialist society all your favourite lipsticks would be available and they'd be free.

Indeed, and you will will be able to choose from and enormous range, tovarisch !

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

Hey guys, take a gander at this and see what you can do to help dismantle the patriarchy !

Skip ahead to about 3:00 and if you are a male, raise your hand if have ever been on the receiving or delivering end of something like this, usually derisory, and not been corrected or offered correction.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

...and not been corrected...

Oops - been corrected - which would have resulted in correction to the correction.

[pst314]

Hey guys, take a gander at this and see what you can do to help dismantle the patriarchy

What a silly twat. And she presents herself as utterly confident in the correctness of her views.

[Darleen]

Hey guys, take a gander at this and see what you can do to help dismantle the patriarchy

She is inadvertently correct when she talks about the importance of language. That's why rational adults push back at all attempts to enforce Newspeak.

[TimT]

We need more of these moms.

A good post. My usual internal response to such folks as she was responding to is, 'whatever, you wear what you like, just spare the lecture' - maybe a bit different from her response - 'it's against my beliefs'. But take note of the part where she notes that gender dysphoria is a 'mental illness' - well, it's exactly what we've been told by the many loud advocates of this vogueish form of progressivism. They've talked themselves into this contradiction; can they talk their way out again?

[pst314]

Hey guys, take a gander at this

Take a gander at a silly goose? That must be sexist!!. Consider yourself denounced, comrade. :-D

[Richard]

We need more of these moms.

Imagine any young adult female wearing a tight tee-shirt with some printed message on it bitching because all the men kept looking at her chest. The "lady" doth protest too much, methinks.

In the case of a certain vain emperor, a child cried out, "But he isn't wearing anything at all!" Bless the small things.

[pst314]

Imagine any young adult female wearing a tight tee-shirt with some printed message on it bitching because all the men kept looking at her chest.

I have seen that behavior. Although I also suspect that some women use it occasionally as a test: "Can the man speak to me without staring at my chest? Then he might have a modicum of self-control and maturity." :-)

[Daniel Ream]

some women use it occasionally as a test

Knowing there's a trap is the first step to evading it.

[David]

Speaking of educators.

[David]

LOL. Brilliant planning.

Taken seriously, it isn’t the soundest of plans. And as a supposedly amusing fantasy scenario, it reveals rather more than intended. You’d think that Ms Cauterucci, or her editor, or her peers, might have noticed the smell.

That they didn’t possibly tells us something.

[David]

A Guardian reader frets:

To regret the “emasculation of trade unions” (Briefing: How inequality is growing worldwide, Journal, 9 September) comes perilously close to suggesting that they should never have allowed female members in. Words matter.

Sylvia Rose, Morleigh, Devon.

And by frets, I mean, “Thinks displays of dogmatic neuroticism are the last word in piety and a path to status.”

[Sandwich]

Although I also suspect that some women use it occasionally as a test: "Can the man speak to me without staring at my chest?"

A theory of Viagra

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

A Guardian reader frets:

Another frets:

It’s personally painful to watch Boris Johnson malign Europe as enemy territory;

OK, European history in the far past may not be my strongest suit, so looking some of that distant enemies stuff up: The Viking fellows, French, Dutch, French, Bavarians, French, Spanish, French, Prussians, a bunch of Italians, Sweden, French, Dutch, French, Poland, French, Spain, Bavarians, Dutch, Swiss, Denmark & Norway, French, Russians, Austro-Hungary-Germany-Bulgaria, Germany-Italy, Iceland, Yugoslavia.

Looks like Boris is on to something.

[pst314]

Roy G Guzmán is oppressed by the “violence” of people not liking his poetry.

So...his mother was a Vogon?

[WTP]

So...his mother was a Vogon?

And his father was Algore. Who smelt of elderberries.

Speaking of educators.

Does anyone know who coined that term, "negative rights"? It's kinda dumb, certainly doesn't market the idea well, and left the door wide open for lefties to sell "positive rights". I'm rather nonplussed about it.

[WTP]

OK, not sure how I started that, but apparently my quoting of David's "Speaking of educators" comment got cut. Stopped now?

[WTP]

Hmmm...so on refresh...my bad on the "my bad". After posting my comment the "Speaking of educators" quote was missing and it appeared that I had started an italics run. But after my "fix" and then reloading, the original comment looks right. A glitch in the Matrix again, I suppose.

[David]

[ Acts casual, says nothing. ]

[Boatswain's Mate]

Hey guys, take a gander at this

Americans of a certain age group will recognize and fondly remember this little bit of offensiveness and propping up the patriarchy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K48I6ay4tbM"

[pst314]

Who smelt of elderberries.
Is that an English way of saying "drinks a lot of gin"?

[pst314]

I forgot to insert a blank line between the quote and my comment. Please don't hurt me, David.

[Daniel Ream]

Americans of a certain age group will recognize

I find it heartwarming how far live action adaptations of Spider-Man have come in forty years.

[WTP]

Americans of a certain age group will recognize and fondly remember this little bit of offensiveness and propping up the patriarchy.

Heh. But of course. And what is the feminine of "guys"? "Gals"? OMG, can't have that either. Too close to "girls". Though I am a bit partial to, in no particular order, skirts, dames, broads, chicks, babes, birds (70's British comedy term...does anyone use this anymore?), doll, dish, honey, floozy, sweet cheeks, sugar t*ts, sweat thang, talent, toots, missy, heifers...just for starters. Though I like to keep in mind what my pal Joey used to say, "Some guys have a system with horses and I've got a system with dames. ... You treat a dame like a lady and treat a lady like a dame."

...and now I see I got my grey Spirographish icon thingy back. Though I kinda liked the orange one. Not sure if we all see the same ones, however.

[WTP]

..or "sweet thang". Ever since I saw the "you had one job" pic of the restaurant that had labeled a container "sweat tea", I've lost the ability to spell it correctly either way. At least until after I hit post. WTF does "sweat" have an 'a' in it anyways? Yet another thing I'm nonplussed about.

[David]

Please don’t hurt me, David.

[ Cracks knuckles, rummages for lead pipe. ]

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

Is that an English way of saying "drinks a lot of gin"

Speaking of the French...Silly English knigit.

You treat a dame like a lady and treat a lady like a dame

Yes, that could be a problem in the UK if the Lady is a Dame, or the other way round, or something like that, unless you are talking about Dame Edna.

[Uncle Mikey]

Her profile picture tells you all you need to know about whose decision it is that she's not breeding

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

There is never a meteor around when you really need one.

[WTP]

There is never a meteor around when you really need one.

Dr Gemma Clucas, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, said that male and female penguins displayed little difference beyond biological characteristics, which required close and "difficult" observation to distinguish. "The two sexes in penguins behave very similarly to one another,"she told CNN. "They look almost identical to one another. Behaviorally, they act very similarly as well, particularly in terms of reproduction -- both males and females invest pretty equally in raising their chicks."

Yes. As Church Lady would say, how conveeeeeeenient.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

Let me see if I have this right - feminists are strong and empowered so they need a special version of the game to give them an advantage because they can't compete on their own strengths ?

I am confused. I wonder if there is a rule in this new version that one cannot declare oneself a wymxn at the start of the game to get the extra frogskins.

[Jay Guevara]

You see, those “right wing, centrist, or politically complacent parents” - the parents you love, presumably - must be purged of their “ill-informed allegiances” and made to conform politically, with the threat of never seeing grandchildren.

Sharper than a serpent's tooth, and all that.

[Jay Guevara]

I wobble between considering leftism to arise from a cognitive deficit, a character deficit, or mental illness.

On reading "Hear The Lamentations Of Unstable Leftist Women" mental illness surged back into the lead.

(Btw, I thoroughly enjoyed your running commentary.)

[David]

Btw, I thoroughly enjoyed your running commentary.

Thank you.

[Steve E]

I wobble between considering leftism to arise from a cognitive deficit, a character deficit, or mental illness.

Proving once and for all leftism is a mental illness:

Democrat congressman's wife complains "all of my mental health therapy sessions are denied..."

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

In today's exciting episode of "All The Things Are Racist", join us for Table Manners !

In this case, if you are eating sushi and don’t know how to use chopsticks, your fingers are a much better option than the imposing violence of a knife and fork.

But what of a spork ?

[WTP]

But what of a spork ?

First grade, McNab Elementary. Highly anticipated spaghetti lunch in the cafeteria. They gave me a spork to eat it with. I've been hating government ever since.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

They gave me a spork to eat it with.

Even as far back as first grade they knew you couldn't be trusted with the imposing violence of a knife and fork. You are lucky you got to settle for the slightly noticeable passive aggressiveness of a spork as opposed to making you eat the spaghetti with your fingers or just putting your face in the plate in true non-colonial fashion.

[Daniel Ream]

But did it sing?

[TomJ]

I believe this may resonate with our gracious host.

[Sam Duncan]

The best bit about that Trabant colour chart isn't that there's only six of them; it's that “Reed Green” and “Bali Yellow” have been transposed. Because who the hell cares?

“birds (70's British comedy term...does anyone use this anymore?)”

Of course. Fun fact: originally, “bird” was the correct English word for a young woman. It began to be used - for some long-forgotten reason - as a slang term for “fowl”, which it eventually displaced.

[TimT]

But did it sing?

In the Bowen Basin in Queensland, they have a fluffy mascot - a lump of coal called Hector.

[TimT]

From afar, I've been intrigued by the UK-EU ongoing Brexit crisis, and just a little bit heartened by Boris Johnson's Prime Ministership - the question is, is there method to his madness, or is there just madness? If he gets an election, and wins it convincingly, he may just be able to secure vital concessions from the EU before leave date. We'll see.

Related, this was amusing.

[Adam]

That little white “shooting saloon” Trabant on the lower right reminded me of my old ‘69 Toyota station wagon. 2 doors. 1100 cc engine. Comfortably seated 4 for short trips. Once, I carried 9 including me and my girlfriend several blocks in Halifax NS. The extra passengers were her PT classmates who were caught out in a sudden downpour on their way to class. If the Trabant was related to my erstwhile tiny car, it was a tough mule.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

That little white “shooting saloon”...

Shooting brake. Having had the chance to drive one, I've long been fascinated by Trabis, and comfortably seating four, not so much, unless they were short, at 6'2" I could barely drive the thing. Four Stasi would have been high adventure. Our friends in Zwickau tried to save the company after the wall came down by putting in a three cylinder water cooled VW engine, but the former East Germans weren't idiots and correctly reasoned they could just get a VW instead, and were actually putting Trabis in dumpsters.

That said, they do have a certain Soviet indestructible simplicity - as long as you didn't crash the thing, the sheet metal of the frame, nor the duroplast body panels hung on it, is not exactly what you would call sturdy.

[Hal]

In today's exciting episode of "All The Things Are Racist", join us for Table Manners !

How to eat spaghetti.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

PodShare where you too can pay $1200 a month to share a bunk bed. The upside is you might be assigned to the Escape Committee working on the tunnel.

OTOH, you could just go down to Mexico and cross back over the Rio Grande, claim to be a Honduran, and get better conditions, as well as free food and medical care.

[Steve E]

...reminded me of my old ‘69 Toyota station wagon. 2 doors. 1100 cc engine.

I had the '68 Toyota Corolla 1100 cc Coupe. My first car. I once had six crammed in mine. Pulled over by the police and given a warning.

I later jacked up the back end leaf springs and put 50-series Radial T/A's and a pair of 70 series on the front mounted on Shelby dish mag wheels. I had to put rubber blocks in the springs so the tires wouldn't rub against the body.

It looked real mean but still only had 1100 cc's under the hood. The tires were worth more than the car.

[Fred the Fourth]

My girlfriend at Berkeley had a late 60s Toyota 4door wagon thing. No problems. Parked it close to the main Oakland Police dept one evening. During dinner someone broke a side window and stole my gym bag. Fortunately the contents of the bag were worth considerably less than the folding knife the crook left behind.
I still have the knife some 4 decades later. Also still have the lesson about urban living.

[Matthew]

“If you can’t lose an election without going crazy, you’re unfit to participate in democratic society”

Perhaps. But for the audience she believes she is addressing, having terrible insomnia since Trump's election is a kind of twisted bragging, e.g. she is suffering more than you. It's virtue signalling taken to a competitive level.

[Daniel Ream]

I owned and drove a Suzuki Swift for eleven years.

I'm 6'4".

[David]

I believe this may resonate with our gracious host.

Using their own words is a must. It’s the best way to convey the arrogance and neuroticism, the sheer dumb malevolence.

[Ed Snack]

Pussies, I managed to transport 6 very understanding young women home one night in my original Fiat 500. We did have to organise it so the young lady who sat between the two front seats used the clutch and gearstick (these things didn’t have synchro on any gear either, so there was a significant amount of graunching going on) while I managed the accelerator (pretty dubious acceleration from 500 cc two cylinders air-cooled) and brake. And it was a long way to take each to their respective residences. And try as I might I could not engineer the route so the pretty one who I fancied was last out. It was, I must say, a remarkably slow trip as well especially up hills, and the front transverse leaf spring never did recover its original profile and front wheels were a little splayed out ever after.

But it was successful in delivering them home and I was (thankfully) not stopped on the way.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

I owned and drove a Suzuki Swift for eleven years.

Swift wheelbase - 93.1"

Trabant wheelbase - 79.5"

Go to The Annual Parade of Trabants at the International Spy Museum and see the difference 13.6" and Japanese engineers makes on an interior. The Trabi, with its four on the tree, my knee would hit the steering wheel while shifting unless I rotated my hip sideways one way or the other. If you had an automatic (a rare option in a Trabant) you would have been walking in tall cotton.

OTOH, some enterprising comrades made it to the west by folding themselves into the engine compartment, so that is one up on the Swift.

[WTP]

I managed to transport 6 very understanding young women home one night in my original Fiat 500.

Going to and from swim practice, it wasn't unusual for us to fit 7 kids in a VW Beetle. Driver, two front passengers, three kids in the back seat with a girl stretched across their laps. It was...ummm...cozy. We also used to get up for 5:00 AM practice (a half-hour before we went to bed) because school started at 7:00 AM. We were out by 12:20 though, so...ah, but we were happy then.

[Jay Guevara]

Using their own words is a must. It’s the best way to convey the arrogance and neuroticism, the sheer dumb malevolence.

I followed this link, and found this gem:

In that, if you take lots of young people who are credulous and/or narcissistic, or who actually have cluster B personalities, and whose expectations of status are at odds with their capabilities - and you tell them, repeatedly, for years, that any personal failure or shortcoming, any difficulty or mental discomfort, is a result of oppression and therefore someone else’s fault, someone they should punish, then the behaviour seen above will tend to be the result.

I think that this is exactly the Left's strategy re education: by encouraging to attend university students who have no business whatever being there, they intentionally raise expectations of status far beyond the capabilities of said students, the better to make them fertile soil for agitation.

In this way those who lack the intellectual chops (and/or industry) to master a serious subject instead "graduate" with a degree in sociology, grievance studies, or some other intellectual sandbox subject. They then blame the system for their inability to become more than a barista (excuse me, a "hot beverage engineer"), when after all they're college graduates. As they remind all and sundry.

[pst314]

Is that an English way of saying "drinks a lot of gin"

Speaking of the French...Silly English knigit.

My question was confused because because I was confused: For some reason I was associating elderberries with gin whereas in reality it is flavored with juniper berries.

The correct question would have been: "Does 'smells of elderberries' imply that she is an elderberry wine drinking alcoholic, or that she drinks elderberry wine and therefore is a stereotypical old English lady?

[David]

For some reason I was associating elderberries with gin whereas in reality it is flavored with juniper berries.

You can buy elderberry gin. I only know this because I’ve been drinking with my sisters-in-law, whose gin consumption is truly prodigious.

[Pst314]

So...various varieties of flavored gin, just like vodka?

[TimT]

I’d assume the elderberries are there in addition to the traditional juniper.