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Charlie Rose skulked offstage like a punch-drunk palooka with barely a whimper, and Matt Lauer offered up the now laughably pro forma press release of bathetic apology and contrition — no doubt micro-managed by his attorneys. But the hit on Garrison Keillor by his old friend Minnesota Public Radio seemed like a new low in the whipping-post politics of the moment.
Unlike the cases of Rose, Lauer, Louis CK, Harvey Weinstein, and Kevin Spacey, there seemed next to nothing in the case against Keillor. He says he placed his hand on a lady’s bare back, someone on the crew or cast or a guest on The Prairie Home Companion radio show he hosted for close to forty years. Maybe MinnPR has a file full of complaints against the old trooper, but if so they’ve released nothing, no details whatsoever, and unlike the previously “outed” line-up, in Keillor’s case no other “victims” have come forward on their own to establish anything like a pattern of truly bad behavior.
I happen to admire Keillor’s substantial body of work in print and radio, and the public persona he presented, which portrayed a lot of what was honorable, intelligent, charming, and funny in our national character, something we need to be reminded of in this new era of pervasive racketeering, affronts to the first amendment, ubiquitous porno-culture, and Deep State mischief. This may amaze some of you, but to me Keillor deserves to be ranked with Mark Twain as a literary icon. What he gave to his large radio audience over a very long run was of uniformly high quality — something manifestly absent in so many other areas of contemporary life and art.
Keillor was reputed to be a cold-fish backstage and offstage, a prickly Aspergery personality who avoided personal contact. He said as much in his very brief published response to getting fired.
“Anyone who ever was around my show can tell you that I was the least physically affectionate person in the building,” Keillor said. “Actors hug, musicians hug, people were embracing every Saturday night left and right, and I stood off in the corner like a stone statue.”
To me, the job on Keillor was a hit too far. I hope others out there with their frontal cortexes intact felt themselves crossing a threshold into a strange new un-American society where the merest allegation can instantly send anyone to perdition. It’s gotten to the point where any man who ever made pass at someone is now defined as a sexual predator, feeding the delusional trope that all women are everywhere and always “victims,” and that human nature itself has to be transformed to correct this flaw in human design.
Well, guess what — that’s not going to happen. Men will continue to initiate sexual liaisons and relations. They will make the first move. They will take a chance. They will be advised to act like gentlemen in doing this, but I don’t think that’s quite what the witch-hunters really want right now. The PC movement, with its branches in the media, on campus, and professional politics, is out for coercion and punishment by any means necessary. That’s why there are kangaroo courts in the universities, in case you haven’t noticed. Due process is not just unwelcome, it’s officially scorned as passe. The method du jour in the case of Garrison Keilor, so far, is career and reputational castration.
The so-called thinking class in this country seems unaware that the mixed-gender office workplace — where most jobs can be done by anyone — is a relative novelty in human history. Not only that, but if indeed we’re heading into a long emergency of collapsing techno-industrial arrangements — as I have asserted in my books and blogs — then we may once again find ourselves in world with different divisions of labor, and a manifest change of values to attend it. It’s laughable to me that so many well-educated people assume that our current mode of living is permanent, but I suppose that’s part and parcel of the religion of progress. In the meantime, adults of the two sexes — and there are two sexes, not thirty-two — consort in the workplace with all kinds of stimulation and frisson quickening the scene, and we are foolish enough to be surprised when sexual mischief happens.
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Thanks Mr. Jim. I totally agree with your sentiments here.
It was interesting to drive home from work yesterday and listen to people calling in to MPR voicing their frustration and anger towards the management.
Generally the comments voiced the opinion that all this against Keillor represented a new type of McCarthyism but with gender relations in our country. I’d have to agree.
I have a friend who met Mr Keillor, and he echoed what Jim quoted Mr Keillor to say. My friend described him as “an odd duck” and said that he was very different off stage, not as outgoing and rather socially awkward. Not the “alpha male” type we normally associate with these charges.
I was disappointed when these charges popped up against Al Franken, but not surprised. But Garrison Keillor? I have trouble with that one. I’m holding out that this is someone who feels she was left off of the outrage train looking for attention.
Victim-mentality (aka feminism in disguise) is disgusting. I heard crazy stats about how 80% of women are abused at work, and how 1/3 women are raped in college. Sounds like some cambodian killing field out there.
When I was in college myself I knew a lot of girls that would be ‘raped’ at the frats during the weekend, I was sympathetic at first, but then they’d be there the very next weekend! Without fail. Usually ‘raped’ again.
Things that make you go ‘hmm…’
Indeed, all unmarried sex is rape, because marriage is the only way to consent to sex, to be fully informed about the other’s commitment and consent and eligibility. Until then, there is no full information, so it’s non consensual sex. Instead, what they conspire to do is rape each other. But they don’t have a right to have sex, and we need to end gay marriage to remind people of this fact.
OMG, lemme guess, you learned this from your parents. Your father’s a priest and your mother’s a nun.
Hah, Q to the rescue! Still kickin’, I see.
I like when they talk real loud, trying to tell you what they know!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZpv16dwtYE
As I thought back then, and I still think now (*I like*):
That’s SOKER, not Q.
rLy?!? “OMG, lemme…”
Or, it’s simply X-over, in all those schizo/multi personalities, haha!!!
A thousand thumbs up, reminiscent of Shrub Niggurath, the Black goat of the forest with a thousand young.
Several years ago a reporter wrote that she found Keillor backstage before the show beating his head against the wall.
Abusing himself, ha! For that he should have done the right thing and resigned.
I should not have to say I’m kidding.
I think we are also a culture that is being overwhelmed by the idea of victimization. Everybody has been wronged, somewhere– somehow. It’s almost a strange form of narcissism: “Look at Me!” I’ve been wronged! I’m a victim!
It’s now developed to the point where whole ethnic groups are suffering from “historical victimization”. An idea that even though the man in Atlanta who is making 250,000 a year in a successful career, is still a ‘historical victim’ of crimes against an ancestor 175 years ago.
What’s tragic about this is it is the exact point where we don’t need victims. On the contrary, we need strugglers & risk takers. We need small town entrepreneurs & communities working together. Not whole populations of people stuck living out of their history books like a horde of extras who have wandered off the set of the Walking Dead TV show.
Well, people have a right to enter the public arena and press their claims. So long as they respect democratic norms, they’re not doing anything wrong; their demands are supposed to stand or fall on their inherent strength. It looks like this particular set of demands has gone about as far as it can go, and is about to start rolling back. Just read Andrew Sullivan today, pouring derision on the left:
“Is the gay-rights movement effectively over?
“The thought occurred to me when I stumbled on the latest ‘social justice’ cray-cray. From Canada, the land of mandatory super-wokeness, I give you the dawn of the LGGBDTT2SIQQAAPP community. That is: the lesbian, gay, genderqueer, bisexual, demisexual, transgender, transsexual, two-spirit, intersex, queer, questioning, asexual, allies, pansexual, and polyamorous movement. Now try pronouncing that one!”
He piles on further if you want to read it. And Andrew Sullivan is not only gay, but was an early and vocal proponent of gay marriage, so he’s not some reactionary.
Regarding the man in Atlanta, I don’t disagree so much as I want to point out that there’s more to life than one’s income. White privilege is real — meaning there’s one set of rules that applies to white people, rich or poor, and another for black people. Likewise, the presumption of guilt for black men still applies to people making a quarter million a year — just ask Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Harvard professor who got arrested the night he found himself locked out of his own house and tried to get back in. You could also ask Philando Castile or 12-year-old Tamir Rice, if they were still alive.
Or ask the black dentist in Vancouver who was “busted” some years ago as a pimp because he was driving in a nice car with an attractive white woman.
“When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.”
? Jiddu Krishnamurti
Quite so, and that’s what I try to practice, no matter what the white supremacists around here might burble about it.
Exactly. We have a right to exist as we are, just like any other race. Otherwise, where does your principle end? Is heterosexuality a form of violence? How dare you deny Homosexuals your love! Outrageous? No more so then the previous example – and it’s already been used on campus. Strangely, the charge is never reversed and applied to Homosexuals or Lesbians…..
The saddest irony is watching our Groper-in-Chief, from his unassailable perch in the Oval Office, jump on the bandwagon to condemn the horror of sexual impropriety in high places — provided the alleged perpetrators are Democrats, of course. Republican Senate candidates notorious for a sordid past of molesting teens and hitting on high-schoolers at shopping malls don’t seem to trouble the Orange Menace. Go figure.
The sheer audacity of his hypocrisy is enough to make one’s head spin like the Linda Blair character in The Exorcist. Please, someone, just take away his Twitter toy, make him shut his pie hole, and force him to go away. Far, far, away. I hear Slovenia is nice this time of year.
Dr Gonzo
Amen to that.
Did you protest Hillary’s murderous hypocrisy in relation to Bill’s rapes? And her role in silencing the victims – back then? Or even now? I haven’t heard you do so…..
“Did you protest Hillary’s murderous hypocrisy in relation to Bill’s rapes? And her role in silencing the victims – back then? Or even now? I haven’t heard you do so…..”
Janos, you really are getting desperate. I haven’t heard you discussing breakfast choices with you mum but I’m sure you must have done at some point.
I don’t understand why you think two wrongs make a right. But then I don’t know why you think a lot of the things you think, because I don’t live among extremists in my normal life.
The POTUS (or SCROTUS, as I tend to think of him) is in power. Hillary isn’t. Both are seriously unpleasant human beings. As is Bill Clinton, who is even further from power than Hillary.
Oh, and, randomly, Beria was a spectacularly nasty human being too. Or can I not say that without adding in the name of a vile Nazi for balance? Do we need to list every nasty person in the world before we can talk about the one who’s actually in power now affecting people’s lives?
Green Alba – well said! I’m sure there are many of us who share the frustration with Janos & his ilk always using the “whaddaboutHillary?Bill/Al Franken/NameAnyDemocratHere?” card, as if it is a legitimate argument! Soon, Garrison Keillor will be invoked, no doubt (though he’s probably a Republican of the intelligent type, rare as they are these days).
Galloping hypocrisy is now the main currency on both sides of the political divide, and none-so-outrageous as Trump. He sets such a low bar, even Roy Moore appears to be able to hurdle.
Now that you mention it, this whole furor seems like an unconscious or poorly-thought-out attempt to get Trump. Sort of a wild and misdirected revenge plot by the #pussygrabsback crowd. It’s not working.
I have been thinking the exact same thing.
Eventually after enough people have been publicly tried and convicted minus a trial or a jury of their peers this Salem witch trial of modern times will land on Trumps door.
Beware lest we all fall victim to this nonsense for normal human interaction. That does not include fondling or groping people by the way.
The opposite usually happens. The public will become desensitized and lose their outrage. It will all fizzle before it lands on Trump’s door.
The same thing has already happened with Trump’s outrageous tweets and insults. Other than the recent dust up with Theresa May there is very little in the news about his late night antics. We are all used to it. It is the new norm.
By accusing so many so fast we numbing the collective moral psyche of the nation. I have always had a suspicion that radical feminism was some sort of attempt at social usury formulated by people of both persuasions for profit. This now smacks of a deliberate attempt at manipulation. Perhaps to take Trump off the hook for his transgressions.
He is the master at misdirection and surprise. It is the essence of his “deal-making”. He coddles, compliments and then lowers the boom. The people behind the curtain have now adopted the strategy.
Antics? He has to get the attention of the People that the media has taken away from the real issues – issues like the Islamic takeover of Europe. That’s the Issue in question. Can you not see that? The terrorism is a means thereto. It will stop once they conquer. So you probably think that’s the solution, right?
It is astonishing and dismaying to see the willful misdirection and blindness – particularly of the so-called intelligentsia – of booming Islamism across Europe, Mr. Skorenzy.
I have also had the suspicion that there is so much self-hatred and disgust for the [prospering] bourgeoisie that many will find schadenfreude in seeing Eurabia rise up.
Sweden in particular looks to be a lost cause.
Same illusion on this side of the pond – as one can change or “elect” a new people and still have the same Culture, Way of Life, and Civil Liberties.
The People come first they are the 1 that gives the subsequent 0’s meaning. Get rid of the 1 and your cheque is nothing or next to nothing.
Denmark: a dim light in the stygian darkness of Western Europe. But at a mere nine percent Islamic, they are already doomed even if no more come in. At five percent, the Muslims were using forty percent of the social service budget. That should have told them “something” – like Muslims bring poverty. In any case, if you are paying an alien people to have lots of kids, you are already conquered. The actual formality has merely been delayed.
https://www.amren.com/features/2017/12/the-danish-exception/
@benr,
The backlash has already started. I predict that Roy Moore wins easily as a result.
Damn right it’s not. We don’t even care if Judge Moore went after 14 yr old girls 40 years ago. It was legal back then. Many such marriages occurred on the American frontier and at other times and places in Western Culture. Ideal or High Culture? Maybe not. But neither is bitter spinster career women. Or trashy single mothers married to the State. Better? Of course.
“But neither is bitter spinster career women. Or trashy single mothers married to the State.”
It must be strange living in a world where everyone is a caricature. Explains a lot, though.
Sir, as long as the welfare state is doling out monthly allowances based on the number of papooses a [single, abandoned, not-so-attractive-any-more] mother can poop out you can be sure there will be those who will pursue this path, out of desperation if nothing else.
Then there are the ‘sinking lifeboat’ states where overpopulation is already overwhelming basic support systems.
The tribes of throwaway children roaming Latinoamerica (thanks Catholic Church) are a particularly heartbreaking case of this: nine-year-olds packing Glocks and ambushing drivers at night.
Then the death squads killing them in return.
@Janos,
That 14 year old, assuming anything happened, could well have told Moore that she was 18. What was he to do, check her birth certificate?
Yeah, no. Just try that with a cop the next time you get caught speeding. “But officer, my speedometer is broken! What was I supposed to do, get it fixed?”
Personal responsibility is only for your opponents, I guess.
Janos: “We don’t even care if Judge Moore went after 14 yr old girls 40 years ago.”
We already know you’re depraved, silly. You declared a couple of weeks ago that victory trumps morality. Not many are willing to declare that so openly, though, so… congratulations, I guess?
Janos: “It was legal back then.”
If you mean 40 years ago, no it wasn’t. We can look these things up, we have the Internet now.
http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/case-studies/230?section=primarysources&source=24
In Alabama, the legal age of consent was sixteen by the year 1920, and is still 16 today. Quote: “An individual who is 19 years old or older [who] has sexual contact with someone who is younger than 16 but older than 12 has committed sexual abuse.” (Source.) That would apply in the case of a man in his thirties, should he succeed in luring a 14-year-old girl at a shopping mall.
Janos: “Many such marriages occurred on the American frontier and at other times and places in Western Culture.”
So did slavery. Although, again, your depravity. But still. At any rate, this is factually correct. The Alabama age of consent was all of ten years old back in 1880. So let’s do the experiment! Have the Republican Party put forth a candidate with a taste for ten-year-olds, and let’s see how much better that goes over with everyone.
Ten? That’s almost Muslim! So at some point it must have been fourteen, right? So I may not be wrong about the Judge…
In any case, if it was a Black Pimp and his 14 yr old White protégé walking into a Planned Parenthood, you would be fine with it as Project Veritas confirmed.
Even in Alabama, 40 years ago, it was NOT legal for any male to force himself on any female, regardless of age. It’s just way more disturbing that Moore
a) not only acted in such a way, but
b) denies it vehemently in the face of sworn testimony by women of a republican background and also
c) wraps himself in the cloak of rabid, fundamentalist foolishness (viz. 9-11 was God’s punishment for homosexuality).
If Moore is elected it will be the final nail in the coffin of the integrity of the US body politic in the eyes of the rest of the world.
Herr Gonzo,
I didn’t vote for President Trump. I would have voted for him had I known how close the count was in my state, but that’s not why I am responding to your comment.
By referring to the President as the “groper-in-chief”, I assume that you are alluding to the famous pre-election “grab-em by the pussy”, diatribe. I regret to inform you that by supporting that particular meme, you, and all men like you, are demonstrating the following:
1.) Your masculinity is in question, or at least you have never involved yourself in sports that required the use of a locker room and participation in the ritual conversations that occur therein.
2.) You are admitting that your income producing ability is questionable; when a guy has the gelt, women do let him get away with some pretty ridiculous shit- even grabbing them by the pussy, and letting him do whatever they want. Different strata of women have different prices, and expectations. Sometimes a long-term marriage can result from this type of mating behavior. If you do not know this, and are over thirty, please accept my condolences.
3.) Apropos of your tribal position, based on your previous comments and denigration of the work posted here by Mr. Kunstler, your assertion of “Hypocrisy” is itself hypocritical. Do your own research on that if you doubt it, it’s not my job to explain. This is a comment board, not a term paper.
OHealihy: “when a guy has the gelt, women do let him get away with some pretty ridiculous shit”.
Some women. When people say things like this, it comes across (to me) as if they’re tarring all women with the same brush. Maybe that’s not what you meant, but this is the kind of thing that sets people off. Sex is a minefield.
I have seen this, BTW. I don’t know a lot of rich people, but my first cousin is a musician and ridiculously good-looking. Some friends and I once went to a show where he was a band member and greeted him afterward; this young blonde twinkie from the audience was all but throwing herself at him. My friends and I were embarrassed, my cousin was embarrassed (and probably tempted, too, and embarrassed to have this happen in front of us, and/or possibly frustrated, or… who knows? I wasn’t gauche enough to ask). And the twinkie’s female friend was either embarrassed or ambivalent or resigned — again, who could tell, really?
My point is, there was no question of consent, since the twinkie was broadcasting her consent for all to see. But the fact that stuff like this goes on doesn’t imply consent on the part of all women, and we owe it to them to treat them as individuals, not as madonnas/whores. (And sorry, ladies, but my cousin got married a couple of months ago and they are blissfully happy.)
@Elrond,
Using your example and applying it to today, your cousin and the “twinkie” could have had wild sex all night long. Then, when he didn’t answer her calls or respond to her texts, as revenge she could have gone to a lawyer like Gloria Allred and cried “Rape.” Doesn’t matter if there were witnesses who could testify that she all but raped him in public. She could say she was drunk or high. And, even if her claims were dismissed, his character would still be put into question, and she could try to ruin him via social media. Such is the new “cut the men’s balls off” era we live in.
BTW, how old was this girl anyway? If not of legal age, uh-oh.
“There is only one woman in the world.
One woman, with many faces.” – Nikos Kazantzakis
Individual – The woman that you meet, and fall in love with; if you’re lucky.
Whore – She who is revealed when she trusts you, and feels completely loved, or completely captivated; if you’re lucky. Sometimes has rape fantasies, and other seemingly unseemly ideas. Occasionally likes to get grabbed by the pussy, or gently spanked, and told how things will be.
Madonna – She who is the archetype , the one who bore your children, the one you will end your life with, but also the one who was always there; the one whom you’ve always loved even before you met her.
How do I know ? I have always loved women, and have loved one , in particular, for many, many years now; decades, in fact. Reading the news lately, and some of these comments, I’m thinking that perhaps it is true that youth is wasted on the young.
You are a very smart guy, but you sound confused on this issue. There is so much inundation of this topic it does make me wonder what we are all missing. What are we REALLY supposed to be paying attention to ?
Did you condemn Bill Clinton’s spree of rapes at the time? Or even now? Prove it.
WGAF?
“He says he placed his hand on a lady’s bare back…”
Keillor’s words to a local journalist:
“I put my hand on a woman’s bare back. I meant to pat her back after she told me about her unhappiness and her shirt was open and my hand went up it about six inches. She recoiled. I apologized. I sent her an email of apology later and she replied that she had forgiven me and not to think about it. We were friends. We continued to be friendly right up until her lawyer called.”
He didn’t just half-consciously touch a woman’s already bare back. He put his hand up the back of her shirt (I’m assuming an open shirt means open at the front, since any other configuration of open-shirtedness is unfamiliar to me). She recoiled, so he didn’t get any further. If he’d wanted to pat her back in sympathy his hand would presumably have landed *on* her shirt, but it didn’t, he slid his hand under her shirt, unless she was wearing a shirt that doesn’t correspond to what most of us think of as a shirt.
Now, as it happens I don’t like the idea of old Garrison being let go for this minor misdemeanor. And I find it totally despicable behaviour to accept an apology from someone and then to go for him through a lawyer. If she forgave and told him to forget, that should have been an end of the matter.
If he committed other misdemeanors they should be considered on their own merit.
There are commenters on this site who go beyond thinking it’s a shame for someone like GK to have been let go for this, to automatically assuming that (a) all women are lying, because that’s what women are like (b) if they’re not lying they are exaggerating, (c) if they’re not exaggerating, then at least they like playing the victim and (d) if they’re not enjoying playing the victim then we’ll have to settle for ‘boys will be boys and women should just STFU ‘because human nature’. These commenters are misogynists.
I don’t think it helps if you edit his quotes to minimise even slightly what he did – not because I remotely think the man deserved to lose his job over this (he may not be losing it uniquely over this – I have no clue), but because it encourages the misogynists who want to minimise everything that women claim.
The issue here is that he apologised and the woman accepted his apology. Morally it should have gone no further. But he knew his behaviour had crossed a line or he wouldn’t have apologised in the first place. So he didn’t just ‘place his hand’ on her back – he slid it up her shirt. Fine. Let’s neither minimise nor exaggerate what he did. It doesn’t help the situation.
Thank you for those details. I had not been able to find out what happened because every site I looked at was for more concerned with outrage than with what actually happened.
I read the quote in a balanced article in a respectable UK newspaper which I won’t name because of the dog-whistle reactions of some on this site to any normal newspaper that isn’t endorsed by Donald Trump.
I feel really sorry for GK – he’s not a Weinstein. He sounds like a real gentleman. Real gentlemen can make mistakes, but you know they’re real gentlemen because they know straight away they made a mistake and they apologise.
If this woman is entirely or almost entirely responsible for him finishing his career in such ignominy, she sounds horrible. And I’m a woman.
GA, Your sex was pretty obvious from your comments.
So? The comments of most people on here is obvious from their comments.
Sorry, I obviously meant the sex of most people on here is obvious from their comments.
“So he didn’t just ‘place his hand’ on her back – he slid it up her shirt.” –GreenAlba
Agreed. And I would bet it was not the only time he initiated unwanted physical contact with a woman…
Maybe the only way men can relate to her reaction to being so touched is to think how they would react if they were to receive unwanted sexual contact from a homosexual man.
Unwanted sexual advances, or visual, verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature is sexual harassment, and should be treated as such.
Men have been getting away with this forever… but as Bob Dylan sang: “the times they are a-changin’ ” Maybe, someday, men will think before acting on their base instincts, instead of excusing sexual predation as “human nature.”
Our Lil janet’s outraged! Say it ain’t so, Joe! You’re no doubt a cold fish to the core – aka frigid. Good luck with that!
I’m pretty sure that Janet is where boners go to die.
LOL!!! Perish the thought! Or as the young femmes are wont to say: “Ewww!”
Love the visual, capt.
C’mon, you know Janet is hot or you wouldn’t be paying any attention to her.
I would bet it was not the only time he initiated unwanted physical contact with a woman… – janet
===============
OK, then that settles it, janet “would BET” etc. etc.
“Agreed. And I would bet it was not the only time he initiated unwanted physical contact with a woman…”
I wouldn’t bet either way. I know nothing about the man, other that he otherwise seems like a nice man and I used to like listening to Lake Wobegon on the radio (he’s not on in the UK as much as he is in his own country). So that tells me nothing.
I don’t think it’s OK to assume he did anything else just because, other men have committed multiple misdemeanors. If he did, he did and that would be sad, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt until I hear otherwise – not that this whole issue lives anywhere other than on the periphery of my consciousness. Brexit and Trump cause me much more anxiety 🙂
Maybe the only way men can relate to her reaction to being so touched is to think how they would react if they were to receive unwanted sexual contact from a homosexual man.
I find that it is mostly an issue with homophobic men. Males tend to be wired such that all sexual contact is welcome. It’s the reason why you’ll almost never see a male charge a female with unwanted sexual contact.
Shirt? Blouse?
Ever hear tell of women’s garments being fastened in the back by various means? Once again, I’m seeing a lot of conclusion pouncing. Besides all that stuff, could I make an assumption too? Perhaps Mr. Keillor would rather just not be bothered to enter the scrum of the offended/offensive celebrity horror show at this point in his life and is murmuring in his inimitable nose-breathy way, “Think what you’d like (you will anyway); I’m done, see ya”.
Concur! Who needs this shit?
I’d have thought you’d have picked up on some of the irony in my ‘shirt’ comments, but you are probably American, so I will forgive you 🙂
I don’t know why it matters where it was fastened – HE said he put his hand ‘up it’. HE said he apologised for it.
You are right that he doesn’t wish to enter the scrum. His exact words were
“It’s some sort of poetic irony to be knocked off the air by a story, having told so many of them myself, but I’m 75 and don’t have any interest in arguing about this. And I cannot in conscience bring danger to a great organization I’ve worked hard for since 1969.”
So I think you’ll find I’m deliberately not conclusion pouncing. You may wish to re-read my post, which contains his actual words. You will also see that I like the guy and feel sorry that he has been hounded for something he apologised for and was told to forget. You will also see that I mostly criticised the woman.
” HE said he put his hand ‘up it’. HE said he apologised for it.”
He did not necessarily apologize for the act, but for her overt response?
“He did not necessarily apologize for the act, but for her overt response?”
I don’t think you can apologise for someone’s response. You can apologise for your own behaviour in the light of someone’s response. He offended her.He realised by her response that he had offended her, so he apologised, presumably sincerely. Because he’s a nice guy.
She accepted his apology. This acceptance subsequently turned out to be less sincere. I’ve made it clear I think her subsequent actions are the ones I deplore most in this case. I don’t know why you want to keep on suggesting otherwise.
You seem to want to make excuses for GK that he doesn’t even want to make for himself.
“You seem to want to make excuses for GK that he doesn’t even want to make for himself”
My comment was in no way an excuse, but rather an observation. Had he expected her to recoil, he would not have touched her.
GreenAlba,
Sorry if I’m sensing an over-reaction on your part here.
I read your post and my reading comprehension and retention is better than most.
The only part of your post that I’m contending is whether the “inappropriate contact” was the BACK or the BREAST. I think you’ll agree to a rather large matter of degree on that point. BTW, I happen to think that an unwanted touch is inappropriate. Consensual means what it means, and that’s why the behavior leading up to that consent is laden with social and Natural cues and rebuffs. (But you knew that already. 😉 )
Oops!
GreenAlba,
My quip was supposed to be directed to the Janet regarding the shirted-ness position and resulting insinuation!
Sorry, I’ll have to be more careful of the “indentations” of the thread-followings… and how women would like their tops termed. (Quadruple entendre there! Yikes.)
Hi Ozone
No worries. Janet’s post was not remotely in the same vein as my own. I’m glad you don’t think it was 🙂
The guy put his hand up her back, under her shirt/blouse, top, upper garment/whatever…
He sincerely apologised. She insincerely accepted his apology.
She sounds unpleasant. He sounds like a nice guy. In my experience most guys are nice guys and most women are nice women. Maybe I’m just lucky.
Several self-identifying misogynists on this thread seem determined to make trouble by arguing non-points, because they don’t like people who don’t generally share their worldview and will tailor their responses accordingly on any topic. I am not referring to you!
See now, classifying people as misogynists based on a few comments you don’t like is not helpful either. Personally (I don’t know if you were referring to me), I hate quite a few men too, so I suppose you could better term me a misanthrope if you were going to go down that road. Don’t know what the term is for hating stupid people right off hand, but I guess that might apply too. But then again, hate is a mighty strong word anyway. How about simply, “fond of ridiculing?”
Hi Ol’Scratch
I only identify people as misogynists if they say misogynistic things. Some people on this site identify themselves as misogynists.
I don’t identify as either a misandrist or a misanthrope. Most people are nice, male or female. That has been my experience.
I realise that many people are not. Robert Mugabe isn’t nice. Neither is Bashar el Assad. But they’re not very representative of most people.
With apologies if any other commenter has already written them, here are two relevant Keillor quotes to ponder:
1) “A world in which there is no sexual harassment at all is a world in which there will not be any flirtation.”
2) “If I had a dollar for every woman who asked to take a selfie with me and who slipped an arm around me and let it drift below the beltline, I’d have at least a hundred dollars.”
He was looking for the hanging chads in there.
We must not downplay this despicable behavior in any way.
We must bring to justice all those that looked at women with both eyes
where one would have been sufficient.
How about cross-eyed? Does that count as one, two, or one half?
“We must not downplay this despicable behavior in any way.
We must bring to justice all those that looked at women with both eyes where one would have been sufficient.”
We see what you did there. Lots of people do it. It’s not helpful.
It’s called sarcasm, and it works, because it makes people stop and think, if only for a brief second. Eminently helpful!
Thank you so much for explaining that it was sarcasm. Because I really hadn’t picked up on that. I trust you are also picking up on the sarcasm.
When I said ‘I see what you did there’, I wasn’t referring to the sarcasm. I was referring to the straw man underlying the sarcasm.
Well, but the straw man is part and parcel of the sarcasm.
You trust correctly, oh Green one.
Okey dokey, Oh Scratchy one 🙂
Exactly. After a few years or months or days or a single class, women can be made to believe that looking is rape. And of course they would like the offender arrested and jailed. Few women have any sense of proportion. Or to put it another way, they’re easily hijacked by any given power structure.
Yes, dear. Whatever you say, dear. Bless 🙂
Thus the niqab. Open-and-shut case.
Woman never shakes hands. Unwanted physical contact.
And so on.
(Unless she happens to be an unbeliever in which case she is fair game and an obvious whore.)
Fuck. You never cease to amaze, Janos, with your twisted-minded, self-serving world view. It’s now possible to complete your sentences once the first clause is read…pocket your roubles & fuck off.
Are you referring to the blind eye?
“But he knew his behaviour had crossed a line or he wouldn’t have apologised in the first place.”
I agree that in this specific case, Keillor apologized because he recognized that some line had been crossed, inadvertently or not. (And surely you’ve encountered womens’ attire that opens in the back – my wife often wears clothes
However, to assume that every and all apologies are due to recognition that *real* lines have *really* been crossed is ludicrous, particularly given the current call-out cultural milieu. For every person who is genuinely apologizing because they genuinely fucked up, at least one other person is apologizing simply to keep from being pilloried in social media for a *perceived* or *insinuated* or *alleged* fuck-up. And woe betide those schmucks, because an apology is simply blood in the water, a tacit admission that they *did* fuck-up.
“I’m assuming an open shirt means open at the front, since any other configuration of open-shirtedness is unfamiliar to me.”
Assuming makes an ass of you and me (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=woman+open+back+shirt+image). All sorts of open-backed shirts exist, especially in the world of women’s fashions. Do you owe Garrison an apology for assuming he put his shirt up the *front* of a woman’s shirt, even though he clearly said it was the *back*?
See where this fucking lunacy leads, within minutes?
That should have read: “(And surely you’ve encountered womens’ attire that opens in the back – my wife often wears clothes… with open backs.)”
Liked it better the first time. The inadvertent sarcasm worked.
To add to it. PHC is a live show. The people perform in front of an audience and the cast members and guests where clothes that befit a live performance.
Is it not more than conceivable a women performing in formal wear may wear a blouse that buttons up the back?
Its happened to me where a simple pat on the back gets misdirected and ends up somewhere mid-spine. Oh my gosh!!
Garrison is textbook Aspergers. He can’t even look people in the eye.
Apologies to women are like catnip to cats. I suggest we break them of this addiction. Stop apologizing. As General Lee said, Let’s give them the cold turkey.
Janos,
As Rhett Butler told Scarlett: “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn!”
“(And surely you’ve encountered womens’ attire that opens in the back – my wife often wears clothes”
I have, but they’re not usually called shirts. I’d call it a top in that case, but that’s probably a cultural difference and because I’m not a fashionista. And that’s why I commented ironically on my limited knowledge of openshirtedness. As I said to a previous poster, I don’t know why the configuration of the shirt matters – he put his hand up where he subsequently realised he shouldn’t have.
I did not in any way suggest that he put his hand up the front of her shirt. You made that up. He put his hand up her back, as I said. I assumed he was able to put his had up her back because the shirt was open (at the front) and therefore loose. So, no, I do not owe him an apology. You can make an ass of yourself if you wish to.
“However, to assume that every and all apologies are due to recognition that *real* lines have *really* been crossed is ludicrous, particularly given the current call-out cultural milieu”
I think you will find I only commented on this particular case, so your comment is a non-sequitur and you seem to have an agenda.
My bad on misquoting you – in re-reading, I elided the parts where you talk about putting his hand up her shirt and the only shirts you knew of being open in the front. And so for that honest mistake, I… get ready… apologize.
“I don’t know why the configuration of the shirt matters – he put his hand up where he subsequently realised he shouldn’t have.”
Agreed on the latter, not so much on the former. Guys don’t tend to wear attire that is open in back, whereas many women do wear such attire. As such, guys, who are used to putting a hand on someone’s shoulder to console or to give someone the proverbial pat on the back can quite accidentally touch bare skin on an open-backed shirt, which they could not do with a closed-back shirt. So the configuration DOES matter, in terms of resulting skin-on-skin contact.
And I do have an agenda, which is to return to a world where people work hard, have fun, respect one another while having their own beliefs, thoughts, and opinions, and generally stay out of one another’s business when possible. This social media-enabled culture of constant moral crisis reminds me way too much of a police state of consciousness, and I despise it.
Sorry if that feeling splashed over on to you personally. It was not intended. Shit, I apologized again. 🙂
No problem at all – apology not required and thanks for the friendly post.
I agree with your agenda.
On para 3:
I think the suggestion was (from GK) that he put his hand ‘up 6 inches’, so not that his hand accidentally landed on her bare back. In the latter situation any normal person would just say ‘oh, sorry’, there and then. I would, even to another woman (but we’d both probably be laughing). But I don’t know, so I can’t say.
But mostly I think we should leave it be. It’s all too sad, and I hate that the guy has been caught in the cultural cross fire. He sounds like a lovely man who was either physically clumsy or emotionally clumsy, but whichever, he doesn’t deserve the ignominy on the basis of this. If there’s more, there’s more, but I have no reason to assume there is. I hope there isn’t.
Yes, this woman is evil and deserves to be ostracized. There is nothing women fear more than shunning. I’m glad we finally agree on something. I await you apology for offending me many times.
I didn’t say she was evil. I’ll leave the hyperbole to you, since you do it so well.
“There is nothing women fear more than shunning.”
You’re funny too, when you’re not engaged in racist propaganda.
“I await you (sic) apology for offending me many times.”
Oh, Janos… now you’ve actually got me giggling. Bless you. You sound like a 1950s Sultan from Carry On up the Khyber.
At last a modicum of feminine charm! I was beginning to think you entirely bereft. Our therapy is working….
“These commenters are misogynists”
Alba,
Us “misogynists” would like for you to tell us what ,then ,should be our response to these ongoing outrages? It seems that if we parrot, in lockstep, that all women are virtuous, and that all men are probable defilers of virtue, then you would be satisfied?
I can accept that women, in general, do not lie, exaggerate, nor play the victim…but only in a parallel universe…certainly not so in the one we currently exist.
@elysianfield
“I can accept that women, in general, do not lie, exaggerate, nor play the victim…but only in a parallel universe…certainly not so in the one we currently exist.”
Then I cannot really help you. Your perceptions and/or your universe are your problem, not mine, since I live in a universe where most people tell the truth most of the time. Lucky me.
Except when that alternate universe is Europe and question is Muslim rape. Then it becomes “Men” – in other words, you veer off at a tangent into your own private universe where logic doesn’t apply.
Janos, GreenAlba is like Nicola Sturgeon; a pinched-faced shrew. There was once a device called a “scolds bridle”, it has always been thus in Scotland.
Fascinating? Where can I get one? Petruchio needs all the help you can get with Kate.
@Launcher
🙂 xx
“Petruchio needs all the help you can get with Kate.”
Not an admission I’d have expected you to make, Janos 🙂
“Us “misogynists” would like for you to tell us what ,then ,should be our response to these ongoing outrages?”
It’s not for me to tell you what your response should be. Mine is to let it all play out its course on the assumption that I wasn’t there and I don’t know what happened in any particular case. I haven’t commented on anything other than a quote by the man himself, whom I like and respect insofar as I know anything about him. If you want to make wild assumptions about the women concerned in *all* of these cases, just because you don’t respect women, that is your prerogative.
I am not a misandrist, so I don’t make wild generalisations about bad male behaviour, including lying, despite knowing that men do occasionally lie and some quite often lie. If you read my posts in this thread you will see that I specifically said several times that most men don’t behave the way the Weinsteins of this world do.
I will leave the character assassinations to you, if that’s the way you choose to respond.
“It’s not for me to tell you what your response should be.”
EXACTLY! Now it is back to judgment…male judgment, clouded by cultural signaling, and a woman’s changing preferences.
” I don’t make wild generalizations about bad male behavior”…
“despite knowing that men do occasionally lie and some quite often lie.” (I thank you for that lack of generalization….)
But women…don’t?
“I will leave the character assassinations to you, if that’s the way you choose to respond.”
When have I ever chosen?
Our society, broken as it is, seems currently to accept the victim, of whatever stripe, as a font of truth and virtue…and this “ain’t necessarily so…”.
“But women…don’t?”
I never said they didn’t. I said most *people* are honest most of the time.
You suggested women ‘generally’ lie by your sarcastic parallel universe comment. Some comments don’t merit a serious reply.
“Some comments don’t merit a serious reply.”
Alba,
I categorically reject your statement…I reject your virtue signaling, I reject your victimhood, I reject your dismissive attitude..
I invite any of the men on this site, including our host, to review my statements…Alba has impugned a number of men on this site as misogynists. If you find that I am a hater of women, and deserve this criticism please call me down on this.
Stand and deliver
So many labels and so many assumptions based on so objective little evidence. Where would I, or anyone, even start? I can see why he just shrugged and walked away from this. Sure, whatever, see you around…
I quite agree. And I still maintain that the person who comes out worst in this case (I know nothing about further allegations) is the woman who accepted his apology and told him to forget about it, only to bring in her lawyer later. That’s despicable.
So she should be hounded out of public life, right? And women who lie about rape should be utterly destroyed – after a long prison sentence, equal to that of the crime that they made up would have been.
As it is, they get nothing. Nothing!
Hyperbole again, Janos, it does your case no favours.
Also, there was a case in the British press recently of a woman jailed for a false rape allegation. You wouldn’t have read it, obviously, because you only read sources with a single narrative.
Of the number of women who are raped, only a tiny fraction of the cases ever go to court. Of that already tiny number an even tinier number end with a conviction. That’s because it’s very difficult to prove in many cases. It doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. But the relevant legal standard is ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. So it’s hard, which is why many genuinely raped women don’t even go to court.
Statistics suggest the prevalence of false rape allegations is roughly similar to false allegations of other crimes, which is to say exceedingly low..
It would seem obvious to most people that someone guilty of a deliberate false rape allegation should go to jail. But for a time decided by a rational, experienced, non-partisan judge. Not Janos Skorensky.
GreenAlba: “Hyperbole again, Janos, it does your case no favours.”
Janos doesn’t make cases, since cases involve reason, buttressed by evidence. Janos operates on a different plane. Think Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast — he just wants to wear you down with how terrible he is.
GA,
Reading your comments is wearing me down. As you are British, what are your thoughts on the epidemic of Muslims raping British girls with nothing being done, and the press refusing to run the stories?
@outsider
“Reading your comments is wearing me down.”
I can sympathise. It must be difficult having to read comments that don’t automatically fit the narrative you have chosen to stick to. Keeping an open mind calls for more mental effort than just choosing to read the same old same old out of confirmation bias.
Stamina, my good man, stamina… Or don’t read them – they’re optional.
“As you are British, what are your thoughts on the epidemic of Muslims raping British girls with nothing being done, and the press refusing to run the stories?”
My thoughts are as follows:
1. There is not an epidemic of Muslims raping British girls. You really need to read more respectable publications. Breitbart and Fox News (and hate websites) are not where to go to for the truth.
2. I deplore rape, by whomever it is committed.
3. I am pleased that the Rochdale case was resolved by the Asian men concerned all going to jail, just as I am pleased when non-Asian rapists go to jail. It was exceedingly well covered in the newspapers. There was even a subsequent enquiry, which resulted in reforms in the general direction of training the police to deal better with vulnerable girls of the type targeted by the group.
4. I find the mindset of some on this site confusing. Well, actually that’s probably not true, I get the cognitive dissonance though. It would seem the view is that women should not be believed, unless they make an allegation against a Muslim, in which case they should automatically be believed. That’s not a psychological bias I can help any of you with.
@Elrond
Janos is sounding ever more shrill and desperate, like someone falling apart psychologically. His condition must be hard to live with.
He is indeed wearing. I wouldn’t bother even answering his nonsense, because he doesn’t deserve to be answered, but you recently made a comment that we shouldn’t just let his vile stuff go unchallenged, so I feel duty bound, even though it does feel rather like dipping your toes in something really quite gross.
Janos,
Lying about rape is but a precursor to the most destructive lie of all…”‘Im pregnant, and you’re the daddy”.
Of all possible lies, elysianfield, what makes that one in particular the most destructive? Because just for comparison’s sake, I’ve heard the complementary lie, “That’s not my kid, nuh uh,” spoken live and in person. (Not those exact words — it was many years ago.)
So taking you at your word, a father denying responsibility for a child who really is his, is less destructive than a mother identifying the wrong father. Can you explain why, using your own words? The more specific you can be in your explanation, the better. Thanks.
To Green Alba- Calling out your bullshit statistics on rape and assault accusations.
Statistics on politicized issues like this are often untrustworthy. Many police departments resolve even the most obvious cases of false rape accusation by sending both parties home, recording no crime, and making the girl pinky swear never to do it again. But to my surprise, several decent studies have been done on the frequency of false rape accusations.
A meta-analysis by Rumney (2006) suggests that between 10-50% of rape allegations are false. Kanin (1994) arrived at an estimate of 40%, using methodology that strikes me as more trustworthy than a simple count of police-recorded ‘malicious accusations’, since many false rape claims are ignored. Kanin’s unique process was as follows:
Kanin investigated the incidences of false rape allegations made to the police in one small urban community between 1978 and 1987. He states that unlike those in many larger jurisdictions, this police department had the resources to “seriously record and pursue to closure all rape complaints, regardless of their merits.” He further states each investigation “always involves a serious offer to polygraph the complainants and the suspects” and “the complainant must admit that no rape had occurred. She is the sole agent who can say that the rape charge is false.”
The number of false rape allegations in the studied period was 45; this was 41% of the 109 total complaints filed in this period. The researchers verified, whenever possible, for all of the complainants who recanted their allegations, that their new account of the events matched the accused’s version of events.
http://www.returnofkings.com/22079/the-truth-about-false-rape-accusations-that-all-men-should-know
http://www.writerbeat.com/articles/19629-About-Half-of-Rape-Allegations-are-Actually-False
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3017361/More-fifth-school-staff-falsely-accused-pupils-abuse-bullying-Wrong-allegations-damaged-careers-blighted-lives.html
To Green Alba-
One last thing. Women have the upper hand in our police and judicial state. In family court women are the consummate liars. Take a look here-
In fact, with child custody disputes, some research indicates that up to 70% of the domestic violence allegations are considered false. Literature purports that the prevalence of false allegations is up to 84% and approximately 85% of those are issued against men. Even if we go with the lower figure of 70%, this means that over two-thirds of the accusations are fabricated.
https://www.avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/family-courts/false-allegations-in-family-court-who-is-to-blame/
Elrond,
It happened to several people I know, including my son. The sordid details;
He dated the woman in High School,
She approached him, saying he made her pregnant.
He did the right thing and married her.
Over a four year period, there was a girl, then a boy produced.
He came home from a work one day (a good paying union job as a machinist), where she confronted him and threw him out of their house…it was father’s day.
She immediately signed up for welfare, and sued for child support.
Two years later she petitioned the court to have his name removed as the father of the first child…the female.
The court granted child support for both children, even knowing that he was not the biological father of the girl
He paid child support on the female child until she reached the age of majority. The biological father of the female child was known to the court, but received a free ride.
His former wife is currently dying of AIDS.
This incident kind of fucked up his life.
What say you, Elrond?
Elrond,
Please do not make any one dimensional references to this souring my perspective on women…I am not as stupid as I sometimes represent.
Why is a false rape report less of a burden than a false patrimony? False rape reports are investigated, and most “suspects” will suffer the experience, but not prison.
False patrimony claim? 18 fucking years of heartache, a chance at a decent life hobbled, innocence not considered…the list continues….
elysianfield:
I framed my question as a woman falsely attributing parenthood to a man on one side, versus a man falsely denying fatherhood of a child on the other. You told me about what happened with your son, which covers one side of that question, but not the other. So my question goes unanswered.
Of course you feel shitty about your son’s situation, because he’s your son. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry and I agree it’s crummy what she did. That said, your son is one person and it’s a big world, full of people f’ing each other over in a rainbow of flavours. The fact that this particular thing happened to you and yours doesn’t make it the “most destructive”, even though I’m sure you feel it the most keenly.
Everyone’s pushing their interests: men afraid of false accusations, and men keen to shirk responsibility for their kids. Women who don’t want to raise kids alone, and women with a fear of the men in their lives that is all too often well-founded. A society has to at least make an effort to achieve justice in all those cases, not only the ones closest to our hearts.
Toxicosis,
I’m not sure that you’ve represented the Rumney meta-analysis accurately. I haven’t read it myself, so I’m relying on this article:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2009/10/how_often_do_women_falsely_cry_rape.html
According to the Slate article, Rumney raised issues both with studies that found the rate of false rape accusations conspicuously low, 2% or so, and with the Kanin study’s figure of 40%. This leaves, again according to the Slate article, a middle ground of studies that converge in the range of 8% to 10% of rape accusations being false. That 8-10% of cases clearly is a nightmare for the men involved, but 90% of cases being valid is still 90%.
Not only that, but keep in mind that for a rape accusation to be either true or false, it has to be made in the first place.
https://ocrsm.umd.edu/files/Why-Is-Sexual-Assault-Under-Reported.pdf
Statistics suggest that two-thirds to five-sixths of all rapes are never reported. They are far more likely to be reported in the case of rapes by strangers, much less so when the offender is a friend, acquaintance or intimate partner. The 8-10% of accusations that may be false are, by definition, being measured against the true rapes that are reported, not against the much larger number that aren’t.
And rapes that are reported to the criminal justice system only rarely end with a conviction followed by jail time:
https://www.rainn.org/statistics/criminal-justice-system
Out of 1,000 rapes that occur:
– 310 are reported to police
– 57 reports lead to arrest
– 11 cases get referred to prosecutors
– 7 cases lead to a felony conviction
– 6 rapists will be incarcerated
False rape accusations are heinous. But it would be misleading at best to claim that the problem of false accusations is as significant as the problem of rape itself.
@Toxicosis
I wouldn’t go to either men’s rights or feminist websites for stats.
Here is an independent fact-checking source. Sorry, it’s UK:
https://fullfact.org/crime/false-rape-allegations-serious-rare/
I find this all rather U.S.-centric. What do I mean? The sentiments, reactions, or larger sense of moral outrage is about violence. Not sex.
The fact that a woman instinctively reacts negatively to an inadvertent touch says more about the prevailing violence and threat in the society than sexual interplay between the genders.
How do I know? I’ve lived in societies a little to the south of N. America. Although some of these places can have a greater form of some violence, the virtual sexual kind that permeates the subconscious of U.S. and Canadian females is not one of them.
In the U.S. or Canada if you wolf-whistle at a women you are instantly branded as a sexist pig and probably a rapist. Down there you get a “Gracious Senor”. Men are men and women are women. They respect and revel in the difference.
So I asked myself, what is the difference? Ah, in U.S./Canada women have some amped up fear of violence. Where did this come from? I can’t say exactly because, (we never had that “locker room talk” – get over the sterotype, it’s disgusting in its ignorance), we were always mindful to act like gentlemen. Sure, during high school inevitably there was a “hand gone too far”, but a firm “no” was sufficient.
Puritanism seems to have the same effect for reducing sexual violence as guns do for reducing murderous violence. Think about it…
Well said. Yet the cultures south of the border are far more violent than those of traditional White North America. American Boys used to bring their guns to school to go hunting or shooting afterwards. No problems.
“In the U.S. or Canada if you wolf-whistle at a women you are instantly branded as a sexist pig and probably a rapist.”
If you’d left ‘and probably a rapist’ off that sentence it would have been one to be considered. But now it’s not. It’s just silly.
I don’t know there, Greeny. I think he’s got at least a half-truth by the tail there with that one.
* I think he’s got at least a half-truth by the tail there with that one.*
I’m sure you do, Scratchy, I’m sure you do…
I second JK’s acknowledgment of GK’s wit and intellect.
There is very real, but very unforeseen “war” going on…..
Perhaps the “war” has been going on far longer than we realize.
It is a war between those among us that would rather live by their perceptions and feelings — than own up to the realizations and facts our modernity and science have been revealing the last several decades.
What we are seeing in this vast “me too” feminine out-pouring of sensitivity in my humble oppinion is identical to the vaccuous reasoning that defines Trumpism.
Suck it America – you all deserve to be on Dr. Phil or the “Maury” show…….
Suck it America – you all deserve to be on Dr. Phil or the “Maury” show…….
Ain’t that the truth! We’ve descended into madness!
Nice projection there, champ. The “Me too” obviously is Leftist and is headed down BLM Drive with a Left on MLK boulevard, with its final destination the Tomb of Lenin.
The separation of White Men and Women via Feminism is among the enemy’s greatest victories.
“Nice projection there, champ. The “Me too” obviously is Leftist and is headed down BLM Drive with a Left on MLK boulevard, with its final destination the Tomb of Lenin.”
Get a grip, Janos.
Judean / Christian culture has an explanation for the misdeeds of all these miscreants: The fallen nature of man. On some level we’re all sinners, and we’ve all been sinned against, but there’s also forgiveness. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us..”
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us..”
Which is why this particular case is sad. It makes me quite angry to think that a man who seems to be so decent (and I loved his work too, although we don’t get as much of it over here now as in his home country) appears to have have had the last days of his career ruined by someone he apologised to and who said she’d forgiven him. That, to me, is pretty unforgivable.
I agree that is the crime here. Integrity accounts for a lot.
Perhaps with our modern enlightenment on gender equality we ought to also throw out a few antiquated axioms such as “A woman has the right to change her mind”.
Nope, not in the “equal world”. It is an integral part of honor, to stand by one’s word.
(As an aside, I find it repulsive the casual attitude to which women will freely return clothing and articles. It is an externalization to society for their inability to make a decision).
This is not intended as an ad hominem statement, rather the generalization is figure out which society and gender based behaviour you want to employ. You can’t have it both ways.
And being Canadian, we use the Brit spellings. An extraneous “u” neveur hurt anyoune 🙂
“As an aside, I find it repulsive the casual attitude to which women will freely return clothing and articles. It is an externalization to society for their inability to make a decision”
This is not entirely fair. If I buy a garment online I don’t know if it will fit me until I try it on. Sometimes I buy two sizes and send one back. That’s why there’s a returns tickbox option saying ‘bought more than one for choice’. If you accept the advantages of online selling (not having to pay retail labour and display costs) you have to accept that people can send stuff back that doesn’t fit them. Or doesn’t look the way it did in the photo. Fair’s fair and sellers accept this.
The stuff about inability to make a decision seems to be a personal prejudice of yours so it would be pointless for me to comment. I could say men have a similar difficulty making decisions about women (that’s a joke, lest the humour free anti-women folk on this site decide to pile in).
“You can’t have it both ways.”
Sorry I’m not clear what you are referring to if you’re talking about something I specifically said.
“Perhaps with our modern enlightenment on gender equality we ought to also throw out a few antiquated axioms such as “A woman has the right to change her mind”.
Well, I’m not going to get too deeply into that one. You think what you think. Most people would disagree with you. I think a man should be able to change his mind as well. I’ve seen films where a man was about to cheat on his wife and thought better of it at the last minute. Good for him. I don’t remember any of the women in question lecturing him on keeping his word!
If I got in a car to drive you somewhere, then felt unwell and faint, I’m sure you’d be delighted for me to continue driving you to preserve my honour and not be seen to change my mind!
So how should the community deal with this woman? I said shun her and you said stop the hyperbole. So your suggestion?
Now will we be looking at successful actresses and business women and wondering who they slept with to achieve their success?
I do however totally agree that kangaroo courts are unacceptable. I’m not even happy that people’s names are made public before anything substantial has been proven.
When I was a young buck in the mid 1980s the sexual harassment purges were happening in the defense and aerospace industries where I got my first job. At the time, and probably continuing to the present, if you were accused of sexual harassment you were immediately sacked. You didn’t even get to clean out your desk, straight out the door, do not pass go, do not collect $200.
There was no investigation, no checking the story. Bang, boom you’re out and you will never work in the industry again.
That’s shocking.You are talking about the US, where it’s easier to sack people without a valid reason anyway. Here in the UK you’d be able to take your company to an employment tribunal and if there was no evidence against you, you’d win and they’d have to pay you damages.
That doesn’t mean that a lot of sexual harrassment didn’t and doesn’t go on in businesses where you have a big majority of men and a minority of women. The ratio (and sometimes the sector) does seem to affect the ethos. But everyone is entitled to a proper hearing, even if such processes aren’t always perfect in a he-said/she-said situation.
I’ve mostly worked in secondary teaching (about 50:50) and publishing (about two thirds women) and been aware of exactly no sexual harrassment or allegations of it my entire life. The one incident I am aware of is that when HR in the publishing company looked into the emails of a particular person for an entirely different reason (they were concerned he might be poaching clients as he was leaving to set up his own business) they accidentally came across a network of young men using company email to send lewd messages to one another about their female colleagues. They were sacked on the spot – totally unacceptable and they were rightly sacked, because they were perfectly able to read the data integrity policy of the company (and should have shown some respect to their colleagues anyway).
That’s the only case I know of personally – I’ve obviously lived a sheltered professional life!
I also worked in a defense related think tank during the same time span. We men had to be extremely careful when asking out any of our co-workers. The slightest misstep, and it was out the door. That is except for one Jewish engineer who got in trouble for calling the Jewish Dating 1-900 line, and costing his department a small fortune. So, the company blocked all 900 calls.
Anywhere I worked the guy would have been sacked, not for where he was calling, but for charging calls other than very quick personal ones to his company.
I must be naive. I don’t understand how it causes problems to ask someone out. What is a misstep? ‘Would you be interested in a drink after work?’ ‘Yes, sounds great’/No thanks (polite excuse, hopefully) but thanks for the invitation’. How do these situations turn into ‘issues’ if you’re just asking a civil question?
GA,
I thought the rule was that you could ask a co-worker out ONCE. If you’re turned down for any reason don’t dare ask again or its sexual harassment, probably dismissal. In the old movies, the boy asked the girl out 10 times before she said yes – and they wound up getting married. Today that would get him a jail sentence.
I genuinely have no idea what the ‘rule’ is in this context, so can’t comment.
Yes, the world of films is confusing. Pursuing a woman was seen as romantic. Pursuing a man got you called desperate, needy or even a bunny boiler. Hey ho…
GA,
I assume you are referring to “Fatal Attraction.” Great movie. But Michael Douglas’ married character should have known better than to screw a lonely woman in an elevator who was all too eager to rip his clothes off.
@outsider
Yes, that was a flippant reference to the Glenn Close character. But the simple ‘needy’ or ‘desperate’ woman pursuing a man is a general societal trope, not necessarily limited to film (I’m not talking about threatening stalking here).
There are, of course, cases of genuine mental illness. The Audrey Tautou character in ‘He loves me, he loves me not’, turned out at the end of the film (an excellent one, I might add) to be suffering from a form of erotomania, in that she was delusionally imaging that it was her who was being pursued, and not the other way round.
Likewise, in Adele H, a film about the true story of Victor Hugo’s daughter, she suffered from similar delusions and wasted her whole life following a military chap around the world. No-one would have considered that ‘romantic’, because she was a women.
Blaming Trump for the logical conclusion to the sexual revolution, that is rich.
This is going to be a very interesting thread of comments, if I may ask a favor of the usual right wing commenters, refrain from your usual taunts so as to allow the newly marginalized old white males to work thru their emotions of being marginalized.
I’ve been self-marginalized for years. Life is better that way.
Egos are for assholes.
Amen
Too many ho’s, eh? Truly we are at our best when not even aware of ourselves. No great artist ever does their own art. They are absent, merely the instruments.
@newworld.
I suspect if you were to come back in 30 years you’d fine that old white males (that’s the current millennials I suppose) will be just fine. I really do. I’m married to an old white male and he doesn’t have any problem living his life as an old white male. He’s neither more nor less respected specifically due to his white maleness than he ever was. Likewise my old white male brothers.
None of them are powerful old white males, though, they’re just ordinary professional white males. And they all work with normal professional women (all colours) who give and expect respect in the ways you’d hope for in this century.
Graycenphil, is that you?
If so, welcome back (as long as you take a sabbatical every once in a while.)
If not, my mistake – your comments have that “the future looks so bright we’ll have to wear shades” vibe all over, just like Graycenphil’s.
@ afirmapereira & @ Kunstler
Funny that you should mention this. I was thinking the same thing yesterday!
So……, I took some time to analyze the GA comments, and note the times. I really have other things to do , but this was like a song that you cannot get out of your head, “ear worm”, as I have heard it called.
GA comments 01DEC2017
list is in order, and stops at afirmapereira comment posted @ 22:27 H EST
parenthetical times are GMT. Since GA is in the UK, even this short list demonstrates the persistence employed. To what end?
0931 H (1430 H GMT )
0930
1409
1411
1037
1726
1157
1204
1308
1317
1418
1206
1322
1419
1421
1219
1335
1426
1226
1237
1734
1240
1427
1451
1751
1806
1916
1825
1919
2154 (0254H)
1358
0950
1053
1247
1815
1928
1012
between 0930H & 2154H EST ( 1430H & 0254H GMT), GA continuously perused the comment board, and dominated the conversation, just like gracenphil took to doing. It seems to have picked-up intensity. There are many more comments by GA after the one afirmapereira made at 2227H, with similarly staggered time stamps. I am choosing that point as a place to stop; I really don’t have all day for this shit.
Do what you will with the info Jim, Your commentariat , if I may, is an entertaining, and occasionally informative part of your blog. It is a shame to see it hijacked by such patently myopic and distracting sentiments that are being promulgated by people with no skin in the game that they are commenting on.
Tell them to start their own fucking blogs- PLEASE.
Who’s Graycenphil? Someone who disturbed your echo-chamber?
Also, BTW, I’ve been reading this blog for over 10 years and didn’t even comment for the vast majority of that time. Sorry you appear to be so exclusive. It used to be less nasty in the old days – mostly people commenting on Long Emergency stuff.
I’m surprised you’re not asking for Janos and others to be expelled who are over the site like a rash every time with thoroughly unpleasant sentiments. No, actually, I’m not surprised.
@OHealihy
You do of course have my apology for over-posting recently, since it seems to have offended you. I will repeat, I have been reading this blog without making the slightest comment for over a decade, as a reader of a number of JHK’s books, so my average is way, way below anyone else on this site.
@firmapereira
I don’t think the future’s bright at all – I wish I did. But I think we have to keep trying.
If JHK should wish to check up on me, I first signed in many, many years ago as NoisesOff. I think I may have made one comment, possibly two, then nothing for years. Then the name wouldn’t work, possibly because I didn’t use it for years, so I changed it. I have no knowledge of Graycenphil.
Thanks.
No name was mentioned in the above post, nor was afirmapereria’s subject mentioned by name.
K”seattles best chou” once alluded, however tangentially, to the possibility of GcenP being a bot, or some type of AI .
Read the replies, note the times. ….,
“Methinks thou dost protest too much.”, and for what ?
Notice how JS was implicated. One of the stalwarts of the loyal opposition, on a bad day he is more akin to an irascible drunk uncle than the terms some use to describe him. His intellect, and obvious cultural acumen, is what I find to be of most benefit to the comment at CFN.
I have skin in this game. GA is not Graycenphil IMHO. The way she expects things to stay the same is not the same way he does.
There is a forum where I am an admin that Graycenphil decided to cause trouble on about a year ago. I was not an admin there at the time when he did. He shows up again and I will ban him faster than he can type ‘Gas costs less than $2.50 a gallon.’
I am only known as K-Dog and Graycenphil knows about me well. He knows more than I do about him though I do know a little about him. The reason is he has access to better resources. Why is something for you to figure out.
Thank you K-Dog. I can assure you (plural) of no ill will – also that I certainly don’t expect things to say the same and that I have the same anxieties as anyone else, primarily on behalf of my five-year-old grandson. I have been a fan of JHK (and Dmitry Orlov and Richard Heinberg, as it happens) since I discovered their writing.
I will keep my comments to a sprinkling. I do not as a rule spend as much time following the conversations anyway – there were just a couple of exceptions, for random reasons more to do with me twiddling my thumbs than anything else.
I hope the goodwill can be reciprocated. I think it does us all good to see things from alternative perspectives, otherwise all we get is echo chambers.
Cheers
GA
afirmapereira specifically asked me if I were Graycenphil, which is why I answered afirmapereira, not because s/he was mentioned in your post. S/he will presumably not apologise for the insinuation, nor do I need such an apology.
“Methinks thou dost protest too much.”
That is your prerogative.
” and for what ?”
Much the same as anyone else. I blog on the Guardian too. There are exchanges of opinion, and we welcome the opinions of our American cousins on the site, even those who do not agree with us. It can be a bit of an echo-chamber, as can this one. That’s because we all suffer from confirmation bias, so it does us good to share our views on a different blog from time to time.
Good wishes
GA
@GreenAlba (who’s Graycenphil award winner of the year)
Dear Mrs.,
Quoting from your comments:
“Who’s Graycenphil?”
“ I have no knowledge of Graycenphil.”
“Also, BTW, I’ve been reading this blog for over 10 years […]”
Well, it only took you ten years to rediscover the comment board (after your short stint as NoisesOff). If you kindly go back a couple of weeks in the blog’s content, you will easily find Graycenphil‘s profuse body of commentariat work, which you blatantly missed.
Kind regards.
I remember his/her name. I do not remember the nature of his/her comments because I do actually have an offline life which is more important (I just happened to have my own reasons for being here more than usual the last couple of topics, which doesn’t actually relate to the site itself). So, who is Graycenphil is still a relevant question. Thank you for answering it. I do remember him/her being the butt of some criticism, now that you mention it, but I don’t recall the topics.
I did not say I took me ten years to ‘rediscover the blog’. I read it fairly regularly without commenting. I did not always read all the comments, because I mostly read the article and the comments that were there at that time, and didn’t revisit it till the next time, which tends to be what you do when you are not actively commenting, since your primary interest is the article.
Kind regards, likewise.
It seems clear that society is trying to hand men their hats, so to speak. It’s likely an odd backlash for the fact that men, collectively, have so horribly mismanaged our affairs.
Maybe we should let eunuchs run things from now on.
A big part of the problem is that we have always been a society that feels the need to go off the deep end about everything. This tendency is not symptomatic of a society that is serious and committed about things, but rather a society that is very shallow, insincere, and can’t really commit to anything worth being committed to.
Interesting – so it’s a sign of not just men’s lack of commitment to justice for women, but also a lack of commitment on the part of the witch-hunters. They don’t really believe in what they’re doing, which of course makes it all the more crucial to keep doing it with increasing fervor and ferocity. I’ll buy that.
Anyway if it’s just a fad, maybe Garrison Keillor is it’s inevitable “shark jump” moment
its
Since our society is materialistic, with everyone on the Death is the end plan, people only have a few years to “make it”, whatever that means to them. So they are willing to do anything to do so: Lie, Cheat, Steal, Devote themselves to ridiculous careers, Work endless meaningless hours, etc. Just so they can impress someone attractive and get them to marry them.
Personally I’ve worked to keep food on the table and a roof over my head, but whatever…
“It seems clear that society is trying to hand men their hats, so to speak.”
I don’t think that’s actually true at all (and I’m not trying to be hostile here to your views). Things happen tsumani fashion these days because of communication systems and social media. Previously they happened gradually. The expression ‘rule of thumb’ originates in the legal presumption that a man could hit his wife with a stick as long as it didn’t exceed the width of a thumb. People thought that was fine. Nobody except misogynists now thinks that’s OK, but enlightenment didn’t happen overnight.
This current backlash is exactly that, as you say. It will settle down. People will get stuff off their chests and get on with living together in a hopefully more respectful way. Not all of them, obviously. There will always be men who want to behave like Weinstein but it will be harder for them to get away with it.
Most men do not remotely behave like any of these people and yet they are able to find partners and live their lives. I’ve worked a full lifetime and never seen any of this kind of behaviour anywhere I worked, nor heard any of my female colleagues ever talk about any such behaviour from male employees. Most of us – male and female – just go to work to get on with the job.
I still think letting eunuchs run things may work better. At this point, almost anything will.
OK, if you say so 🙂 But it would have to by eunuchs and whatever the female version of eunuchs is!
Women who work in officers are mostly neutered females, like the workers among the social insects.
“Women who work in officers are mostly neutered females, like the workers among the social insects.”
And yet so much maternity leave in so many offices… Poor, deluded Janos.
Why male eunuchs? Why always males in charge? Males have done enough damage. Women are prepared to take charge.
Women are 51% of the population, but women hold:
16.8% of seats in the Senate and House of Representatives
17.5% of mayoral positions in cities above 30,000 people
Vote for women candidates (of any party affiliation).
Why Women Make Better Politicians
http://bigthink.com/women-and-power/why-women-make-better-politicians
Party on, oh great femme-bot orator! Still sore because Trump (a freaking idiot lout if there ever was one!) sent your femme crush to the showers before her rightful coronation, aren’t you? Come on now, just admit it, and I might talk nice to you once in awhile again.
And just imagine, your beloved heroin is married to none other than Bill Bob Clinton, one of the truly all-time great womanizers and serial molesters. How, pray tell, do you square that when you go to sleep at night?
“And just imagine, your beloved heroin…”
Crikey, that opioid epidemic seems to be everywhere 🙂
You like that little Easter Egg I left you? I was wondering when someone was going to catch it. But it actually works as a double entendre too, don’t you think?
I think you’d need something if you were married to Bill Clinton…
LOL! Agreed!
Men have been ruthlessly persecuted for generations now in the divorce courts. You live a very sheltered life indeed. You don’t know – and don’t want to know either.
And White Men? Even worse since Whites have been ruthlessly persecuted for generations now via affirmative action.
From 90% to 60% in two generations? It’s a Genocide track.
“Nobody except misogynists now thinks that’s OK, but enlightenment didn’t happen overnight.”
Concerning what we are experiencing now and what they were experiencing then; neither should be called enlightenment.
“Men will continue to initiate sexual liaisons and relations. They will make the first move. They will take a chance. They will be advised to act like gentlemen in doing this, but I don’t think that’s quite what the witch-hunters really want right now”.
This is not about sexual attraction. The males who were released from their positions were using their power to obtain sexual favors. Many times, quite violently.
According to Pew, sixty percent of women have experienced sexual harassment at work. So it’s not about being a victim but about having a work environment that is free from harassment.
As for men initiating relations, I think that concept is quite antiquated today (and has been since around 1980!).
@JustSaying.
True – this seems to be forgotten in the rush to claim to be defending men in general acting like men (whatever that is held to mean). It’s nonsense. Most men absolutely do not behave like this.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/12/secret_100000_congressional_fund_paid_off_males_who_accused_staffers_of_harassment.html
“How can you reach adulthood and not know what sexual harassment means? Or know the difference between right and wrong?
Members of Congress are supposed to be the best and brightest among us. Instead, they are lecherous cretins with the morals of alley cats.”
” Most men absolutely do not behave like this”
Alba,
Will then you quit bitching and moaning that they do?
Sincerely,
All the misogynists on the site….
You DA MAN, man!
‘”Most men absolutely do not behave like this’
“Will then you quit bitching and moaning that they do?”
I think if you can’t see the utter lack of logic in your accusation, or the total lack of evidence presented for it, then I’m sorry I can’t help you. Your prejudices are your own problem, not mine.
“I think if you can’t see the utter lack of logic”
Alba,
The problem is, I believe I do see your logic. You rail against the human condition. You cannot accept the obvious, and you, while not overtly identifying as a victim, are quick to accept the victimhood of an accuser…any female accuser, as having been wrongly and without accomplice, savaged.
No one on this site would accept a power leveraged attempt at sexual gratification as acceptable. You fail to see the grey areas…50 or more shades, at least.
My prejudices? Yeah, 70 years of observing the human condition…very simple to be so dismissive on your part…very self-affirming, and without effort.
Please read Volodya’s post here referenced;
http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/whipping-post-politics/#comment-328289
” You cannot accept the obvious, and you, while not overtly identifying as a victim, are quick to accept the victimhood of an accuser…any female accuser, as having been wrongly and without accomplice, savaged.”
Could you post some examples of where I said that? Thanks.
elysianfield: Railing against the human condition is part of the human condition. Calling one thing better than another, and declaring that we should do the better thing and not the worse thing, is just what people do. If you’re especially good at it, they might even name a religion after you.
Imagine if no one had ever done this. Do you think you’d have a life as comfortable as you likely do now? By which I mean, you probably have a roof over your head and three square meals a day. Or would we all still be on the savannah, living hand to mouth, and the lives of men solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short?
Well said, Elrond. And that was men’s doing. Likewise, White Men conquered this Continent for the Race, Nation, and God – and White Women never had it so good. They sure enjoyed the spoils of the conquest but now they have become forgetful of who gave it to them. More, resentful and contemptuous. Likewise feminine, bitchy men.
Alba,
The incident regarding GK is a fine example…GUILTY!
There was absolutely no effort on your part to learn any backstory in this current event. You have made an assumption of guilt and perfidy on GK’s account.
@elysianfield
You seem to be reading different words from me. That explains a lot on this site. I’m the only one here who’s bothered to quote GK’s actual words and I’ve said a dozen times that I think he sounds like a lovely gentleman.
There’s none so blind… Stick with your tiresome prejudices.
No, you see she thinks they do. You two disagree yet you want to pretend you don’t.
Maybe this is why you miss so much?
As for men initiating relations, I think that concept is quite antiquated today (and has been since around 1980!).
LMAO!!! Really? I think you should get out more.
Men who are successful with women know how to read female clues since women control the sex dance. So they don’t really need to initiate anything – they just know how to respond.
Whole lotta presumption going there, pardner. Not that you’re necessarily all wrong in that statement, but there’s often a tad bit more to it than that.
” Men who are successful with women know how to read female clues since women control the sex dance. So they don’t really need to initiate anything – they just know how to respond.”
Soooo, men are not evil, but evincing a lack of judgment? They misinterpret a smile, a glance, a nuance of body language?
They are pigs, rutting dogs, defilers of all that is saintly and good…they should be castrated.
Women are indeed saints, pure and chaste…they are not part of the problem.
Do you have a 1-900 number I can call for that? I’d like to hear more! MUCH more!
@Just Saying,
“As for men initiating relations, I think that concept is quite antiquated today.” Really? How terribly sad.
Have you ever seen “Lonely are the Brave” starring Kirk Douglas, and filmed in about 1961? He plays a cowboy who eschews modernity in favor of living under the stars with his trusty horse. The law is after him for busting out of prison, and seems to have him trapped on a steep hillside, when he and his horse somehow manage to escape. However, when he tries to cross the highway his horse gets spooked, and they get hit by a car. The ambulance take Douglas to the hospital and they have to shoot the horse. No word if Douglas lives or not, but I’m sure he hopes to die. Sometimes, as an aging man having trouble adapting to this brave new world, I feel like that.
I’m still trying to recover from Rawling’s “The Yearling”. Alas for poor Flag! And every man must kill what he loves….
Good news is that Prince Harry studied the history of art not for nothing – everything is fine with his sense of beauty.
https://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/galleries/x701/223995.jpg
Grab me by the ass
Let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On a-Jupiter and Mars
In other words, hold my hand
In other words, darling, kiss me
Well at least all the freaking Royals haven’t lost their minds yet too. Unlike his stiff-lipped father and older brother, I would imagine he’s quite the adventurous cowboy in the sack too. Yippee ki yo, ki yay! Back in the saddle again, little doggies!
From a purely visual standpoint, Charles choosing Camilla (woof) over Diana was crazy. But of course Diana, suffering from a borderline personality disorder, made his life hell.
Being locked up in a castle all the time can’t be good for your mental health. No secret that she was the passionate one in that little arrangement, though. Evidently, Harry’s taken up her mantle admirably.
“From a purely visual standpoint, Charles choosing Camilla (woof) over Diana was crazy. But of course Diana, suffering from a borderline personality disorder, made his life hell.”
I’m not a massive fan of Diana and have very little interest in royal matters but there is no evidence whatsoever that Diana suffered from a personality disorder, borderline or otherwise, to my knowledge. She did, by her own admission, suffer from boulimia for a time, caused by anxiety and the intolerable humiliation of being expected to live in a marriage in which her husband had been in an affair with someone else since before she even met him. Someone else who was already married to yet another someone else.
DIana did rather milk her victimhood but she was absolutely used by the royal family in the days, thankfully now gone, when the heir to be throne had to be seen to be marrying a virgin.
What they did to her was quite shocking. But she’d got her own back by producing two seemingly decent and normal sons, one of whom is very likely not even a biological royal. And they reason they’re decent and normal is mostly down to their loving and fun-loving mother. Just ask them.
Good luck to them (but I’m not a royalist so it would be nice if they faded into obscurity and took a little less from the public purse).
one of whom is very likely not even a biological royal
Do tell, which one is that? Harry, I presume?
Well, yes. The conjecture relates to his mother’s relationship with James Hewitt:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hewitt
As I have said regarding other assumptions that people seem to like making on this site, I have no idea of the truth of the conjecture and have no interest in it. Their personal lives are their own. And if he isn’t Charles’s son, one has to admire the royal family for the way they have brought him up as if he were.
He does seem to be a bit of a different sort. Good on him!
I was deeply astonished at the ‘free pass’ given this middle-aged woman who should have been taking care of her growing boys (if not her kooky husband) and instead was off cavorting with a slimeball Arab playboy whose record of lying, exploitation, fraud and misbehavior was plain to see.
The only logical explanation for her publicly humping (well, almost) Dody was that it was her weird revenge attempt on the [unpleasant and vindictive] House of Windsor for giving her the cold shoulder.
She never saw the payoff coming for her (ha ha) wicked faithlessness. But that’s how the Mercedes Benz.
Speedy,
I don’t know if you, or anyone else, is still reading comments from this far up. But I just looked up Diana’s age when she died. She was 36, the same age as Harry’s new fiancée Meghan Markle. I don’t know how old you are, but to an aging man like me, she was still a pretty young chick.
SpeedyBB
That’s an astonishing post. I’m not a big royal fan but Diana and Charles were divorced, as a result of his long-term affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles (likewise married), which had gone on since before he even married Diana. She was consequently entitled to ‘cavort’ with whomever she wished. And she was devoted to her boys – that doesn’t mean she wasn’t allowed to go out like a normal person.
So saying she got the payoff for her wicked faithlessness is pretty sick. Nothing happened to Charles.
Ol’ Scratch,
Yet I think the snobbish British aristocracy are happy that Harry has little chance of ever ascending to the throne. Putting aside Megan’s lineage, she is an American (how gauche), and a divorcee to boot. Plus, at 36, she’s three years older than Harry and her biological clock is ticking fast. The British are overjoyed to have William and Kate.
As an aside, courageous Diana broke with long running royal tradition and refused to have her boys circumcised. Quite a shame that she was murdered.
She wasn’t murdered. And those men really did land on the moon.
GA,
You don’t know that she WASN’T murdered. Can’t prove a negative. Everyone in the car died in the underpass – dead men tell no tales. There is some circumstantial evidence, so I’ve heard. But I haven’t studied it, so perhaps I’m out of my league. In any case, Dodi Fayed’s father Mohamed thinks there was foul play. Do you believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin of JFK?
It was well looked into at the time. Of course Fayad senior thought there was a conspiracy. That’s why the police did a thorough investigation.
I wouldn’t presume to say anything about Lee Harvey Oswald. Why would I know? My ‘beliefs’ don’t matter, which is the point, rather.
Some people are overly fond of conspiracy theories. It lends excitement to the humdrum of their lives.
Now, serious investigative journalism, that’s worth reading.
Outsider, just as a minor correction of fact, Diana’s bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones did not die in the crash. He did suffer a severe head injury but the airbag apparently saved him.
Mutilated genitalia? What is it with that House of Windsor? It’s almost like David Icke’s reptilian conjectures may have a seed of truth in them.
As for circumcision, as an old Jewish pal once sadly confided to me, ‘The only way to lose a foreskin is to wear it off’.
Speedy,
I sure wish I would have had that chance!
Oh, and thanks for the correction about the bodyguard.
Shall we say, no different than any Sotheby’s art auction.
For ‘regular Joe’ Harry that piece of art would be out of reach.
To live in a country and world where our successes are to be trumpeted(whether true or not) and every miniscule thought and deed “deserves” attention, the line becomes blurred not only between the sexes but between right and wrong and whose interpretation is correct; which may mean everyone is “right”. Unfortunately when living in a ‘foggy’ and grey world it becomes difficult to see and if you going too fast, consequences become disastrous when you bump into someone else.
I agree with Jim regarding GK as a story teller. Garrison is always able to weave a tasty tale.
With Garrison Keilor now publicly smeared and his legacy of great entertainment diminished (MPR indicates they are going to change the name of the Prairie Home Companion!) the next stop on the American Lunacy Limited is into the far province of Thought Crime. They already have this instituted within the E.U. and Canada.
It is only limited to YT you know; members of racial, religious or sexual minorities can say or do just whatever the fuck they want and receive funding, viewership, and accolades.
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/si-honors-colin-kaepernick-muhammad-ali-legacy-award-article-1.3668316
This process is only going to stop when the lights go out. Until then Franz Kafka provided the preview into our immediate future.
“Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.”
The Trail, 1925
“The Trial” Sorry about that Franz.
pequiste,
So sorry to hear of your further victimization. Please accept our sympathies and…
Keep it up, I’m sure there will be reparations coming shortly. Watch your mailbox.
So you believe in all those dozens of genders? Sad!
It is a legacy of prolific attempts at entertaining at best.
‘Member when Reader’s Digest was a thing?
Yeah.
Yeah
All those people who have majored in “gender studies” don’t have useless degrees. They are a new Priesthood which will soon be put in power.
Our seven thousand year old universal “Stockholm Syndrome” may, at least in the upscale tier, be under some scrutiny. We, as a species, have an enormous task ahead to bring back some balance between the sexes that was rent apart ages ago. It will, of course, fall upon the feminine half to demand parity as the other will fight to the death to retain power. To continue to love and cherish their captors while still keeping the goal of full equality firmly in mind is a monumental task.
It’s an impossible task; human nature will always win out.
There are lots of aspects to human nature, though. Co-operation is one. Love is another – if you genuinely love someone that’s different to ‘wanting’ them and genuinely loving someone means not ever wanting to deny them agency. So we need to nurture the better parts of our human nature. Because if the law and judiciary fall apart in a Long Emergency, you really wouldn’t want to be a woman.
“[G]enuinely loving someone means not ever wanting to deny them agency.”
So if my teenager wants to commit suicide, for whatever reason, then my “genuine love” for means letting them follow through with it, i.e., not denying them that agency? Bollocks.
To me, this sums up the larger problem in the West, which is that platitudes, slogans, and memes, especially those that feel warm and fuzzy about things we like (e.g., “love is love,” “there is no hate in this home”) and cold and prickly about things we don’t like (e.g., “if you didn’t vote for Hilary it is solely because you are a misogynist”) have come to replace the difficult work of THINKING, which is rarely if ever one-size-fits-all and rarely if ever clean and easy.
““if you didn’t vote for Hilary it is solely because you are a misogynist”
I wouldn’t have voted for Hillary, except with a peg on my nose to keep Trump out. I’d have voted for Bernie, given the chance.
Giving someone agency doesn’t mean allowing them to commit suicide. That’s why mentally unstable people are sectioned, if it is considered that they may harm themselves. (I don’t know what the US equivalent of ‘sectioned’ is – here it refers to being detained under the relevant ‘section’ of the Mental Health Act.)
Your question is a straw man.
However, if an adult not suffering from a debilitating disease were to take a rational decision to end their own life, they couldn’t be detained under the Mental Health Act unless they were assessed as being clinically depressed. You can’t force people to take life-saving medicine either – to force them would be seen legally as assault.
@LR,
And let’s not forget “Diversity is our Strength.” It’s both terribly tragic and darkly funny that naive Euro feminists have welcomed tens of thousands of young, military-age Middle Eastern and African migrants with open arms. They emanate strength while the young, effeminate native males have had their maleness slowly stripped from them since birth. Women are always attracted to strength, so they will go with the new blood. So, it won’t be long before many find themselves barefoot in the kitchen and wearing a Hijab, with six kids to feed, and submitting to their husband’s every desire. Will they still call themselves feminists then?
Sorry, I meant an adult suffering from a debilitating disease…
” Because if the law and judiciary fall apart in a Long Emergency, you really wouldn’t want to be a woman.”
Alba,
Again the perpetual victim.
This “long emergency” you offer happens every day when a male is sent to prison…a place where the rule of law does not suffice…but rather the law of tooth and claw.
Fight, die, or find a protector, at, of course, a price. Women are well versed in this paradigm. What will be different during your “long emergency”?
You being the champion of women who suffer micro-aggressions fail to see that if we all are victims, then none of us are…the word becomes meaningless.
Rape and brutality towards women are sympathized with by all men who are not sociopaths. But many of these ancient complaints regarding nuances or minor lack of judgment smack of future outrages…being undressed by man’s eye…men having lust in their heart…pleading for mercy sex…the list is only limited by woman’s fertile imagination….
In these minor cases you champion…I have no sympathy.
@elysianfield
I think you may be confusing me with someone else. I have made very few comment on ‘minor cases’ of anything. You certainly flatter me by considering me a champion!
And long emergency I referred to is JHK’s.
One does not have to have a victim mentality to figure out that the sex that is physically less strong is more likely to be a victim of physical aggression or, for example, slavery or one sort or another.
You read into things what you choose to read into them. I cannot help you with this problem.
I’m not being charitable.
Nor patronizing.
I think men are really blind to who holds the upper hand.
Men clearly want women more than women want them.
Myths, epics, and bibles and other great works of fiction are filled with parables warning of the power that women hold over men.
And the downfalls.
They are legendary.
Men succumb.
Women could kill most every man in his sleep in this world.
Men trip overhear dicks.
Over and over
and over
Almost. The Chinese say women have a big edge over good men, but bad men have an edge over good women. Women are attracted to bad boys as the legacy of their evolutionary history.
“Women are attracted to bad boys as the legacy of their evolutionary history.”
Oh, lordy. There’s nothing like a bit of cod evolutionary psychology to show up the terminally and wilfully biased.
Is bathetic a word?
HH,
Firstly, sorry for the acronymic 😉 foreshortening.
and, “B”, I’m sure it’s an acceptable form.
and for the ether-record, there’s this:
http://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-pathos-and-vs-bathos/
Nice! Never knew bathos was a word either. You can have 99’ths 100’th avatar just for that.
Don’t know. What about hinetic?
The salient point of today’s blog, in my opinion, is “the current mode of living is permanent”. That does seem to be the prevailing national attitude, especially when it comes to finances and the economy. Why would anyone think something like that; probably because we know so little of history today and human beings always have a tendency to believe what is most convenient and ‘optimistic’.
HH Yes, “bathetic” is a word, oh ye of limited vocabulary. JHK: nice post.
I remember when the Simpsons Had fun with Keillor.
Homer and Bart couldn’t understand why his audience found him funny.
Neither being paradigms of intelligence, so not sure who the joke was on.
Keillor, in reality, is a genius mostly in being prolific.
He works a lot. He prides himself in working.
His oeuvre reads like work.
Laborious
He read, until recently, bad poems slowly, working them, on the radio.
He broadcasts corny radio plays.
He’s a relic.
He says he put a hand up a gal’s shirt.
Thought they were friends as he says
Until her lawyer called.
He worked that for poetry as well.
He’s another self diagnosed semi-autistic
All the genius and curmudgeonly behavior is heritable
Explains the 3 wives.
One a former underling.
Almost did.
I’m demoting you one avatar and taking you back down to 99 for that comment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmkq7yylRkU
The donation tally board in the background is at $23 bucks and change. Clever.
Great post this morning Jim. Let me be the first to say it here: this all reeks of a coordinated effort from on high – yes – a FREAKING CONSPIRACY! Just far too many coincidences occurring all at once, even allowing for “hysterical bitch syndrome,” which now appears to be epidemic in the US.
But even allowing for that, I agree with you: a certain percentage of men have always been incorrigibly lustful, and a certain percentage of women have always encouraged them in that lust. Why now are we suddenly trying to reverse all of that, even assuming that more than a minuscule percentage of these allegations are even remotely true?
If something seems to weird to be true, it usually is, and this latest spate of allegations from all quarters is simply beyond weird, even allowing for the janet’s/Lil Snack Packs of this world, for whom there simply is no rational accounting.
Ol’ Scratch – this “freaking conspiracy” became painfully apparent to me when I heard a talking head discussing earlier this week how our culture has “evolved” in the last TEN MONTHS.
I’m like, sorry dude, evolution don’t work like that, this cultural shift has been PUSHED DOWN on us from above. (Which is also why it is FUNDAMENTALLY different to me than earlier waves of feminism, the civil rights movement, the gay rights movement – those all had to FIGHT every authority for recognition. As JHK notes, you’ve got all the cultural apparatus behind this new ideology. When you’ve got Foundations with billion-plus-dollar endowments funding research that leads to these shifts, I don’t see how anyone can consider the consequent “evolution” as grassroots and authentic “resistance.”)
Not quite: the upper Elite were behind the changes, initiating them into Graduate schools and then working down and up from the street level.
If Harvey goes down and Bill didn’t, everyone’s going down. Every man who isn’t Tribe is Trump now.
Tribe, shmibe. Maybe you forgot that there were 12 tribes.
Jews have to love Trump now, as he will soon recognize West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Very bad idea that will further destabilize the region.
This latest Witch Hunt of “sexual predators” whether real or imagined, is simply the next phase of the societal destruction set in motion by those that gave us the “everybody gets a trophy” and anyone that dares to have opinions other than the opinion de jour is a racist or a homophobe. You may enjoy blaming it all on Donald Trump, but the previous eight years of the Progressive vendetta against the people in this nation getting along with one another was where this movement took hold. Guilt or innocence matters not, It is the constant turning of one against the other and the taking down of those who people look up to that this agenda is all about. It is just as in Berlin in 1944, all it takes is an accusation and those who you do not like are carted away in the night. Those who are screwing America the hardest realize that if every citizen out there is attacking every other citizen they will be far too busy to realize or even care how bad we are all being hosed. I suppose it could be worse, if the Clintons were running the show we would all be drowning in our hot tubs or shooting ourselves twice in the back of our heads. Thank goodness for simple pleasures, eh?
hear, hear…
You stole my line, vol! Good on you, Walter!
Thank you. The concept which has been around since the dawn of time, first openly appeared in Americas in 1959 when CS Lewis published the short story “Screwtape Proposes a Toast”.
Apparently the Progressive Agenda is alive and well and being promoted by the former occupant of the White House:
https://nypost.com/2017/02/18/obama-linked-activists-have-a-training-manual-for-protesting-trump/
https://www.ofa.us/
The guy has stones, hard to argue that.
While we’re on the topic of sex in the workplace, I’ve worked for several different companies and this is what’s happened over the course of a few decades: I’ve had two young women do sinuous, hip-swiveling dances for my own personal enjoyment (one of these was Vietnamese and my oh my was she good, to this day I’ve never seen a girl with moving parts like hers. Was Satan whispering in my ear? No, he was shouting), another told me I could do what I wanted to her, another repeatedly sat on my lap while I was at my desk, one receptionist called me and told me she wasn’t wearing panties, this same receptionist emailed me pornographic pics, another repeatedly came up behind me and put her arms around me and her chin on my shoulder, once I was all fours beside my desk trying to fix an electrical connection and a chick came and sat on my back horsey-style, three came for sloppy Christmas kisses and these weren’t chaste air kisses either. And they weren’t drunk.
This is just a sampler. I’m not Hollywood good-looking. The most you could say is that you wouldn’t look at me twice on the street. So I suspect that guys that have got something going for them in terms of looks or charm were getting screwed black-and-blue.
ALL of these women knew I was married, some of them had met my wife. This is biology at work in places full of twenty-something chicks (some single and some attached), and thirty-something and forty-something guys.
So when I hear all the moaning about men’s bad behavior in the office I have to laugh. It’s not like women are paragons of sexual modesty. I’ll bet a lot of the guys on this site have got stories like mine.
So, based on what I’ve seen, it’s not just men that go looking for it, some of what came my way a woman would call sexual harassment (but boy was I not complaining).
Some of what’s coming out in the news especially about this Keillor situation just sounds preposterous. Some of it has got less than nothing to do with justice for aggrieved women but rather they’re just blatant political hit-jobs. But mostly this whole sorry assed thing is taking shape as just another stupid witch-hunt.
You’ve got the kavorka, my man!
I’ve got a single youngster less than half my age giving me pretty clear signals at work too, as we speak. But no, I wouldn’t even consider it. WAY too much downside for any of that foolishness.
But point taken. Women tend to run cold until they go hot, and then lookout! They want it ALL and they want IT NOW, as the old Queen song lyric used to go.
Our lil janet-bot, for instance, is probably a closeted nymph, although for what exactly, I wouldn’t even dare to venture a guess. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!
I don’t know about kavorka. I think the pressure of the workplace, the constant face-to-face interaction, the biological clock factor all had a role. And I think that other guys with a lot more going for themselves than me were having a field day. And over a couple decades, if you just have one incident per year of the sort I’m recounting, you then have a portfolio of twenty stories to tell. One every two years gives you ten. It just sounds like kavorka.
You’re too modest!
The point is constantly missed here, by JHK and others. The sex angle is secondary but rises to the top. Coercion is what been going on. People using power-trips over others. If promotions were being manipulated or bosses were demanding
money kick backs the whole thing would have lasted one day. Toss in sex and it has long, long legs. No pun.
True that Robert, which is also the thing that all the corporate trainings and seminars focus that so many of us have been endlessly subjected to focused on as well. I seriously doubt that many people of reasonable intellect and standards would be willing to speak up against that kind of thing.
But the thing is, few of these recent rounds of allegations are focusing on that sort of thing at all! They’re just trading on the allegedly “tawdry” aspects of what sound for all the world like totally innocent encounters, and all without the benefit a trial of any sort (other than public opinion, which increasingly is simply clinically insane) at that.
THE POINT IS that a double standard is being enforced! What if men started reporting that women (subordinate or otherwise) were coming up to them at work and grabbing their dick and blatantly propositioning them for sex (in return for employment rewards or not)? And what if merely reporting it made it true? Accused, tried, and convicted, all in one fell swoop.
Now of course that example sounds stupid, simply because NO self-respecting man would admit to that situation if he turned it down (you’re gay, impotent, or worse!), nor would he report it if he took her up on it, for obvious reasons. But for women in the current environment, accusations ALONE are PURE GOLD! ALL upside, with none of the ugly morning after regrets.
Think it’s mere coincidence that all this femme stupidity is surfacing all at once? I think not, old buddy. I think not!
This is why the idea of a married career woman is such a joke. They must be kept in purdah or semi-seclusion if you really want a good wife and mother to your children.
“This is why the idea of a married career woman is such a joke. They must be kept in purdah or semi-seclusion if you really want a good wife and mother to your children.”
Goodness, Janos, you are so, so…Muslim. Hilarious. You couldn’t make this stuff up.
I’m only talking about fundamentalists, obviously – that’s where Christianity and Islam meet. Normal people are, well…normal.
Sex, Consent, and the Dangers of “Misplaced Scale”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/sex-consent-dangers-of-misplaced-scale
“Thirty-three years ago, Gayle Rubin, a cultural anthropologist and feminist activist, observed that, during certain times in history, humans tended to renegotiate the sexual order. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in England and the United States were such a period; the nineteen-fifties, when the popular imagination linked the threat of Communism to homosexuals, was another. In her still influential essay ‘Thinking Sex,’ Rubin didn’t offer a hypothesis to explain why these periods called for a rearrangement in the sexual sphere, but she noted that they produced laws, institutions, and, most important, norms that governed sexuality for decades after.
“It’s possible that we are living through such a period now. It is also possible that, like previous renegotiations, this one has been brought on by the fear of a world careening out of control. ‘The time has come to think about sex,’ Rubin wrote in the opening lines of ‘Thinking Sex.’ ‘To some, sexuality may seem to be an unimportant topic, a frivolous diversion from the more critical problems of poverty, war, disease, racism, famine, or nuclear annihilation. But it is precisely at times such as these, when we live with the possibility of unthinkable destruction, that people are likely to become dangerously crazy about sexuality.’ Fast-forward to 2017: we are living with the possibility of unthinkable destruction, but we seem to be spending significantly more time discussing the sexual misbehavior of a growing number of prominent men than talking about North Korea or climate change.
“Rubin did not expect good things to come from the renegotiation of the sexual sphere. The problem, she wrote, was ‘the fallacy of misplaced scale’: sex loomed so large that any sexual transgression, or imagined transgression, might bring extreme punishment. She quoted Susan Sontag, who wrote that ‘everything pertaining to sex has been a “special case” in our culture.'”
—
Read the whole thing. Masha Gessen is always worth reading.
Thanks, Elrond, for putting me on to a good read. But sex is just the bright and flitting flag of our predicament. Anthropologists, psychologists, historians, feminists have for long noticed a distinct correlation between dominance and violence against women and children (and other races) and dominance and violence against the planet. See for instance, such works as Trexler’s “Sex and Conquest,” Said’s “Culture and Imperialism,” or Scott’s “Gender and the Politics of History.”
But now, we have reached a tipping point in human history at which the planet itself is at risk because of violence again other species, ourselves, and the biosphere.
Consider, for instance, that in the GOP tax plan is a give-away to drill in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge–unbelievable when many climate scientists now give our planet only 30 years remaining. (See Inside Climate News).
Or, for instance, North Korea has demonstrated that they have a bomb, which if detonated over the central US, could fry our whole power grid. Hungry much? Need gas, heat, running water? Lots of luck. Yet in a not-so-veiled act of violence, our president keeps baiting “rocket man.”
Violence against women? That’s just for starters. It seems we have been hoisted on our own petard.
As of ‘timing’ it might be noted that Hugh Hefner recently passed away.
bibliomaniac,
That’s a thoughtful view of the larger picture by outlining some symptoms. Much appreciated, and I see there are others pondering the same things. Shall we call it, “a start”?
just an observation
But let’s not be narrow in our start. He has to define racism. Undefined, it take’s on the media’s onus against White Men – as if Black Men never hurt White Women!
That’s REALLY a reach from out of nowhere, even for you Janos. Perhaps you should request a guest post (or two, or a dozen) from Jim to fully lay out your world view. I’m sure it would be quite entertaining, at the very least.
How’s that, Crotch? Do you really think White Men rape at the same rate as Black Men?
And in other news, soon to be pleading guilty to lying to the FBI General Michael Flynn will testify that candidate Trump directed him to talk to the Russians!!!!
The horror! Talking to the RUSSIANS!
I think it’s probably OK to talk to Russians once you’ve actually been elected. My understanding is that that’s the point. I may be wrong, as I’m not American.
Once the USSR collapsed it was open doors to Russia for all Americans. I personally know quite a few that got right into business importing aluminum and other commodities as well as other trade between our nations since the collapse. I also have a few neighbors that emigrated here from Russia as well. Sorry, but maybe before the collapse it was different, but since then, (and that was in 1991), any claimed problems are strictly political bullshit fabrication.
I don’t know that we know that. If Trump or his emissaries, pre-election, promised Putin that sanctions would be lifted, if he supported Trump’s election, that would be a problem and not OK. It’s fine to have business connections with Russians – or anyone else – as long as they are meticulously declared during the candidacy, but if you agree to lift sanctions in order to facilitate your own business interests, that’s also a problem. We’ll just have to wait and see.
I just enjoyed the latest Kunstlercast. Good content, but did anyone notice that David Collum sounds like the world’s worst Jimmy Stewart impersonator?
Lol!
I left a comment on the cast page saying that he sounds as though he has been summoned from the 40s or 50s
Old American
I’m no linguistic pro
But he speaks 40s noir film yankee
Say, what’s the big idea fella?
While America beats itself to death over mostly lightweight allegations of sexual impropriety (excluding Weinstein, Spacey and soon to be tried again Cosby), let’s take a moment to remind ourselves of the sexual practices of our better angels in Africa:
Kenya:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/05/11/kenya.children.beading/index.html
South Africa:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2017/08/31/the-horrific-reality-of-south-africas-rape-problem-will-shock-you_a_23192126/
Central African Republic:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/oct/05/rape-instrument-of-war-central-african-republic-conflict-study-sexual-slavery
Nigeria:
https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/savemirabel-the-only-rape-support-centre-in-lagos/
Burundi:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/07/27/burundi-gang-rapes-ruling-party-youth
So I hear that good ole boy Judge Roy is retaking the lead in the senate race. Interpret that as you like. If he wins the diviners will have a field day with the entrails of the election.
With polls showing a slight lead or even a dead heat for Judge Roy, that almost certainly means he wins the election since many persons are unwilling to divulge their true vote to anyone, let alone some “anonymous” pollster.
Trump’s polling numbers were subject to the same effect. People will not divulge their decisions if they feel intimidated, pressured or subject to social sanction, and rightfully so.
Mitch McConnell is going to have another decision to make.
I can’t decide who I despise more, the Dems or the Repubs. I suppose that given that they’re both in Oligarch pockets, it doesn’t make a lot of difference if you have a posturing, blundering Obama or a posturing, blundering Bush.
So while I enjoy heat and grief visited on both or either party just imagine the entertainment value of watching congressional republicans twist in the wind if Roy wins.
I like to think that Trump’s nomination represented a slash to the jugular of the Republican Oligarchism. I just wish Oligarchic Democratism gets a sword thrust too.
I have always appreciated Garrison Keillor and his 9 o-clock poetry readings. People these days just don’t “do” poetry. So his “exposure” was troubling to me. But in a gathering with friends last night, someone mentioned that he came to town several years ago for a NPR fundraiser and was touchy-feelly enough to have to have the “victims” rescued by the station manager. I report this second-hand from a source I trust. Old codger that I am–I get no more than my wife permits so I have a touch of envy for those powerful enough to pretend they are not 70+…. I do however loathe the Donald.
it appears, if anything, MPR is trying to preserve whatever dignity he has left… by remaining silent.
You’re working on 98 there, 99’th.
“Do you want to cross that line?
‘Cause it’s a long way back from hell
And you don’t want to go
With me”
-G. Danzig
97.
Latest in the Nail-him Snitch Trials:
Faux’s Geraldo Revolting attempts to pick-off accusations of drugging and groping Bette Midler in the 70’s
Not sure who was drugged in this case.
Milder has a face like a chewed boot.
In the 1990s, Gerald’s memoir was filled to the rim with his tales of sexual conquest. In the 2020s, Geraldo’s subsequent memoir will be filled with denials of and apologies for said conquests. Ah the cycles of history…
Avatar,
That reminds me of the day not long ago when I was watching part of “The View” with my wife. Of course, the talk was sexual harassment (what else). Joy Behar at one point said that she didn’t even want men to look at her. I wish I could have told her – Trust me they’re not.
Our culture seems to specialize in “Reductio ad absurdum” exercises and this is just the latest.
“Touching” briefly on Janet, she sounds troubled and maybe of ambiguous sexual orientation, but she’s an extremist outlier or a troll.
“Unwanted sexual advances”.. Now there’s a good one! Sexual advances or passes are just things that happen in the world of sexual relations. It’s inevitable some will be unwanted. In the social rituals, crossed wires and ambiguous or conflicting signals are everywhere and nobody is blessed with the prescience to know ahead of time whether an advance will be welcomed, all or in part. If an advance turns out to be unwelcome or “unwanted”, that doesn’t make it a crime or an ethical violation. It’s what happens afterwards that matters.
If both parties are reasonably well balanced adults, the initiator will have been delicate enough in his/her approach so that the other party can rebuff the advance without a fight and the initiator can then back off murmuring something along the lines of: “My mistake; please forgive my presumption” and the “victim” can then murmur an appropriate rejoinder and the two can then get on with their lives without further problems.
It should be understood that feelings are easily hurt in such circumstances and boorish responses on either part turn an otherwise slightly awkward moment into a serious incident. I’ve had it both ways during a long life, but not for some years now.
I’m a white man of 72 and in my younger days I had relations with several dozen women. In the course of all that I was the one to make the first move in maybe 2/3 of the encounters. I probably mistakenly came on to half a dozen or so who were not interested and in all but one case I was rebuffed with a turned away face or something similar. I backed off and all was well. One woman got angry at me and I never spoke with her again. In a couple of cases the women involved initiated relations with me months or years later.
I had a few women make passes at me that I didn’t want or didn’t expect. One even sent me a drink via the bartender accompanied by a note which was a blatant proposition. Though I knew the woman, I hadn’t really considered her as a potential sex partner, but I was intrigued by her method of approach; I hadn’t ever had someone do that before and admired her pluck. So I accepted her proposal, in part because I sensed she might be humiliated otherwise. We didn’t live happily ever after, but we enjoyed a series of pleasant assignations over the course of a month or so and remained friends.
I also had a number of homosexual advances made to me and they were all unwanted, but I found gay men to be pretty good sports when I turned them aside, probably better sports then some of the hetero men I have observed behaving like jerks when women deflect their approaches even when the approach is a simple request for a dance. One gay guy who was rather drunk made a blatant pass at me in a bar and I rebuffed him good naturedly. A woman I knew observed all this and later that night invited me to go home with her and that turned into a 2 year relationship. How odd these things can be.
But some of the accusations coming out now like the Keiler thing or the Franken thing involve incidents so trivial that it’s just painful to watch…
I agree about passes.
I think the problem lies when you round for third before tagging first.
Jus’ sayin’
In my next life, I want to live in Paris–not Silicon Valley. The Parisians have a sense of sartorial style that I admire. It’s OK to look feminine and stylish in Paris. (Also, the men in Paris care how they look.)
I’m stuck in a bad-fashion zone. Last week I went to church and one of the greeters said, “You’re dressed up.” Well duh, this is church, and I always wear dresses–along with high heels and lipstick. The greeter’s style included polyester pants, a floral print button down shirt (not tucked in!), sensible shoes and wore her hair in the short, Janet Reno style that is epidemic among Presbyterian women in San Jose.
My new best friend at church is a recent transplant from France who also wears her hair long and cares about her appearance. We talk during coffee hour after church about flowers, gardens, and what’s happening with our kids.
Viva la France!
Jen, stuck in frumpy San Jose, where Mark Zuckerberg is a fashion leader by wearing the same damn black T-shirt his whole life.
In your weaving of the fictitious Jen character, you introduced the wrong color in your yarn.
Everyone knows that Schmuckerberg wears gray t-shirts.
Perhaps you confused Steve Job’s black mock turtlenecks.
I stand corrected! Zuckerberg = gray, Jobs = black
And they used to have to tell Jobs to shower. Or so I heard.
Volodya,
Yes, it’s true. Personal hygiene was a big issue with Jobs. He also drove an unregistered car most of his life and he parked in handicapped parking whenever possible.
That reminds me of a Bill Burr dental joke I heard the other day.
His dad was a dentist.
A feller with jacked-up teeth told his dad he didn’t understand why his teeth were a mess as he brushed them almost every day.
His dad replied, “do you wipe your ass after almost every shit?”
Hygiene is tricky for some
Capricious
Your ball your court
Frumpy Jen, revel in your bad fashion sense. It’s an indication that you have your priorities in order.
The French used to be Europe’s big thinkers. No more. They’re in decline, a senile polity who will in due course be taken down by more aggressive and energetic people, you know, those guys with beards.
All the French have left is the upturned nose at inadequate culinary taste and fashion sense. They have nothing else.
But they have got a whole lot of fish frying right under their noses that need attention and IMO they should pay a whole lot less heed to frivolities. I’ve been to France. The homeless would scoff at my Dr Scholls.
Stay in your bad fashion zone. Encourage others to stay there with you.
You’ve got one thing right though. If you go to church to pay respects to Big G, do it right. At least dress the part.
There’s still some hope for the US. There’s no hope for the French.
The post-modern philosophy tag team from hell — Foucault & Derrida — came from France.
So Flynn is pleading guilty to lying about stuff that he did AFTER the election.
This whole Mueller thing and the farcical Comey investigation into Hillary’s emails is Three Stooges bone-headed. If there’s any way to better cover the administration of justice in disrepute, do let me know.
Here we have got 140 million bucks being paid to the Clinton Foundation by Russians, a half-million to Bill personally by Russians, all potentially in connection with and in exchange for State Department approval for the sale of uranium producing facilities to Russians. Now imagine that instead of Bill and Hill getting all that loot from Russians it was Trump. Imagine the ensuing shit-storms.
I just finished a book about the Roman Republic and the dirty-dog machinations, murders and mayhem between contending factions. This crap in Washington is another example that tells us that while history doesn’t repeat it sure as hell does rhyme.
I believe Kunstler called it a place not worth caring about.
He was referring of course to our built environment
Now it’s our political, social, “cultural”, and virtual environments
Nothing of redeeming value
Poof
It’s a damn lucky thing that there’s two wide oceans on either side. While the wide expanses of deep water didn’t protect the Amerindians, they’re a not inconsequential barrier and they do buy some time.
Not so for Europe. Imagine those guys, especially France, with refugee spigots from the middle east and Africa wide open and the Libyan ulcer bleeding human torrents onto European shores. Imagine that state of affairs with Mother Merkel in charge of European bank vault and with national self-loathing the predominant sentiment.
To say that western Europe is totally and completely screwed is probably understating things by a couple orders of magnitude. For some places there’s some hope, those that didn’t drink the PC Kool-Aid and succumb to witlessness. Maybe they can salvage something out of this fucking debacle.
All I’m saying is it could be worse.
volodya,
By the look of things, you’d think the democrats are in charge, not the GOP. But that’s where we fool ourselves. The Deep State does what it wants to do – doesn’t matter who controls Congress. That is so painfully obvious. If Trump had any control, Hillary would be the one facing jail, not himself being threatened with impeachment. Jeff Sessions, as his first major act upon being confirmed as AG, recused himself from the Russia investigation. Thus an Obama holdover, Rosenstein. appointed Mueller to be Grand Inquisitor. How much of this mess should be laid at the feet of Sessions, who wimped out when a man of strong character was needed?
(Name of book please?)
Young and frisky, I read Daniel P. Mannix’ ‘We who are about to die, salute you’. That hooked me on the history of Rome. Wow.
Speedy, It was The Storm Before the Storm by Mike Duncan.
An entertaining romp. It’s not one of those tomes that requires the stamina of a canal horse.
I am a seventy year young female. Before retiring two years ago I worked as a secretary for all of my adult life. I have been sexually harassed numerous times at work and also outside of work, starting at the age of twelve. Never by a family member. I always thought (when I was younger) that there wasn’t anything I could do about it. It was the way life is (or was). I would like all of you “men” to think about how you would feel if your wife/partner, mother, sister, or daughter or any female you love and respect was violated sexually.
Why should I believe you?
????
You don’t have to believe me. I know my own truth and hope you know yours.
Tia
“You don’t have to believe me.”
“I know my own truth.”
Why doesn’t that inspire confidence?
“Why doesn’t that inspire confidence?”
I presume because you made your mind up to discredit the poster without the slightest evidence.
I take her statement ‘I know my own truth’ to mean that she knows what happened because she was there, not that she believes in truth relativism. But I think you knew that.
GreenAlba
Does it seem true to you? Given that we are in a witch hunt where people say all kinds of things they might not otherwise say? I would expect a genuine victim to respond robustly. I would and I expect you would too.
Have you seen her replies further down? Has she backed up her story? I had originally written “I don’t believe you” but thought it was too provocative as I thought there was a chance, albeit unlikely, that maybe she had something. Now I think it even less likely.
Let her answer for herself.
Tia,
You mentioned yourself being “sexually harassed”, but then question us regarding our families being violated sexually…we need definitions here. Do you consider harassment as being violated sexually?
What a country of assholes.
Deep ignorance fueled by the deep state
We deserve any and all emergencies
Long and short
Did you know that the markets are tanking because Flynn says Trump directed him to speak with Russians
And speaking with Russians is apparently illegal
And what a way to bring down the illogical stock market and illogical
president with one shot.
One can be conveniently blamed on the other
Or vise versa
Wait, oh, it’s already recovering
Back up 50 points…
Well, as long as it’s back up…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8kua5B5K3I
Life in Chinas bitcoin ‘lab’ mine whatever.
I would like all of you “men”
I think that is akin , for example , to some guy walking into a meeting of Girl scouts , and saying ,
I would like all of you “women”……..
It’s a kind of sexual abuse itself.
” I would like all of you “men” to think about how you would feel if your wife/partner, mother, sister, or daughter or any female you love and respect was violated sexually. ”
I’m not a man.
And I’m not interested in feelings , emotional appeals, or identity politics.
I have little doubt that even the rich , the beautiful , and the popular have gotten their share of being fucked over.
Things are tough all over.
And that is not going to change.
I would like you folks to consider how acting like a spoiled child in a toy store in relation to the law is slitting your own throats , cutting off your own nose to spite your face.
I doubt you will though. You will only reign yourselves in when the butchers bill arrives at your own door and , too late , it’s ” oh fuck ! I never knew the bill would be that high ! “
Using gender references is sexual abuse????? WTF?
putting the word in quotation marks is not only or merely a reference. It implies more , which you clearly know .
A person ignorant of that fact would not use the quotation marks to begin with.
Try again.
Call me ignorant, call me a stale old bitch, I don’t care what you think of me. That is none of my business it’s yours. I’m out of here, had enough negativity for the day. Peace…..
Kisa,
A breath of reason…I assume the butcher’s bill will be addressed to Mr. and Mrs. ….
Tia,
We are not calling you anything. I am interested in your perspective, but need a bit of help defining terms. Were you ever sexually harassed to the extent of a physical sexual violation? These words mean something.
Kesa…sorry for the typo….
I’ll try to keep it brief because I have commented repeatedly over the last few months about contemporary witch-hunts. They are the big story.
This just ratchets up the insanity another notch. Touching a woman’s bare back now. It is not that ‘all women are liars’, which would be a ridiculous claim, but that anyone who makes accusations during a witch hunt is most likely either exaggerating the trivial or lying about the serious. It is possible that they are being either reasonable or truthful but, in my own experience of looking into these things, unlikely.
Let us re-cap. Weinstein: what evidence is there of serious assault or rape, which is sometimes assumed here? Trump: same question. Cosby and any number of abuse scandals. It is only my own limited experience and judgement but all such scandals turn out to be almost entirely or wholly false. If it seems too good to be true then it isn’t. (And I mean ‘all’.)
In witch hunts people lose the run of themselves. They lose their reason. Why did this woman (if she did) come out with this allegation now after having earlier accepted Keillor’s apology? Did she discuss it with friends, who pressed her to do it or was she simply swept up in the moment? (I am thinking about those who take out claims in my own country. I think they often don’t intend to but change their minds after talking to friends or relations.)
I just watched a 10min clip of Keillor on Letterman in 1983 and he was very entertaining. I also saw a clip of him on the Simpsons following Avatar’s post above and that was even funnier.
I understand that historical witch hunts were not driven by the ignorant masses but by well-meaning, educated and responsible people. (See Richard Webster’s Sceptical Essays website.)
They happen within the context of a wider mass fantasy. (This is my own view and I don’t think I have seen it argued by anyone else.) This fantasy is fairly identical with what is called political correctness, every cherished belief of which appears to be built on delusion (or at least all those I have looked at so far). My position may sound extreme but it is easily defended by simply asking, “Where is your evidence to the contrary?” I came across Colin Flaherty the other day and this is exactly his argument too.
I saw a clip of Keillor on Letterman (1983) and he was entertaining and also a short clip from the Simpsons (Avatar refers to it), which was funnier.
Here is Peter Hitchens on a related topic:
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2017/11/a-nostalgic-evening-in-oxford-in-which-i-am-the-object-of-a-silent-protest-.html
Hello Sean
I don’t think it’s helpful to mix everything into the same pot. I’m not going to deal with everyone you’ve mentioned but the Garrison K case is nothing whatever to do with the Cosby case. Cosby drugged women to rape them The only reason he didn’t go to jail is because of the statute of limitations. The statute of limitations in California was lifted precisely because of the Cosby case:
https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2016/09/california-statute-of-limitations/502307/
There is a sculpture of Cosby somewhere, I forget where
It was renamed the statue of limitations
@Avatar
Haha…
Green Alba
“I don’t think it is helpful to mix everything into the same pot.”
It is the only way it can be understood. Witch hunts need to be studied seriously as distinct phenomena. (I was searching for a less high faluting word than phenomena but couldn’t find it.) They share many of the same characteristics.
Bill Cosby. Here is a short video by Alexander Baron.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xGQbXMUPWkhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xGQbXMUPWk
I like Alexander, not least because when I first looked into the Savile case and was wondering why the world had gone mad his was the first article I came across that shared my scepticism. (I was sceptical because all the accusations I looked at were not just weak but frankly ridiculous.) Alexander thinks the first of the women to accuse Cosby may well have a case (if I remember correctly) and I think he may think that Savile was not entirely without fault. I don’t know about Cosby although I would be inclined to believe he is fully innocent. As for Savile I think he is fully innocent, strange as that may sound.
I didn’t know about the Californian statue of limitations amendment. It is worrying when witch hunts undermine laws and institutions that have been developed for good reasons. In his ‘magisterial’ (I suppose) examination of the North Wales children’s home abuse case, The Secret of Bryn Estyn, the late Richard Webster showed how the high emotions generated led to dangerous changes in the admissibility of same evidence in British courts.
In Portugal the well-known television personality Carlos Cruz (‘Mr Television’), who I think presented their version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, was convicted on novel judicial notions, invented especially for his case, ‘a resonancia de verdade and (I think) ‘a resonancia emocional’, ‘the resonance of truth and emotional resonance, which really meant ‘They can’t all be lying, can they?’ Over forty charges (again from memory) were withdrawn at a late stage in his trial and replaced with fresh ones, giving his lawyers no time to build a defence. This was because they could not stand up because the witnesses were making it up as they went along. The police would not look at his mobile phone records or his bank card purchases because they would prove his innocence. He says that that they didn’t do any searches for that very reason. The deputy leader of the Portuguese Socialist Party was put behind bars for a time, ruining his career.
There are just too many of these cases. The Boston abuse scandal involving the Catholic Church. They even made a film about it which may have won an Oscar. Half-million dollar payouts for claims against progressive gay priest Fr Paul Shanley. Recovered memory evidence. Most of the cases collapsing on the eve of the trial yet still convicting him.
Then there is the notorious Shieldfield case where two nursery workers were accused of the most grotesque crimes and the judge threw it out for the complete lack of evidence. What did Neewcaste City Council do then? It’s own enquiry which found them guilty, of course. A libel judge singled out a professor of sociology and a paediatrician who was, let’s say, extremely careless in her procedures, for particular criticism. The two workers had to go on the run in fear of their lives. Look it up on Webster. It is astonishing.
There are so, so many and as soon as the nonsense dies down in one place it pops up in another. I am reading Jung’s Psychological Types to see what the great man might have made of it.
“In his ‘magisterial’ (I suppose)”
I mean it really is magisterial for its depth of research, its insights and its sober judgement. I would heartily recommend it. I was just trying to avoid a cliché.
Ray Hudson, is it you?
Cosby. Just checked. To set the record straight, Alexander Baron considers Andrea Constand to be in a different class from the other accusers (I think there were 25 at one stage, perhaps even more now). However he thinks they had a consensual relationship, possibly after drinking too much, and that she later (a year later) changed her mind, possibly convinced by someone that he had drugged her (Cosby had a ‘Spanish Fly’ thing going in his comedy routine). He also says that Cosby had a history of womanizing. (See “Bill Cosby: A Voice Of Reason”)
“I don’t know about Cosby although I would be inclined to believe he is fully innocent.”
Does that very inclination, without any evidence, not worry you?
“As for Savile I think he is fully innocent, strange as that may sound.”
Again, what you think comes from your ‘inclination’, which shouldn’t really be trusted. Evidence is what matters. And don’t think it is strange. I think it is quite frightening. Because of the ‘inclination’.
GreenAlba
“Does that very inclination, without any evidence, not worry you?”
“Inclined” is a common turn of speech. It obviously means that, in the light of what I have found about the Cosby case in particular, and of witch hunts in general, it is the most likely thing to have happened, reasonably. I wasn’t there on every occasion, so I don’t know, but I am inclined to think he is fully innocent, especially as only one of the witnesses appears to have any credibility (my carefully chosen link is a good illustration), If Bill Cosby (let’s give the man the benefit of his first name occasionally, he has been through a lot) had a reputation as a particularly chaste, faithful and responsible citizen (unlike, say, most priests, bishops and doctors) then I would probably have written “strongly inclined” instead of just “inclined” but I don’t think he does. I don’t pick and choose my opinions to win an argument.
If there is anything in what I wrote there that have difficulty understanding someone will help you out. As long as it doesn’t have to be me again.
To echo what (I think) you said in another reply to me up-thread (and which I will deal with after this if I have time), I think you knew this already.
“without any evidence”
It should be obvious from what I have written here and elsewhere on CN that I have looked at the evidence. You would be correct to assume that my “inclination” was sceptical, but after looking at a lot of this kind of thing, a lot of the “evidence” that is, this is a reasonable approach. I gave a few examples above and, as I said, I could have given many, many more. And I am not even an expert in this (a surprising number are).
“your ‘inclination’… shouldn’t really be trusted. Evidence is what matters”
My scepticism appears to me to be fully justified, even if it flatly contradicts received opinion and conventional wisdom. If I were alone in this I would be more circumspect, of course, but many people share my view. Posters are free to disagree and if they can present compelling evidence I will have to revise it, reluctantly admittedly.
Can you keep up? Am I rambling?
Now here is the important bit. For someone who says evidence is so important you haven’t produced any and show not the slightest sign that you have looked into any of it.
To quote your own words back, “Does that… not worry you?”
“Evidence is what matters… I think it is quite frightening. Because of the ‘inclination’.”
Believe it or not, I only mentioned some people’s doubts (among those who have actually looked at the “evidence”, unlike you) about Jimmy Savile to ease your distress in discovering that you have been taken in.
You have never made an secret of your own ‘inclination’. Fair play to you, you might have been tempted to disown it, but you have kept it up doggedly (or brazenly) in the face of all the, er, “evidence”.
Time is pressing and I will pass over your earlier statement, “I’m not going to deal with everyone you’ve mentioned” but I can tell you it did make me laugh. You will doubtless also not deal with the theory of relativity or Basque grammar or the history of Leyton Orient F.C., other things you probably know absolutely nothing about. For which I am grateful.
I have told you already that you are dishonest in argument and that you affect condescension towards those who fail to share your foolish delusions. I have made an effort of late to treat you as a serious and reasonable opponent but, as you can see here, it is an impossible uphill task. So respond to your further ill-educated posts with mockery, or not all, this is why.
Mr Coleman
Thank you for your helpful and not-at-all condescending post (I think you won the prize there).
I will make a few points, which I will try to make clear as I won’t be revisiting this particular thread – I have work to do. And someone took exception to the number of my very recent posts, which I totally accept. However, the person didn’t know – because why would they even think to enquire? – that I patiently and unassumingly read both JHK’s articles and some of the comments below them for a decade before taking the liberty of commenting at all. I doubt that applies to most commenting on here. But ‘revenons à nos moutons…’ (forgive me – I know you like research).
I am a fan of your interest in the psychology of witch hunts. I have never, in any of my posts, said that I don’t accept the existence of witch hunts or false allegations. I accept both, from Salem to the Birmingham 6, passing by Timothy Evans, and the morons who attacked the home of a British paediatrician on the basis of the ‘paed’ prefix (such is life in tabloid Britain). I agree with you on Shieldfield. There are more.
You may also note that in this thread I have posted numerous comments which all reiterated that I think the Garrison Keilor episode is shameful, the shame to be primarily dropped at the door of the woman who pretended to accept his apology for his very minor offence and then pursued him through a lawyer. That hasn’t stopped some people on this thread accusing me of condemning GK, one even in shouty capitals, when I was the only one to actually quote the words of the man himself, the source of my indignation against the woman in question. You will note that I accepted GK’s version of events here without question, even though I had no particular reason to. I chose to.
You will further notice that in my post of 11.57am I responded to what I thought was another poster’s entirely unjustified presumption by saying ‘I don’t think it’s OK to assume he did anything else just because other men have committed multiple misdemeanors.’ Thank you for taking note of that. Witch hunts are not my thing.
I have seen the film you mentioned. I have also seen the Pope apologise to the many victims of abuse perpetrated within the Catholic Church. I also accept the existence of the Magdalen Laundries, the mass graves in Tuam:
(http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ireland-baby-remains-tuam-galway-home-unmarried-mothers-deaths-abortion-a7609486.html)
…and the mass graves in Lanarkshire :
(http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/bodies-hundreds-children-buried-mass-grave-lanarkshire-smyllum-park-catholic-orphanage-a7938716.html).
At the same time I accepted at the time, having disinterestedly (note: I don’t mean uninterestedly) watched events unfold, that the outrageous calumnies perpetuated around the ‘satanist’ child abuse scandal in Orkney were exactly that, likewise the nonsense in Cleveland. It is for that reason that I never read any article by Beatrix Campbell:
(http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-moral-entrepreneurs-who-cash-in-on-child-abuse-9600692.html).
I abhor the hounding of the man who lived next door to where the McCanns stayed in Praia da Luz and of Christopher Jefferies:
(https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/29/christopher-jefferies-tv-joanna-yeates-murder).
That doesn’t mean I have to accept your claims about the innocence of Jimmy Savile, in whose case there were acknowledged cover-ups. I have taken the trouble to read several articles on the subject which take the cautious approach you would recommend, including one citing Richard Webster, and another in Spiked. I totally agree about media feeding frenzies. I have never disagreed. I also agree about the potential unreliability of evidence where compensation is involved (but this doesn’t mean all people who accept compensation made up their stories). On balance, despite the media frenzy argument, I do not accept your view that Savile is ‘almost entirely innocent’. As it my right. As it is your right to enjoy your status as a self-styled maverick.
From a response to someone else, if you will forgive me:
“By the way, my interest has always been psychological.
Why do people want to believe and why are they so
reluctant to be disabused by the evidence? That is what got
me into it and what I think about most.”
I also have my own interest in the psychology of evidence-denial. That is why, harking back to previous comments of yours to me, I don’t take my information about climate science from your recommendation, Charles Moore, who read English and History at Cambridge, rather than Atmospheric Physics, for example, while I would be happy to accept the writings of the Telegraph’s own science editor, who sensibly chooses to accept the actual science, rather than politically motivated conjecture of a scientifically ignorant journalist, however he may otherwise merit respect. I believe you chose the non-scientist, Moore, which is your prerogative.
I think we have mutually agreed to ignore each other’s posts in future, which I believe would be for the best and to the benefit of the entire blog.
Have a good day, Mr Coleman.
GreenAlba
I noticed your posts about GK and agree with your opinion about the accuser although I don’t share your view that his was a misdemeanour, albeit minor.
When I talk of evidence I don’t mean what you have picked up in the course of reading the Guardian (responsible for one of the most ridiculous contributions to the Savile coverage with their Feb 2015 editorial (no less) comparing him in all seriousness with Pol Pot and suggesting his corpse be dug up to satisfy popular rage). I am talking about making an effort to look at the accusations themselves although this is difficult.
An article about the Tuam story in the Independent is hardly digging into the story. Does that story really seem likely to you? I mean, if you step back and think about it for a moment. It was an article in the Ind. on Sunday which really kicked off the Bryn Estyn witch hunt. Editor Ian Jack recognizes that he should have heeded the red lights about the story from a novice freelance reporter. (At the start of Webster’s book of the same name.
You can climb down off your high horse. Do you need to be reminded that you first accosted me here some months ago after I had mentioned Savile? I can’t remember if you attacked me for being disgraceful or disgusting. I think it might be the latter. Do I have to go looking for it to show you? I thought you were just another shrill internet nutcase at the time.
Mr Coleman
PS This is a genuinely and neutrally offered reference, simply because I think your stated interest in the topic means you may find it interesting. I did.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds
Thanks for the link. It is like those referenced by Asa Wikforss (Swedish philosopher in her Alternativa Fakta). She says that when facts are produced which challenge your beliefs it often only reinforces them. She is aware of all the pitfalls and says they affect both sides in the big debate but her own views aren’t for changing. It ain’t easy.
I came back to look at your earlier links. McCann: I had doubts myself about the treatment of this man, the initial ‘arguido’, if that is who you mean. Did you know that the dog which found the piece of a child’s skull at Haut de la Garenne, the house of horror, in Jersey (it later turned out to be wood or coconut shell) sniffed out something dodgy in the boot of the McCanns’ car. Eddie the Wonderdog would do more good chasing cats. Actually I think there were two of them.
Lanarkshire. I’ll check this one out, but as you know yourself, time is limited. Who knows, it might be the exception that disproves the rule. (Another exception I am awaiting is two introverts marrying each other.)
I am glad for your own sake you don’t read Beatrix Campbell as this is exactly what I had been thinking. It would be easier if you were one of the usual head bangers because then I could have a laugh.
By the way, I don’t really know who Charles Moore is. You must be thinking of Booker.
Here I am when I said I wouldn’t – hey ho 🙂
Thanks for the Wikforss reference – found a video that I have bookmarked for when I have time (if only…)
Charles Moore writes for the Telegraph, which is not my rag of choice, clearly, although I do read odd articles when they arise. Yes, you may be right that it was Booker you’d mentioned (also has a degree in history!).
I don’t really follow the McCann story any more. Not that I follow such things in huge detail anyway, but this one was harrowing. Yes, it was the first guy questioned – I think he lived next door with his mum or something, but can’t really remember. That makes you suspicious these days, it would seem.
My abiding thought is as a mother I’ll never understand how they could leave their children alone anyway, even 30 yards away, or whatever it was. I couldn’t leave a young child sleeping alone like that for any time at all, even just in case they woke up to find themselves alone. Not that hindsight every helps, I realise – it presumably tortures them every day anyway.
Didn’t know about the dog in either case – yup, not a prize professional pooch…
I haven’t read any details about the two mass graves incidents other than that they were discovered – it was just in my mind as one of them was very recent. Some pretty rank stuff went on in these homes for ‘wayward’ girls, it would seem.
Anyway, cheers and good night!
Sorry when I said wayward girls I was thinking of one of the Irish incidences (or perhaps the story that gave rise to the Philomena film). At least one of those two I mentioned was just just a normal children’s home, I think.
Sometimes a cigar is really a cigar. The homosexual infestation of the Church is an absolute reality admitted by the Church itself at this point. Fr James Martin SJ, an obvious Gay himself, is working to normalize it with the full blessings of the Vatican.
Young gay men have historically headed towards the Catholic Church because it was the only place they felt they could quietly live out their lives without the mindless prejudice heretofore applied to gay men, including by their own families. Child abuse is a totally different matter and has no connection to homosexuality per se. Children abused by priests have been both girls and boys.
Janos,
What would happen if the Pope came out as Gay? After all, he said something like “Who am I to judge?” Perhaps he’s waiting for the right time.
But far more boys as Gays abuse children at a far higher rate.
“But far more boys as Gays abuse children at a far higher rate”
And I’m sure you have some statistics for that from a legitimate source everyone respects?
Janos
Rory Connor (Irish Salem)
http://www.irishsalem.com/international-controversies/usa/index.php
“Paul Shanley was both a priest AND a promiscuous homosexual who was great hero to American liberals and gays – until ot suited their purposes to throw him to the wolves.”
In particular look at the links to articles by JoAnn Wypiewsky. From memory he was not convicted for his relations with gay young men but of the abuse of young boys when he was a primary school teacher years before. Their testimony (or at least some of it – again from memory) was based on retrieved memories. One of them had his epiphany on his way to Las Vegas for a week-end’s gambling. As I said elsewhere here most of the charges were dropped on the eve of the trial because they were so shaky. It is a wonder the remaining one was pursued (again from memory, and I think pressure may have been put on the accuser to tough it out – check with the Wypiewsky articles).
While I am here, in Cosby’s case the only credible witness, Andrea Constand, waited a year before deciding she had been attacked.
Thanks for clarifying this! I knew this was a witch hunt and said so to a friend. However, I was unable to understand–why? by who? Who is recruiting all these women to come forth and report that someone grabbed their **s during a picture taking event? Why would a woman bother over such a small infraction?
Something is seriously WRONG here. And men are getting fired for it, no questions asked.
Here is another case to add–happened in CA years ago. This developmentally delayed guy who was a volunteer at the church was accused of child sex abuse to multiple children. Parents went ballistic. They brought in therapists who “verified” that these kids were abused. It simply was not true. It was a mass hysteria/group think.
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/03/us/prosecutors-rebuked-in-molestation-case.html
Richard Webster’s Sceptical Essays website is perhaps the best place to start. I’m no expert (few are) but this is where I started, so I am possibly alone in having been a Savile sceptic out of intellectual conviction rather than just being a natural sceptic like all the rest (whom I envy). Even so it never occurred to me at first into looking into the Big Daddy of them all, the Jimmy Savile fantasy, until I got into a Facebook argument with my sister, who believes all this nonsense.
Webster died in 2011. Here is his story of the Shieldfield case I mentioned:
http://www.richardwebster.net/cleared.html
Also look at his Casa Pia summary.
For Boston look up Irish Salem and then look under International Controversies and choose USA.
By the way, my interest has always been psychological. Why do people want to believe and why are they so reluctant to be disabused by the evidence? That is what got me into it and what I think about most.
It could be that the topic of sexual politics is a distraction from Trump’s Russian collusion to undermine democracy.
Oh, yes, collusion did happen. The guy who knows Trump’s collusion with Russia happened is Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Flynn has admitted guilt and is prepared to testify against Trump as part of an FBI investigation into Russian interference in the election.
Next step, impeachment.
Now CFN can get back to its important discussion of how virile men make passes at women (i.e., unwanted sexual contact) … as if men don’t have vocal cords …. men must grab what they want, grab pussies, and then say their criminal behavior is just “human nature.”
Yep, still butthurt for Hillary, I see. Have you sought counseling? You know I’m always here for you.
British monarchy and race issue
As I hope you understand that the personal life of the royal family interests me as far as it relates to the political history of art.
And Prince Harry in this sense is just a gift for a historian, because he by his actions, in particular, engagement with mulatto Meghan Markle, completes the historical cycles of the Great Indiction.
Some of these cycles are related to the attitude of the British monarchy to the Negroes, and I have learned from personal experience that the greater part of the royal family are much less racists than the environment of Hillary Clinton.
In particular, Meghan Markle, if she marries Harry, will not be the first member of the royal family, in whose veins flows Negro blood. “Under suspicion” are many since the 13th century, but it is known exactly about Queen Victoria’s grandmother Queen Charlotte Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the inventor of the famous charlotte pie.
But for the “elites” of New York, Windsors are not role model.
In the early 90’s, I was honored to talk with big “democrats” and part-time girlfriends of Hillary Clinton, and when one of the parties talked about the fight against racism in Russia, I suddenly got out of the dark corner and happily announced to the stunned public that there is no racism in Russia.
And in the proof I brought the aura of Peter the Great and his grandson, the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, whose daughter, Natalya Alexandrovna, married first to the tsar’s general, and then the close relative of the Windsor, Prince of Nassau, Nikolai Wilhelm.
You can not imagine what kind of silence has descended in the room! I realized that people were absolutely shocked by my words and thought for a long time until one of the girls squeaked: “So what is this? Are they colored?!”
P.S. You know, if Harry was Charles’s son, they’d never let him marry a mulatto!!!
P.P.S. Racism and Nazism are not only markers of the Black and White Western projects, but also to some degree their essence.
And if Russia was swarmed with millions of Blacks, just think how many Pushkins would be produced!
You do realise that the Queen is a claimed by respectable historians to be a descendant of Mohammed, don’t you? Through her Spanish-Muslim ancestry she is related to the family of Abu al-Qasim Muhammad ibn Abbad, a descendant of Muhammad (PBUH)
Check it out. You’ll love it. You’ll find the following online:
Elizabeth II, Queen of the UK – daughter of
George VI, King of the UK – son of
George V, King of the UK – son of
Edward VII, King of the UK – son of
Victoria, Queen of the UK – daughter of
Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn – son of
George III, King of Great Britain – son of
Frederick, Prince of Wales – son of
George II, King of Great Britain – son of
George I, King of Great Britain – son of
Sophia, Electress of Hanover – daughter of
Elizabeth of Bohemia – daughter of
James I/VI, King of England, Ireland & Scotland – son of
Mary, Queen of Scots – daughter of
James V, King of Scots – son of
Margaret Tudor – daughter of
Elizabeth of York – daughter of
Edward IV, King of England – son of
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York – son of
Richard of Conisburgh, Earl of Cambridge – son of
Isabella Perez of Castille – daughter of
Maria Juana de Padilla – daughter of
Maria Fernandez de Henestrosa – daughter of
Aldonza Ramirez de Cifontes – daughter of
Aldonza Gonsalez Giron – daughter of
Sancha Rodriguez de Lara – daughter of
Rodrigo Rodriguez de Lara – son of
Sancha Alfonsez, Infanta of Castile – daughter of
Zaida (aka Isabella) – daughter of
Al-Mu’tamid ibn Abbad, King of Seville – son of
Abbad II al-Mu’tadid, King of Seville – son of
Abu al-Qasim Muhammad ibn Abbad, King of Seville – son of
Ismail ibn Qarais – son of
Qarais ibn Abbad – son of
Abbad ibn Amr – son of
Amr ibn Aslan – son of
Aslan ibn Amr – son of
Amr ibn Itlaf – son of
Itlaf ibn Na’im – son of
Na’im II al-Lakhmi – son of
Na’im al-Lakhmi – son of
Zahra bint Husayn – daughter of
Husayn ibn Hasan – son of
Hasan ibn Ali
Enjoy…
I pasted in the PBUH from the source – before anyone thinks it is my own divine request.
I’m SO disappointed in you!
“I’m SO disappointed in you!”
You shouldn’t have put me on a pedestal, then, eh, Scratchy 🙂
Green Alba, what you see with this Mueller investigation has not got one damned thing to do with anything except to get rid of Trump or barring that, to tie him and his administration down in endless investigation and obstruction.
That said, I’m with Bannon, I think the odds of Trump finishing his first term are slim.
Will Trump be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors? They’ll impeach him for holes in his underwear if they have to.
Will Trump be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors? They’ll impeach him for holes in his underwear if they have to.
Now that thar’s funny, I don’t care who you are!
Only men’s underwear have a hole in them, so yeah, I’d believe it.
Ok, that’s good. Holding steady at 97.
volodya
I don’t want to see him impeached. I don’t want him to have that excuse for failing the American people.
” I’m thinking your talent does not lie with the law. ”
I guess you misunderstood ? I wasn’t stating an opinion , but a fact.
In many states threats of death are a felony. Encouraging others to acts of violence is also a felony.
Yes, yes, you were joking , you weren’t serious, you weren’t really threatening anyone.
— And that means jack shit.
If you think criminal intent is a factor , then you need to read a fucking newspaper , never mind a law book.
Correct me if i am wrong , but YOU , YOURSELF , have suggested that at least some of these guys , Garrison Keillor ? Roy Moore ? , take your pick , didn’t mean it either ,
Didn’t really kill anyone , rape anyone , rob a bank , or blow up a post office.
Now I’m guessing these guys had ten times your status , ten times your connections , ten times your wealth .
Did the , ” I wasn’t serious ” and , ” this is ludicrous bullshit ” work for them ?
Protect them ?
Never mind that though , the law would treat you more honorably , more reasonably and sensibly , because ………….YOU are SPECIAL , ( unlike Charlie Rose ) ? ??
” Your kind of a stale old bitch, aren’t you? ”
Yes.
” I find people with no sense of humor to be the funniest of all. ”
Or maybe I do have a sense of humor , because your trying to cut me off at the knees , when I was agreeing with you , and defending you puts a big smile on my face , you American jack ass.
Are you talking to me? Why are you calling me a stale old bitch? Please let all of us stop this bickering. This kind of talk is a reflection of why our society is so imbalanced. Don’t take that personally. I am not here to disrespect anyone.
” Are you talking to me? ”
No.
” Why are you calling me a stale old bitch? ”
I , and someone else , was calling ME that.
I guess maybe you really don’t know what quotation marks are for.
To elaborate , I was replying to a post by Ol’ Scratch , from Kunstler’s previous blog post.
I don’t bother to tack on posters names to their comments which I am quoting.
I assume people recognize their own words , or recognize what is not their own words.
And , typically , they do recognize their own quote.
And , if it isn’t their quote , but someone elses, they could care less anyway.
Thanks KesaAnna! Fun jousting (I would have said doing the old thrust and parry, but we better not go there today.) with you!
Or maybe I do have a sense of humor , because your trying to cut me off at the knees , when I was agreeing with you , and defending you puts a big smile on my face , you American jack ass.
Well now you’ve done gone and embarrassed me and made Tia mad. Can I file a harassment suit for that too? I might well be traumatized for the rest of my days now (which might not be many at the rate I’m going).
But you really should lighten up. You’re just a tad bit overly-litigious these days. But in a fun kind of way, of course.
Why are we not talking about the shit that matters?
I was surprised that Kunstler did not talk about the tax reform bill going through Congress or Rocket man’s latest test. Why are we so focused on who grabbed or fucked who?
I just read a news story that the Democrats tried to put the Tax Reform bill back in committee only to fail by a 56 to 44 vote. The democrats can breath through their nose and turn their head to the side all they want. This shit sandwich is going to be stuffed in our mouth no matter what they do. You can also bet that this bill won’t benefit the average American.
Flip the channel and you will see that NK has a mobile missile design that can hit the USA and may have used a solid rocket fueled engine. I am surprised that this was not the main topic of Kunstler’s blog today.
I have no doubt that we would win a war with NK but they would extract a heavy price on us. They only have to get lucky once with their missiles. We have a lot more to lose than them. Are you guys willing to take the chance of loosing almost everything for destroying Rocket man?
The Chinese could step on Fat Boy’s neck and this whole thing would be over with tomorrow.
But they won’t because they’re using Fat Boy as the horn to horn the US away from Asia. They see Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines etc as China’s back yard. Fat Boy is their tool.
No point talking to Fat Boy or threatening Fat Boy. It’s China. And so good luck wid dat. The US has not got the resources nor the will.
If the vaunted State Department were smart, which it isn’t, if the big foreign policy thinkers weren’t all drinking each others bath water, which they are, the realization would dawn that that neck of the woods is a drain on America and gives nothing back but headaches.
And so, if universities or think tanks had any original thinkers, which they don’t, they’d advocate wrapping all that territory like Japan and Korea where the US is squandering money and military assets, in a big bow and handing it to China. Let the Chinese piss away their own resources.
When they had flintlocks and we had machine guns it was ….a little…..different.
Since then , though, the West will never be able adequately to project power into East Asia.
The West’s best insurance policy in East Asia was the Japanese Empire—–
—- Oops ! Already fucked that one up !
How stupid are Americans ?
They are still claiming they won WW II .
KesaAnna,
How stupid are Americans? Watch Ken Burns’ “Vietnam” series and you’ll find out. Late 1964, early 1965, American “leadership” (right up to that murdering asshole of a President, LBfuckingJ) knew that the undeclared war was lost. How long did it continue after that, eh? I’d tag on a qualifier of *psychopathic* stupidity.
We don’t need to give anything to NK; China doesn’t want any meddling from the western nations. A missile from NK is an invitation for the US even if the missile hit Japan, SK etc.. With China controlling its population and energy through their economy any nuclear based action is suicide for everyone.
Many thanks for this incisive analysis. I work for a retired general in Indonesia and have lived here for nearly 30 years. It is beginning to dawn on ASEAN countries that the tacit / overt ‘defense’ of the Seventh Fleet and the nuclear umbrella is looking decidedly wobbly, and with China exerting what it historically sees as its projection of power in its own sphere of influence (dawning from the fleet of the eunuch admiral Zheng He, and there’s one for you – an admiral with truly no balls, but a good one) and the huge flood of ‘loans’ coming into the region (they are no fools – they know they are just buying their way into influence) it is quickly turning into the ‘Chinese century’. The government here hasn’t got a clue and the smell of big money for infrastructure development (including silly showcase works like a ‘high-speed train to Bandung’ = train to nowhere) spins their cute little heads. Singapore is already a playground for rich degenerate Chinese (check out the famed Ferrari crash video on YouTube) and the Philippines is also quite aware of which way the wind is blowing (the US has always treated Filipinos and their government like shit). China is urgently unloading as many of those three trillion and counting Amero-pesos as quickly as it can, buying its way into such unlikely scenarios as Latinoamerica and central Africa. If the not unattractive prospect of the PetroYuan comes to pass then Uncle is going to be in desperate straits. Later the locals in East Asia are going to wake up and find out that borrowing money from the Middle Kingdom is not the same easy-greasy matter as shaking down Japan or the E.U. The Chinese will get their kilo of flesh.
My ‘thanks’ was meant for Volodya. Bit hard to keep names and comments straight in this format.
Nutty,
We could totally annihilate them. They could only give us a pinprick. Who really has more to lose? (Of course, I’m not factoring in any responses from Russia or China – those are, channeling Rumsfeld, known unknowns).
Tia,
Do come back. This isn’t university and there’s no safe spaces and discussion here can be bad tempered and rough but that what’s GOOD about it.
The archdruid was an alternative mode where everyone had to be polite. It was moderated and it was a good site but it didn’t have the entertaining knife-fights we have here. I think it’s a gas.
Just don’t take it personally.
And to think, she hasn’t even been subjected to the ‘full Janos’ yet, has she?
If all TVs were gone, I wouldn’t really care as long as there was great radio, like Garrison provided.
“Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average”.
“Guy Noir, Private Eye”. Music and talk.
Just great all around entertainment.
Made you feel like you were in a simpler, saner, more wholesome world.
Agreed. He reminded me of many of the PhDs I work with: quirky, eccentric, kind-hearted, and honest to a fault. Too good for this world.
“I have no doubt that we would win a war with NK…” –nutty neutron
North Korea has the support of both Russia and China. Trump’s war would be against all three… and there are no winners in war.
By “win” I meant eliminate the NK leadership. I also said that it would come at a great cost to us and not one I am willing to risk.
MacArthur had no doubt we’d win a war with NK.
A couple years later, he was begging Harry Truman to let him use nukes.
Well, but MacArthur would have declared war on Christ had he the temerity to come back again. That boy was UP for some warfare, 24/7/365. That post-WWII generation was some blood thirsty sum’ bitches.
You have to understand war college people.
They are trained in their kennels to fetch ranks
Ribbons
Medals
Fleets
Armies
Enemies
Conquests
They are forks in a soup world, and resent it.
Sounds about right. I’m gonna give you back TWO for that one! Keep up the good work 99th!
Scratch,
Are you forgetting about Ike? As he said, he hated war as only a soldier who had lived through it could (or something like that). He pretty much gave us 8 years of peace – at least no major wars under his watch. He warned us about the Military Industrial Complex, but that was only as he was leaving office. Ike is still praised for that, but he did nothing about it when he had the chance.
I have read, Ishabaka, that ‘Dugout Doug’ wanted to lay a ‘cordon sanitaire’ of nuclear blasts along the NK / China border. Cagey Harry Truman put the ixnay on that one.
I also read that the Great Murderer excuse me the Great Chairman pooh-poohed the specter of nuclear attack, commenting that ‘it’s just another weapon’, whereupon his wise generals arranged for the fat prick to personally witness an atmospheric detonation.
His tune changed hurriedly. No joke.
The War on Men has gone hot.
The first battle – to get the anti-male (Hillary) elected, was a colossal failure – the Japanese at Midway.
The second battle – the “Russian meddling/impeachment” ground to a standstill, – the Battle of the Somme.
The third battle the “He did something I didn’t like 38 years ago” is mowing ’em down like the Blitzkrieg moving through Poland.
Nice analogy!
And men are in the same state of denial the European Jews were in in the ’30s – “Yes, the got Spacey, Franken, Conyers, Keillor, etc. etc., but they won’t come after ME – I’m a good Jew”.
I honestly don’t think Trump has anymore sex scandal business under the rug. Clearly, the guy has a touch of OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder when it comes to germs. Sex=mucho germ exchange.
Word is that he and Carla Bruni had some chemistry going, but he wouldn’t sleep with her until she had passed an AIDS/STD test. (Good thinking, since she had slept with the chronically promiscuous Mick Jagger.)
BTW, I can’t figure out why any woman would be attracted to Jagger? (My secret crush will always be held for Viggo Mortensen–those beautiful eyes!)
Jen in San Jose
Why indeed. Involution. Jagger belongs to a European subrace that was in British isles before the Aryans came. Women who want to go back in evolution might choose him. Plus he was rich and famous! Nothing beats that….They’d even put up with a White guy!
You should have your DNA tested, Janos. It could provide some hilarious surprises.
Jagger was quite the dashing figure in the early-mid 60’s, but Jen’s right; even as a hetero man, I have to admit that Viggo is the most handsome dude I’ve ever seen.
Carla Bruni is no stranger to promiscuity (not that I’m remotely judging). She’s on record as saying monogamy just isn’t for her. She even had an affair with the (married) son of one of her lovers. She gets around, so there would be no need to implicate Jagger.
Incidentally she has always totally denied that she was ever even alone with Trump and insists he made the whole story up about their ‘relationship’ when he was separating from his second wife. How unlike Trump to make something up!!!!!
Mack Jigger.
Ishabaka
No anti-male would be doing the pathetic ‘stand-by-your-man’ schtick that she’s done with her repulsive alley-cat husband. Although I suppose she needed the Clinton name to further her political aspirations (maybe she’d have done better without it, though, as it turned out, him being such a liability).
It’s possible to be anti-Trump without being anti-male, as I’m sure you know really. Bernie wasn’t a moral-free, value-free zone like the Golden Golem. He could have wiped the floor with Trump if he hadn’t been ambushed.
https://www.sbnation.com/2013/10/18/4848470/a-prairie-home-companion-is-wretched-and-unlistenable
Best line: the sound of Norman Rockwell paint drying
The first battle — to get the anti-male (Hillary) elected, was a colossal failure –Ishabaka
“Colossal”? Not when Hillary received millions more votes than Trump did. Trump won the electoral college with votes from approximately 26 percent of eligible voters. … In other words, 74 percent of eligible voters did not vote for Trump.
“Failure”? Anything but as it animated the resistance which has already resulted in Democratic victories in places like Montana, Alabama, Virginia, Oklahoma, New Jersey, etc. … and perhaps a sweep in 2018.
Here’s A List Of Historic Victories Democrats Had On Election Day
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/democratic-victories-firsts-election-day_us_5a026c51e4b092053058cf38
Lookout! The Honey Badger’s come out of her hole posting HuffPo links, and SHE’S PISSED!
On a lighter note: so, are we on for dinner and drinks later janet, my dear? I just feel terrible about the way I’ve treated you today. Let me make it up to you. And then maybe a little… (go ahead and just let your imagination run wild) afterward, just for giggles?
It’s a partisan bot
You rascal you.
Suggesting to an avowed Andrea Dworkin worshipper, Janet, to engage in some “slap and tickle;” or perhaps you are angling for something a little more in sync with the title of this week’s dispatch: Eine Kleine Nacht BDSM.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wqg4taiLRRE
The public really loves a spectacle (see Guy Debord.) Maybe General Flynn will volunteer for a flogging, at the Capitol, or maybe even the Pentagon for his lapse in good judgment. Lying to the FBI; Duty, Honor, Country – just flew out the window.
Old soldiers are supposed to just fade away, aren’t they?
I’ve always found that when it comes to pleasure, PAIN is the final frontier! As a fellow old soldier, I’m sure General Flynn would agree.
The whole “fade away” thing was just GMac being overly dramatic after Truman raised his voice an octave for being a shit. Just between you and me, I think he might have been a queen too. Both Truman AND GMac, now that I think about it.
MacArthur = drama queen for sure.
Also a crook. Quezon gave him a hundred thousand bucks worth of gold bullion from the Philippines treasury and he took it.
The Japanese adored him during the Occupation until he unwisely commented that they are a nation of eleven-year-olds (having lived in Japan many years and learned the language I have to agree with that to some extent).
Janet,
Your gal Hillary could have and should have won. But she didn’t want to get her delicate hands dirty by rubbing shoulders with the white deplorables of middle America. So, she spent most of her time sucking up to her perverted show biz buddies like Weinstein and Spacey in California and NY, states that she was going to win anyway. Not only is Hillary evil, but she’s also stupid.
“It’s laughable to me that so many well-educated people assume that our current mode of living is permanent.”
I cannot reconcile that with this:
“… adults of the two sexes — and there are two sexes, not thirty-two“
I understand it’s qualified with “in the meantime” but when does a grain of salt become a pinch becomes a heap?
When you’re in the flux you look for reference points behind and ahead because you can’t sea-change
““… adults of the two sexes — and there are two sexes, not thirty-two“
Umm, not two, not thirty-two, but definitely more than two. When you consider that there are more than 7,000,000,000 alive on the planet, there are almost assuredly tens of millions of people who are not male or female.
Many times, these people are unaware of their true sex. It’s interesting to note that everyone assumes that they, personally, are XY or XX. One study in Great Britain showed that 97 out of 100 people who were XYY had no idea. They thought they were a traditional male and had few signs otherwise.
Even today, we irrationally, and rather stupidly, think of someone as a “man” if they look masculine and as a “woman” if the look feminine. It’s entirely arbitrary and can lead to some significant misunderstandings of how the world actually works.
Especially considering it is possible for your brain, your body, and your reproductive systems to all have different biological sexes. But there are six biological sexes that are common in humans.
Umm jan honey, I’m gonna need an annotated bibliography or at least whatever notes you’ve got hastily scribbled down to support at least some of that stuff you were raving about above. No hurry, just whenever you can get around to it. K?
Janet is at least partially right on this one. A small percentage are born Intersex – used to be called Hermaphrodite. It is interesting that female Olympians have started to complain about Intersex being allowed to compete with them. They are biologically male, bigger and stronger, and the elite women athletes can’t keep up.
Well, but aren’t the elite female athletes pushing the boundaries themselves already? No one who ever witnessed Greta Waitz run the marathon back in the day could ever deny that thought.
The actual genetics involved are a lot less ambiguous. You either have or don’t have the chromosomes in question, end of story. The hormones obviously begin to confuse the story somewhat, even before you get into all the psycho-babble. When it comes to athletics at least, the solution is simple: either limit the distinction to verifiable genetic heritage, or simply make it an open, all sexes competition and be done with it.
Janet, I never read the passage, but Lawrence Durrell is said to have theorized there are six sexes.
“…candidate Trump directed him to talk to the Russians!!!! The horror! Talking to the RUSSIANS!” –shabbaranks
Umm, yes, in fact it happens to be illegal for private citizens to undercut U.S. government policy with foreign powers, a violation of 1 Stat. 613, 18 U.S.C. § 953.
And yes, talking to the Russians is illegal when the person who directs you to do so has no authority… and neither Trump nor his son-in-law was President. The way it works is we only have one President at a time.
An article expressing common sense? What is wrong with Jim Kunstler? Nobody in America knows what that is anymore.
Multiple premature ejaculations regarding Michael Flynn on CNN tonight: this thing goes deeper and longer…
The key word here is premature.
Trump’s lies are material because of what they are covering up. There is no plausible daylight between Flynn’s crimes and Trump’s crimes. Flynn’s plea deal will strengthen Mueller’s probe into Trump’s criminal acts and ties with Russia.
In October, Mueller charged Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and former deputy campaign manager Rick Gates with money laundering and failing to properly disclose their lobbying work on behalf of foreign clients.
Mueller also unsealed a guilty plea in October from former Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, who admitted to lying to federal investigators.
We are way beyond wondering about collusion with Russia. We now have people involved in the coverup pleading guilty.
Here, another one…
Our little janet’s really licking her chops at all this. It’s so nice that she’s finally found something to occupy her time and ease her troubled mind. I was really worried about her there for a while.
Trump and Pence will be impeached for their collusion with Russia, and their coverup of their crimes.
The third in line is: President Nancy Pelosi.
So does this mean we’re on for later tonight? I’d be more than happy to call you Nancy if that’s what you’d like. Call me.
Janet,
You are way off base on Princess Pelosi. The Speaker of the House is third in line, and that person is, drumroll please, Paul Ryan!
After the 2018 midterms the Democrats will have control of the House and the Speaker of the House will be, drumroll please, Nancy Pelosi.
Well shit, then! It’ll be almost like Obama’s back in charge again! In other words, the GOP will finally be calling the shots in earnest again. Thanks for the update jan!
Janet,
The fact that a senile old hag like Pelosi, who constantly forgets her words in mid-sentence, is still the leader of the House democrats shows how utterly dysfunctional they are.
Fincaln,
That’s why I never watch CNN, MSDNC, or the mainstream news. They make me physically nauseous. The only show I can stand to watch is Tucker Carlson. He’s the only one at Fox who is not a Neocon.
Contemporary theories on human sexuality posit numerous configurations/orientations with respect to idiographic analysis
of personality & sexual identification involved with psychosexual development & maturation throughout the lifecycle. Educators have thrown out the notion that human sexuality is a binary construct due to what we now know about human genetics & evolution. Social Scientists have depathologised sexual deviance based on the legislative requirement to not discriminate based on gender, or sexuality, along constitutional lines. Jurisprudence essentially guides the underlying theories emanating out of the Social Sciences in so far as all researchers, and scientists, cannot generate research
that discriminates against an act of being human. In this regard, all variation with respect to human sexuality is accepted, sanctioned through policy, and implemented through the constitutional requirement of freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is assumed to subsume freedom of thought in this manner of bureaucratising sexuality & sexual identity going forward.
Historically, any deviation from the norm of a binary construct view of sexuality has been characterized as pathological, and classified as such within taxonomies of sexual psychopathology that are no longer used in contemporary discourse. Barron Richard Von Kraft Ebing wrote Psychopathia Sexualis regarding the myriad sexually psychopathological differences he evidenced back in the 1890s, and documented. Today, Psychopathia Sexualis would be quickly shot down by rights groups, special interest groups, and BIG law. Just as the English language evolves so too does the concept of human sexuality.
RW
Damn Robert! I’ll bet you’re a real hoot at the faculty get togethers! Can I get you to forward me an annotated bibliography with that dissertation whenever you can find a few spare minutes? Much appreciated.
You must know Freud’s _Polymorphous Perversity_ if you want to understand psychosexual development from a Psychoanalytic perspective, Ol’ Scratch.
Wikipedia: Polymorphous Perversity
…then you will understand the penchant for impulsivity that gets the grabbers into trouble.
RW
Is there a singular polysyllabic latinate term for the Freudian polymorphous perversity?
If so I would like to be inclusive and place it within the ever-growing acronym of LBGT….K.
By doing so every impulse and paraphilia may be part of it so all may join the parade before it passes by (due to A.I. population extinction protocol.)
I thought the A.I population extinction protocol was going to be called off by the Captain Pike guy from Star Trek that works at the Perimeter Institute, and other dudes like Elon Musk?
Bitcoin will destroy USD so that’s a start, eh.
RW
We seem to be living in Panem (Latin for Bread and Circuses) the post apocalyptic USA as wrSuzanne Collin’s Hunger Games trilogy.
Latin for bread, actually. I think you mean panem et circenses.
Correct you are! I accidentally submitted comment before I was finished and had proofed. All thumbs using an IPAD.
Anyway, all this sex and harassment talk is part of the circus, like sports, which keeps our attention off how our freedom and assets are being stripped away by the oligarchy. The bread in this time is the cheap credit that keeps the consumerism charade going. If we have this car, house, TV, or eat at such and such restaurant we will surely be happy.
Sorry didn’t mean to be pedantic! Used to be a language teacher (though thankfully not Latin) and now an editor so some things jump out at me. Apologies for the pedantry.
Yes, you’re right. I don’t think it’s deliberate (the over emphasis on sex etc. I mean) but I agree with the person further up (maybe it was Elrond) quoting Masha Gessen talking about people homing in on sex at critical times. Fin de siècle Vienna was the same – it’s nothing new. It’s almost as if people can’t deal with the perfect storm of external threats so they retreat into what used to be navel gazing but now the focus is a bit further south. It’s probably a desperate search for control – of something – since they can’t do anything much about the external stuff.
Re the oligarchy is going to get stronger, I fear. I only wonder how anyone in their right mind could have thought Trump was the man to do it. It’s like inviting Hannibal Lecter to manage your intensive care unit.
Arguably, society’s attitude toward sex oscillates over time between poles of maximum repression and maximum permissiveness. Each comes at a cost.
Since sex is inevitable (the alternative being extinction) and human nature is a constant, repression inevitably leads to hypocrisy: the public realm is full of censoriousness, while vice-as-usual carries on in private. This part of the cycle is where the worst abuses are most likely happen, due to the lack of disinfecting sunlight on what goes on behind closed doors. The worst victimized will be those who are most vulnerable, most powerless and most voiceless.
At the opposite pole, people are much more open about sexuality. And this causes great friction (sorry) in the public realm, because people don’t necessarily like encountering other people’s sexual proclivities. It’s easier to judge and condemn on reflex, thus saving one’s own ego, than it is to exercise careful judgement about each and every variation on human sexuality and decide whether it’s harmful or not. (Pedophilia’s an easy one. But what about that notorious voluntary cannibalism case that happened in Germany? Was that a match made in hell, or in heaven?)
I think it’s admirable that people want to live freely and without hypocrisy. I just don’t think it’s necessarily possible. The effort always contains the seeds of its own destruction.
@Elrond
Yes, I think that’s entirely true. I recognise when my reaction to something is emotional, rather than rational. I’m pretty much a vanilla-type person, so in-your-face really weird stuff in public (e.g. in look-at-me demonstrations) makes me feel slightly uncomfortable – maybe it’s just an aesthetic reaction – but my rational mind tells me it’s (a) none of my business and (b) just another weird thing humans do that they’re perfectly entitled to do.
Even in terms of what is now boring old homosexuality, although I have a gay nephew who is a delightful young man, and have long had gay friends/colleagues, I’m not over-fond of watching a male-to-male full-on snog in a film or anywhere else. I realise the latter is not rational.
I would be fascinated to know how many of those posters railing against gay men have never ever searched out ‘lesbian’ pornography, which I gather is extremely popular! Hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance are everywhere… the US is the home of both the silver ring thing and the biggest pornography industry on the planet.
I agree with you, Jim. Garrison Keillor should be ranked up there with Mark Twain, but his reputation has been hijacked by the current hysteria. I think with this charge of impropriety against him, if no evidence is forthcoming about anything more to it than already described, and no other claimants coming forward against him, this whole sexual inappropriateness pandemic will have reached its Fonzi “Jump the Shark” moment. Or McCarthy’s “at long last sir, have you no decency?” moment.
Real serial offensive cases like Weinstein and Spacey need to be addressed (but Al Franken? Really?). Unfortunately, it seems that attention seekers will come out of the woodwork in times like this, taking down the lives and reputations of good people. Hey, it’s human nature and we’re not going to change human nature anytime soon – just like no-offence-intended flirting at work.
I despise Franken’s politics, but that is off point. The photo of him pretending to fondle Leeann Tweeden’s breasts while she slept was just that – pretending. Bad taste, sure, but I don’t think he even touched them, or it would have woken her up. Plus, he was a comedian then and was making an “unfunny” joke – not a Senator.
Yes, the woman should be shunned and made an example of. Let them think twice before making false claims.
” Well now you’ve done gone and embarrassed me and made Tia mad. Can I file a harassment suit for that too? ”
Well, since I say that sexual harassment laws are bullshit,
and since I say hate crime laws are bullshit ,
the freedom and human rights lovers will undoubtedly sooner or later burn me at the stake on one bullshit pretext or other.
So, sure , you might as well sue me . You would probably win.
After deductions though , and the 30 mouths I have to feed ( 30 mouths ? Pigs and goats and dogs that belong to my parents , but which I have to pay for )
My income is about $500 a month.
My guess is the litigation would cost you more than you would gain.
” But you really should lighten up. ”
It’s decidedly un-Christian , but every time I consider that Robin Willians had four decades of success , had wheelbarrows full of money , had millions of folks kissing his ass , preached the moral -high ground of humor —
— and hanged himself. I smile , or sometimes even laugh.
Is that light enough ?
” You’re just a tad bit overly-litigious these days. ”
At least 15 times a day I encounter some quack preaching the holy dogma of more laws are gonna solve our problems.
More controls , ever bigger non-productive bureaucracies, are gonna solve our problems.
So , 16 times a day , I have to point out that is several steps down from religion. That is full -blown animistic superstition.
So I may then seem , ” overly “.
But , ” litigious ” ? No , I would give you ten commandments. ( and indulgences when you break them. )
Apparently though , many here would be happy to give you 10,000 commandments. ( and bankruptcy , a cage , or a bullet in the head, when you break these commandments you cannot possibly memorize. )
I’ve come to like you A LOT today KesaAnna, you ol’ twisted fuck, you! You’ve taught me A LOT and actually made me chuckle (albeit EXTREMELY stale-ly) just listening to you today, and I THANK YOU for that, A LOT once again!
Your friend,
Ol’ Scratchy
PS,
Let’s keep this between the two of us for now, OK? I’m afraid that janet, err… Nancy, might fly off the handle if she knew I was talking to you this way.
A bit before 7 p.m. this evening, hours before the vote, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said Democrats had been handed a new version of the Republican tax reform bill, and he hoisted a 479-page stack of documents.
“479 pages were handed to us,” Durbin said. “They tell us that some of this has been around for awhile. Some of it’s new. They don’t tell us which part is new and which part is old,” he complained, before picking up a specific page of the legislative text where a staffer had scrawled provisions in cursive.
“We’re not even teaching cursive in a lot of schools anymore but someone on the staff knew it to try,” Durbin said. “The problem is they wrote it in cursive on the margin here. … I defy anybody to read it because the problem is when they copied it they chopped off lines so there aren’t full sentences.”
House Minority Leader and future President Nancy Pelosi, tweeted to McConnell, “if you are so intent on forcing middle-class families to foot the bill so your donors can have a tax break, at least have the decency to find a printer. #GOPTaxScam”
The swamp lobbyists for the big money donors are busily scribbling things into the margins to benefit the billionaire friends of billionaire Trump.
^billionaire swamp creature Trump, enemy of regular folks who earn less than one million dollars a year^
You are – without a doubt – just SO SEXY when you go on these little tears, my lil’ janet! YOU GO GIRL!
Clintonoids are celebrating Trump’s inevitable arrest next Wednesday
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/michael-flynn-ready-testify-trump-175715069.html
Putin’s choice
Considering Flynn’s plea deal, Putin is faced with the same kind of choice as Saint Tsar Nicholas II did in December-January 1917:
1. To resign and watch his Motherland be destroyed, and then to be most definitely killed along with his family; or
2. To be elected for the fourth time and be ready to press the red button, with very little chance to succeed in using this threat to save his country and his family; and should he fail, to face the charge at the Last Judgment of killing several billion people, with only one way to save himself – by proving that the war was started by the United States.
“this thing goes deeper and longer…” –finca
It really just comes down to this: what did the President know and when did he know it?
Obstruction. of. Justice.
With periods too! Is that a special.section.of.the.code?
18 U.S. Code Chapter 73
” Umm, yes, in fact it happens to be illegal for private citizens to undercut U.S. government policy with foreign powers, a violation of 1 Stat. 613, 18 U.S.C. § 953. ”
I looked it up.
Here’s the back story on this particular august law ;
Some politicians got pissed off because a well-meaning , do-gooding , Quaker marshmallow had a conversation or two with the French government and convinced the French government to do what the politicians own diplomats had failed to do.
— Except he didn’t really convince the French government. The French government HAD ALREADY DECIDED to do what it did.
So the ire of these politicians was basically directed at the fact that this snowflake Quaker had a conversation with someone else in French.
Oooohhh , terrible !
But you know how stupid politicians will go ahead and be when they get their panties in a twist.
So they enacted this law anyway.
That was 200 years ago.
Americans still have some slight sense , because apparently to this day not one person has been convicted or punished under this silly law.
Thanks KesaAnna! Always a wealth of information.
KesaAnna, Scratchsoka is a troll.
Not even close there Janet.
Now if you said Ol’ Scratch was a “Dam Doll:”
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=dam+doll&qpvt=dam+doll&FORM=IGRE
that would be a horse of a different color.
If Ol’ Scratch is a troll he’s far more entertaining than you Janet.
Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump,Trump, Trump, Trump…Anything else on your mind? And Muslims and man hating doesn’t count.
Even with Trump’s rapacious “tax reform” bill Trump’s real horror-show doesn’t start to begin until he initiates wars to try to stay in power.
The attempted looting of the OASDI trust funds to fund Trump’s wars will seal his fate. Trump and Pence will be impeached after the Democrats take control in the midterm elections… to install President Nancy Pelosi.
‘Trump’s wars will seal his fate. Trump and Pence will be impeached after the Democrats take control in the midterm elections… to install President Nancy Pelosi’
Ok, so after this happens, will you finally shut up about it and stop cluttering up this comments section with your asinine amateur hour SJW gibberish?
Unfortunately, very few people understand that for Hillary Clinton the nuclear war with Russia is NOT means of achieving some goal, it is the goal
May be special munitions issued to the US Marine Corps elite units – silver bullets smelted from Kennedy half dollar coins – could still save the day?
KesaAnna, Kennedy is a Saint and a Martyr
Just be sure to make the following distinction when you say Kennedy: John Fitzgerald Kennedy and not his demonic brother -the embodiment of Evil, Devil’s deputy, and all-around party guy, Edward “I when I returned, Mary Jo and the car were gone.” Kennedy.
From above, 100th Avatar:
Jon Bois and Spencer Hall should stick to sports. Were either of them even alive when Garrison began his show in 1974?
The two twerps attempt to ridicule Garrison with their self serving, all too cute, lame witticisms. But their vinegar is far too saccharine.
Yes, yes, Bois did say it, that Garrison’s “body of work is considerable”. What a pretentious rodent!
The line should be something like, “the image of a Norman Rockwell painting”.
A pipsqueak with nothing of the profound.
Should read, “the quaint, nostalgic image…”
He threw a lot of sh*t at the wall and some of it stuck.
So what?
He’s persistent.
He milks that protestant work ethic shtick to death.
He’s just not funny.
At all.
He’s quite lame, and the lame people that tune into PBS find him funny.
The same lame people that confuse their bring lame with being intelligent.
PBS cornered the market on aspirational average folk.
“Hey America, fuck you. I don’t give a shit that I am making your last wilderness areas accessible to my buddies in big industry. When the world ecology collapses, me and mine will be all sng and protected in one of the palatial underground bunkers you stupid fucks paid for. P.s. If you think your Trump campaign membership card will afford you special consideration, then you are really a dumb fuck.”
~~~~President D. Trump~~~~
With thanks to President Fuck Face:
“President Trump will travel to Utah on Monday to announce that he is repealing protections for as many as two million acres of public land in the American West, an area more than six times the size of Grand Teton National Park, including vast portions of two national monuments in the state, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante.
Mr. Trump’s plans add up to the largest elimination of protected areas in American history. He is a vandal in our midst, coming in person to lay waste to the land. This theft of our heritage should awaken us to the damage being piled up across our public lands under this administration.”
~~Gov. Bruce Babbitt~~
“Forgot to say to Teddy Roosevelt that his precious parks are now MINE. Another dumb president. You hear me say earlier that I got the highest IQ of them all, the losers.”
President Trump
I voted for Trump, but will have to abandon him if he commits such desecration.
Earth First. Like Jimmie “looks twice”, I’m with Earth. She is literally Mother. Nothing else matters if we don’t have her.
He will be Trump the despicable. Trump the dishonorable. The fat, fatuous, forked tongue speaker of folderol. A white whale of a window dresser.
A bloated, burdensome, bashibazouk of a blabbermouth and hurler of brick bats.
Fat White Man continues the rape of the West.
Forget the wall. Let the hordes swarm and rampage. Let them ravage and ruin. There will be nothing left to cherish, nothing worth protecting.
He reversed on elephant body part trafficking. What a guy!
Yeah, and his son has already taken tusks and tails.
Take it or leave it folks.
You know what to do: Call, write, email, tell friends and family around the Christmas hearth.
Address for the White House = Google it
Trump and his Republican pals in Congress have scheduled next on the chopping block the highly successful Endangered Species Act. Can you imagine the sickness and rot that must exist in a person to hate life (excepting the unborn human fetus)? I’m mad as hell about this, but most could care less……that is until such time as they are personally impacted and that will be our self-inflicted near future. The signs are everywhere- deforestation, overfishing, ocean acidification, coral reefs dying, species mass extinctions, soil loss, desertification, AGW, and of course over-population (87 million more consumers every 365 days).
When an ET species writes the final report for humanity it will read:
Summary Description:
“Clever ape, although selfish, short-sighted, and entirely lacking in wisdom- a fatal combination.
Recommendation // Classification:
DO NOT REGENERATE // Maleficent Destroyer of Worlds
@ffkling
I sympathise with you and your countrymen/women. The man is indeed a brainless vandal. And withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, he had chosen to take his country back to an earlier century and make it a pariah and environmental freeloader. That’s not most people’s definition of ‘Great’.
He’s so stupid that he doesn’t even realise America will be left behind, blowing the tops of mountains, when everyone else is busy working on real solutions (I’m totally conscious of JHK’s long emergency narrative and have long accepted that may be where we’re headed, but that doesn’t stop us keeping the place clean, the air breathable and sea levels short of drowning New York, Florida and London while we can.
Thankfully there are many US states and great cities which know which way the wind is blowing and are not caving in to the Trump wrecking spree. Long may they not let the b*****ds get them down.
Thank you, GreenAlba. Trump and his Republican enablers in Congress hate the living world. The only life that matters to these sick people is the unborn fetus, They have a death wish for all life on earth.
Earth First…well log/mine the other planets later….`Anon
Trump is making American history right now.
Sooner or later Interior Sec. Zenke will declare his childhood home as a monument anyway.
Later the Library! Perhaps several of his Golf parks. \
Hell, why not put 18 holes in the middle of the Everglades!
Perhaps a stone obelisk and a square mile of some mountaintop somewhere to be known forever as his immortal tomb.
How could he resist?
I signed up for the White House email list and get an email from Donald every other day. This proves he cares about me, an average dog. I’m sure when I scratch my paw on the door of his underground bunker he will let me in.
Holy smokes!
As I check in this late evening of Dec 1, there are 407 comments posted already. Good on JHK – your popularity surely has exploded since the earlier days when there were only a dozen or so of followers hereabouts.
But that’s another story.
I would offer that you have marched quite eloquently around the otherwise justified madness of male aggression towards females to add a bit of logical perspective. We’ll have to add another one to the “close only counts” in horse shoes, hand grenades, and super novas to include ethnic purges of pedophiles, misogynists, and other sexual deviants.
I saw a YouTube video sometime in the not too distant past entitled, I believe, “men are pigs”. The unchecked lust often exhibited by males, illustrated in this video, could surely qualify males as pigs.
After some time of mixing the information from this video into all of my per-existing cognitive connections, it became clear to me that, yes, men are pigs – and that women are sluts.
The only question that remains for me is, then, how do we as a very sophisticated species [apparently] incorporate this fundamental biological “reality” into our aspired-to civilized existence?
The answer, it seems, is that either we don’t or minimally with great distress.
Speaking from a man’s point view, “ladies, you are irresistible, a condition that I barely can control, a condition unfortunately that keeps us here, and a condition that I must forever remember is not often appreciated or appropriate.
Sex, ladies and gentlemen, is a very tricky, very universal, very fundamental, and very easily abused stream of consciousness and behavior.
Good job, Jim !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
To all of those who have it all figured out: Go Fuck Yourselves. This is a work in progress and always will be as long as the species is in existence and is evolving.
~toktomi~
Traditional societies demand that women aid men in self control by dressing modestly. Btw, I don’t approve of the Muslim/Thug attitude that if a women deserves provocatively, she loses all human rights and deserves what she gets. But that loop is in there in the less evolved, and to the extent rape is violence, dressing provocatively can elicit this kind of response from men who have such attitudes.
Thus both wise self interest and charity combine to indicate that Traditional Society is correct.
In the style of judo
The flying monkeys trumpet victory, they say that they have General Flynn by the balls blackmailing him with his son, that Flynn has already surrendered and on Wednesday Trump will be arrested.
I, too, at first succumbed to this propaganda, but then figured out and understood that Winnie the Pooh was right – all is bullshit except the bees!
In short, Flynn confessed in exchange for guarantees to himself and his son that he lied to the FBI investigators, and this makes his possible testimony against Trump useless in a court of law.
You know what it looks like? The trap for the Clintonoids and Hillary has already realized that, and the one who came up with this trap, obviously proficient in judo.
https://www.mensfitness.com/sites/mensfitness.com/files/styles/wide_videos/public/putin-judo-main.jpg?itok=DPe2uqRY
Now the economy and the markets will go crazy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQR0bXO_yI8
Did Michelle Obama breast feed her babies?
Can Americans, please, stop obsessing with sex so much? It’s getting tedious.
You and your $100 blue jeans….
Very well said.
The American Tragedy continues to unfold.
How long did it take for mammals (such as the whale and the dolphin) that evolved from terrestrial mammals into sea mammals to move their noses to the top of their heads?
So as a woman I have to say that while I find it appalling how many men have taken unfair advantage of women and engaged in sexual assault or harassment, it shouldn’t all be laid at the feet of men. When I say that women need to bear some responsibility for what happens I often get disgusted looks and comments from other women. It seems that the only allowable position to take is to believe all women and consider all men to be brutes and rapists at heart.
So here’s what I believe for what it’s worth. I think that heterosexual men are biologically driven to pursue women. It’s the way they are made. It doesn’t mean that they can’t learn to control themselves properly or learn that no means no but there is basic biology here.
Women don’t get a free pass though. They need to recognize that their dress, behavior etc. puts out signals to men. I’m not blaming rape victims or 10 year olds raped by their step-fathers here but I’m talking about women walking around with clothing that leaves little to the imagination. I’m talking about women who put themselves in dubious places such as visiting a man’s hotel room or other places where they will be alone with him. I’m also talking about women who flirt and then are angered by the response. Or those who feel it is acceptable to cop a feel etc but would be angry if a man did the same to them; Garrison Keillor alluded to this in his statement. Why is it ok for a woman to do this to a man and assume it’s acceptable behavior?
I also don’t feel that we need to believe everything any woman says at this point in terms of alleged abuse. Just as we erred by rejecting what Anita Hill had to say about Clarence Thomas way back, we may be swinging too far in the other direction by regarding any allegation made by a woman as truth.
I think that Mayim Bialik was correct in her essay which she got trashed for. I think that VP Pence is correct in his belief in not spending time alone with a woman who isn’t his wife. None of this means that a woman cannot achieve in her career etc. It just recognizes the innate biological differences between men and women. It does seem though as at least among the liberal crowd I know, saying such things gets me practically tarred and feathered.
They need to recognize that their dress, behavior etc. puts out signals to men.
Signals? Mountain Gal, if only you’d seen what I’d seen…
Mountain gal,
I too believe that women should exercise wisdom!
Jen in San Jose
P.S. When my daughter headed off to college, I gave her heartfelt advice to stay far, far away from fraternities. Under no circumstances was she to go to a frat house unless she was accompanied by a reliable friend who would stick by her at all times. But as a fine arts major, she ended up sticking with the art crowd, thankfully.
Jen, extremely good advice to your daughter.
It’s like the feminists say, women ought to be able to dress as they please. And I ought to be able to leave the front-door unlocked and I ought to not have to worry about identity theft and I ought to be able to leave the keys in the ignition. But I can’t.
There such a thing as the FACTS OF LIFE which our moms and grandmoms used to talk about. Which you imparted no doubt to your offspring. Good for you. It’s called reality-based thinking deployed to the defense of your most important priority.
Even given the sterling good character of the younger generation and even given all the good intentions, shit happens.
And young men and young women and alcohol do not mix very well. Then seriously bad shit happens.
Yes. I know of a young woman who has protested mightily to her concerned mother that she should be able to dress as she pleases and walk anywhere at any time. And yes, I suppose in an ideal world that would be the case. But we don’t live in an ideal world and her current “wardrobe” of skimpy provocative clothing coupled with her belief that she can go anywhere she chooses has her mother rightly worried.
And yes, alcohol is another factor. Have seen so many young women totally blitzed. They have no clue how vulnerable they are in that condition.
“Dress as she pleases” – as if there is no one else in the world. Or not: Why, pray tell, does a woman want to wear a skirt up to her pubic hair or show cleavage? She’s trying to influence, awe, excite, or elicit admiration in men and/or other women.
Dressing is a social act, especially when you dress in very unusual ways or ways that are overtly sexual. Do they even realize it? Consciously maybe, maybe not. Unconsciously they are trying to accomplish something. As Jung says, much “thinking” (if you want to call it that) is subconscious.
Men can become intensely annoyed or angered by being shown fruit the woman has no intention of actually providing. Princess Hijab, a young Muslima graffiti artist who defaces billboards by drawing a veil on feminine faces, calls such behavior “visual terrorism”.
The woman herself may be intensely annoyed by the attention she is getting from “jerks” and “losers”. She only wants men She’s interested in to look at her. All others can fuck off and die or be prosecuted for rape. In other words, such a woman harbors profoundly anti-social attitudes.
Janos, I hope you’re sitting down because I agree with you (and the posters above), if not quite so robustly! I have occasion to walk home from the city centre at night sometimes and pass a local ‘club’ near which there are often groups of young women clustered around the ATM withdrawing money, dressed in what looks more or less like their underwear. Beyond tacky, apart from anything else. I realise that the pornification of society, however, which exacerbates these trends, is not down to the women, but still…
Even the length of the skirts worn by 14/15-year olds to school make me cringe. When my own daughters were at secondary school in the 90s they wore a uniform (loosely defined), this being the UK, but the fashion for the girls, was loose black trousers much the same as the boys’ trousers, and clumpy black lace-up shoes/boots in the Doc Martens style. And much more suitable it was for school.
Volodya is quite right – expect the best but prepare for the worst. So if I leave my door open and get burgled I’m not to blame for the burglary but I am for the lack of foresight.
I am also happy to accept the paradox that (a) men shouldn’t take advantage of drunk women (nor should they steal the wallets of drunk men!), but (b) at the same time we don’t get a pass for other things we do when drunk, so it’s women’s own responsibility to not to get so drunk that they are not able to take care of themselves.This does not apply to having your drink spiked, which is a whole other issue.
Alba
C’mon, cite some more rape statistics…
Indeed Janos. We more or less agree on this subject. It’s pretty complicated as the women dressing this way do indeed want attention as you suggest, but they only want attention from whomever they are interested in and in the form they desire. Which gets pretty complicated for the multitudes of men I suppose. So yes, it would be better for all concerned if women didn’t dress like hookers and recognized the impact of their fashion choices. And if they dress like a hooker and get treated like one…….. Mixed and unclear messages lead to no end of trouble.
This Russia collusion stuff is getting tiresome.
There’s some obvious questions the Clintons and their Deep State allies haven’t answered:
Q: Why would the Trump presidential campaign collude with Russians, why ask for Russian assistance?
A: The answer ought to be self-evident, the Russians have no special expertise or knowledge, they have no skills that don’t already exist in the US and so the natural conclusion is that there’s no reason for Trump to collude with Russians, especially for the purpose of spreading misinformation.
Americans, after all, are already highly accomplished liars and Americans know what pushes the right buttons (especially Trump and that ought to be abundantly obvious) much more so than the Russians.
Q: Why would Putin want Trump as President instead of Hillary?
A: The answer again ought to be self-evident, Putin would naturally want the war-mongering, internationally meddlesome Hillary as President to bolster his own position in Russia. Hillary would be a made-to-order opponent to Putin and would be that natural foreign enemy every despot needs.
Q: Why would a special counsel NOT investigate the Clinton Foundation taking 145 million dollars while Hillary was secretary of state in connection to the sale of uranium assets to Russian interests?
Why would a special counsel NOT investigate the cover up of this fact of taking money?
Why would a special counsel NOT investigate Bill for taking a half million dollars from Russians in connection to this same sale?
A: The answer ought to be self-evident, follow the money. ESPECIALLY follow the money. In the case of the Clintons there’s a lot of it.
The claim is that the timing of the payments was coincidence and not in exchange for approval of the Russian purchase. The problem is that the explanation is laughable to anyone not born yesterday. The claim that Hillary wasn’t involved in the approval process invites disbelief in any reasonable person.
Q: If you’re looking for collusion with Russians in the electoral process why would a special counsel NOT investigate the payment by Democrats of millions of dollars for dirt on Trump from Russian sources?
A: The answer ought to be self-evident on this too, it requires investigation by a special counsel because this is all about collusion with Russians and the sources for the dirt were Russian. And it makes more sense for Russians to help Hillary than to help Trump.
If the claim is that of Russian involvement with Republicans, then it would behoove any serious investigator to also dig into the involvement of Democrats (ie the Podestas) with Russian interests and Oligarchs.
Are there any serious investigators out there? I doubt it. They all look like a joke to me, ludicrously so, starting but not ending with that preposterous Comey.
What a pile of crap!
Couldn’t it just be that Putin didn’t want a nuclear war with America under an extraordinarily belligerent Neo-Liberal like Hillary Clinton?
Trump, despite what his detractors imagine, is far more nuanced in this regard – much to the disgust of the Neo-Cons.
To me Putin seems far more rational than almost all American politicians. Being so wildly popular, he doesn’t have to worry as much about being elected may be part of it. Of course the countries of Eastern Europe may be right not to trust him. By his own words, he says the breakup of the Soviet Union was the greatest tragedy of recent history.
Alan Dershowitz totally agrees with Finca on Michael Flynn’s guilty plea – he’s useless as a witness to prosecute the President!
http://video.foxnews.com/v/5665519900001/#sp=show-clips
Big time fuck up:
ABC retracted their story that candidate Trump directed Flynn to contact the Russians.
Morons (ABC that is)
Regarding this part of today’s post:
“In the meantime, adults of the two sexes — and there are two sexes, not thirty-two — ”
Gender is a continuum. The following genotypes have been identified so far:
XX – what we call female
XY – what we call male
XO – Turner syndrome
XXY
XYY
…and there are more
There are many variants in gender determination. So let’s not make this into some sort of black and white, male and female. Nature is messy.
Peace…
What was the gender mix of the Red Army Soldier who hoisted the Soviet flag over the Reichstag?
XXX
A lot of those variations are flaws. Nice try. The extra Y may be for the Warrior Caste. Pacifism is absurd by your own genetic ideology. Ditto for all notions of equality.
The question isn’t whether there are two sexes. The distribution of biological sex is strongly bimodal (to put it mildly) and always will be. But biology is complex, and the ‘biology, duh!’ attitude, or dismissing transsexualism as ‘sexual confusion’ is extremely unhelpful. Some people don’t quite fit in for reasons that are not under their control. So you can call that two sexes, which most people do, or you can call it a continuum, except that only applies to a small minority.
The actual question is whether the small minority who don’t fit the binary have a place in the society, one that other people recognize, or they don’t. I say they should, and lots of people agree with me. All the rest of the LGGBDTT2SIQQAAPP business is a mass of increasingly arcane details, and has clearly exhausted whatever productive value it once had in terms of gaining acceptance from the wider society.
A society exists to serve the needs of its members. It should not be used as a weapon against a few of its members because they make a few other of its members uncomfortable, unless there is some real harm at stake. And most of the harms people proclaim (this means you, Janos) are slanders with no basis in reality.
Most men who dress up as women are heterosexual. Proponents of gender neutral public bathrooms know this very well, eh? I think you know it too. Thus? I call malice on you and yours. You are fine with putting girls and women in harms way as long as the Principle and Agenda of EQUALITY is furthered.
Nothing is equal with anything else except at the level of number of at the other end of the spectrum, all things having Buddha nature. Within the spectrum, the idea of equality is a useful abstraction for some purposes, as in law and mathematics. But the way you people use it is simply Anti-Life, a procrustean bed where people are either stretched or truncated unto dismay and death.
Inquiring dogs want to know:
Got any percentages to show how many of these variants exist?
The second question I have is what percentage of trannies have one of the genetic variants?
I think that the emotional development of LGGBDTT2SIQQAAPP children is important. (That is: the lesbian, gay, genderqueer, bisexual, demisexual, transgender, transsexual, two-spirit, intersex, queer, questioning, asexual, allies, pansexual, and polyamorous movement)
You left out a slew of “love is love” categories Puck including Bestiality, Incest, Necrophilia, Klismaphilia and a mounting wave of Technosexuality!
https://www.thesun.co.uk/living/2727304/meet-harmony-the-first-sex-robot-to-offer-an-emotional-connection-with-her-human-lover-and-shes-on-sale-very-soon/
Be sure to bring some KY for you and synthetic (natch) 20W50 for your partner.
Tax reform is about to become a reality, Thank God. The middle class has suffered enough. It’s a good thing that the average American can buy food, clothing, and an education by cashing in those stock dividends we receive, otherwise we’d be screwed. After all these years I realize that the Republicans really are the party of the middle class. Thank you, Republicans. I’m sorry I said all those rude things about you previously. The biggest problem we faced was having Obama for eight years, which interrupted the fiscal miracles we were experiencing under GWBush. But now we can continue enjoying the cornucopia just like Obama never was there, and we have Trump & the Republicans to thank for continuing on with the exact same policies that brought us to 2008.
Blah, blah, blah BS and no specifics. Tell me exactly how the Republicon tax plan will aid the middle class? Such as elimination of the mortgage deduction or elimination of deductions for charitable contributions? Of course, mortgages are not common to the Middle Class. So screw the working poor, screw people in higher tax blue states, screw SBO, and screw the not-for-profit organizations that help so many people and the environment (Republican charity- oxymoron).
I guess you don’t recognize sarcasm when you see it.
Then my apologies.
Yes, and the crash of 2008 which was handed to Obama on his first day in office led to so many interesting and dynamic experiences I can’t wait to do it again. I recall the unemployment that resulted gave me a lot of time to think and combined with some self-discipline and enough to eat, made me a better dog.
That what does not kill you will make you stronger.
Kesa Anna to be fair the US had a role in winning WW2.
But, for ideological reasons, it took two generations to fully acknowledge that it was the USSR that bore the brunt of the fighting in the European theater and it was the USSR that was mostly responsible for the defeat of Germany.
What we haven’t yet seen (or at least I haven’t yet seen) is acknowledgement of China’s role in the war against Imperial Japan.
It was Asians that suffered millions of dead (mostly civilian) at the hands of the Japanese Army. And we forget that Japan had hundreds of thousands of troops bogged down fighting mostly Chiang Kai Shek’s army (and not the Communists). It was partly because of this that the commies under Mao didn’t make a big deal about the Chinese effort – it wasn’t a communist effort. China did get a permanent seat on the UN security council but that was about it.
And here, to be fair, the drop of two nukes surely had some persuasive effects and so did the obliteration of large urban areas via conventional bombing. What people forget is that the biggest single slaughter wasn’t via a nuke but by one bombing raid of Tokyo (at least according to what I’ve read).
Now we’re seeing China say ok enough of this we want our due. This has got a way to go to play out. I wish I could live long enough. But the Chinese don’t have two and four year election cycles. They play a much longer game.
Are things bothering you a bit too much lately?
That Trump’s taxes are going to go up (so he says) after the tax bill passes?
Are you unsure now about your gender and how you should be classified?
Are you punching the wall or your “loved” one because Hillary is getting away with it while the hounds are at Trump’s heels?
Are you worried that the country’s social fabric is fraying all too fast?
That the environment is getting worse or that your money may soon be worthless?
This may bring you peace:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/meet-elon-musk-assisted-suicide-130003176.html
tusconspurtotheanimalmagics,
I’m answering, “nope” to all of these concerns… because they’re all eminently expected for those of us paying attention. Prepare accordingly, and as for Elon the musk-scented (may heaven and all the angles praise his holey name), I trust he’ll be one of the first to whack his-own-self.
Musk would love the Sarco. He’d want moon landing capabilities for those just sooo tired of this world.
I agree that the charge against Garrison Keillor is ridiculous and apparently MPR has some agenda we don’t know about. But the rest of you guys need to be womansplained. We women know the difference between a pass and some guy pawing us. And co-eds returning to the fraternity parties again and again is not rape. You damn well know that.
Every woman has had to deal with unwanted attention but many women just don’t know how to stand up for themselves. It may be their upbringing (be polite, etc.). My parents did not teach me how to stand up for myself but I was lucky enough to do it naturally (along with taking ju-jitsu). And I have a big mouth when needed. So when the guy I was living with tried to hit me one day, I told him if he tried it again I would put a knife in his heart.
P.S. I learned ju-jitsu in college, which taught self-defense for women. And that was 50 years ago. It’s a class that needs to be reinstated, probably in middle school….
“… tried to hit me one day, I told him if he tried it again I would put a knife in his heart.”
sharonsj
All that for “hitting” on you? I hope you mean he groped. pawed or otherwise tried to have non-consensual heavy petting or intercourse with you. Do you think a slap in the face would have quelled his ardor? A swift kick to the family jewels?
Did the offending masher move after that or did you become famous friends?
I was always lead to believe that “hitting on someone” meant to try and talk, seduce, coax, or tease, by verbal and extra-discursive methods (eating and drinking, cinema, boating, bowling, beach etc.) not including groping; with the exception of taking someone dancing where the frame, touching, and other frottage, is part and parcel of the activity. Don’t like being cheek to cheek? Then dancing (and I know very few females who don’t love to go dancing) should be off the menu.
Guys will do just about anything to get intimate (have sex) with an individual of sensual and sexual interest. Gentlemen and most guys know where the boundary of proper behavior is.
Criminals, barbarians swine, and many Third Worlders don’t know and don’t care about any socially constructed parameters for acceptable behavior particularly when it comes to sex.
With the compartmentalization and diminishment of Human social interaction skills, here at the advent of the A.I. Age, I suspect that the number of person of both sexes will not and do not have the proper information to be able to have successful mating rituals and activities – including hitting on some one. Perhaps we are seeing this now in the non-replacement birth rates in First World nations East and West.
And under every circumstance, it is always good to have a martial art, and the will to use it, in Mind.
Hi Pequiste
The poster said he tried to * hit* her, not that he tried to hit on her.
OOOOOPS.
So right you are GreenAlba. I miss read and even quoted correctly and still got it wrong.
Please accept my apologies sharonsj.
Good post anyway despite the mistake. Self defense expert Marc “Animal” MacYoung says that women often escalate conflicts instead defusing them. Of course she might get away with stabbing a boyfriend to death after being hit. You or I would not get away with this in regards to a women or another man.
what about Garcia in SF and the Steinle verdict?
An abomination of course. Completely political and against Trump – and beyond that, a proclamation that it’s open season on Whites. Thank God Trump is not going to let it slide and may attempt to bring Federal charges against this Hispanic animal.
Jesus wept, pesky!,
That was as tone-deaf a “response” as about any I’ve ever seen around here… and that’s sayin’ somethin’.
Great googley-moogley, try and temper the sarcasm with a bit of “what’s really going on”. It ain’t a ‘free speech’ kinda thing, it’s an “I’m an asshole that no one can trust because I possess zero empathy” kinda thing.
…Or we could just do away with any kind of constraints/mores. If that’s fine wit’choo, I’ll take the cue, among a large bunch of others that I’ve gleaned from this “interesting” comment section. (Not here, who cares about this shit/shirt? …But just in case you should visit… bring appropriate tribute, or fun may ensue.)
pequiste,
I stand corrected. Period.
Take heed anyway; you now know my personal limits. Fine for some; concerning for others.
***In the context of this particular blather-space, I’m sorry for giving any grist for the mill of trollery that is guaranteed to be seized upon. In the [quite mortal] words of Jackie Gleason: “…And awaaaay we go!!”
Hillary Clinton Coup d’etat 2.0
Yes, exactly, yesterday, a very serious attempt at a coup d’etat took place, ala what happened on June 10, 2016. Except for the obvious difference that this attempt failed miserably because Bastinda got caught in a trap prepared in advance by Trump.
1. After Michael Flynn signed an agreement with the investigation, confessing to the FBI lies, the value of all his further testimony against Trump in a court of law is zero or even negative.
2. Any attempt to use his testimony against Kushner is doomed to failure, as he has already stated that all contacts with Ambassador Kislyak were made by him not as a representative of candidate Trump, but as a representative of the elected president Trump, which make them non-substantive of Logan Act, that was last time used 200 years ago and was activated by Hillary Clinton through illegal procedure.
And the very fact that they did not put forward this argument earlier says that Trump specially prepared this trap for Hillary Clinton, and quite a long time, probably in March 2017.
And the fact that these arguments were immediately supported by a number of prominent Jewish lawyers and at the same time other Jewish lawyers suddenly declared that the Kiev regime frankly glorifies the “heroes” of the Lvov ghetto and the Babi Yar, says that what is happening is the above-water part of the iceberg, and Trump understands, that any deal with Hillary is suicidal.
3. As a result of yesterday’s events, Trump’s popularity has even increased, because now not only his base, but all sane people see that this whole investigation is an attempt to cancel the choice of the American people, and Flynn’s recognition hits primarily Clinton, since now the question arises why Flynn was forced to lie to the FBI, hiding actions that were completely legal, and blackmailing him with his son looks like pure criminal and gangster tactic, and is an excellent reason for the dismissal of special prosecutor Mueller.
True, I think that this is an excellent reason for his arrest, and in place of Trump, I would use this circumstance to glorify Mueller as a hero who will reveal the receipt of bribes by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, including in the case of Uranium One.
4. Kim Jong-un knew about the preparation of the coup in the USA, since the choice of time to demonstrate the ability of the North Korean Strategic Missile Forces to deliver nuclear strikes at any point on the territory of the United States simply has no other explanation.
5. The American business is furious at the Mueller commission because someone from this commission, a few hours before the announcement of the summons with the guilt of General Flynn, shorted all the major indices and the Dow Jones collapsed by more than 300 points, and the smart ass pocketed several hundred billion dollars.
Hey, Ozone, didn’t you read that one either? Not even peeped?
All I can say on the subject of our current media frenzy is… sex always sells.
“will you finally shut up about it and stop cluttering up this comments section” –The Articulate Infant
Well, since you asked so nicely: yes.
Sometimes this place is more fun than reading a MAD Magazine! Almost 500 comments at this point, was there not a song lyric along the line “I am amazed but not amused”?
Hope all are well
wm
Lorenzo
2 weeks ago
LIST of 15 Jobs Disappear for the lazy (What our SOCIETY should stop working on):
1. Drivers
2. Farmers
3. Printers & Publishers
4. Cashiers
5. Travel Agents
6. Manufacturing workers
7. Dispatcher
8. Waiting Tables & Bartending
9. Bank Tellers
10. Military Pilots & Soldiers
11. Fast Food Workers
12. Telemarketer
13. Accountants & Tax Preparers
14. Stock Traders
15. Construction Workers
I found this list. feel free to disagree.
I hope auto driving autos dont happen soon.
Prostitute needs to be added to the list.
Latex and robots is what it is going to be. It is the natural consequence of the isolation of modern life and the consequent social awkwardness bred by isolation and inhuman electronic socialization.
The end result will be sex without relationship. As humans can only have sex without a relationship if they are a subject of power to an oppressor, humans must be removed from the equation altogether. Isolation leads to narcissism and solipsism. Disorders which prevent people from hooking up. When normal sex becomes nothing more than a power relationship and the details difficult for an average damaged person work out; the decent thing to do will be to switch to machines.
The future is here -> https://secure.realdoll.com/
And latex won’t get you fired.
social awkwardness bred from men deathly afraid of approaching women.
Poor old Garrison. My personal opinion is that a vast conspiracy exists against Keillor, composed solely of folks driven insane by his awful singing voice.
I just turned off his show in about 1990, when it began to repeat itself. I could always turn down the radio when he sang, just to stay tuned for his story at the end. Those often were pure magic.
TV: Oh, what’s going on!!!
Financial monitoring tracked suspicious shorts and bets for lowering the stock indices, made two hours before the articles on admitting guilt by General Flynn, of a total of 32 billion dollars. The gains on these bets after the appearance of these articles amounted to more than $200 billion.
Meanwhile, information about the admittance of guilt by General Flynn, published on Friday, was bogus. Several journalists have already been dismissed, the newspapers apologized, but the victims demand a full-scale investigation of the incident by the Securities Commission, as law enforcement agencies again do not want to deal with this matter, just as they were not supposed to deal with secret information from the Hillary Clinton illegal server under the leadership of Director Comey.
Trump, in this connection, expressed regret that he had to dismiss General Flynn from the post of National Security Adviser, since the general did not do anything illegal while meeting with Russian Ambassador Kislyak. And the Clintonoids on the basis of this tweet demand to declare Trump crazy and Trump’s lawyer makes a statement that this tweet was issued with his consent and on his advice.
Like try calling me crazy!
The gains on these bets after the appearance of these articles amounted to more than $200 billion
The rest of you, just keep doing the good job!, thank you!
As a women who has suffered everything from groping to sexual assault (and worse) I have this to say, I am happy that men’s over-the-top inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace is being called out. It’s about DAMN TIME!!! And “no” Jim K. I don’t agree with you on this count. Yes, men will continue to make a pass, initiate contact, but that’s wholly different than a CEO whipping out his “junk” while you are at work and lording power of you to do something else you may lose your job.
On the other hand, these sexual misdeeds exist on a continuum, like traffic violations, some are worthy of citation (Keillor) others, being charged with a misdemeanor (Franken) or losing a license (Lauer).
We seem to be on the verge of McCarthy-esque tactics applied to ALL men’s personal behavior without regard for the subtle, but important differences between trying to sex, uncomfortable, undesirable behavior and out-and-out sexual assault.
Groping, sexual harassment and assault are terrible things but not all cases rise to the level of actual assault. Feeling uncomfortable is not assault and some women have a low bar for what constitutes assault.
In many of these men’s case it seems extreme to fire them based on one (or more) person’s complaint(s) without due process. And “no” I am not condoning or defending all the men who have been accused; many deserve to lose their jobs for sure. I am, however, calling out that perhaps they should not all lose their jobs. It’s a grey-area thing, and we’d be wise to understand that or we may end up where we started, not believed.
A bot’s cry of desperation. Give us some more!
No, this comment is well thought out. The author presents well measured arguments. Bots do not.
M2inSF could be: Me Too In San Fransisco. I guess here, but a bot is unlikely to be so clever.
I realize this statement coming from me is unexpected but the fact is not everybody posting here is a troll, government or otherwise though at times it can seem that way.
Thus far, the reporting in this case presents a far from complete picture. That alone, however, already makes it different in both degree and kind from the recent Hollywood power abuse scandals, as this blog rightly observes. The most egregious and shameful injury here is that inflicted upon the general culture by the instantaneous and wholesale removal of a vast on-line archive of wit, humor and insight.
Mea Culpa
Well, Alba, I owe you an apology. The below comment, I misattributed to you;
“Unwanted sexual advances, or visual, verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature is sexual harassment, and should be treated as such”
That misapplication, coupled with your serial use of the word misogynist as describing several unnamed members of the site has driven me to dudgeon. I researched your comments through the last several weeks and found your comments well within reason regarding the topic of sexual harassment.
While I still find a number of your comments dismissive, I do…apologize.
Thanks, elysianfield. I really respect and appreciate that. I would never say anything that silly or snowflake-y!
Likewise I will refrain from the use of the ‘m’ word, which I think I’ve only used on one thread anyway. I really only think to use it if people make blanket statements that women must be guilty of whatever purely on the basis that they are women (the opposite would be true too, before Janos pops by with some whataboutery!) Individuals should be judged on their own individual merits/actions etc., whether male or female. My own personal world is mostly just full of ordinary, hard-working people (both sexes) doing their best by one another.
But cheers, elysianfield. A hearty dose of goodwill has just wended its way to you through the ether.
Writing for the Toronto Star February 25, 1922, Ernest Hemingway.
“Paris.
Paris is full of Russians at present. The Russian ex-aristocracy are scattered all over Europe, running restaurants in Rome, tearooms on Capri, working as hotel porters in Nice and Marseilles and as laborers along the Mediterranean shipping centers. But those Russians who managed to bring some money or possessions with them seem to have flocked to Paris.
They are drifting along in Paris in a childish sort of hopefulness that things will somehow be all right, which is quite charming when you first encounter it and rather maddening after a few months. No one knows just how they live except it is by selling off jewels and gold ornaments and family heirlooms that they brought with them to France when they fled before the revolution.
According to the manager of a great jewel house on the Rue de la Paix, pearls have come down in price because of the large numbers of beautiful pearls that have been sold to Parisian jewel buyers by the Russian refugees. It is true that many Russians are living fairly lavishly in Paris at present on the sale of jewels they have brought with them in their exile.
Just what the Russian colony in Paris will do when all the jewels are sold and all the valuables pawned is somewhat of a question. It is usually impossible for a large body of people to support themselves indefinitely by borrowing money, although a few people enjoy a great success at it for a time. Of course things may change in Russia, something wonderful might happen to aid the Russian colony. There is a cafe on the Boulevard Montparnasse where a great number of Russians gather every day for this something wonderful to happen and then, eventually, like all the rest of the world, the Russians of Paris may have to go to work. It seems a pity, they are such a charming lot.”
I want to change the last part.
Just what the xxxxxxx(groper) colony in xxxxx(America) will do when all the jewels are sold and all the xxxx xxxxxxxx bank accounts drained is somewhat of a question. It is usually impossible for a large body of people to support themselves indefinitely by borrowing money, although a few people enjoy a great success at it for a time. Of course things may change in xxxxxxx(America), something wonderful might happen to aid the xxxxxxx(groper) colony. There is a xxxx(park) on xxxxxxx(5th Avenue) where a great number of xxxxxxx(gropers) gather every day for this something wonderful to happen and then, eventually, like all the rest of the world, the xxxxxxxx(Gropers) of xxxxxxx(America) may have to go to work. It seems a pity, they are such a charming lot.
Double the pity since this charming lot can’t work. The last line has to be totally re-written.
I find I am not surprised that our common mold casts no concern on these charming groper unemployed. These men have enough so their bank accounts will last a long time unless they are stupid and nobody cares about stupid. The green eyed monster lives.
Yet those we don’t hear about do not have jewels to pawn. Caught up in the hysteria the more common unknown accused groper, the average Joe groper will not be able to work a normal job again. Too late this year to drive camper trailers to Finley Nevada to work Christmas at Amazon for 11 bucks an hour; perhaps the fantasy of Jeff Bezos being accused of groping can feed their green eyed monsters. A fantasy so powerful they can forget Bezos won’t have to work at all, ever.
For them, double the pity.
Our common mold has rewarded many with unearned riches and an assumption that money is easy to get. In modern life most of what money is used for are unessential goods and services and consequently the value and function of money is not fully appreciated. From these two facts a cavalier disregard for the needs of accused men to work has resulted.
A correct response would be to insist on due process before depriving someone of their livelihood. That is not going to happen.
The uninhabited Earth
Listen, by accident I clicked on your avatar and was dismayed – I found myself to be the LAST HUMAN BEING on this planet Earth!
I urge you to remove the image of rotating globe showing your visitors – it is TERRIFYING!
Hemingway was a great admirer of the Soviet Union to the extent he volunteered to spy for the NKVD, Code Name: Argo. He was a lifelong apologist — like Dashiell Hammett, Lilian Hellman, Dalton Trumbo and dozens of others — for mass murder inside Russia by the Bolshevik government, passing them off as provocations, lies and anti Soviet propaganda. But he knew better.
BRH
Good News: Trump’s tax Bill doubles the standard individual income tax deduction for a LGGBDTT2SIQQAAPP filers.
The tax deduction for employing your progeny is yuuuuuuuuuuugggge
How much of this is hidden? I’d like to find Mueller’s map. The one that shows where all the skeletons were buried, mostly between 2001 and 2013.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/mueller-removed-fbi-agent-russia-probe-anti-trump-050626686.html
What a clear headed column this week, Jim. Why other opinion makers aren’t making the same point on CNN, or the Washington Post, or even in our local media, I don’t know.
The Long Emergency can’t come soon enough (and we’re already in it) Put an end to all this nonsense we have to endure every day.
brh
The “Christian” churches in Silicon Valley have weird names.
We Interrupt the CFN for a Sunday special edition of Celebrity Perv.
Could anyone imagine that the legendary conductor of the New York City Opera is a winning contestant?
Well, he is!
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/02/arts/music/james-levine-sexual-misconduct-met-opera.html
I can hear Don Giovanni in the background or is it Abduction from the Seralio?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrFbiw77_90
GreenAlba is responsible for 103 of the 564 comments posted thus far and none are particularly profound nor brilliant in their use of language. They also contain many errors/typos. I don’t know why but I found her spelling of Janos’s last name as Skorensky particularly bothersome.
Damn Q.! keeping stats now too? Good work!
@QShtik
In the interests of comprehensiveness you might like to include:
JHK posts read to date: c. 500 (estimate)
Total GA comments: let’s say 250 (I haven’t counted them, I’m guessing – could well be less)
Average comments per session: 0.5
The total would have to be 500 for it even to reach 1 per session. That would surprise me, but you’re the one with time on your hands, clearly.
Always good to have the full story.
I haven’t commented on today’s post. It’s been more fun just reading the more interesting comments. After a few posts that ever so slightly disturb the echo chamber, someone pipes up with ‘anyone else noticed an increase in the number of left-wing trolls today?’ or something similar, even though these are just a small number of people proposing a different perspective.
If you’re a community that isn’t broadminded enough to cope with any variations in perspective that’s a shame, because it’s an interesting blog otherwise.
Liberalism is never having to consider forgiveness.
NPR’s state affiliate in Minnesota has completed the Stalinesque work of expunging the legacy of the now disgraced former creative genius behind and host of “P****** H*** C********” now renamed “Town Hall.”
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/news/4368546-prairie-home-companion-becomes-town-hall-chris-thile-says-live-show
I hope the Somalis of Minneapolis, St Paul will take advantage of the zeitgeist in the land of 10,000 lakes and protest to have the name of the program altered to reflect the new Minnesota reality: “Mogadishu Town Hall.” Al Franken says he’d be tickled to guest host the new and improved, more diverse and inclusive, culturally sensitive formatted show. Mandolins, banjos, Lake Wobegon stories and that guy who makes all the weird sound effects are so 20th century North America. Good riddance.
Minnesota, sounds like quite a place.
About 3 years ago there was this distinguished Somali, living in St Paul. He joined ISIS in Africa, leaving 3 wives and 19 children behind in Minnesota living off the welfare system.
The last true Indian battle took place in Northern Minnesota in 1898, Chippewa against the 6th Infantry. What was interesting about it is the army was armed with the new Krag bolt action rifle, and the Indians had Winchester 1894s, both using modern smokeless powder and high speed small bore rounds. The battle was a draw.
brh
What do you know about the Buddhist Monk with the squeaky shoes?
Wasn’t there an episode of “Kung Fu” in which Grasshopper gropes a white woman?
Einstein and Duchamp turned out to be right again
As you know, there is no such silliness that humanity would not have put on a pedestal, if this silliness helps making money or subordinate other people to its power.
In this sense, the famous Fountain by Marcel Duchamp, which was created in 1917 to argue with Man Ray, that the Open Society of Independent Artists will refuse to take it to the exhibition is noteworthy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp)
Then this used urinal was thrown out, but in the 40s and 50s Duchamp again argued for this urinal that he would make it a great work of art and sell for a million bucks just to prove that the main quality of any work of art in America is a price tag.
Together with his friends from Yale University, he developed a whole theory about a special artistic space, getting into which the urinal turns into a work of art, and won a bet by selling several urinals immersed in the artistic space for humongous amounts of money.
But the funny thing is that this theory has become stronger, has taken roots, has spawned other trends in art that develop or refute this theory, and now telling serious art historians that it was originally a joke is useless – what kind of joke can be if a person sold an ordinary used urinal for a million dollars?!
But an even more ridiculous situation, very similar to Duchamp’s used urinal, has developed in modern science and is now rapidly seizing industry, getting ready to become a powerful economic factor.
In 1935, Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen formulated the EPR paradox, which was supposed to show the absurdity of quantum mechanics.
Their article “Can the quantum-mechanical description of physical reality be considered complete?” Was published in No. 47 of the Physical Review, and it described an undeniable thought experiment in which the Heisenberg uncertainty principle fails.
But in the same year a big joker Schrödinger came up with a kind of “entanglement” state with which he “unraveled” the paradox by entangling quantum mechanics so much that Richard Feynman had no choice but to interpret it using the “shut up and calculate” method.
This method was so successful that a few months ago physicists managed to build a quantum time machine and now if they manage to entangle the atoms of the body of the grandson with the atoms of his grandmother’s body, the grandson can finally return to the past and kill his grandmother before she gives birth to his parents.
But the most interesting is that the result of this experiment is anxiously awaiting the entire computer industry and the world community, because it is on the effect of entanglement is the main idea of the so-called quantum computers rests.
The power of these computers is so great that soon the total amount of grants awarded for the discovery of the Higgs boson will be finally tallied up, the Navier-Stokes equations for the F-35 fighter jet attacking North Korea will be solved numerically, and the citizens of Russia will finally enjoy pornography so realistic that real sex will no longer interest them, Putin’s fertility program will miserably fail, he will lose the election and Hillary Clinton will finally be able to overthrow Trump, who’d lose his main if not the only support in the person of President Putin.
You understand that after such results no one will remember what the EPR paradox was formulated for, just as nobody now remembers why Duchamp started making his urinals.
Disgusting!
Manhattan equity director mauled to death by shark while scuba diving off Costa Rican coast – rogue shark shunned by tiger shark community for “totally blatant sexual assault”
A Manhattan private equity director was killed by a shark while scuba diving off the coast of Costa Rica, authorities said. Rohina Bhandari, 49, was identified by friends as the American tourist who was attacked by a tiger shark off of remote Isla del Coco Thursday.
Members of the local tiger shark community were reacted strongly the news.
Tigress, a female tiger shark acquaintance of the rogue shark, said she spoke for the entire community when she said expressed her outrage at what she called, “clearly an unnecessary, unprovoked, and totally blatant sexual assault.”
“Tiger, as he was called by the locals, has repeatedly let his sexual appetites get the best of him, and simply being hungry for a meal in no way excuses him from responsibility for this horrible act against all of femmedom. There are plenty of tasty morsels in the ocean, so the fact that he chose to focus on this beautiful example of femininity is indicative that he’s so much worse than a mere ocean going predator, but a low down despicable sexual predator as well. He might be well fed, but it will be a cold day in the Marianas Trench before this sexist asshole gets any more shark pussy, I can tell you that!”
In the linked photo, Ms. Bhandari is seen being felt up by Jeffrey Rosenthal in 2014.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-woman-mauled-death-shark-costa-rican-coast-article-1.3673377