Do women have an absolute right to abortion? I see a lot of opinions on this subject. Over and over, abortion rights supporters insist that people without vaginas shouldn't be allowed to tell people with vaginas what they can and cannot do with them.
People who oppose abortion are a bunch of men who just want to control women's reproduction.
If one assumes that a woman has the right to an abortion, the basis for that is that the woman is to be the parent. Then one must confer the right to an abortion upon the father, as well. If the mother has the right to unilateral right to terminate her pregnancy, this right should also belong to the father.
But a woman doesn't need the father's consent or even his notification to get an abortion.
If that is because "it's her body," that doesn't make sense. If she were to carry the baby to term, and sue for child support, then the father can be compelled to support a child he didn't consent to. His body will be broken on the wheel of capitalism to pay for the child. So it's not just her body that will be immolated in the cauldron of reproduction.
You could say that the guy should have been responsible enough to "keep it in his pants."
Females who get pregnant and intend to terminate are guilty of the same irresponsibility. We aren't even allowed to stigmatize a woman who aborts her baby because it came along at an inconvenient time. We have been conditioned to accept abortion as a form of birth control.
Maybe women who abort pregnancies out of convenience should be sterilized.
I guess I am just a dudebro neckbeard who want's to control women's reproduction. They don't appear to have earned that level of responsibility. We have conferred a legal right to a class of people unable to control their reproduction without taking a human life.
Monday, August 31, 2015
Friday, August 28, 2015
First Person Shooter
Twitter is such a depressing place when there is a well-publicized shooting. Everybody has their agenda, and it never includes consideration for the people who've had a huge hole blown through their lives. Her name was Allison Parker. His name was Adam Ward. I have wanted to leave this story alone out of respect for them, but I cannot continue to hold my tongue.
All anyone on the left wants to talk about was how we need more gun control, background checks, waiting periods, what have you. The man who purchased the gun used to attack Parker and Ward, passed a background check. Many on the left are advocating for repeal of the Second Amendment, and confiscation of all firearms. We can't deport ten million illegal aliens, but we can confiscate 300 million firearms?
So it's rational to pay attention to the man who pulled the trigger. I can't get the image on the front page of the New York Daily News out of my head. There are three frames; the first frame has the Glock in the foreground, and the weapon is being trained on Allison Parker. This is from video that the murderer himself took, and uploaded to social media. The second frame shows the muzzle flash, and the third image shows Parker cringing in reaction to the gunfire. Now that I've heard the audio, not by choice I might add, now that I've heard her shrieks, I can imagine what the last moments of her life were like. I'm too empathetic to carry such a burden, and her life deserves more dignity than that.
The murderer admitted that he was motivated by racial animus. "I put down a deposit for a gun on 6/19/15. The Church shooting in Charleston happened on 6/17/15..." In this way, the Charleston shooting and the Roanoke shooting are forever, inextricably linked.
Whatever depths of evil both men lived in, they were surely at opposite ends of the progressive stack. A gay black male occupies the highest position on the progressive stack that is statistically likely to commit murder, save trans. There are protected classes with higher status, but they are all female and statistically unlikely to commit such a crime.
There is not much disputing the theory that the Roanoke killer felt a sense of victimization. "Yes, it will sound like I am angry," he wrote in his manifesto. "I am. And I have every right to be."
It would appear that Sally Kohn agrees that the killer's rage was justified.
It can't be easy to be Sally Kohn. The killer had a rainbow flag in his domicile. There are comparisons to the confederate flag, because many say that the Charleston murderer was inspired by the symbol. Both killers had a malignant sense of alienation.
The Roanoke killer believed he was singled out for abuse because he was a gay black man. His alienation was fed and nurtured by people like Sally Kohn, who always play the victim card. And the next one is already justified, because there is no gay to see here, no racism to see here, move along, crazy guy shouldn't have been able to get a gun, so it goes.
The final point I want to make is about Sally Kohn's tweet about the rainbow flag.
Love and inclusion? Maybe. Also a sense of grievance, and an impulse toward thought totalitarianism. Everybody must love and include homosexuals, or else. The rainbow sticker displayed on a brick-and-mortar establishment is like protection from the gay mafia, a talisman against the rage of the perpetual victim.
All anyone on the left wants to talk about was how we need more gun control, background checks, waiting periods, what have you. The man who purchased the gun used to attack Parker and Ward, passed a background check. Many on the left are advocating for repeal of the Second Amendment, and confiscation of all firearms. We can't deport ten million illegal aliens, but we can confiscate 300 million firearms?
So it's rational to pay attention to the man who pulled the trigger. I can't get the image on the front page of the New York Daily News out of my head. There are three frames; the first frame has the Glock in the foreground, and the weapon is being trained on Allison Parker. This is from video that the murderer himself took, and uploaded to social media. The second frame shows the muzzle flash, and the third image shows Parker cringing in reaction to the gunfire. Now that I've heard the audio, not by choice I might add, now that I've heard her shrieks, I can imagine what the last moments of her life were like. I'm too empathetic to carry such a burden, and her life deserves more dignity than that.
The murderer admitted that he was motivated by racial animus. "I put down a deposit for a gun on 6/19/15. The Church shooting in Charleston happened on 6/17/15..." In this way, the Charleston shooting and the Roanoke shooting are forever, inextricably linked.
Whatever depths of evil both men lived in, they were surely at opposite ends of the progressive stack. A gay black male occupies the highest position on the progressive stack that is statistically likely to commit murder, save trans. There are protected classes with higher status, but they are all female and statistically unlikely to commit such a crime.
There is not much disputing the theory that the Roanoke killer felt a sense of victimization. "Yes, it will sound like I am angry," he wrote in his manifesto. "I am. And I have every right to be."
It would appear that Sally Kohn agrees that the killer's rage was justified.
was mentally unstable AND appears to acted out of sense of victimization i have no reason to believe not justified https://t.co/XPbtw36AM7
— Sally Kohn (@sallykohn) August 27, 2015It can't be easy to be Sally Kohn. The killer had a rainbow flag in his domicile. There are comparisons to the confederate flag, because many say that the Charleston murderer was inspired by the symbol. Both killers had a malignant sense of alienation.
The Roanoke killer believed he was singled out for abuse because he was a gay black man. His alienation was fed and nurtured by people like Sally Kohn, who always play the victim card. And the next one is already justified, because there is no gay to see here, no racism to see here, move along, crazy guy shouldn't have been able to get a gun, so it goes.
The final point I want to make is about Sally Kohn's tweet about the rainbow flag.
Come on!?! The pride flag is about love and inclusion. The confederate flag is about hate and exclusion. https://t.co/ANKHxfb1ZU
— Sally Kohn (@sallykohn) August 27, 2015Love and inclusion? Maybe. Also a sense of grievance, and an impulse toward thought totalitarianism. Everybody must love and include homosexuals, or else. The rainbow sticker displayed on a brick-and-mortar establishment is like protection from the gay mafia, a talisman against the rage of the perpetual victim.
Sun In Virgo
Sagittarius ascendant.
Thursday morning I had another episode of a recently recurring dream. I no longer live in a house. It's now a condo. Sometimes it's a beach condo. It seems like it's always a high-rise.
Last night's condo had many rooms. Allison Williams was my live-in assistant. Not really as housekeeper, or maid, or cook, but like a personal assistant. I was bossing her around.
Near the end of the dream I used a bathroom at the end of a hallway. I didn't actually "use" it so much as look out its window. The window was of irregular shape, and slightly convex, as it was fitted into rock or stone.
The window looked down over a room that featured a sofa and a coffee table shaped like a kidney, sort of a nineteen-sixties art deco design. It was at that moment that I realized I was looking at the bedroom antechamber belonging to my late father. The antechamber was carved out of rock and stone, like a grotto. The bedroom was at a lower, more protected level still deeper in the grotto.
I felt gratitude that my father had bequeathed this place for me to live.
I haven't spent much time really analyzing this dream. On the surface, it seems like a happy dream, and I am excited to be moving and downsizing. My wife is usually present in my mind, as she was last night. The dogs aren't. Maybe this is how I see my life in ten years. Lots of amenities, more resources devoted to taking care of my needs.
I'm being self-indulgent with this post, because it's my birthday. I will be back with my hatin' on feminists and the whole progressive stack later today. There is some Sally Kohn-related bile that is simmering up right this minute.
The struggle that I have sometimes is that I want to focus my thoughts on the essay topic at hand. This helps me to develop insights that add depth. But also sometimes I want to imagine my psyche inside a waterfall. I can hear the water drenching my spirit, and it sounds like a downpour that drowns out all other thoughts, and leaves me renewed and refreshed. That helps to be present, living in the moment, or mindfulness, as they say.
But I will leave the gentle reader with this image from yesterday morning. Two poodles, sitting in the Tacoma; they have no idea they are going to dog beach in Coronado. All they know is that they are going for a ride. They don't know yet that Inara's ball will be stolen, again and again, by a relentless little white dog, whose person was a charming Australian with a toddler boy. They have no idea that very soon they will get wet, get tossed in the surf, and, at land's end, enjoy a rare moment in the present.
Thursday morning I had another episode of a recently recurring dream. I no longer live in a house. It's now a condo. Sometimes it's a beach condo. It seems like it's always a high-rise.
Last night's condo had many rooms. Allison Williams was my live-in assistant. Not really as housekeeper, or maid, or cook, but like a personal assistant. I was bossing her around.
Near the end of the dream I used a bathroom at the end of a hallway. I didn't actually "use" it so much as look out its window. The window was of irregular shape, and slightly convex, as it was fitted into rock or stone.
The window looked down over a room that featured a sofa and a coffee table shaped like a kidney, sort of a nineteen-sixties art deco design. It was at that moment that I realized I was looking at the bedroom antechamber belonging to my late father. The antechamber was carved out of rock and stone, like a grotto. The bedroom was at a lower, more protected level still deeper in the grotto.
I felt gratitude that my father had bequeathed this place for me to live.
I haven't spent much time really analyzing this dream. On the surface, it seems like a happy dream, and I am excited to be moving and downsizing. My wife is usually present in my mind, as she was last night. The dogs aren't. Maybe this is how I see my life in ten years. Lots of amenities, more resources devoted to taking care of my needs.
I'm being self-indulgent with this post, because it's my birthday. I will be back with my hatin' on feminists and the whole progressive stack later today. There is some Sally Kohn-related bile that is simmering up right this minute.
The struggle that I have sometimes is that I want to focus my thoughts on the essay topic at hand. This helps me to develop insights that add depth. But also sometimes I want to imagine my psyche inside a waterfall. I can hear the water drenching my spirit, and it sounds like a downpour that drowns out all other thoughts, and leaves me renewed and refreshed. That helps to be present, living in the moment, or mindfulness, as they say.
But I will leave the gentle reader with this image from yesterday morning. Two poodles, sitting in the Tacoma; they have no idea they are going to dog beach in Coronado. All they know is that they are going for a ride. They don't know yet that Inara's ball will be stolen, again and again, by a relentless little white dog, whose person was a charming Australian with a toddler boy. They have no idea that very soon they will get wet, get tossed in the surf, and, at land's end, enjoy a rare moment in the present.
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Film At Eleven
I've often heard, and wondered myself, why does God allow bad things to happen to good people. The conventional wisdom from the sensitive theist is that it allows us to glorify God.
I set out this morning with the dogs, and it was very early, and quiet. The sun had just come up. The procession of parents driving their kids to school had not yet begun in earnest.
I carried a heavy, sorrowful heart. Two people that I didn't know were murdered this morning. They were both in their twenties, and seemed like nice people. They were shot while doing a television news stand-up on location. The whole thing was captured on video. It terrifies me that I will see something too difficult to process, so I have avoided the TV news all morning.
But the news ghouls were transmitting on the AM radio band, as well. My local station insisted on airing the audio portion, and I got to the volume control knob in a millisecond.
So, while I was walking Inara and Jonesie, I felt saddened by the senselessness of the murders. And I felt anxiety at the incessant entropy, the creeping, insistent chaos that is always insinuating. And maybe a little powerlessness.
I started hoping for a logical explanation. Her crazy stalker ex-boyfriend.
I kept coming back to the glorification part. Maybe by grieving, I am participating in a greater consciousness, and through some metaphysical apparatus, we are all raising each other up. Or maybe an act so horrific compels us to be a little more loving to each other.
I set out this morning with the dogs, and it was very early, and quiet. The sun had just come up. The procession of parents driving their kids to school had not yet begun in earnest.
I carried a heavy, sorrowful heart. Two people that I didn't know were murdered this morning. They were both in their twenties, and seemed like nice people. They were shot while doing a television news stand-up on location. The whole thing was captured on video. It terrifies me that I will see something too difficult to process, so I have avoided the TV news all morning.
But the news ghouls were transmitting on the AM radio band, as well. My local station insisted on airing the audio portion, and I got to the volume control knob in a millisecond.
So, while I was walking Inara and Jonesie, I felt saddened by the senselessness of the murders. And I felt anxiety at the incessant entropy, the creeping, insistent chaos that is always insinuating. And maybe a little powerlessness.
I started hoping for a logical explanation. Her crazy stalker ex-boyfriend.
I kept coming back to the glorification part. Maybe by grieving, I am participating in a greater consciousness, and through some metaphysical apparatus, we are all raising each other up. Or maybe an act so horrific compels us to be a little more loving to each other.
Monday, August 24, 2015
Season Of The Witch
On Saturday, pro-life protesters took to the streets all over the country, and demonstrated in front of 320 Planned Parenthood abortion clinics. The image of our creator is written all over the faces and the deeds of the people who took part, some of whom are pictured in this photo essay at The Federalist.
But when I googled "planned parenthood protests," three of the top seven search results were about a certain counter-protest in front of the Detroit and Ferndale, Michigan Planned Parenthood abortion clinics. Yes, I am talking about the satanists and their cheesy ceremony, involving drenching women in milk, and reciting some incantation against the "theocratic agenda imposed upon female bodies."
Since First Lady Michelle Obama is on a mission to create fear of whole milk, I dearly hope it was skim milk, or preferentially, soy milk, which was locally sourced, GMO-free, fair trade, etc.
Anyway, now that we live in the era of "gotcha" politics, I wonder if the legacy media bothered to ask any abortionista to repudiate the satanists? When Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke a slut, that was made to represent the entire Republican party. Surely, then, satanism is representative of everyone who supports abortion, the sacrament of the Democratic Party.
So, abortionistas, if some busybody reporter asks you to repudiate the satanists, take my advice, and own it. America hasn't hanged a young woman for witchcraft in hundreds of years. In fact, the supernatural has never been more popular and mainstream than it is now.
The fetishisation of the underworld is in full swing, and nobody is going to call you out for that kind of cultural appropriation. You can't swing a dead cat at television's prime-time lineup without hitting a show about the devil. Whether your taste is in vampires, ghouls, demons, ghosts, incubi, succubi, fairies, changelings, or whatever, nothing is beyond the pale. The darker and more brooding, the better.
A woman shouldn't feel ashamed to be attracted to the bad boy. Women regularly send perfumed letters to the most barbarous murderers on death row. What more fulfilling attraction could these women feel than the attraction to someone sentenced to prison for eternity?
And just to pull today's politics into the discussion, consider one of the most powerful figures in the Democratic party, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Hillary Rodham did her senior thesis at Wellesley College on Saul Alinsky. The same Saul Alinsky wrote the activist's bible, Rules For Radicals, and dedicated the book to Lucifer.
And just in case you are wondering if I am being hyperbolic, listen to the words of the former Secretary of State herself:
"Far too many women are denied access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth, and laws don’t count for much if they’re not enforced. Rights have to exist in practice — not just on paper. Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will. And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed."
Ladies and Gentlemen of Faith, that is the future of the Democratic Party.
But when I googled "planned parenthood protests," three of the top seven search results were about a certain counter-protest in front of the Detroit and Ferndale, Michigan Planned Parenthood abortion clinics. Yes, I am talking about the satanists and their cheesy ceremony, involving drenching women in milk, and reciting some incantation against the "theocratic agenda imposed upon female bodies."
Since First Lady Michelle Obama is on a mission to create fear of whole milk, I dearly hope it was skim milk, or preferentially, soy milk, which was locally sourced, GMO-free, fair trade, etc.
Anyway, now that we live in the era of "gotcha" politics, I wonder if the legacy media bothered to ask any abortionista to repudiate the satanists? When Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke a slut, that was made to represent the entire Republican party. Surely, then, satanism is representative of everyone who supports abortion, the sacrament of the Democratic Party.
So, abortionistas, if some busybody reporter asks you to repudiate the satanists, take my advice, and own it. America hasn't hanged a young woman for witchcraft in hundreds of years. In fact, the supernatural has never been more popular and mainstream than it is now.
The fetishisation of the underworld is in full swing, and nobody is going to call you out for that kind of cultural appropriation. You can't swing a dead cat at television's prime-time lineup without hitting a show about the devil. Whether your taste is in vampires, ghouls, demons, ghosts, incubi, succubi, fairies, changelings, or whatever, nothing is beyond the pale. The darker and more brooding, the better.
A woman shouldn't feel ashamed to be attracted to the bad boy. Women regularly send perfumed letters to the most barbarous murderers on death row. What more fulfilling attraction could these women feel than the attraction to someone sentenced to prison for eternity?
And just to pull today's politics into the discussion, consider one of the most powerful figures in the Democratic party, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Hillary Rodham did her senior thesis at Wellesley College on Saul Alinsky. The same Saul Alinsky wrote the activist's bible, Rules For Radicals, and dedicated the book to Lucifer.
And just in case you are wondering if I am being hyperbolic, listen to the words of the former Secretary of State herself:
"Far too many women are denied access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth, and laws don’t count for much if they’re not enforced. Rights have to exist in practice — not just on paper. Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will. And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed."
Ladies and Gentlemen of Faith, that is the future of the Democratic Party.
Rabbit, Run
The only candidate in this cycle that I have contributed to is Scott Walker. I like him a lot, because he pisses off public sector unions, and he seems like a decent human being. He's one guy that would shrink the size of government. I want someone who will eliminate entire cabinet positions, like energy and education and housing, for starters.
But I don't know yet if he is Presidential Material. I don't care that he didn't finish college. He comes off as kind of a dork. And that would disqualify him on the basis of my Grand Unifying Theory of How People Pick Presidents And Buy Automobiles.
Virility. Trump has virility to spare, with his interchangeable wives and his yuge construction projects. His buildings are just gigantic representations of his phallus.
Walker has a lot of desirable masculine characteristics. He rides a Harley, and governs effectively. But is he a guy that I would fix my sister up with? I'm not sure that she would be attracted to him. Maybe he should grow a beard.
The immigration debate is an area where the media claims he is equivocating. Last week, he was asked by Kasie Hunt, "We should end birthright citizenship?" Walker replied, "Yeah, to me it's about enforcing the laws in this country." This is being framed by the media as a starting position against anchor babies. I'm not sure that's true. I read his reply as more about the responsibility of a chief executive, to enforce the laws.
This media encounter was followed by an interview with John Harwood, in which Walker said, "I'm not taking a position on it one way or the other. I'm saying that until you secure the border and enforce the laws, any discussion about anything else is really looking past the very things we have to do." There's that phrase again, "enforce the laws." This is being framed as an indecisive position, but it's actually a sign of his consistency on the issue.
Then yesterday, he was asked by Clinton operative George Stephanopoulus, "So you're not seeking to repeal or alter the Fourteenth Amendment?" Walker replied, " No. My point is any discussion that goes beyond securing the border and enforcing the laws are things that should be a red flag to voters." How interesting that in three different interviews Walker mentions "enforce the law" yet the media is spinning this as flip-flopping.
What this is, is further proof that Walker understands the mandate of the executive. He knows how to stay in his lane, how to lead, and how to tell the difference.
This nominating contest is a little like a horse race. Trump is the rabbit, and has the early lead. Trump is setting the pace by starting important conversations. Walker can stay in the race by avoiding mistakes, and allow Trump to tire himself out.
I would like to see Walker take on some wedge issues. When it comes to abortion, never say the words "Planned Parenthood." The name itself is an appeal to emotion. Also, the brand recognition, or what accountants call "goodwill," is still inherent in the name. Just call them an "abortion provider." If anyone asks whether he would support defunding Planned Parenthood, reject the premise of the question.
A politician who says they want to defund Planned Parenthood should be a "red flag to voters." Walker should say that he is concerned whether any laws were broken (executive function). And whenever the opportunity arises, present the ethical dilemma inherent with abortion (moral leadership). Before the laws can change, hearts must.
But I don't know yet if he is Presidential Material. I don't care that he didn't finish college. He comes off as kind of a dork. And that would disqualify him on the basis of my Grand Unifying Theory of How People Pick Presidents And Buy Automobiles.
Virility. Trump has virility to spare, with his interchangeable wives and his yuge construction projects. His buildings are just gigantic representations of his phallus.
Walker has a lot of desirable masculine characteristics. He rides a Harley, and governs effectively. But is he a guy that I would fix my sister up with? I'm not sure that she would be attracted to him. Maybe he should grow a beard.
The immigration debate is an area where the media claims he is equivocating. Last week, he was asked by Kasie Hunt, "We should end birthright citizenship?" Walker replied, "Yeah, to me it's about enforcing the laws in this country." This is being framed by the media as a starting position against anchor babies. I'm not sure that's true. I read his reply as more about the responsibility of a chief executive, to enforce the laws.
This media encounter was followed by an interview with John Harwood, in which Walker said, "I'm not taking a position on it one way or the other. I'm saying that until you secure the border and enforce the laws, any discussion about anything else is really looking past the very things we have to do." There's that phrase again, "enforce the laws." This is being framed as an indecisive position, but it's actually a sign of his consistency on the issue.
Then yesterday, he was asked by Clinton operative George Stephanopoulus, "So you're not seeking to repeal or alter the Fourteenth Amendment?" Walker replied, " No. My point is any discussion that goes beyond securing the border and enforcing the laws are things that should be a red flag to voters." How interesting that in three different interviews Walker mentions "enforce the law" yet the media is spinning this as flip-flopping.
What this is, is further proof that Walker understands the mandate of the executive. He knows how to stay in his lane, how to lead, and how to tell the difference.
This nominating contest is a little like a horse race. Trump is the rabbit, and has the early lead. Trump is setting the pace by starting important conversations. Walker can stay in the race by avoiding mistakes, and allow Trump to tire himself out.
I would like to see Walker take on some wedge issues. When it comes to abortion, never say the words "Planned Parenthood." The name itself is an appeal to emotion. Also, the brand recognition, or what accountants call "goodwill," is still inherent in the name. Just call them an "abortion provider." If anyone asks whether he would support defunding Planned Parenthood, reject the premise of the question.
A politician who says they want to defund Planned Parenthood should be a "red flag to voters." Walker should say that he is concerned whether any laws were broken (executive function). And whenever the opportunity arises, present the ethical dilemma inherent with abortion (moral leadership). Before the laws can change, hearts must.
Sunday, August 23, 2015
New Orleans Ten Years After Katrina
Local ABC affiliate 10News is running a promo for tonight's special report entitled, Katrina: 10 Years After The Storm. The promo spot has a lively jazz music background, and the story features Robin Roberts, with appearances by Harry Connick, Jr., and Drew Brees.
I wonder if they will have former Democrat Mayor Ray Nagin on? Probably not, because they would have to travel to the federal lockup in Texarkana, Texas for an interview. That's Nagin's home until 2024, because of his corruption conviction.
I seriously doubt they will even mention two-term Republican Governor Bobby Jindal. By vastly expanding the school voucher program, Jindal has improved education in the state.
Other than cherry-picked accounts, it's sure to be an inspiring, phoenix-rising-from-the-ashes, feel good story. Robin Roberts is a cancer survivor, and New Orleans is a storm survivor. I can guarantee that the story will also be a vehicle for another legacy media outlet to bash President George W. Bush. Old media have long pushed the idea that Bush 43 offered a desultory response to the disaster, because racism.
ABC should take the racism theme and run with it, and connect Bush/Katrina/racism to the #BlackLivesMatter movement. It will take much effort to clean up Obama's tar baby.
I shan't watch tonight. I have no use for Robin Roberts, who was likeable enough before she declared her lesbianism.
So why would I even bother commenting on something I won't watch? I just like criticizing local news affiliates. 10News earned its Idiocy in Journalism award for sending Natasha Zouves to stand in a traffic island, wearing a cocktail dress, to report on traffic conditions. Her dankness literally stopped traffic.
Anyway, every ten minutes, 10News runs the ABC Katrina promo, then goes back to the hard news. Their top news story is about an armed robbery at a New Orleans restaurant. They keep calling it an "upscale" restaurant. Why the modifier in front of the word, 'restaurant?' Is it to imply that these rich people won't miss the stolen money all that much? Why not use the term, "restaurant full of terrified customers," instead? I wonder if 10News producers noted the ironic juxtaposition of the Katrina promo and the restaurant robbery. Anyway, it's probably too late for Robin Roberts to have the traumatized restaurant patrons on the show tonight. They would have given excellent balance to the story.
Will Roberts mention the fact that The Big Easy will be destroyed again, and it's only a matter of time? New Orleans sits below sea level. Eventually, the sea is going to reclaim the city. It reminds me of Professor Falken's lesson to David in the movie, War Games.
"Once upon a time, there lived a magnificent race of animals that dominated the world through age after age. They ran, they swam, and they fought and they flew, until suddenly, quite recently, they disappeared. Nature just gave up and started again. We weren't even apes then. We were just these smart little rodents hiding in the rocks. And when we go, nature will start over. With the bees, probably. Nature knows when to give up, David."
Nature knows when to give up.
I wonder if they will have former Democrat Mayor Ray Nagin on? Probably not, because they would have to travel to the federal lockup in Texarkana, Texas for an interview. That's Nagin's home until 2024, because of his corruption conviction.
I seriously doubt they will even mention two-term Republican Governor Bobby Jindal. By vastly expanding the school voucher program, Jindal has improved education in the state.
Other than cherry-picked accounts, it's sure to be an inspiring, phoenix-rising-from-the-ashes, feel good story. Robin Roberts is a cancer survivor, and New Orleans is a storm survivor. I can guarantee that the story will also be a vehicle for another legacy media outlet to bash President George W. Bush. Old media have long pushed the idea that Bush 43 offered a desultory response to the disaster, because racism.
ABC should take the racism theme and run with it, and connect Bush/Katrina/racism to the #BlackLivesMatter movement. It will take much effort to clean up Obama's tar baby.
I shan't watch tonight. I have no use for Robin Roberts, who was likeable enough before she declared her lesbianism.
So why would I even bother commenting on something I won't watch? I just like criticizing local news affiliates. 10News earned its Idiocy in Journalism award for sending Natasha Zouves to stand in a traffic island, wearing a cocktail dress, to report on traffic conditions. Her dankness literally stopped traffic.
Anyway, every ten minutes, 10News runs the ABC Katrina promo, then goes back to the hard news. Their top news story is about an armed robbery at a New Orleans restaurant. They keep calling it an "upscale" restaurant. Why the modifier in front of the word, 'restaurant?' Is it to imply that these rich people won't miss the stolen money all that much? Why not use the term, "restaurant full of terrified customers," instead? I wonder if 10News producers noted the ironic juxtaposition of the Katrina promo and the restaurant robbery. Anyway, it's probably too late for Robin Roberts to have the traumatized restaurant patrons on the show tonight. They would have given excellent balance to the story.
Will Roberts mention the fact that The Big Easy will be destroyed again, and it's only a matter of time? New Orleans sits below sea level. Eventually, the sea is going to reclaim the city. It reminds me of Professor Falken's lesson to David in the movie, War Games.
"Once upon a time, there lived a magnificent race of animals that dominated the world through age after age. They ran, they swam, and they fought and they flew, until suddenly, quite recently, they disappeared. Nature just gave up and started again. We weren't even apes then. We were just these smart little rodents hiding in the rocks. And when we go, nature will start over. With the bees, probably. Nature knows when to give up, David."
Nature knows when to give up.
Friday, August 21, 2015
It's College Rape Season Again!
I love this time of year. The days are getting shorter, baseball pennant races heat up, football season begins, and we witness the spectacle of college campuses suspending due process for alleged rapists yet again. It's interesting to note that there have been more lawsuits filed against San Diego colleges for improper expulsions, than there have been any actual arrests for sexual assault against any students.
The 2015 college rape season got an early start with the red-shirt carryover story of USC's Bryce Dixon. Dixon was accused by trainer Diana McAndrews of sexual misconduct that occurred on October 9, and of sexual assault two weeks later.
I cannot find any documents which indicate whether the alleged victim ever contacted police. The wheels of college jurisprudence turn independently of the actual criminal justice system. McAndrews notified the university, and USC's Title IX coordinator Kegan Allee handed down the punishment. Expelled.
Judge Robert H. O’Brien has stayed the expulsion, so Dixon can still attend USC on his football scholarship. But they won't let him back on the team. I found a lot of news articles wondering how USC will manage its offense without its star tight end. Haven't seen too many of them wondering how Dixon will manage his life after being branded a rapist. The fact that Dixon hasn't been fully reinstated indicates that the university wants the punishment to stand, and Dixon is probably carrying the penalty on his transcript.
Why didn't McAndrews go to the police? Maybe McAndrews felt regretful after consensual sex, and wanted some way to punish Dixon. We may never know, because McAndrews will never have to justify her allegation. We don't even know if McAndrews contacted campus police. All we do know is that she contacted the university, who handed the case over to its Title IX coordinator.
Kegan Allee, the school's Title IX coordinator, may have violated the law. On September 29, California Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 1433 into law. The law requires colleges to immediately alert local law enforcement when a student or employee reports a violent crime.
The text of the law requires the school to compile "records of specified crimes...reported to campus police, campus security personnel, campus safety authorities, or designated campus authorities." Is a Title IX coordinator a "safety authority?" Perhaps not, but they would certainly be considered the "designated campus authority."
The text of the law also requires "any report made by a victim ... of a Part 1 violent crime, sexual assault, or hate crime, received by a campus security authority and made by the victim for purposes of notifying the institution or law enforcement, to be immediately disclosed to the local law enforcement agency."
Clearly, McAndrews notified the institution. The institution was required to notify local law enforcement, and that didn't happen. Perhaps Allee was unaware of the new law, which would call into question her competence to be a Title IX coordinator. Or perhaps she was hoping that the July 1, 2015 deadline to "adopt and implement written policies and procedures" that comply with AB 1433 was some kind of grace period. It wasn't. The reporting mandate went into effect immediately.
I hope that all these Title IX parasites get their shit together, but I won't hold my breath. There has been a lot of mis-reporting of AB 1433. California Newswire reported that colleges are required to report crimes to local law enforcement "with the permission of the victim." No, they are required to report, period. They can use the name of the victim with permission. I can see how that would trip up the reporter.
Reporter Christopher Simmons' article has an interesting assumption. AB 1433 author Mike Gatto is said to have written the bill because of concerns that colleges aren't reporting because they fear that "higher crime statistics would lead prospective students to choose elsewhere." If that were true, then the oft-quoted statistic about one-in-five college women being sexually assaulted would have really depressed enrollment. If colleges aren't keeping statistics and reporting them, then they have been in violation of the Clery Act.
The 2015 college rape season got an early start with the red-shirt carryover story of USC's Bryce Dixon. Dixon was accused by trainer Diana McAndrews of sexual misconduct that occurred on October 9, and of sexual assault two weeks later.
I cannot find any documents which indicate whether the alleged victim ever contacted police. The wheels of college jurisprudence turn independently of the actual criminal justice system. McAndrews notified the university, and USC's Title IX coordinator Kegan Allee handed down the punishment. Expelled.
Judge Robert H. O’Brien has stayed the expulsion, so Dixon can still attend USC on his football scholarship. But they won't let him back on the team. I found a lot of news articles wondering how USC will manage its offense without its star tight end. Haven't seen too many of them wondering how Dixon will manage his life after being branded a rapist. The fact that Dixon hasn't been fully reinstated indicates that the university wants the punishment to stand, and Dixon is probably carrying the penalty on his transcript.
Why didn't McAndrews go to the police? Maybe McAndrews felt regretful after consensual sex, and wanted some way to punish Dixon. We may never know, because McAndrews will never have to justify her allegation. We don't even know if McAndrews contacted campus police. All we do know is that she contacted the university, who handed the case over to its Title IX coordinator.
Kegan Allee, the school's Title IX coordinator, may have violated the law. On September 29, California Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 1433 into law. The law requires colleges to immediately alert local law enforcement when a student or employee reports a violent crime.
The text of the law requires the school to compile "records of specified crimes...reported to campus police, campus security personnel, campus safety authorities, or designated campus authorities." Is a Title IX coordinator a "safety authority?" Perhaps not, but they would certainly be considered the "designated campus authority."
The text of the law also requires "any report made by a victim ... of a Part 1 violent crime, sexual assault, or hate crime, received by a campus security authority and made by the victim for purposes of notifying the institution or law enforcement, to be immediately disclosed to the local law enforcement agency."
Clearly, McAndrews notified the institution. The institution was required to notify local law enforcement, and that didn't happen. Perhaps Allee was unaware of the new law, which would call into question her competence to be a Title IX coordinator. Or perhaps she was hoping that the July 1, 2015 deadline to "adopt and implement written policies and procedures" that comply with AB 1433 was some kind of grace period. It wasn't. The reporting mandate went into effect immediately.
I hope that all these Title IX parasites get their shit together, but I won't hold my breath. There has been a lot of mis-reporting of AB 1433. California Newswire reported that colleges are required to report crimes to local law enforcement "with the permission of the victim." No, they are required to report, period. They can use the name of the victim with permission. I can see how that would trip up the reporter.
Reporter Christopher Simmons' article has an interesting assumption. AB 1433 author Mike Gatto is said to have written the bill because of concerns that colleges aren't reporting because they fear that "higher crime statistics would lead prospective students to choose elsewhere." If that were true, then the oft-quoted statistic about one-in-five college women being sexually assaulted would have really depressed enrollment. If colleges aren't keeping statistics and reporting them, then they have been in violation of the Clery Act.
Thursday, August 20, 2015
My Pet Conspiracy Theory
No, this isn't about some kind of conspiracy being committed by pets. This is about a conspiracy actually occurring in the United States, one that contributes to hundreds of thousands of deaths every year.
I don't buy into ordinary conspiracy theories. For the most part, they are used to explain significant events, like 9/11. I don't really need socio-politico explanations to help me deal with the insecurity of "encountering random, unpredictable, or otherwise inexplicable events."
But I do see evidence of an orchestrated effort in the media to de-stigmatize abortion. I consume popular culture as much as anyone, and I have never seen a story-line against abortion. Therefore, there must be concerted manipulation of scripts and stories by an unseen hand.
There is one glaring exception, which proves the rule. In the 2007 movie Juno, the title character approaches an abortion clinic, but waves off after encountering Su-Chin (Valerie Tian) protesting outside the clinic. Su-Chin cries, "All babies want to get borned! All babies want to get borned!"
Juno takes place in an overwhelmingly white Minnesota suburb. Casting one Asian character is meant to signify her status as an outlier. Her illiterate slogan is an attempt to make it easier to further ridicule her as dim-witted, in direct contrast to Juno's quick and clever patois.
What evidence is there on the other side of the media ledger? The first example that comes to mind, is 2008's Revolutionary Road, in which Kate Winslet's April Wheeler dies after getting an abortion. The message? If only abortion were legal, this woman wouldn't have died.
Then, in 2014, the abortion selfie became a thing. In her video, abortion clinic Emily Letts wanted to treasure her "special memory," so she filmed it. The technology exists to film the actual procedure on ultrasound, but that footage probably wound up on the cutting room floor, along with her fetus.
Last month, the Center For Medical Progress began releasing videos incriminating Planned Parenthood in procedures that are morally repulsive. The response from the legacy media has been to ignore them. The likelihood that everybody in the legacy media is merely sympathetic to the pro-choice industry is not enough of an explanation for such widespread indifference. They are getting marching orders, and they are coming right from the top.
Today brings confirmation from Planned Parenthood themselves that they are exercising script control over newsrooms, media outlets and production studios.
Presenting the Maggie Awards. It's Planned Parenthood's annual award ceremony for media excellence.
New for this year, the first ever Global Maggie went to a Ugandan Transgender activist, and the first ever Men's Maggie was awarded to Esquire's John H. Richardson. Planned Parenthood knows the value of operant conditioning for media outlets. This is their version of positive reinforcement. Give the abortionistas their own prom, and hand out cookies.
Hey, Cecile, I have some story lines for you! How about a sitcom in which a young woman unintentionally gets pregnant, with often hilarious results. The title? That Darn Fetus!
More? Remember Glengarry Glen Ross? Instead of real estate sales, it's the story of a group of abortion counselors who need a little motivation to win the monthly sales contest. First prize is a Cadillac. Second prize, a set of forceps. Third prize is your fired.
How about this one? Die Another Day. Emily Letts stars as an abortion counselor who lets one get away. Use an urban montage to fast forward to five years later, and Emily is back to finish the job. This one has a built-in sequel, Die Yet Another Day, in which she finds out it was one of a twin.
One more? Sangerville. This is dystopian sci-fi, set in a future where fetuses can project their images outside the womb and exert total control over the life of the poor slave women, called Expectants. Our time-travelling abortion counselor has to go back in time to defeat the arch-villian, Matriarch, and free all the young women to go on and finish their law degrees. I may be able to get Sarah Silverman to sign on to this project.
I want my Maggie!
I don't buy into ordinary conspiracy theories. For the most part, they are used to explain significant events, like 9/11. I don't really need socio-politico explanations to help me deal with the insecurity of "encountering random, unpredictable, or otherwise inexplicable events."
But I do see evidence of an orchestrated effort in the media to de-stigmatize abortion. I consume popular culture as much as anyone, and I have never seen a story-line against abortion. Therefore, there must be concerted manipulation of scripts and stories by an unseen hand.
There is one glaring exception, which proves the rule. In the 2007 movie Juno, the title character approaches an abortion clinic, but waves off after encountering Su-Chin (Valerie Tian) protesting outside the clinic. Su-Chin cries, "All babies want to get borned! All babies want to get borned!"
Juno takes place in an overwhelmingly white Minnesota suburb. Casting one Asian character is meant to signify her status as an outlier. Her illiterate slogan is an attempt to make it easier to further ridicule her as dim-witted, in direct contrast to Juno's quick and clever patois.
What evidence is there on the other side of the media ledger? The first example that comes to mind, is 2008's Revolutionary Road, in which Kate Winslet's April Wheeler dies after getting an abortion. The message? If only abortion were legal, this woman wouldn't have died.
Then, in 2014, the abortion selfie became a thing. In her video, abortion clinic Emily Letts wanted to treasure her "special memory," so she filmed it. The technology exists to film the actual procedure on ultrasound, but that footage probably wound up on the cutting room floor, along with her fetus.
Last month, the Center For Medical Progress began releasing videos incriminating Planned Parenthood in procedures that are morally repulsive. The response from the legacy media has been to ignore them. The likelihood that everybody in the legacy media is merely sympathetic to the pro-choice industry is not enough of an explanation for such widespread indifference. They are getting marching orders, and they are coming right from the top.
Today brings confirmation from Planned Parenthood themselves that they are exercising script control over newsrooms, media outlets and production studios.
Presenting the Maggie Awards. It's Planned Parenthood's annual award ceremony for media excellence.
New for this year, the first ever Global Maggie went to a Ugandan Transgender activist, and the first ever Men's Maggie was awarded to Esquire's John H. Richardson. Planned Parenthood knows the value of operant conditioning for media outlets. This is their version of positive reinforcement. Give the abortionistas their own prom, and hand out cookies.
Hey, Cecile, I have some story lines for you! How about a sitcom in which a young woman unintentionally gets pregnant, with often hilarious results. The title? That Darn Fetus!
More? Remember Glengarry Glen Ross? Instead of real estate sales, it's the story of a group of abortion counselors who need a little motivation to win the monthly sales contest. First prize is a Cadillac. Second prize, a set of forceps. Third prize is your fired.
How about this one? Die Another Day. Emily Letts stars as an abortion counselor who lets one get away. Use an urban montage to fast forward to five years later, and Emily is back to finish the job. This one has a built-in sequel, Die Yet Another Day, in which she finds out it was one of a twin.
One more? Sangerville. This is dystopian sci-fi, set in a future where fetuses can project their images outside the womb and exert total control over the life of the poor slave women, called Expectants. Our time-travelling abortion counselor has to go back in time to defeat the arch-villian, Matriarch, and free all the young women to go on and finish their law degrees. I may be able to get Sarah Silverman to sign on to this project.
I want my Maggie!
Then They Came For The Sorority Girls
...and I did not speak out, because I was not a sorority girl...
If you haven't seen the Alabama Alpha Phi pledge recruitment video yet, click here. It's a slick video of college girls committing the crime of Having Fun While White.
We already knew that being a white fraternity boy carries the presumption of guilt for sexual assault. Sabrina Erdely's fictitious Rolling Stone article about gang-rape as a fraternity initiation ritual was a brush-back pitch at the Greek system.
The Alpha Phi video caught a virulent backlash, and The Sisterhood Of The Perpetually Outraged booted up the grievance-bots. It all seems so tedious and predictable now that I have arrived at my unified Theory of Feminist Activism: It's a drive for resource allocation, accumulation and management by and for women. Why should beautiful women control a disproportionate share of resources, just because they can attract high-status males?
I turned on KFI640 on my way to work, and caught a segment of Bill Carroll's show that made my blood boil. I pulled a few quotes from the audio archive in order to truly appreciate Carroll's insufferable displeasure.
Carroll says, "Here's a video that got some university students in trouble, see, even at that age they're too stupid to know, don't put this stuff on video. They crossed the line." Carroll's previous mini-segment was about LAUSD's campaign against sexting. A middle-schooler sending a lascivious photo is not comparable to an adult woman appearing in a video wearing a swimsuit.
Carroll cites a source that says "some of the criticism" of the video is that "it depicts women as commodities. Where's the diversity? It's objectifying. It's reductive," and my personal favorite, "it's unempowering."
Carroll says that he "wouldn't want my daughter to be part of this." Fair enough argument there. Parents have the natural right and instinct to protect their children. A father naturally doesn't want his daughter to do drugs, or be a stripper, or be a prostitute. While the comparison between being a sorority girl and a stripper is non-existent and negatively correlated, I will allow the man to be a father. But his protective impulses extends to everybody's children.
"That's not the world I'm trying to create. They're doing nothing for the women's movement." Sounds alarmingly like a male feminist trying to make the world into some kind of utopia. That is a very dangerous desire. We should have learned something from the hundreds of millions of victims of commmunism.
"You can meet a lot of people at a Klan meeting, too." Let me know the first time a sorority burns a cross on someone's lawn, Bill.
"I wouldn't worry about these girls, because they're going to have all the privilege, these are not the girls who struggle their way through life." White guy telling white girls to check their privilege. And how very presumptuous to say that none of these girls are going to struggle.
How utterly tiresome all this feminism and white knighting is. So why on earth am I about to press "publish" and perpetuate the tedium? Because I am exercising my directive to show a few hundred people that Bill Carroll is an insufferable asshat. That's enough.
If you haven't seen the Alabama Alpha Phi pledge recruitment video yet, click here. It's a slick video of college girls committing the crime of Having Fun While White.
We already knew that being a white fraternity boy carries the presumption of guilt for sexual assault. Sabrina Erdely's fictitious Rolling Stone article about gang-rape as a fraternity initiation ritual was a brush-back pitch at the Greek system.
The Alpha Phi video caught a virulent backlash, and The Sisterhood Of The Perpetually Outraged booted up the grievance-bots. It all seems so tedious and predictable now that I have arrived at my unified Theory of Feminist Activism: It's a drive for resource allocation, accumulation and management by and for women. Why should beautiful women control a disproportionate share of resources, just because they can attract high-status males?
I turned on KFI640 on my way to work, and caught a segment of Bill Carroll's show that made my blood boil. I pulled a few quotes from the audio archive in order to truly appreciate Carroll's insufferable displeasure.
Carroll says, "Here's a video that got some university students in trouble, see, even at that age they're too stupid to know, don't put this stuff on video. They crossed the line." Carroll's previous mini-segment was about LAUSD's campaign against sexting. A middle-schooler sending a lascivious photo is not comparable to an adult woman appearing in a video wearing a swimsuit.
Carroll cites a source that says "some of the criticism" of the video is that "it depicts women as commodities. Where's the diversity? It's objectifying. It's reductive," and my personal favorite, "it's unempowering."
Carroll says that he "wouldn't want my daughter to be part of this." Fair enough argument there. Parents have the natural right and instinct to protect their children. A father naturally doesn't want his daughter to do drugs, or be a stripper, or be a prostitute. While the comparison between being a sorority girl and a stripper is non-existent and negatively correlated, I will allow the man to be a father. But his protective impulses extends to everybody's children.
"That's not the world I'm trying to create. They're doing nothing for the women's movement." Sounds alarmingly like a male feminist trying to make the world into some kind of utopia. That is a very dangerous desire. We should have learned something from the hundreds of millions of victims of commmunism.
"You can meet a lot of people at a Klan meeting, too." Let me know the first time a sorority burns a cross on someone's lawn, Bill.
"I wouldn't worry about these girls, because they're going to have all the privilege, these are not the girls who struggle their way through life." White guy telling white girls to check their privilege. And how very presumptuous to say that none of these girls are going to struggle.
How utterly tiresome all this feminism and white knighting is. So why on earth am I about to press "publish" and perpetuate the tedium? Because I am exercising my directive to show a few hundred people that Bill Carroll is an insufferable asshat. That's enough.
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
The Worst Story You Will Ever Hear
One of my Facebook friends posted this to his timeline the other day:
"Thanks everyone. Tough day. When I was "running" on the GG bridge I was next to a guy wearing a Barca kit. As I started to pass him I said "Go Barca". He smiled and gave me a thumbs up. Then he sprinted ahead of me and up and over the railing. I thought it was a stunt and watched him all the way down. I wish I hadn't done that. Such a beautiful day.....and then it was so messed up. Be alive today, everyone."
Then one of our mutual friends wrote, "that's the worst story I have ever heard."
So, one of my friends watched someone commit suicide, and I clicked the "like" button. Was using the "like" button an endorsement of the suicide, or a validation of my friend's feelings? Hmm. I didn't have a meaningless platitude to offer, so I clicked "like."
What I wanted to do was ask why my friend made the guy kill himself. Maybe if he didn't say, "Go Barca," the guy wouldn't have jumped. I was also tempted to ask who the hell is about to commit suicide but is thoughtful enough to smile at people and give them thumbs up?
But what I really wanted to do was try and top his story. Because I took, "that's the worst story I have ever heard," as a challenge. I was thinking of typing into his timeline the following:
'I was walking on the Coronado Bridge today and saw a woman pushing a double stroller. Both of her kids were crying, so I offered, sympathetically, "kids, huh..." She smiled at me and gave me a thumbs up. Then she cackled, picked up the double stroller, and hucked it off the bridge. I thought it was an episode of What Would You Do? and watched the whole thing.'
None of that Coronado Bridge story is true, but it might be "worse," and it has been "heard." So that is my entry in the contest of "the worst story you have ever heard."
The following story is true, though. I was on the Amtrak from San Diego to Santa Barbara to visit my mother once. There was a long delay on the way. It was about an hour's delay, because someone jumped into the path of the train and killed themselves.
There was a woman near me, and we were all looking out the windows, trying to glimpse the incident scene, trying to figure out if we were going to get moving again soon. This woman said to her companion, "I can't believe that someone would be so selfish and kill themselves in front of the train. Don't they realize how selfish that is?" When the train started moving again, we passed the dead body, and I saw a male torso. It looked fake.
I always thought that woman had an interesting take on suicide, and kind of hilarious. But in a way, she was right. Committing suicide is selfish, and terribly inconvenient for everyone else. So is dying. I don't plan on doing either of those today.
"Thanks everyone. Tough day. When I was "running" on the GG bridge I was next to a guy wearing a Barca kit. As I started to pass him I said "Go Barca". He smiled and gave me a thumbs up. Then he sprinted ahead of me and up and over the railing. I thought it was a stunt and watched him all the way down. I wish I hadn't done that. Such a beautiful day.....and then it was so messed up. Be alive today, everyone."
Then one of our mutual friends wrote, "that's the worst story I have ever heard."
So, one of my friends watched someone commit suicide, and I clicked the "like" button. Was using the "like" button an endorsement of the suicide, or a validation of my friend's feelings? Hmm. I didn't have a meaningless platitude to offer, so I clicked "like."
What I wanted to do was ask why my friend made the guy kill himself. Maybe if he didn't say, "Go Barca," the guy wouldn't have jumped. I was also tempted to ask who the hell is about to commit suicide but is thoughtful enough to smile at people and give them thumbs up?
But what I really wanted to do was try and top his story. Because I took, "that's the worst story I have ever heard," as a challenge. I was thinking of typing into his timeline the following:
'I was walking on the Coronado Bridge today and saw a woman pushing a double stroller. Both of her kids were crying, so I offered, sympathetically, "kids, huh..." She smiled at me and gave me a thumbs up. Then she cackled, picked up the double stroller, and hucked it off the bridge. I thought it was an episode of What Would You Do? and watched the whole thing.'
None of that Coronado Bridge story is true, but it might be "worse," and it has been "heard." So that is my entry in the contest of "the worst story you have ever heard."
The following story is true, though. I was on the Amtrak from San Diego to Santa Barbara to visit my mother once. There was a long delay on the way. It was about an hour's delay, because someone jumped into the path of the train and killed themselves.
There was a woman near me, and we were all looking out the windows, trying to glimpse the incident scene, trying to figure out if we were going to get moving again soon. This woman said to her companion, "I can't believe that someone would be so selfish and kill themselves in front of the train. Don't they realize how selfish that is?" When the train started moving again, we passed the dead body, and I saw a male torso. It looked fake.
I always thought that woman had an interesting take on suicide, and kind of hilarious. But in a way, she was right. Committing suicide is selfish, and terribly inconvenient for everyone else. So is dying. I don't plan on doing either of those today.
Monday, August 17, 2015
Nurses Feel The Bern
National Nurses United, the largest nurse's union, has endorsed Bernie Sanders for President. Glancing at the headline, it seems like a dog-bites-man story: a socialist candidate is endorsed by a socialist organization. But there is a little more there worth exploring.
I always considered nursing an indispensable service. Someone who enters the profession must demonstrate the highest level of compassion and duty to caring for sick and injured people. One side benefit to being a nurse is probably job portability. If you are any good, you can have your pick of desirable job situations, like being a staff nurse at a clinic in Malibu, or in Hilo. The freedom of movement within the profession should help to offset what must be a very challenging job.
The rank and file nurses may feel this way, but their leadership doesn't. They are like any other union. They spout platitudes about nurse-to-patient ratios, as if this shows how committed they are to patient care. But its like the teacher's union and teacher-to-student ratios: a way to force a high level of staffing, a jobs program.
The reason for the nurse's union endorsement is given a quick soundbite on the news: Bernie Sanders is in favor of single-payer healthcare. "RNs agree," their union's website claims, on "real reform: an improved, expanded Medicare for all."
"Medicare for all." That's funny, because many doctors limit their Medicare patients, or are ending acceptance of Medicare. The reimbursement rate is just too low. If the government were the single payer, many talented people would never become doctors. How then, can it be called "Medicare for all?"
Same goes for nurses. The only way the government can run healthcare is to ration care and force down reimbursements. The pricing signals that the free market sends to providers never get sent. A government that can set reimbursement schedules would also attempt to allocate nursing resources. Forget about a quiet practice in the Catskills, and say hello to chronic long-term care in Baltimore.
The rest of the nurse's union manifesto for Sanders is a real mess. NNU backs a "Robin Hood Tax bill, S. 1731" that imposes "a 0.5 percent tax on stock market" transactions, because this money could be used to pay for "pay for healthcare for all." The union's pension fund would probably be exempt from this tax, and the money wouldn't pay for healthcare, it would go into the general fund, like Medicare and Social Security deductions.
The nurse's union also admires Sanders' opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. NNU's wish list reads more like the demands of Occupy Wall Street. It's marxist dialectic all the way down, especially number 2, which urges on the current pathological social movements.
Sanders's socialist goals include, according to NNU, "living wages, for fighting income inequality, for educational opportunity, for environmental justice and action on the climate crisis, for civil rights, voting rights, and ending the systemic racism in policing and the criminal justice system."
Remember, socialism isn't some kind of communism lite. It is communism. The nurse's union is openly siding with someone who will take away property rights from people that earned them, and redistribute them by force to people who didn't.
I always considered nursing an indispensable service. Someone who enters the profession must demonstrate the highest level of compassion and duty to caring for sick and injured people. One side benefit to being a nurse is probably job portability. If you are any good, you can have your pick of desirable job situations, like being a staff nurse at a clinic in Malibu, or in Hilo. The freedom of movement within the profession should help to offset what must be a very challenging job.
The rank and file nurses may feel this way, but their leadership doesn't. They are like any other union. They spout platitudes about nurse-to-patient ratios, as if this shows how committed they are to patient care. But its like the teacher's union and teacher-to-student ratios: a way to force a high level of staffing, a jobs program.
The reason for the nurse's union endorsement is given a quick soundbite on the news: Bernie Sanders is in favor of single-payer healthcare. "RNs agree," their union's website claims, on "real reform: an improved, expanded Medicare for all."
"Medicare for all." That's funny, because many doctors limit their Medicare patients, or are ending acceptance of Medicare. The reimbursement rate is just too low. If the government were the single payer, many talented people would never become doctors. How then, can it be called "Medicare for all?"
Same goes for nurses. The only way the government can run healthcare is to ration care and force down reimbursements. The pricing signals that the free market sends to providers never get sent. A government that can set reimbursement schedules would also attempt to allocate nursing resources. Forget about a quiet practice in the Catskills, and say hello to chronic long-term care in Baltimore.
The rest of the nurse's union manifesto for Sanders is a real mess. NNU backs a "Robin Hood Tax bill, S. 1731" that imposes "a 0.5 percent tax on stock market" transactions, because this money could be used to pay for "pay for healthcare for all." The union's pension fund would probably be exempt from this tax, and the money wouldn't pay for healthcare, it would go into the general fund, like Medicare and Social Security deductions.
The nurse's union also admires Sanders' opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. NNU's wish list reads more like the demands of Occupy Wall Street. It's marxist dialectic all the way down, especially number 2, which urges on the current pathological social movements.
Sanders's socialist goals include, according to NNU, "living wages, for fighting income inequality, for educational opportunity, for environmental justice and action on the climate crisis, for civil rights, voting rights, and ending the systemic racism in policing and the criminal justice system."
Remember, socialism isn't some kind of communism lite. It is communism. The nurse's union is openly siding with someone who will take away property rights from people that earned them, and redistribute them by force to people who didn't.
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Gamergate's Political Dimension
Mytheos Holt has written an article about GamerGate for The Federalist, entitled GamerGate’s Anniversary and the Rise of the VideoCons. Holt describes the inception of GamerGate as a consumer revolt against unethical gaming journalism.
Holt goes on to say that GamerGate mounted "the first serious resistance to the pervasive social justice ideology that has crept into seemingly every area of culture and politics." This is how I found GamerGate, or should I say, it found me. GamerGate pushes back against the notion that unequal outcomes always bespeak discrimination.
This is a distillation of how and why I went from being a liberal to being a conservative: The modern liberal is now a progressive that will always value equality over liberty.
This is why I identify with the GamerGate side, even though the politics of most of them are not my politics. What we have in common is that we are liberty absolutists, whether it comes to speech or behavior or deeply held beliefs. Holt makes an important point when he says that "GamerGate remains leery of the Right."
Why? Because many in GamerGate believe that "the Right is just as illiberal as their new enemies on the Left." The perceived hallmarks of the Right, Holt says, are its "continued fear of porn, its willingness to cave on bills that restrict internet freedom in the name of cybersecurity/anti-piracy, and its phobia of certain areas of scientific inquiry."
These are profoundly important points, and correct to a large extent. But is there currently any serious effort from the Right to curtail or even stigmatize pornography? I believe most people have made their peace with pornography on the basis of individual liberty. Most of the efforts to censor porn come from radical feminists.
As far as "anti-piracy," the limits of copyright law is something everybody should be eager to discuss. I think it's ridiculous that someone can get drunk, write a catchy song in one night, and receive royalties seventy years after passing away. The plain fact is that a copyright is a property right, and without property rights there is no liberty. Also, the bulk collection of internet and phone records is a threat to individual liberties. It would be better to use metrics that identify serious threats to safety, but that practice is decried as "profiling."
Holt's comment about "phobia of certain areas of scientific inquiry" is not expanded upon, but one can imagine what he meant. Climate change? With all the falsifications, cherry-picking of data, and appeals to popularity and emotion deployed by the alarmists, the hysteria of climate change is going into history's wastebasket along with Piltdown man.
Did Holt mean evolution? It's still called the "Theory of Evolution," isn't it? I don't know anyone who doesn't acknowledge the role natural selection plays in the development of species. It is the illiberal left who refuses to believe that natural selection may play a role in the disparity of intelligence among races.
The notion that conservatives are anti-science goes back to the Bush 43 ban on new fetal stem cell lines. Maybe Holt was referring to stem cell research? It turns out that the more promising lines of research are happening in the field of adult stem cells.
What I perceive as the conservative movement's greatest weakness, is that the Right is portrayed as unfeeling and uncaring about those less fortunate. In Arthur Brooks' new book The Conservative Heart, he mentions that the Right needs to start talking about people, not things. For example, progressives claim that the Right always wants people to practice self-reliance, and "go-it-alone." Not true. The Right understands that people need incentives, and intergeneration dependency is a serious problem, too.
What I would like to see is the government run more like Amazon. In the New York Times profile of Amazon yesterday, the article notes how "The company is running a continual performance improvement algorithm on its staff." I don't think there are too many Amazon employees watching porn at work.
I'm very interested in a government in which "team members are ranked, and those at the bottom eliminated every year."
Holt goes on to say that GamerGate mounted "the first serious resistance to the pervasive social justice ideology that has crept into seemingly every area of culture and politics." This is how I found GamerGate, or should I say, it found me. GamerGate pushes back against the notion that unequal outcomes always bespeak discrimination.
This is a distillation of how and why I went from being a liberal to being a conservative: The modern liberal is now a progressive that will always value equality over liberty.
This is why I identify with the GamerGate side, even though the politics of most of them are not my politics. What we have in common is that we are liberty absolutists, whether it comes to speech or behavior or deeply held beliefs. Holt makes an important point when he says that "GamerGate remains leery of the Right."
Why? Because many in GamerGate believe that "the Right is just as illiberal as their new enemies on the Left." The perceived hallmarks of the Right, Holt says, are its "continued fear of porn, its willingness to cave on bills that restrict internet freedom in the name of cybersecurity/anti-piracy, and its phobia of certain areas of scientific inquiry."
These are profoundly important points, and correct to a large extent. But is there currently any serious effort from the Right to curtail or even stigmatize pornography? I believe most people have made their peace with pornography on the basis of individual liberty. Most of the efforts to censor porn come from radical feminists.
As far as "anti-piracy," the limits of copyright law is something everybody should be eager to discuss. I think it's ridiculous that someone can get drunk, write a catchy song in one night, and receive royalties seventy years after passing away. The plain fact is that a copyright is a property right, and without property rights there is no liberty. Also, the bulk collection of internet and phone records is a threat to individual liberties. It would be better to use metrics that identify serious threats to safety, but that practice is decried as "profiling."
Holt's comment about "phobia of certain areas of scientific inquiry" is not expanded upon, but one can imagine what he meant. Climate change? With all the falsifications, cherry-picking of data, and appeals to popularity and emotion deployed by the alarmists, the hysteria of climate change is going into history's wastebasket along with Piltdown man.
Did Holt mean evolution? It's still called the "Theory of Evolution," isn't it? I don't know anyone who doesn't acknowledge the role natural selection plays in the development of species. It is the illiberal left who refuses to believe that natural selection may play a role in the disparity of intelligence among races.
The notion that conservatives are anti-science goes back to the Bush 43 ban on new fetal stem cell lines. Maybe Holt was referring to stem cell research? It turns out that the more promising lines of research are happening in the field of adult stem cells.
What I perceive as the conservative movement's greatest weakness, is that the Right is portrayed as unfeeling and uncaring about those less fortunate. In Arthur Brooks' new book The Conservative Heart, he mentions that the Right needs to start talking about people, not things. For example, progressives claim that the Right always wants people to practice self-reliance, and "go-it-alone." Not true. The Right understands that people need incentives, and intergeneration dependency is a serious problem, too.
What I would like to see is the government run more like Amazon. In the New York Times profile of Amazon yesterday, the article notes how "The company is running a continual performance improvement algorithm on its staff." I don't think there are too many Amazon employees watching porn at work.
I'm very interested in a government in which "team members are ranked, and those at the bottom eliminated every year."
Saturday, August 15, 2015
Feminism's Strange Fruit: The Happy Cuckhold
What happens when a woman earns more than her man, and the man in economically dependent on her? In the life of a cuckold named Michael Sonmore, his wife's innate hypergamy is unleashed, and the result is polyandry. Sonmore wrote an article for New York Magazine entitled What Open Marriage Taught One Man About Feminism.
As a caveat, I should preface and preempt this essay with a giant SHENANIGANS. Clicking on the author's byline returns one result, the aforementioned article. Googling his name only reveals that he apparently has never published anything, not a blog, not a tweet, nothing, and the only pages returned are essays by other writers.
For all anyone knows, Michael Sonmore is the nom de plume of some fat pig at XO Jane, still sore at the wildly successful Anatomy Of A Troll Job. And they got talked about on Rush, so, mission accomplished.
Anyway, Michael Snoremore says he's happy his wife is sleeping around on him, "because I’m a feminist." The male feminist is the strange fruit of the feminist movement. He "quit working to stay at home with the kids" and is now "an economically dependent househusband." I think referring to himself as a "househusband" is the tell here. The terms "stay-at-home" and "housewife" are feminist terms of derision for women who decide to focus on child-rearing. Snoremore could have gone one better by calling himself a "homemaker" but didn't, because it couldn't be used to demean the male gender.
Another tell in the story is when Snoremore tells people his work is staying home with the kids, people tell him that its the "hardest work in the world." However, he says, the backhanded subtext is that "no one ever says it to a woman." Bullshit. In the real world, full-time mothers are glorified. In Snoremore's bizzaro world, everybody tiptoes around the subject, because their women are so perversely conditioned that anything can be construed as insulting and patronizing.
Still another tell that this story is pure troll job, is the comment that "not to get all women's studies major about it, patriarchal oppression essentially boils down to a man’s fear that a woman with sexual agency is a woman he can’t control." No man is capable of writing that except as parody. It sounds like Michelle Snoremore's thesis statement from Oberlin.
I was going to use this essay as an opportunity to openly urge the man to use the divorce laws against his wife. He should be awarded custody, because he's the primary caregiver. To his wife, the children are just other material things that she's acquired. But the likelihood that this article is a feminist vehicle makes me give less and less fucks.
I will close by noting Michelle Snoremore's most revealing word salad. "When my wife told me she wanted to open our marriage and take other lovers, she wasn’t rejecting me, she was embracing herself. When I understood that, I finally became a feminist." Becoming a feminist is like a religious conversion to these pissed off lesbians. Oh Great Dyke In The Sky, remove the scales from my eyes, that I might see!
As a caveat, I should preface and preempt this essay with a giant SHENANIGANS. Clicking on the author's byline returns one result, the aforementioned article. Googling his name only reveals that he apparently has never published anything, not a blog, not a tweet, nothing, and the only pages returned are essays by other writers.
For all anyone knows, Michael Sonmore is the nom de plume of some fat pig at XO Jane, still sore at the wildly successful Anatomy Of A Troll Job. And they got talked about on Rush, so, mission accomplished.
Anyway, Michael Snoremore says he's happy his wife is sleeping around on him, "because I’m a feminist." The male feminist is the strange fruit of the feminist movement. He "quit working to stay at home with the kids" and is now "an economically dependent househusband." I think referring to himself as a "househusband" is the tell here. The terms "stay-at-home" and "housewife" are feminist terms of derision for women who decide to focus on child-rearing. Snoremore could have gone one better by calling himself a "homemaker" but didn't, because it couldn't be used to demean the male gender.
Another tell in the story is when Snoremore tells people his work is staying home with the kids, people tell him that its the "hardest work in the world." However, he says, the backhanded subtext is that "no one ever says it to a woman." Bullshit. In the real world, full-time mothers are glorified. In Snoremore's bizzaro world, everybody tiptoes around the subject, because their women are so perversely conditioned that anything can be construed as insulting and patronizing.
Still another tell that this story is pure troll job, is the comment that "not to get all women's studies major about it, patriarchal oppression essentially boils down to a man’s fear that a woman with sexual agency is a woman he can’t control." No man is capable of writing that except as parody. It sounds like Michelle Snoremore's thesis statement from Oberlin.
I was going to use this essay as an opportunity to openly urge the man to use the divorce laws against his wife. He should be awarded custody, because he's the primary caregiver. To his wife, the children are just other material things that she's acquired. But the likelihood that this article is a feminist vehicle makes me give less and less fucks.
I will close by noting Michelle Snoremore's most revealing word salad. "When my wife told me she wanted to open our marriage and take other lovers, she wasn’t rejecting me, she was embracing herself. When I understood that, I finally became a feminist." Becoming a feminist is like a religious conversion to these pissed off lesbians. Oh Great Dyke In The Sky, remove the scales from my eyes, that I might see!
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Progressive Projection
Psychological projection is a theory in which people "defend themselves against unpleasant impulses by denying their existence in themselves, while attributing them to others." Progressives are more likely to suffer from projection, because they are usually psychologically damaged and defensive. Amanda Marcotte's borderline personality disorder is always on display.
The slut-shaming is referential to slight murmurs of disapproval of Megyn Kelly's glamour photos and lascivious interview with Howard Stern. Columnist Adele M. Stan refers to Republicans as the "party that boasts misogyny as its calling card." The Republican Party wins big with married women. Can we refer to the Democrats as the "party that boasts spinsterhood and single-parent families as their calling card?"
I don't agree that "women who like sex" are to be "vilified always" by the Republican Party. There is a strong understanding among conservatives that the female orgasm enhances the chances of fertilization. It is the Democratic Party that patronizes women by telling them that they are victims if they consent to sex while intoxicated.
And I don't agree that most of the backlash against Megyn Kelly is because of "slut-shaming." Kelly is a whore, alright, but she's a fame whore.
And the reason Trump is resonating isn't because or in spite of his "misogyny." Really, it's hilarious than any Progressive would be so lacking in self-awareness to call anyone in the opposition a misogynist. How many women has Bill Clinton raped? How many underage girls has he had procured for him?
The reason Trump is surging is because people feel like they're being played, that they're being manipulated. Trump goes on Fox, and Fox tries to take him down a notch. Then Erick Erickson, who is employed by Fox, dis-invites him from Redstate. The notion that Fox News is some kind of conservative network is gone forever.
http://t.co/Rtk3CaGc0D It says a lot about the GOP that a woman who says she likes sex is considered worse than a man who hates women.
— Amanda Marcotte (@AmandaMarcotte) August 12, 2015The slut-shaming is referential to slight murmurs of disapproval of Megyn Kelly's glamour photos and lascivious interview with Howard Stern. Columnist Adele M. Stan refers to Republicans as the "party that boasts misogyny as its calling card." The Republican Party wins big with married women. Can we refer to the Democrats as the "party that boasts spinsterhood and single-parent families as their calling card?"
I don't agree that "women who like sex" are to be "vilified always" by the Republican Party. There is a strong understanding among conservatives that the female orgasm enhances the chances of fertilization. It is the Democratic Party that patronizes women by telling them that they are victims if they consent to sex while intoxicated.
And I don't agree that most of the backlash against Megyn Kelly is because of "slut-shaming." Kelly is a whore, alright, but she's a fame whore.
And the reason Trump is resonating isn't because or in spite of his "misogyny." Really, it's hilarious than any Progressive would be so lacking in self-awareness to call anyone in the opposition a misogynist. How many women has Bill Clinton raped? How many underage girls has he had procured for him?
The reason Trump is surging is because people feel like they're being played, that they're being manipulated. Trump goes on Fox, and Fox tries to take him down a notch. Then Erick Erickson, who is employed by Fox, dis-invites him from Redstate. The notion that Fox News is some kind of conservative network is gone forever.
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
The Soft Tyranny of Low Thermostats
Two unrelated stories making their way around the internets recently, perfectly summarize the decline of the west. The first is about how air conditioning in offices is sexist. Jezebel published an article entitled Is Office Air Conditioning a Sexist Conspiracy?
Jezebel claims that it is a "science has already told us that women feel more sensitive to cold temperatures." The hyperlink provides several anecdotes (not science) and a link to another page that explicitly debunks the theory that women are more sensitive to cold temperatures.
The story originated in the Washington Post, by columnist Petula Dvorak. Her article is entitled Frigid offices, freezing women, oblivious men: An air-conditioning investigation.
While her article does have a slightly satirical tone, Dvorak tries to appeal to science. "Researchers," Dvorak writes, "had their hands on the controls at an insurance office for a month. When when they warmed the place from 68 to 77 degrees, typos went down by 44 percent and productivity went up by 150 percent." An anecdote from one "insurance office" does not make data.
Dvorak strolled around Washington, D.C., and noted women who come outside to warm up, displaying "bare shoulders." Others are observed wearing sundresses. Yet another woman notes how she dresses for the season, wearing "a pretty summer outfit." Dvorak contends that all these organizations are tyranically "setting the temperature to suit men."
I would contend that the inside temperature is set to accommodate the greatest number of people. Why should a company try to satisfy a small group of women who are dressed more for a picnic than a professional setting?
The goal of this article is to get the reader to ask themselves, why are there men in the workplace, anyway? The men are "oblivious," and "barely noticing," the women in their "desperation." Perhaps, the feminist and her allies wonder, the workplace should be rid of men. This comports with with my unified theory of feminism. Every iota of feminist activism, including Dvorak's article, has the purpose of facilitating the acquisition and management of resources exclusively for the use of women.
That's why just looking at a female co-worker can cause a sexual harassment accusation, and bring complaints of a hostile work environment to the employer. Better to make the workplace menschen-rein.
The other story, though unrelated, makes a perfect juxtaposition with the workplace temperature article. British Special Air Service (SAS) is going to soften the selection process for recruits. One of the most fearsome, elite special forces units in the world won't train if the temperature exceeds 82 degrees.
I don't know anyone could read these two articles and not come to the conclusion that western civilization is declining rapidly, and soon won't be able to defend itself from the forces of entropy.
Jezebel claims that it is a "science has already told us that women feel more sensitive to cold temperatures." The hyperlink provides several anecdotes (not science) and a link to another page that explicitly debunks the theory that women are more sensitive to cold temperatures.
The story originated in the Washington Post, by columnist Petula Dvorak. Her article is entitled Frigid offices, freezing women, oblivious men: An air-conditioning investigation.
While her article does have a slightly satirical tone, Dvorak tries to appeal to science. "Researchers," Dvorak writes, "had their hands on the controls at an insurance office for a month. When when they warmed the place from 68 to 77 degrees, typos went down by 44 percent and productivity went up by 150 percent." An anecdote from one "insurance office" does not make data.
Dvorak strolled around Washington, D.C., and noted women who come outside to warm up, displaying "bare shoulders." Others are observed wearing sundresses. Yet another woman notes how she dresses for the season, wearing "a pretty summer outfit." Dvorak contends that all these organizations are tyranically "setting the temperature to suit men."
I would contend that the inside temperature is set to accommodate the greatest number of people. Why should a company try to satisfy a small group of women who are dressed more for a picnic than a professional setting?
The goal of this article is to get the reader to ask themselves, why are there men in the workplace, anyway? The men are "oblivious," and "barely noticing," the women in their "desperation." Perhaps, the feminist and her allies wonder, the workplace should be rid of men. This comports with with my unified theory of feminism. Every iota of feminist activism, including Dvorak's article, has the purpose of facilitating the acquisition and management of resources exclusively for the use of women.
That's why just looking at a female co-worker can cause a sexual harassment accusation, and bring complaints of a hostile work environment to the employer. Better to make the workplace menschen-rein.
The other story, though unrelated, makes a perfect juxtaposition with the workplace temperature article. British Special Air Service (SAS) is going to soften the selection process for recruits. One of the most fearsome, elite special forces units in the world won't train if the temperature exceeds 82 degrees.
I don't know anyone could read these two articles and not come to the conclusion that western civilization is declining rapidly, and soon won't be able to defend itself from the forces of entropy.
Sunday, August 09, 2015
Beisbol's Cultural Patrimony
Editor's Note: From time to time, this blog will feature the well-known feminist scholar, Katrina De Las Hondas, as guest contributor. De Las Hondas is a transitioning (we're not sure in which direction) mixed-race individual living in the greater Los Angeles area. She deleted her Twitter account after being forced to flee her home. Her contributions are called Snatches of Feminist Discourse.
Katrina De Las Hondas is a pseudonym -ed.
Professional sports is a pervasive and pernicious source of patriarchal dominance in society. It is best studied using the intersectional model of institutional bias, comprising race, class, gender and cultural subjugation.
Most people are aware that sports teams employ nicknames to promote and reinforce their identity and confederation of support. Many times, team names appropriate the characteristics of indigenous peoples that have been subjugated by Europeans, such as Seminoles, Braves, and Redskins.
Well, one baseball team has taken this offensive practice one step further. The Fresno Grizzlies baseball team has changed their name to the Fresno Tacos. I'm not even kidding.
Why not just call the players the Fresno Burritos, or the Chimichangas, or just save everybody a lot of trouble and call them the Fresno Beaners?
The Fresno Tacos are a minor league baseball team, and often toil for low wages, and without union representation. This type of team is known colloquially as a "farm" team. Let me tell you about someone who liberated farm workers long ago. His name was Cesar Chavez!
It's bad enough that male sports players are paid so much more money than female players. The typical female athlete often has to supplement their income by taking off season employment as high school gym teachers.
Not only that, but there is a lot of sexist vernacular used in sports, especially baseball. I first realized this when I was once called a "switch-hitter." Everybody's always talking about "scoring," and keeping detailed statistics about how many times they "scored." Know who else keeps score? The benign arbiters of social justice!
Katrina De Las Hondas is a pseudonym -ed.
Professional sports is a pervasive and pernicious source of patriarchal dominance in society. It is best studied using the intersectional model of institutional bias, comprising race, class, gender and cultural subjugation.
Most people are aware that sports teams employ nicknames to promote and reinforce their identity and confederation of support. Many times, team names appropriate the characteristics of indigenous peoples that have been subjugated by Europeans, such as Seminoles, Braves, and Redskins.
Well, one baseball team has taken this offensive practice one step further. The Fresno Grizzlies baseball team has changed their name to the Fresno Tacos. I'm not even kidding.
Pitcher Luis Cruz shows off what the players will be wearing for the August 6th Taco Truck Throwdown 5 home game. pic.twitter.com/ryj1Dyp1Sj
— Fresno Grizzlies (@FresnoGrizzlies) July 21, 2015Why not just call the players the Fresno Burritos, or the Chimichangas, or just save everybody a lot of trouble and call them the Fresno Beaners?
The Fresno Tacos are a minor league baseball team, and often toil for low wages, and without union representation. This type of team is known colloquially as a "farm" team. Let me tell you about someone who liberated farm workers long ago. His name was Cesar Chavez!
It's bad enough that male sports players are paid so much more money than female players. The typical female athlete often has to supplement their income by taking off season employment as high school gym teachers.
Not only that, but there is a lot of sexist vernacular used in sports, especially baseball. I first realized this when I was once called a "switch-hitter." Everybody's always talking about "scoring," and keeping detailed statistics about how many times they "scored." Know who else keeps score? The benign arbiters of social justice!
Friday, August 07, 2015
The Green Inferno
Just finished watching the trailer for the upcoming movie The Green Inferno. I don't know if I've ever been more excited for a movie that I don't think I could watch. Because director Eli Roth is one sick puppy.
The movie is about a group of young, idealistic people traveling to the Amazon rainforest to try and save a tribe from extinction. I've seen references to "hashtag activism," and "virtue signalling," but these kids are at least willing to get out of their comfort zone.
The tagline for the movie is, "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished." I was also thinking of "The Road To Hell is Paved With Good Intentions." Because the tribe they meet is a bunch of cannibals who torture and eat them.
Actress Lorena Izzo is depicted as surviving a plane crash in the jungle, only to wind up bound and captive, in a canoe heading downstream. Her helplessness is given a lurid, objectifying quality. She is far from home, with its campus speech codes and its safe rooms. She has become truly objectified. She is quite literally a bag of meat.
I presume that the beta males that go along for the trip are completely emasculated, in both the literal and the figurative sense.
There are murmurs of protest at the portrayal of indigenous peoples in the movie. This manufactured outrage is straight from the cultural marxist script: All indigenous people are to be portrayed as noble savages, living in harmony with their environment, taking only what they need from Gaia to survive. The pre-industrial native is not to be portrayed as warlike or hostile in any way. But what is more harmonious with nature than eating pink, overfed invaders?
The protestors should instead view the fate of the earnest activists through the lens of colonialism. A bunch of ignorant white colonists are going to try to impose their values on the native population. Though they may eschew the values of capitalism, they are equipped with the latest fruits of capitalism, from airplanes to cargo pants to smart phones. The most desirable and satisfying response from the natives would be to resist colonization, and then eat the invaders to gain whatever powers they may have had.
I wish Roth well with this movie. I'm still hoping for a Hostel 3. He could build another whole movie about Elite Hunting's Sasha, who likes to sip espresso in a sidewalk cafe and receive boxes via motorcycle courier with severed heads inside.
The movie is about a group of young, idealistic people traveling to the Amazon rainforest to try and save a tribe from extinction. I've seen references to "hashtag activism," and "virtue signalling," but these kids are at least willing to get out of their comfort zone.
The tagline for the movie is, "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished." I was also thinking of "The Road To Hell is Paved With Good Intentions." Because the tribe they meet is a bunch of cannibals who torture and eat them.
Actress Lorena Izzo is depicted as surviving a plane crash in the jungle, only to wind up bound and captive, in a canoe heading downstream. Her helplessness is given a lurid, objectifying quality. She is far from home, with its campus speech codes and its safe rooms. She has become truly objectified. She is quite literally a bag of meat.
I presume that the beta males that go along for the trip are completely emasculated, in both the literal and the figurative sense.
There are murmurs of protest at the portrayal of indigenous peoples in the movie. This manufactured outrage is straight from the cultural marxist script: All indigenous people are to be portrayed as noble savages, living in harmony with their environment, taking only what they need from Gaia to survive. The pre-industrial native is not to be portrayed as warlike or hostile in any way. But what is more harmonious with nature than eating pink, overfed invaders?
The protestors should instead view the fate of the earnest activists through the lens of colonialism. A bunch of ignorant white colonists are going to try to impose their values on the native population. Though they may eschew the values of capitalism, they are equipped with the latest fruits of capitalism, from airplanes to cargo pants to smart phones. The most desirable and satisfying response from the natives would be to resist colonization, and then eat the invaders to gain whatever powers they may have had.
I wish Roth well with this movie. I'm still hoping for a Hostel 3. He could build another whole movie about Elite Hunting's Sasha, who likes to sip espresso in a sidewalk cafe and receive boxes via motorcycle courier with severed heads inside.
Thursday, August 06, 2015
The Real Reason For Sentencing Reform
A local news story this morning almost escaped my gimlet eye. Local NPR affiliate KPBS ran a story noting that it was the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act.
In the lede, KPBS noted that California "marked the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act as election officials reversed a policy Tuesday, restoring voting rights to nearly 60,000 people convicted of felonies."
San Diego Assemblywoman Shirley Weber was interviewed alongside Lori Shellenberger, voting rights director for the American Civil Liberties Union in California. It wasn't just kismet that brought the two women together, because their goals are synchronized.
They convince voters that prisons are overcrowded and barbarous, and that many prisoners are being unfairly punished for relatively minor, "non-violent" crimes.
It worked like a charm in California, where voters passed Prop 47, the "Criminal Sentences. Misdemeanor Penalties. Initiative Statute," by a margin of 60%-40%. Before Prop 47, there was California's Prison Realignment Plan, known as AB 109.
AB 109 forced the relocation of state prison inmates to local jails, which lack the facilities to handle prisoners sentenced to long terms. The result is more prisoners receiving early release, and lesser supervision of parolees, known as Post Release Community Supervision. So many state inmates at county lockups also reduces the resources for local law enforcement, leading to catch-and-release.
Prop 47 has reclassified certain felonies as misdemeanors. For example, possession of GHB used to be a felony; now it is a misdemeanor. This affects new sentencing, and, existing prisoners can also be re-sentenced and even released. And Prop 47 is retroactive, meaning people who have already served their sentence can petition to downgrade a past felony conviction to a misdemeanor.
A Reuters article notes that since the majority of those incarcerated are African-American or Latino men, the whole issue of prison reform is cloaked in the argument of "civil rights in minority communities." It's the classic critical theory approach. Those in prison are the real victims.
Shellenberger commented that "California is sending a message that we're expanding and making our democracy more inclusive." She's right about the message part. But the message is that the ACLU is and has long been an arm of the Democratic Party, and just wants to create more Democratic voters, even among people in the country illegally. Maybe it won't make much of a difference in California national elections, because we're a one-party state. But it might make a difference in local elections. Voting rights for felons and illegal aliens: coming soon to a swing district near you!
In the lede, KPBS noted that California "marked the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act as election officials reversed a policy Tuesday, restoring voting rights to nearly 60,000 people convicted of felonies."
San Diego Assemblywoman Shirley Weber was interviewed alongside Lori Shellenberger, voting rights director for the American Civil Liberties Union in California. It wasn't just kismet that brought the two women together, because their goals are synchronized.
They convince voters that prisons are overcrowded and barbarous, and that many prisoners are being unfairly punished for relatively minor, "non-violent" crimes.
It worked like a charm in California, where voters passed Prop 47, the "Criminal Sentences. Misdemeanor Penalties. Initiative Statute," by a margin of 60%-40%. Before Prop 47, there was California's Prison Realignment Plan, known as AB 109.
AB 109 forced the relocation of state prison inmates to local jails, which lack the facilities to handle prisoners sentenced to long terms. The result is more prisoners receiving early release, and lesser supervision of parolees, known as Post Release Community Supervision. So many state inmates at county lockups also reduces the resources for local law enforcement, leading to catch-and-release.
Prop 47 has reclassified certain felonies as misdemeanors. For example, possession of GHB used to be a felony; now it is a misdemeanor. This affects new sentencing, and, existing prisoners can also be re-sentenced and even released. And Prop 47 is retroactive, meaning people who have already served their sentence can petition to downgrade a past felony conviction to a misdemeanor.
A Reuters article notes that since the majority of those incarcerated are African-American or Latino men, the whole issue of prison reform is cloaked in the argument of "civil rights in minority communities." It's the classic critical theory approach. Those in prison are the real victims.
Shellenberger commented that "California is sending a message that we're expanding and making our democracy more inclusive." She's right about the message part. But the message is that the ACLU is and has long been an arm of the Democratic Party, and just wants to create more Democratic voters, even among people in the country illegally. Maybe it won't make much of a difference in California national elections, because we're a one-party state. But it might make a difference in local elections. Voting rights for felons and illegal aliens: coming soon to a swing district near you!
Wednesday, August 05, 2015
Netflix Now Streaming Social Justice
Netflix has announced that they will be offering unlimited paid leave for up to one year for both mothers and fathers to care for a newborn or newly adopted child. That's terrific. Any company should be free to offer whatever compensation and benefits they wish.
Netflix is not a private company, however; they are publicly held. Their shares are owned by pension funds and other investors, who may or may not agree that this is the best way to retain employees.
Let's take at face value the statement made by Tawni Cranz, Netflix's Chief Talent Officer, who says that "Experience shows people perform better at work when they’re not worrying about home." What about people who are caregivers to elderly parents? Or a cat with separation anxiety? Once one class of employee receives an unearned benefit, the class discriminated against starts agitating for the same benefit.
And let's start the countdown clock to Democratic politicians advocating for a similar paid benefit for every federal worker, then, for every private sector employee. The Netflix example will be used as an anecdotal argument in favor.
Netflix is a tech company, but it's one that enjoys government largesse. They benefit from the cronyism rampant in Washington, D.C. The recent FCC ruling in favor of "Net Neutrality" rules benefits Netflix, who lobbied for Title II regulation.
I do consume Netflix, right now watching Portlandia. But I also use Amazon Prime, and for $9.99 a year, get superior content to Netflix, which is $7.99 per month. It seems as though it would be easy for other competitors to enter Netflix's space. They could offer a little more for existing content and build out server farms in China or Vietnam. Netflix exists in the cloud, and the cloud can originate anywhere.
Netflix has some original content, but the prison dyke melodrama is already played out.
Right now, Netflix is riding high in the saddle. Today's stock price of around $123 per share puts the value of the company at more than $52 billion. Someone who purchased just seven months ago has paper profits of nearly 200%. The trailing P/E is 277. Shorting a stock is a very risky proposition, but the chart is looking like a blow-off top.
What happens if and when Netflix starts posting losses? They have already saddled themselves with very expensive employees, so they would have to fire them. They could have all the unpaid family leave in the world, then.
Which sets up the next stage of employee benefit. There would be employees experiencing low morale, and despondency about losing cherished co-workers. Start the countdown clock to the first company that offers a health insurance policy that covers assisted suicide. Also available as a severance package.
Netflix is not a private company, however; they are publicly held. Their shares are owned by pension funds and other investors, who may or may not agree that this is the best way to retain employees.
Let's take at face value the statement made by Tawni Cranz, Netflix's Chief Talent Officer, who says that "Experience shows people perform better at work when they’re not worrying about home." What about people who are caregivers to elderly parents? Or a cat with separation anxiety? Once one class of employee receives an unearned benefit, the class discriminated against starts agitating for the same benefit.
And let's start the countdown clock to Democratic politicians advocating for a similar paid benefit for every federal worker, then, for every private sector employee. The Netflix example will be used as an anecdotal argument in favor.
Netflix is a tech company, but it's one that enjoys government largesse. They benefit from the cronyism rampant in Washington, D.C. The recent FCC ruling in favor of "Net Neutrality" rules benefits Netflix, who lobbied for Title II regulation.
I do consume Netflix, right now watching Portlandia. But I also use Amazon Prime, and for $9.99 a year, get superior content to Netflix, which is $7.99 per month. It seems as though it would be easy for other competitors to enter Netflix's space. They could offer a little more for existing content and build out server farms in China or Vietnam. Netflix exists in the cloud, and the cloud can originate anywhere.
Netflix has some original content, but the prison dyke melodrama is already played out.
Right now, Netflix is riding high in the saddle. Today's stock price of around $123 per share puts the value of the company at more than $52 billion. Someone who purchased just seven months ago has paper profits of nearly 200%. The trailing P/E is 277. Shorting a stock is a very risky proposition, but the chart is looking like a blow-off top.
What happens if and when Netflix starts posting losses? They have already saddled themselves with very expensive employees, so they would have to fire them. They could have all the unpaid family leave in the world, then.
Which sets up the next stage of employee benefit. There would be employees experiencing low morale, and despondency about losing cherished co-workers. Start the countdown clock to the first company that offers a health insurance policy that covers assisted suicide. Also available as a severance package.
Tuesday, August 04, 2015
Happy Birthday Barack
The following is an exercise in consecration.
In the video game series The Legend of Zelda, the protagonist, Link, proceeds in his journey through a series of boss battles. When Link defeats a boss, there appears before him a field of bright, pure light energy. Link then steps into the light to warp to his next adventure.
Imagine that this light comes from a source. This source is the same place where all creation occurs. It is a divine source, and expresses pure attachment and devotion to every living thing in the universe.
This source is the creative life force. It is at once the source of all healing wavelengths and is itself within these energies. Within this energy, each life form ever conceived is cherished.
The source is limitless and continuously expanding. The source is always seeking pathways to pour out its immaculate devotion. Imagine a vessel being used to discharge this love's ardor. A watering can that is continuously being refilled, and which overflows into the field of light energy.
Imagine being inside this field of light energy, like Link. Every particle of your being is filled and penetrated with healing energy. As each part of your body resonates on specific frequencies, so each part of your body receives vitality tuned to each specific wavelength. All the empty spaces between atoms and even the solid parts of the atoms themselves are permeated by regenerative power.
Now imagine someone that you love is inside this field of healing light energy. Imagine the vessel continuously being overfilled with pure, adoring source energy, and in turn overflowing this energy upon and within your loved one.
Even a person who may elicit feelings of pain may exist within the bright healing field, and have the source energy poured out upon them. Indeed, this person originated from the same place as the cherishing creative force, and is deserving of creative regeneration.
In the video game series The Legend of Zelda, the protagonist, Link, proceeds in his journey through a series of boss battles. When Link defeats a boss, there appears before him a field of bright, pure light energy. Link then steps into the light to warp to his next adventure.
This source is the creative life force. It is at once the source of all healing wavelengths and is itself within these energies. Within this energy, each life form ever conceived is cherished.
The source is limitless and continuously expanding. The source is always seeking pathways to pour out its immaculate devotion. Imagine a vessel being used to discharge this love's ardor. A watering can that is continuously being refilled, and which overflows into the field of light energy.
Imagine being inside this field of light energy, like Link. Every particle of your being is filled and penetrated with healing energy. As each part of your body resonates on specific frequencies, so each part of your body receives vitality tuned to each specific wavelength. All the empty spaces between atoms and even the solid parts of the atoms themselves are permeated by regenerative power.
Now imagine someone that you love is inside this field of healing light energy. Imagine the vessel continuously being overfilled with pure, adoring source energy, and in turn overflowing this energy upon and within your loved one.
Even a person who may elicit feelings of pain may exist within the bright healing field, and have the source energy poured out upon them. Indeed, this person originated from the same place as the cherishing creative force, and is deserving of creative regeneration.
Monday, August 03, 2015
Tilting At Windmills
The U.S. Senate failed to defund Planned Parenthood today. The vote was 53-46, with two Democrats voting for passage. Under the current rules of the Senate, bringing the measure to a vote was pointless. Every Democrat is on the payroll of abortion PAC's like Emily's List and Planned Parenthood.
Senate Leader Mitch McConnell should have first held a vote on eliminating the filibuster.
The vote is all the more humiliating in the wake of the taunting that Democrats aimed at Republicans. Fauxcahontas mocked the GOP, asking "Did you fall down, hit your head, and think you woke up in the 1950s?" She thinks she is speaking truth to power, but she's really just ridiculing the powerless.
Before I left for work, I tweeted out the following:
Defunding Planned Parenthood would not stop one abortion, would not prevent one innocent from being ripped from his or her mother's womb. It wouldn't prevent tax money from being used for abortions, either. Forty percent of abortions performed in California are covered by Medicaid.
And no, defunding Planned Parenthood wouldn't deprive a single woman from receiving health care. It's called Obamacare.
It is my humble desire that every abortion clinic be bulldozed, followed by salting the earth. But it won't happen until the political lobbying in favor of legal abortion is stripped away. Cecile Richards has visited the White House thirty-nine times during the Obama Administration, including Inauguration Day.
Planned Parenthood is a 501(c)(3) organization. A 501(c)(3) must have activities like charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering amateur sports competition, or preventing cruelty to children or animals.
Whether an abortion provider and lobbying group qualifies as a charity is debatable. The moral and just act would be to bulldoze the entire tax code, then salt the earth. Abortion is going to be seen by our descendants as an abomination, and anyone who supports abortion is on the wrong side of history.
Senate Leader Mitch McConnell should have first held a vote on eliminating the filibuster.
The vote is all the more humiliating in the wake of the taunting that Democrats aimed at Republicans. Fauxcahontas mocked the GOP, asking "Did you fall down, hit your head, and think you woke up in the 1950s?" She thinks she is speaking truth to power, but she's really just ridiculing the powerless.
Before I left for work, I tweeted out the following:
As strongly as I support #DefundPP would it stop even one abortion? Other legislative priorities should include #DefundEPA
— Matt Blaine (@chillblaine) August 3, 2015Defunding Planned Parenthood would not stop one abortion, would not prevent one innocent from being ripped from his or her mother's womb. It wouldn't prevent tax money from being used for abortions, either. Forty percent of abortions performed in California are covered by Medicaid.
And no, defunding Planned Parenthood wouldn't deprive a single woman from receiving health care. It's called Obamacare.
It is my humble desire that every abortion clinic be bulldozed, followed by salting the earth. But it won't happen until the political lobbying in favor of legal abortion is stripped away. Cecile Richards has visited the White House thirty-nine times during the Obama Administration, including Inauguration Day.
Planned Parenthood is a 501(c)(3) organization. A 501(c)(3) must have activities like charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering amateur sports competition, or preventing cruelty to children or animals.
Whether an abortion provider and lobbying group qualifies as a charity is debatable. The moral and just act would be to bulldoze the entire tax code, then salt the earth. Abortion is going to be seen by our descendants as an abomination, and anyone who supports abortion is on the wrong side of history.
Saturday, August 01, 2015
Single Mothers
NBC's Today Show promoted an interview with Maria Shriver the other day. They identified her as a "single mom," which is technically true, but kind of ridiculous. All but one of her children are adults, and the youngest, Christopher, is seventeen.
I take issue with the term itself. The term "single mother" carries the connotation of an injured party, a martyred woman with young children, whose husband left her. Maria Shriver hired a divorce lawyer and filed for divorce in 2011. Filing for divorce attenuates the moral authority she may have had upon learning of Arnold's infidelity.
Also, Shriver is a member of the Kennedy clan, and has a net worth of more than $100 million. To identify her as a "single mother" is to appeal to our emotions, get us to see her as oppressed, and rouse our instincts to rally in her support.
The media usage of the term "single mother" is not new, it's more like a trope. Its prevalence is testimony to the reach of cultural marxism. The woman with her child represents the state of humanity before industrialization. The man is always the oppressor, and represents the fallen state of humanity since capitalization of the economy.
The husband must also resort to patriarchal institutions like the church in order to maintain his hegemony. Therefore, the husband is like the capitalist exploiting the labor of his wife, and when the wife divorces him, she is returning to her natural state.
This is how cultural pathologies like fatherless children are perpetuated. It is not necessary to openly critique the institution of marriage, only to glorify the alternatives to marriage.
A final criticism of the term "single mother" might be found in the American Psychological Association's Guidelines for Nonhandicapping Language in APA Journals. This was source material for University of New Hampshire's Bias-Free Language Guide," which identifies words such as "American," "homosexual," and "poor" as problematic.
The guidelines are intended to get people to identify other people as people first, and any disability is identified secondarily. Thus, the problematic "blind woman" would be changed to "woman who is visually impaired."
The University of New Hampshire then extended the notion of disability to include every unit within the Progressive Stack. For example, the UNH guideliness suggest changing the problematic term "homosexual" to "same gender loving."
In the spirit of these new guidelines, I would suggest identifying Maria Shriver as a woman with gargoylism who divorced the father of her children. Notwithstanding the use of the gendered term "father" this description should replace the outdated and problematic "single mother."
I take issue with the term itself. The term "single mother" carries the connotation of an injured party, a martyred woman with young children, whose husband left her. Maria Shriver hired a divorce lawyer and filed for divorce in 2011. Filing for divorce attenuates the moral authority she may have had upon learning of Arnold's infidelity.
Also, Shriver is a member of the Kennedy clan, and has a net worth of more than $100 million. To identify her as a "single mother" is to appeal to our emotions, get us to see her as oppressed, and rouse our instincts to rally in her support.
The media usage of the term "single mother" is not new, it's more like a trope. Its prevalence is testimony to the reach of cultural marxism. The woman with her child represents the state of humanity before industrialization. The man is always the oppressor, and represents the fallen state of humanity since capitalization of the economy.
The husband must also resort to patriarchal institutions like the church in order to maintain his hegemony. Therefore, the husband is like the capitalist exploiting the labor of his wife, and when the wife divorces him, she is returning to her natural state.
This is how cultural pathologies like fatherless children are perpetuated. It is not necessary to openly critique the institution of marriage, only to glorify the alternatives to marriage.
A final criticism of the term "single mother" might be found in the American Psychological Association's Guidelines for Nonhandicapping Language in APA Journals. This was source material for University of New Hampshire's Bias-Free Language Guide," which identifies words such as "American," "homosexual," and "poor" as problematic.
The guidelines are intended to get people to identify other people as people first, and any disability is identified secondarily. Thus, the problematic "blind woman" would be changed to "woman who is visually impaired."
The University of New Hampshire then extended the notion of disability to include every unit within the Progressive Stack. For example, the UNH guideliness suggest changing the problematic term "homosexual" to "same gender loving."
In the spirit of these new guidelines, I would suggest identifying Maria Shriver as a woman with gargoylism who divorced the father of her children. Notwithstanding the use of the gendered term "father" this description should replace the outdated and problematic "single mother."
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