Elsewhere (266)

Haha. That.
To convey just how perverse and potentially ruinous Laurie’s lifestyle advice is, I’m going to have to quote myself – an indulgence, but bear with me:

Not too long ago, the endlessly entertaining Laurie Penny – who entertains us for reasons she doesn’t quite comprehend – pointed her readers to a breathless endorsement of the fatherless family. New Enquiry contributor Madeleine Schwartz dubbed this non-nuclear unit the “anti-family,” thus signalling its countercultural radicalism and general sexiness. We were told, based on nothing much, that “a couple cannot raise a child better than one [person] can.” Apparently, the “diffusion” of the family unit – which is to say, absent fathers, hardship and subsequent dependence on the state – “is one of the most exciting things to happen to the American social pattern since sexual liberation.”
Ms Schwartz was careful to avoid actual data and striking correlations – say, between absent fathers and children’s educational failure, poverty, dependency and criminality – and so, for her, the “diffusion” of the family unit sounded very thrilling indeed, as woolly abstractions can. Buoyed by her own imagined radicalism, Ms Schwartz went on to claim, again based on nothing, that conventional family structures “isolate” people, rather than, say, introducing them to a potential support network of aunts, uncles, sisters-in-law, etc. You see, raising a child without a partner – and therefore without at least half of that familial support structure – isn’t isolating at all. Because somehow the “community” will fill in the gaps. Or more typically, the state and its bureaucracy, at other people’s expense. And gosh, how radical is that?

The original, with links, can be found here.
Variations of the above are a staple of Laurie’s feminist schtick. But imagine if someone without Laurie’s middle-class background, and the cushion it provides, were foolish enough to act out these woke lifestyle fantasies. Say, a young woman on a rough council estate. Do we think it would go well and be every bit as glamorous and “exciting” as Laurie and Ms Schwartz would have us believe?
And this isn’t just a case of idiots diminishing their own prospects, and the prospects of their children, and making their own lives more difficult and prone to failure and dependency. If done in sufficient numbers, as Laurie advocates, the fallout spreads and, in time, a tipping point is reached. For single mothers, the state typically becomes a kind of negligent husband, one who doesn’t love you, and cannot love you, but whose cheques can be cashed. As Mark Steyn noted, “A society in which a majority of births are out of wedlock cannot be other than a Big Government welfare society.”
Again, a tipping point.

AKA freeloading.
Well, yes. But it’s radical freeloading, apparently, so that makes it okay.

One can’t help but think that the “excitement” Ms. Schwartz and company feel is the same sort an arsonist experiences in watching a building burn to the ground.
Well, it does bear a striking resemblance to a kind of rationalised malice, in that if you wanted to ruin someone’s life while flattering yourself, what would you do differently? And people like Laurie and Ms Schwartz, our supposedly radical gurus, have little to gain from successful, functional people with a grip on their own lives. And they have no incentive to offer advice that would result in more functionality and success. They feed on failure and irresponsibility, and the resentment that follows.

the noodle-armed strangebeards which occupy her timeline.
Heh.

Over at Tim’s gaff, a tale of romance.

I think underneath the self-loathing daddy issues Laurie there is something resembling a pretty woman
The most unattractive thing about her by a mile is her attitude. If that changed, and she took a bath, she’d be fine.
I think it was in the comments under one of David’s (many) pieces on deranged feminists I first read that, while beauty is only skin deep, ugly cuts right to the bone. And as mate in RL said when were discussing how good looking a woman must be before you’d sleep with her: “personality goes a loooooooong way”.

“personality goes a loooooooong way”.
Many years ago during my college days, I recall an acquaintance whose bar-attention had been directed toward a physically attractive lady, returning to our group after a few moments and announcing, “I need some personality with my t*ts.”

I need some personality with my t*ts.
Any more of this locker room talk and we’ll be flicking each other with towels.
What?

See, e.g., photos of Penny posted above.
Indeed, hence the line I quoted from my book. Normal people don’t need to go around with blue hair, and those that do are signalling something. Okay there may be exceptions, but as the mafia bosses at the end of Casino say: “Why take a chance?”

Suppose Guinness reshot the Heineken ad and showed the hearty dark beers sliding down the bar to dark skinned men while the last, pale yellow, light beer is caught by a noodle armed guy with a full hipster beard and wearing a faux lumberjack shirt.
Would that be racist?

Nkechi Amare Diallo is an obvious anagram of “Heck Milo I dare anal”
From the comments to David’s self-referential link at 14:39.
Don’t ask, “Why?” It doesn’t matter.

Tim Newman: Normal people don’t need to go around with blue hair, and those that do are signalling something.
It’s called aposematism. A warning signal.

Poor Laurie! Suffering to bring us her wisdom:
How I Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love The Abuse, Harassment and Trashing That Has Been My Daily Reality For The Past Nine Years: by me, a woman who writes words for a living.
I wonder if she’s tried being nicer?

Normal people don’t need to go around with blue hair, and those that do are signalling something.
I met an…impressively tattooed woman in her mid-30s at a social event a few weeks back, and she responded to an offhand comment I made about one of her pieces by blurting out “My mother says tattoos are for sailors and white trash.”
I assure you, my self-control was Herculean.

I wonder if she’s tried being nicer?
Laurie’s standard manoeuvre is to construe any mockery and contempt aimed at her, and at what she says and writes, as an attack on All Of Womanhood, and driven by “fear” of how radical and brave she is.
You have to wonder if it ever crosses Laurie’s mind that the ridicule and scorn might have something to do with her being an incorrigible fantasist and liar who regularly insults half the population, as if it were a credential, and says things like this, and things like these, and who then expects to be taken seriously as an intellectual powerhouse.
But somehow, I doubt it.

It’s called aposematism. A warning signal.
*cough*
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/couple-more-400-personalities-between-12259376

That “skeptics” and atheists align so closely with contemporary leftists ideologically is not an accident.
Well, you’ll find there there is no shortage of atheists among libertarians and even conservatives. But they are less likely to interpret their religious skepticism as a social one-up on everyone else. Hence, the lower level of conspicuous preening over the matter.

Right now I’m rocking a neon blue buzz cut.
She kind of looks like a lemur if a lemur had blue hair.
https://www.google.ca/search?q=large+eyed+rodents&client=firefox-b-ab&dcr=0&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=zZqX4bvnLPLMbM%253A%252CVtO0CrTAAZRWjM%252C_&usg=__3ZAlMD8OGZUu8gJlvaRu1uElsMM%3D&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjt3YeR7o_aAhUC94MKHenbD7kQ9QEIKzAB#imgrc=NDOP3P12XXoa4M:

cancelled following (false) fire alarms going off
That has long been a favorite tactic of the left, because nothing says “we care about free speech” than using dirty tricks to silence dissent.

Janice Fiamengo’s lecture on 24th March 2018 was cancelled following (false) fire alarms going off.
And the usual harassment and thuggery, which, for Mao-lings, is the sweetest plum, the reward for all their pretentious, utterly vacant piety:

Another thing that strikes me about these protesting hordes — apart from their proclivity to break the law with customary impunity — is the monumental ignorance they exhibit. The few protesters I have actually managed to talk to over the years have never read the works of the people they are shutting down… They are ignorant even of Herbert Marcuse whose theories they are aggressively putting into practice.

It’s sometimes hard to articulate the exact level of irony.

Because somehow the “community” will fill in the gaps.
Re Laurie and Ms Schwartz and their radical “diffusion” of the family unit, i.e., single motherhood and that supposedly feminist and empowering dependency on the state, here are some of those real-world consequences that they don’t like to talk about. There is, you’ll note, no mention of a father, as if even to raise the question would be terribly problematic and just not done.
But hey, radical and sexy.
Via Tim.

Julia Kristeva was communist secret agent, Bulgaria claims

Kristeva, 76, is the author of more than 30 books and worked alongside leading French intellectuals such as Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan and Roland Barthes.
Also known as, “The Trinity of Bullshit.”

Looks like there’s no actual crime in Avon and Somerset.
Cringeworthy. And the people involved assume that this kind of theatre somehow improves the image of the police force. Truly, they will strike terror into the hearts of evildoers.

Bless!
‘Tis gone. What did I miss?