Will Feminist Innovation Never Cease?
Lifted from the comments:
A feminist educator in the United Kingdom is making a point not to step aside when men walk in her direction, playing what she refers to as “patriarchy chicken.” […] “A few days ago, I was having a bad morning: my train tickets were expensive, my train was delayed, and my coffee was cold,” [Dr Charlotte] Riley wrote. “But I cheered myself up by playing a game on my commute. The game is called Patriarchy Chicken, and the rules are simple: do not move out of the way for men.” If that sounds like something that would be ungentlemanly conduct if perpetrated by a man, you would be correct in your assessment.
Dr Riley, you’ll note, is a grown woman.
Our feminist lecturer’s New Statesman article, in which she elaborates on Patriarchy Chicken and its allegedly empowering effects, can be found here. We’re told, somewhat implausibly, “It’s important to note that Patriarchy Chicken isn’t about anger.” When not applauding herself for repeatedly and deliberately colliding with male commuters, Dr Riley informs us that “war and peace can only be understood through gender.”
Also, open thread.
Note that Dr Riley invokes unspecified “angry men” who dare to comment on her delight in needlessly colliding with people. Note, too, her insinuation that the People’s Ledger piece, which largely quotes her own writing, was probably written “angrily.” Our feminist lecturer’s own behaviour, however, couldn’t possibly be informed by anything so low. High-minded piety being the sole explanation.
Our feminist lecturer’s own behaviour, however, couldn’t possibly be informed by anything so low.
Lefties project.
If these creatures were doing something useful – such as raising children or making sandwiches for a husband – they wouldn’t have time for this ‘intellection’ and would be a lot happier.
Dr Riley informs us that “war and peace can only be understood through gender.”
Rather an interesting notion, especially when they are generally clueless about the whole notion of sex and gender (link may not be totally SFW or your eyes).
For those disinclined to click, we find the woeful tale of a woman surgically and chemically altered to make a cartoon man who, as this simulacrum, is evidently engaged to a biological man, and became pregnant. This, of course, means she still has her female naughty bits and was using them for their intended purpose. IOW, she apparently wants to be a man to be gay, and if her fiance is also so oriented, they both seem to have inserted (NPI) a couple extra steps, and are going about it all wrong.
Now there is a mystery for the ages, unlike how having normal human sexual intercourse with female bits isn’t.
Although we are now expected to be shocked and offended because we are to take “pregnant men” as totes normal, I would imagine this is yet another Thing That Didn’t Happen™ as she would look just like like a guy with a beer gut to any random passerby (absent wearing a sign that said “I am a pregnant man”). Any abuse would more likely be because of the bad tattoos, gauges, and other bits of “progressive” uniform.
Regardless, it is still moderately amazing how hard the media are pushing this sort of “trans” bafflegab.
I must have been poorly brought up. I generally step aside for women – and men – when our paths collide. As do they. We exchange a brief smile and say “Sorry!” Something about social niceties.
It rarely happens, though, because people who are not obsessed with gender war and themselves keep a lookout and avoid when possible.
Dr Riley informs us that “war and peace can only be understood through gender.”
Hillary Clinton did it first.
I make a point never to move out of the way of arrogant entitled academics.
Adam: I fear that if I asked Academician Riley about your behaviour (the “Principle of Pedestrian Politeness” for want of a better phrase) she would see it as submissiveness or else she’d glory in having cowed you without even having to encounter you on the street. Speculation on my part, I concede, but in character for the aggressively aggrieved.
Julia M: Speculation once again, but might Riled* take credit for sparking your assertiveness?
* That started as a typo (I’m using a touchscreen) but it was so serendipitous I gave it a “stet”.
the rules are simple: do not move out of the way for men
How stupid and ignorant. In this day and age, what gives her the right to presume someone’s gender?
… arrogant entitled academics.
Unfortunately there is no transcript for this, but you can listen and multitask, or if you have an hour watch the whole thing, Janice Fiamengo does a nice dissection of them, along with indigenous science, “gender” issues, feminism in general, and other topics.
(link may not be totally SFW or your eyes).
Your link appears to be up-buggered.
Your link appears to be up-buggered.
Well that is weird, I even checked it. Take 2. Again works in preview…
I even checked it.
And as you know, I hate to find fault.
I remember girls behaving like this at the age of 9 or 10-ish, at the “boys are icky” stage.
The lack of self-awareness is something to behold.
As so often with feminist rumblings, the premise is unsupported and somewhat questionable, yet asserted as if self-evident. In my experience of busy stations, and crowded environments generally, most people, male and female, attempt to avoid collisions, insofar as one can. A small, rude minority will barge about, seemingly indifferent to other people’s personal space, but I haven’t registered a preponderance of one sex over another, whether among those doing the barging or those being bumped into.
And as you know, I hate to find fault.
True, true, the gentle teaching, coaching, and mentoring are a shining beacon for the entire innarwebs.
A small, rude minority will barge about, seemingly indifferent to other people’s personal space, but I haven’t registered a preponderance of one sex over another, whether among those doing the barging or those being bumped into.
Exactly.
The politically obsessed feminist interprets every unpleasant experience, every disappointment, as a manifestation of sexism–just as the black racist interprets everything as a manifestation of white racism and every leftist interprets everything as a manifestation of the evils of capitalism and the class hierarchy. Stupid people and malevolent people need extremely simplistic ideas to explain the world, because anything more complex confuses them or fails to give the paranoid explanations they desire.
…most people, male and female, attempt to avoid collisions…
Indeed, but you can bet the farm that our brave and empowered professor would never step in front of an “Asian” male, or a Male of Color, but in true fashion would only confront those who she knows are too polite to knock her on her tuchas.
you can bet the farm that our brave and empowered professor would never step in front of an “Asian” male, or a Male of Color,
Assuming that Dr Riley’s boasts – which is what they are – have any basis in truth at all, I think we can also assume that her targets are carefully selected.
Someone explain to this jeenyus that women already generally walk like they drive: A substantial cohort have scant peripheral awareness and even less aim to be civil about it all. See also: women piloting grocery carts – if shopping were war there would be Amazons of blood.
In other words, their running into members of the regular world as a matter of course is no new thing, babe.
Something I said? None of this overlooks men of the opposite sex driving or acting like assholes. But if the veritable jeenyus Riley thinks this cultural acting-out of hers is edgy or laden with veritable oceans of prescient, neo-cultural subtext, nope. It’s common as dirt and even more boring.
Total BS,I live in London and its my experience that men will generally try avoid collisions(perhaps because deliberately barging another man is often the precursor to a punch up) and women will just walk straight at you no doubt expecting you to live up to your chivalric programming and move out of their way and if you don’t you`ll get a catty remark or dirty look,perhaps to try and shame you back into the old way of thinking.
Oh dear, I’ve just poured my first cup of coffee of the morning and find this.
The point is that men have been socialised, for their entire lives, to take up space. Men who would never express these thoughts out loud have nevertheless been brought up to believe that their right to occupy space takes precedent over anyone else’s right to be there.
I specifically remember being a child and my mother admonishing me for not taking up enough space and refusing to get under foot. Wasn’t everyone raised that way? /sarc
Oh dear, I’ve just poured my first cup of coffee of the morning and find this.
It’s Andrew Murray. You’ll need something stronger.
[ Starts boiling pan of ‘shrooms. ]
I have a question.
A whole lot of female knowledge has been lost over the past 60 years or so, everything from the point system of getting dressed to how to housebreak a dog (no, the correct answer is not “Shove the poor critter into his cell—oops, his crate—for 14 hours a day while you are working and commuting back and forth thence”). Mine’s the last generation that remembers any of this lost female knowledge—we’re getting to the point where our mothers, certainly our grandmothers, have died off—and I was thinking about compiling what I can remember into a book. Such a book would be published through Amazon or by a small press; for obvious reasons it’d be a waste of time to pitch it to a dinosaur publisher.
My question is: do you think you might buy such a book to give to your daughter or granddaughter? (They won’t buy it for themselves because they don’t know what they don’t know). Please be honest. If you think this is the second-dumbest idea you have ever read, the first being deliberately bumping into people a lot bigger than you are, please say so.
Notice how cleverly I segued into the actual topic.
“The game is called Patriarchy Chicken, and the rules are simple: do not move out of the way for men.”
That will probably work with the legacy population (white men); might not get the results she wants with the diversity.
do you think you might buy such a book to give to your daughter or granddaughter?
I would … as back up to what I’ve been passing down to them from my mom & grandma.
About 10 years ago I was at a management seminar and to hone our skills at impromptu public speaking we had to get up and give a 5 minute speech on a random topic. Mine was “frugality” and among the examples I used was “darning socks”.
The blank stares from the younger people in the room prompted me to pause and ask what was wrong. Honest to God, they didn’t know what “darn” meant in the context of a sock!
When a button pops off the shirt of one of these people, what do they do? Staple the shirt closed?
” If you think this is the second-dumbest idea you have ever read, the first being deliberately bumping into people a lot bigger than you are, please say so.”
It’s not dumb, Pogonip. Are you thinking of something like ‘The Daring Book For Girls’, written for the older set?
Pogonip, I’d be interested in such a book despite being male. I’ve never heard of the point system of getting dressed, so you’ve already piqued my interest. Possibly my neice would derive some benefit from such a book.
Honest to God, they didn’t know what “darn” meant in the context of a sock!
I’m waiting for Darleen’s epic six-volume work, The Thrill of Mending.
When a button pops off the shirt of one of these people, what do they do? Staple the shirt closed?
Take it to the cleaners for repair?
Everyone ought to learn these basic skills. If, later, they can afford to pay others to do them that’s fine. But they should learn.
When I was in grade school (I forget what that is called in the UK) we had a small student-run store which sold all sorts of school supplies. It was supervised by a teacher, but the students ran the cash register, kept inventory, and so on. Good training. I strongly favor the reintroduction of home economics classes, teaching basic cooking, nutrition, cleaning, repair of clothing and housewares, keeping a budget, savings and investment, financial record keeping, and so on.
When my father started his career at the end of WWII, it was commonplace for all employees to start at the bottom–“sweeping floors” it was sometimes called, if my memory is correct. Even the President’s son, who was being groomed to succeed him, would start as an janitor or mail delivery boy, so that he would see the company “from the bottom” and would meet all sorts of people. It was also customary to hire kids fresh out of high school, see how much potential they showed, and train them for all sorts of highly skilled professions. Thus senior engineers and managers would have an intimate knowledge of all aspects of the company in which they worked. Many young punks with MBA degrees would benefit from such policies–as would the companies. (Sadly, the Supreme Court made such policies difficult and dangerous to implement, largely because your typical SCOTUS judge has zero experience of working in the real world and so will make legal rulings that make zero sense.)
the point system of getting dressed
I had to google that. It sounds familiar, but the fact that I’d completely forgotten it suggests that I haven’t heard of it in many decades. Although the web page I read described the system in terms of women’s clothes, the basic principles apply equally to men’s clothing.
Correction: on reading it sounded familiar.
So far we have 3 yes votes.
An exclusive for David Thompson readers: the point system!
Starting at the top:
—allow 1 point for hairdo, unless it’s very unusual—an example might be spraying your hair green for Halloween, that would be 2 points.
—1 point for each piece of jewelry. A watch counts as jewelry. A barrette counts as jewelry. A set of earrings counts as 1 item.
—1 point for each scarf or shawl. (which means Stevie Nicks exceeded her lifetime point allowance sometime in 1982).
—1 point for each garment. A fancy garment like an evening dress would be 2 points.
—1 point for shoes, unless they’re fuck-me shoes, which would be 2 points. (No, we did not call them “fuck-me shoes” back in the day, but I like the new name—it leaves no doubt as to what it’s decribing.)
—1 point for hose or stockings, fishnets 2 points.
Add up your points. If under 11 you are underdressed for most social or office occasions—-add something. If over 14, remove something. I would start with the nose ring.
This works. I have got every job but one for which I got as far as the interview, and when the interviewer was female she always complimented me on my “professional” appearance. (Once you get past the age of 45 or so, men will not even register your appearance—it’ll slide right off their eyeballs, like a fried egg out of a Teflon pan.)
We old gals also know what “professional” actually means, but you gotta buy the book to learn that! I am not talking about the oldest profession. “Profession” has a specific, legal meaning.
It was supervised by a teacher, but the students ran the cash register, kept inventory, and so on.
My son’s school had a similar “Tuck Shop” run by the children. Unfortunately, the priveleged young ladies and gentleman thought that because their parents, in many cases, had sourced the treats that were on sale in the store that they could help themselves to the goodies at any time without paying. The school swept it under the rug and an important teaching moment was lost.
I gave my son the third degree and read him the riot act. Unfortunately, several parents laughed it off. Ironically many of these same parents ran their own businesses which told me the kid’s behaviour had been learned.
Oops! I just noticed I left out makeup, sorry. 1point for day/business makeup, 2 for evening/party makeup. If you look like you are over 25 or so, save the blue eye makeup for social occasions, don’t wear it to an office, unless your boss’s boss wears blue eye makeup. This can happen in places like Texas. (Do any other old broads remember a book titled Blue Eyeshadow Should Be Illegal? 😄)
…unless they’re fuck-me shoes…
The proper terminology is “come fuck me pumps”, a minor, but incredibly important, distinction…
save the blue eye makeup for social occasions, don’t wear it to an office,
I’m learning so much from these threads.
OK, David, but wear the blue eye shadow OR the you-know-what shoes, not both at once. These little niceties are important.
One of the few nice things about the job I will soon be leaving is that promotions are entirely by friendship or mutual backscratching. This means that once you are sure you won’t get in the Old Girls Club, you don’t even have to bother with lipstick. You can wear your play clothes every day.
David, either put that lipstick down immediately or go wash off the blue eye shadow.
I see now I will have to write this book, as our host really needs it.
I actually wore blue eye shadow for a time.
I was in high school. Early 70s. I think I get a pass.
Re the kids running the Tuck Shop: I’m in a carpool with a 50-ish guy whose first job was at McDonald’s. The manager taught each kid how to perform each task, so that, if there was a hurricane or epidemic or whatever, the one kid who made it to work could open and run the store. (Service would be slower, but business COULD be conducted.). Now he goes in and one kid’s taking the order, another kid working the coffee pots, one frying, one mopping, one taking payments, and all of them have to wait for the computer to let them perform the next step. He’s standing there thinking “I can do all of this, I wish I could get back there, ring up my purchase, pay, and leave.”
“Profession” has a specific, legal meaning.
One look at vintage photos from the early to mid 20th Century is to see people as well dressed as they could afford. Baseball games attended by men in suits, ties and hats. Women shopping in smart outfits, sensible pumps (with stockings) and gloves.Even criminals in mug shots better dressed than the midnight shoppers at Walmart.
Nowadays, even fame and money can’t buy class.
Darleen gets a pass (at least from my mom). Blue eye shadow is MADE for kids. I had some too.
Probably the reason blue eye shadow is considered inappropriate for adult office workers in this scolding era is that it shouts “I enjoy being a girl!” In occupations like waitress, where enjoying your feminity is not only okay but likely to be financially rewarding, you still see blue eye shadow on adults.
Er, “femINinity.” Sorry.
Mug shots: the ultimate come-as-you-are party! And so they reveal much about the era in which they were taken.
I have also noticed that for the last 50 years or so, American men’s faces have been getting softer and rounder. Maybe it’s because, unless Mom was a vegetarian, every developing fetus in America received massive doses of female hormones. Maybe it’s because standards of what’s attractive in a man changed, so that the round-faced Leonardo DeCaprio types got to pass on more genes than did the chiseled-feature types. Either way, if you compare pictures of young men in WW Ii and the Korean War to pictures of young men today, the difference is astonishing.
Hey! Where’d everybody go? I have more wisdom to dispense! Come baaaccck!!!
if you compare pictures of young men in WW Ii and the Korean War to pictures of young men today, the difference is astonishing.
IMHO, I think it’s due to diet – we just eat better, and more, and that little chubs goes a long way. Part of that issue was that food was more expensive back then. A whole roasted chicken, for instance, was a prized Sunday dinner. If you lived in a city rather than on a farm, your diet was at the mercy of what could be shipped in at any particular season.
When Robert Heinlein was asked about the predictions about the future he made in his sci-fi stories, he stated he really missed the boat on the Green Revolution. He was sure that technology would soar but that feeding the masses would continue to be the worst struggle.
I have also noticed that for the last 50 years or so, American men’s faces have been getting softer and rounder. Maybe it’s because, unless Mom was a vegetarian, every developing fetus in America received massive doses of female hormones.
They certainly have. It’s interesting, because the fad now is man the industrialized carnist ape becomming a bastion of politically conservative masculinity. With a soy-fear chaser. (How the contradiction reconciles with the current Darwinist fad is unaddressed.) They go down as rightist fails at a bad time in the trajectory.
Headline of note.
https://twitter.com/OrwellNGoode/status/1104790924301950983
I fully support your ambitious idea, Pogonip. I recall that the cookbooks of my mother’s generation were full of common sense and practical ideas, not the latest fads, or How to Make your Meal Look Like a Pagoda. Mum and grandma knew all sorts of clever non-cooking uses for things like vinegar and baking soda. These days I wouldn’t know where to look for baking soda in a supermarke.
And if you can include appendices on the Elements of Grammar and Spelling, and Ordinary Everyday Politeness, that would be a welcome bonus.
Harrrumpph.
Many young punks with MBA degrees would benefit from such policies–as would the companies
Many of the academics teaching these young punks in their MBAs would benefit from such.
In regard to teaching HomeEc, I would add shop. I truly feel I was cheated in my education when they steered us so-called “smart” kids away from shop. At the prep school where I spent 6-8 grades it wasn’t even offered. To anyone.
One look at vintage photos from the early to mid 20th Century is to see people as well dressed as they could afford.
I’ve been interviewing for what is hopefully my last job. I wear a suit and tie to interviews. If I have to sit down across from one more f’n millennial or x-er in cargo shorts, flip-flops, and a concert t-shirt from a band their mother was too young to have attended, I’m gonna strangle somebody.
The honorable Mayor of New York City.
Hi ACToldfart: You find the baking soda in the same area you find the cooking oils, the seasonings, the flour, and often the cake mixes. So as not to make it too easy, the cheap white vinegar is usually in with the salad dressing.
I also hate modern cookbooks, full of trendy, expensive ingredients.
I’d like to find an old book (40’s—ca. 1965) about housekeeping. The new ones waste too much time reassuring readers—or, more likely, the editors—that it’s really okay to like your abode and want to keep it pleasant, which is hard to do if you ignore spills or cat puke for six months because liberated women aren’t interested in housekeeping. Don Aslett’s books are great for the mechanics of cleaning but he doesn’t address making your house a home. Martha Stewart did, but she assumed you had unlimited time and money. There used to be books on the subject for the average woman.
I didn’t get to take shop either. I wish I had.
The honorable Mayor of New York City.
I’m guessing he doesn’t read his own twit bio.
I’m gonna strangle somebody.
I’m 7 months and 8 days until retirement. Just hope I can find enough peace in that time not to shove one of my perpetual jr-high mean girl staffers down 4 flights of stairs in the meantime.
I’m SO done.
Hi WTP,
My employer takes itself very seriously indeed, so no one, not even the millennials, can wear shorts. They have tried periodically to force everyone to dress up (with no clothing allowance in our pay) but after a while they lose interest and things return to normal. My feeling has always been, you pay a uniform/clothing allowance and I’ll buy a Ronald McDonald costume and wear it to work if you like, but if you’re not buying my clothes, don’t tell me how to dress. I was once going to take a Christmas job at Target till I found out employees buy those red shirts and tan pants. Nope. Bye. Not surprisingly, at least not to me, Target, once the favored store of the woke, turned out to be as unpleasant a place to work as any other big-box. I remember the woke waxing righteous about Walmart’s policy of locking the fire doors, till a couple of Targets were caught doing the same, when the woke concern for oppressed Walmart suddenly evaporated.
I grew up in the middle class; the American middle class held the very sensible view that an employer shouldn’t demand things he isn’t willing to pay for. The middle class is gone now, and so, as far as I can tell, is that idea.
I also hate modern cookbooks, full of trendy, expensive ingredients
I have a fair number of cookbooks, but my usual “go-to” one is “The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook” published 1980. It isn’t just recipes but all sorts of information on food – like cuts of meat — and cooking & baking tips and techniques. Photos and drawings.
Heh … still around.
His honor is right. There is too much money in the wrong hands. Jeff Bezos should pay taxes on his billion dollars, especially since he’s been caught using it to give his U.S. employees heat stroke. OSHA got involved in that one, and I can assure you that OSHA’s not going to touch anything unless it’s likely to result in mass casualties.
Conservatives often confuse the (somewhat) defensible idea that’s it’s OK to have a billion dollars with the indefensible idea that a guy who has a billion dollars is always a good guy and so he should get a free ride. Our grandparents knew better. During the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower, the top marginal tax rate was somewhere around 90%. Not coincidentally, that was the height of U. S. prosperity. Civilization costs money to maintain. We all benefit from civilization, but people like Bezos benefit more than the rest of us and thus should pay more. The idea that they should pay NOTHING but get all the benefits everyone else gets, and a lot more besides, is one of the ones that has destroyed America.
I guess I better add a Civics section, too. 😄. My 8-volume “Stuff Grandma and Mom Knew” can sag the shelf beside Darleen’s 6-volume “The Joys of Mending.”
Pogonip: when my sister married years ago our grandmother gave her a well-thumbed copy of Irma Rombauer’s “Joy of Cooking” which had also been used by HER mother and grandmother. Been quite a while since I looked through it but it had plenty of helpful advice, my favorite among which being the assurance that there was NO substitute for muffin rings when making english muffins but if they were not available in the shop you should simply have the tinner cut some for you.
I don’t think we have tinsmiths in the U. S. any more, at least not on a scale small enough to serve people needing a few muffin rings. It’s hard enough to find a good knife-sharpener.
If you can find a copy, get Best Recipes From The Backs Of Bottles, Boxes, Cans, And Jars by Ceil Dyer. There were originally 3 slim paperback volumes, all worthwhile, but they were consolidated into a fat hardback that’s the better buy, if you can find it. Good quick recipes with ingredients that are readily available. (Another annoying thing about modern cookbooks, written, as they are, by and for people with lots of time and money, is that they tend to send you on quests for $50/lb grass-fed Iranian unicorn meat and $20/lb Szechwan red fairy dust.)
During the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower, the top marginal tax rate was somewhere around 90%.
Which no one paid because it was the government’s stick to force people into accepted behaviors in order to get tax write-offs
Not coincidentally, that was the height of U. S. prosperity
Yes, coincidence. It was a unique time right after WWII and the ratcheting up the the Cold War – the rebuilding of the American economy coupled with the rebuilding of a war-devastated Europe.
I think Bezos is an ass. But if he made his money honestly, then it’s not skin off my nose since it is HIS property. Any cronyism on his part – IOW if his business is being treated differently than a small business, then YES, he’s not entitled to special treatment and he and his government cronys should be punished.
Close to 50% of American citizens pay NO Federal income tax. They need to have a little skin in the game. I’d love to see repeal of the 16th amendment. The Feds got along fine without it for 133 years.
In defense of the cookbook authors, people with time and money are pretty much their market. Consider an 18-year-old in Detroit, the sole support of her two children and their fathers. NO cookbook will do her much good unless she finds the means and time to learn how to read it, and even if one father or both were willing to stop playing video games and start cooking, he probably can’t read either. Or consider a grandmother along the Kentucky/Virginia border, working several minimum-wage jobs to support the grandchildren of whom she has custody. She probably can read and probably had a cookbook, but since they couldn’t make the rent and are now living in a motel, no hot plates allowed, no refrigeration except in winter, she can’t use a cookbook either. Nowadays cookbook writers have no market except the relatively affluent. So they write what those people want, and because those people don’t know what they don’t know, it will never occur to them that cooking can be anything but a status symbol and hobby.
I better stop clogging up David’s blog before he kicks me out and tells me to start my own. 😊. Next topic!
My wife got as a Christmas present a cookbook from one of those trendy paler chefs. The recipes have an undoubted flair and creativity, but the ingredients are utterly depressing: barely a single thing that is recognisable as food. All powders and extracts. He’s one of the guys behind the boom in ‘protein powders’ that you’ll now find at chemists.
I find her a tad annoying, but in Australia, Stephanie Alexander’s cookbooks are an absolute treasury of cooking information. Of the trendy U.K. cooks, that Fearnley-Whittingstall chap is very good. It’s no coincidence that both cooks focus on the traditional meals.
Sorry. Amend ‘paler’ to ‘paleo’. I accuse my spelllcheck for thoughtcrime and racism. 🙂
Sorry. Amend ‘paler’ to ‘paleo’. I blame my spellcheck for thoughtcrimeracism!
It must report for re-education: 24 hours of watching the female “Ghostbusters.”
(That one really annoyed me. They could have told a darn good story about the daughters of the original Ghostbusters carrying on—but no, writing that story would have been too much like work!)
Technology is not my friend today. 🙁
when my sister married years ago our grandmother gave her a well-thumbed copy of Irma Rombauer’s “Joy of Cooking”
I credit my learning to cook to two things 1) the Saturday morning cooking shows on PBS and 2) The Joy of Cooking. Watching Julia Child, The Frugal Gourmet, Yan Can Cooks, Mariane Esposito, Martha Stewart et al was the equivalent of attending the Cordon Bleu school in France or the Culinary Institute of America. These people taught you about ingredients and technique. They showed you how to cook.
The Joy of Cooking meanwhile showed you in illustrated fashion how to chop, cut, baste, make a sauce in an easy to understand way. My copy of the book is over 40 years old and now consists of individual sheets of paper held together with a rubber band since the binding gave out about 20 years ago.
Good luck learning to cook today. Despite the fact that there are several cable channels dedicated to food, no one teaches cooking. It’s all about foul mouthed reality shows and inane competitions trying to make a dish from a “mystery box” filled with idiotic and garbage ingredients. It seems that at least the men in a relationship will attempt to cook. Most young women today can’t boil water and think it’s somehow below them.
Very few households cook anymore. I went to “dinner” (we ordered in Thai) at my nephew’s trendy downtown lakeview apartment. He’d lived there for 5 years and had all the state-of-the-art appliances; they looked like they had just come out of the box. So, not much cooking going on there. Meanwhile, he complains he’ll never own his own home. I told him ordering in dinner and lunch 7 days of the week via UberEats and travelling three times a year to Europe, South America and the Caribbean just might be preventing him from saving up for a down payment.
My wife and I used to dine out a several times a month, but now we refuse to spend over a $100 for a meal that I can make better myself for under $30.
/rant
https://theothermccain.com/2019/03/10/bad-sex-advice/
I have just applied to Cosmpolitan for position as Dodgeball Editor. Never played it except under duress and hated it when I did, so obviously I’m best qualified to cover it.
I’m not laughing at that poor sick girl, I’m laughing at Cosmopolitan. I hope they don’t fire her when they see that. She’s got enough problems without losing her access to medical care.
Hi Steve,
When my son was little he got a big kick out of Frugal and that Cajun cook whose name I forget—he wore bib overalls and would go “Woo-ee!” and from somewhere on the floor would be a giggle and a little voice chirping an answering “Woo-ee!” 😄
I liked Yan too.
From the Archdruid, about halfway down: the Necronomnomnom. 😄😄😄
I gotta get a copy.
https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/49966.html#comments
(If you like tentacled horrors, the Archdruid—Mr. Druid in business, Arch to friends and family—is your man. Not that he himself is a tentacled horror, but he also likes them and the topic comes up a lot. Cthulhu fhtagn!)
no one teaches cooking
I absolutely loved The Galloping Gourmet the rest of the Merry Band you mentioned.
Of contemporary cooking shows, I miss Good Eats – Good cooking meets SCIENCE!! (and a fair amount of good humor).
Most of the competition shows annoy me no end. But hubby and I love The Great British Baking Show running on Netflix. I’ve learned of baked things I didn’t know existed and I’m delighted that the bakers involved are such good sports! Not a whine, snark or nasty thing to say about their competitors or the competition when they are cut.
I want to spend an afternoon at tea with Mary Berry. 🙂
I’ll buy a Ronald McDonald costume and wear it to work if you like, but if you’re not buying my clothes, don’t tell me how to dress.
When you have a job that generally requires a bachelors degree and more often today, a masters degree, where you make from $75K-$150K per year, you don’t need to have your daddy employer clothe you. They shouldn’t have to tell you how to dress yourself, let alone buy your clothes.
Even putting that aside, any grown up should understand the responsibility to look presentable when leaving the house to do anything other than manual labor. I’m by no means a fashionista. I never really cared for wearing ties, especially in humid climates. Though there is a time and place for formalish dress. A simple polo shirt and at the very least clean and presentable blue jeans if not proper dress pants is not too much to ask. Poor people 50 years ago dressed better than many of the wealthy do today. This really shouldn’t be such a big deal and it stuns me that people who should know better fail to understand these things.
Say, I have an idea, lets let in every “migrant” from the third world and offer them free housing, medical, and give them a stipend.
Hold on, you are a Yank ?, where’s your visa for your business trip ?
Good idea, what with all those American tourists running amuck, stabbing people, burning cars, running them over. So much for the “open borders” crowd.
I haven’t watched TV in at least 15 years because there seemed to be nothing on at the time except “reality” shows and comedies written for 12-year-olds who like to giggle at dirty words. Nothing wrong with that, but I am over 12, been there, done that,and so those weren’t for me.
My son got fixated on the “Roseanne” rehash (the autistic get fixated on things for no reason they can explain to the non-autistic) and I watched the first two of those, thought they were terrible, and managed to be granted a dispensation from watching the rest.
Politically correct just ain’t funny. I once heard a pretty funny routine about “Gays Shouldn’t Be Blatant” (“your boss has pin-up girls all over his office, but you can’t have a microscopic picture of you and your real boyfriend anywhere, because gays shouldn’t be blatant”) but that was back when it was politically incorrect to be gay, so the rule was never broken.
In regard to teaching HomeEc, I would add shop.
Yes!!!!!
Pogo:
…that Cajun cook whose name I forget…
Paul Prudhomme or Emeril Lagasse? Emeril use to say “BAM” when he through a spicy ingredient into the pan. By the way, if you like Cajun, check out the website NOLA Cuisine. The recipes are outstanding and easy to follow. I’ve been using his recipes since 2005. I made a big batch of Chicken/Shrimp/Sausage Gumbo this weekend. It really take the chill off of the dismal March we’ve been having in Southern Ontario.
I absolutely loved The Galloping Gourmet…
Me too! That is until he found religion and started cooking healthy…;-)
Son says the guy’s name was Justin Wilson.
Paul Prudhomme wrote the Popeye’s chicken recipes. I like their chicken but not that seasoning they use in the side dishes.
It was a unique time right after WWII and the ratcheting up the the Cold War – the rebuilding of the American economy coupled with the rebuilding of a war-devastated Europe.
Yes. Many American industries had no serious competition because of the devastation of Europe, so they had the American market pretty much to themselves.
Justin Wilson…”I gar-on-tee”
…a cookbook from one of those trendy paleo chefs…the ingredients…All powders and extracts.
Because in the Paleolithic humans relied so heavily on protein powders. 🙂
Seeing how as I never had a job requiring any sort of degree, I will cheerfully continue on in the grand tradition of organized labor, nay, of America in general: “You want it? Great! But you gotta pay for it.”
I do agree that the professions are a gray area here. Some people feel better if their doctor, lawyer, accountant dresses up. I was talking about average jobs held by average people, e.g. big-box employees.
Another of the insidious falsehoods that destroyed America was persuading everyone that a job and a profession are the same thing. Thus the tiresome lectures to “be professional” directed at minimum-wage employees and the pervasive nasal whining about same by young white female educated fools.
What IS it with that Godawful young-white-American-female whiny nasal accent? American men, American women who aren’t white, and white American women over about 40 don’t talk like that, so where on earth did the white girls pick up Kazoospeak?
WTP: THAT’S him! Son adored him.
Forgot about Justin.
Where is our genial host? Did we inspire him to run out and buy “The Flamethrower Cookbook”?
Does GB have Daylight Savings Time? I know Ontario has, or had, it as it was on in the summers we went.
You readers are fine human beings. You couldn’t have these lively debates on a liberal-American site. They do not tolerate dissent or even indifference, as in “I don’t care about Trump’s latest sin.”
As I’m sure David would say if he were here, “Free booze for everybody!”
Pogo they do have DST in the UK, however, they don’t switch the clocks until March 31st. I’m in the eastern time zone. There’s usually 5 hours difference between England and me and for the next couple of weeks there will be 4.
Some U. S. states are flirting w/the sensible idea of just staying on fast time year round. DST as it stands never made much sense to me. You should have fast time in the winter. That’s when it gets dark at 1700 (in this latitude.), that’s when you want more daylight. You don’t need more daylight in the summer. On 4 July, when we have fireworks, it doesn’t get dark till 2200, so little kids get awfully tired.
Darleen, in the unlikely event you can find it, the 1948 Good Housekeeping cookbook was the best ever. My mom bought that when she married and used it till, literally, the binding fell apart and the pages crumbled. The 1950 edition, black cover with little food cartoons all over, is much the same except it omits killing and butchering instructions.
Also, everybody, seek out the old Farm Journal cookbooks that were compiled and edited by Nell B. Nichols. Uniformly excellent.
David, can we have a topic about old books to recommend to each other and to young sprouts?
Nell was not only a darn good cook, she was also a prophet. Her books talk about how well country women do this and country women do that, implying that city people can barely fry an egg. And lo and behold, I hear a lot of anecdotes to the effect that this so these days.
Er, “…this IS so…” Sorry.
Can you believe I used to get paid to type words? 😯
2 more questions re my proposal:
1). Along with courtesy and grammar, should I address Kazoospeak, that your big presentation may well be better received if it doesn’t sound like a duck is quacking it out? It may be that most people LIKE Kazoospeak, after all. What do you all think? (We have a local TV weather lady whose forecasts are very accurate—but I have to read them on the Internet because of her Kazoospeak coupled with what is probably a neurological disorder—her voice is thick, shaky, and changes pitch at random. I can’t understand her half the time.)
2.). Should I address safety? A lot of young folks live in cities, after all, and they’re dangerous places. And there are everyday dangers too, like kitchen fires.
Are we talking about “vocal fry”? That’s the technical name for the croaky way of speaking that’s become common recently.
Men do it to, but you notice less with deep voices.
Ah, vocal fry as the successor to Valley Girl.
No, I’ve heard vocal fry. Kazoospeak is less croak and more quack. Nasal, rather than deep down in the throat.
Hello again Pogonip. With respect, I think KazooSpeak is an nth order issue, where n is getting quite large. I suggest start from the centre and work outwards, ie look after No 1 first. Perhaps the volume on Defence of Person and Home Against Barbarity could include a section on How to Attain Satori through Clever Use of the Mute and Subtitle Buttons on Your TV Remote Control. The Kazoo speakers can fend for themselves.
Kitchen fires could be covered under a Chapter on Ingredients and Appliances No Sensible Kitchen Needs, perhaps with a little homily that our parents’ generation were way better cooks than we are, and the only use that entire generation had for a flamethrower was persuading Japanese troops that the defence of places like Saipan and Okinawa was not necessarily to their advantage.
[ Pours second mug of coffee, surveys thread wreckage. ]
Gasbags, the lot of you.