Friday Ephemera
Let’s call it a partial success. || Sorcery, perhaps. || Ripe and juicy. || Road manners. || Relaxing in the bosom of nature. (h/t, Tim) || For breast-fondling enthusiasts. || Our betters, being so clever, forgot to bring their own. || Suboptimal situation. || Learning curve. || Well, at least there’s lots of it. || Yes, it will be on the test. || Always respect the media. || The progressive retail experience, part 446. || Remember, this never, ever, ever happens. || Harvard student denounces “the violence of statistics.” Which ones, I wonder. || Be careful which questions you ask. || The Internet Movie Cars Database. || When you donate to Wikipedia. || The Manhattan Population Explorer. || Street vibes. || How to thread a needle. || And finally, fragrantly, the thrill of using unfamiliar towels.
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A feel-good story.
not all kinds of “winning” were worth the cost or really that great
Less “poker” and more “gin rummy”.
Not all lives matter. Although leftists disagree.
Ye gods we are being ruled by such unserious people. Malicious, narcissistic, unserious people. And it is malice. They hate anyone who is not like them and wish them destroyed. They are also very stupid, because if they get the purge they so desperately want, there will be no one left to keep the lights on, the garbage out of sight, and food in the stores for them to buy.
No. These people are smart. Very, very smart. They graduated from the bestest best of the best schools, educated by the most smartest smart, most well informed not-at-all-ignorant people in the history of Western Civilization.
Note that the Transportation Secretary Buttigieg is an incompetent ideologue who got his job only because he is gay.
Note that, per Wiki:
Personally I think the Mexican immigrant who runs his own lawn maintenance business covering our community and a couple of others is smarter. But WTH do I know? I’m just a land-grant college dufuss. One who is not even sure how to spell ‘dufuss’.
Perfidious squirrels.
I had a similar experience. A very nasty little red squirrel chewed his way into our attic and filled it with pine cones. The clean up crew ran a vaccuum from the attic to their truck three stories below. It took several hours of vaccuuming to clear the space.
National IQ map and national basic skills map look very similar.
“Borders are just imaginary lines that don’t exist in nature.“
Not at all sure what they are protesting, but it’s hard to get more 2022 than this
And yet I’m sure I’ve seen sixth in the row, the little drummer boy, somewhere before.
White supremacy and the cis male patriarchy made him do it.
No. These people are smart. Very, very smart.
Oh they may be credentialed-smart, and smart about mouthing the pieties of the ideology, but they can also be very stupid when it comes to realities. Which they are. They want us gone. Fine. They get their purge. Now all that’s left is a bunch of DIE admins and guys in dresses. And the gangs. And the RoP. It’s not looking good for the soft DIE admins and the guys in dresses when the lights go out.
Smart people can be very stupid, because they don’t think. They just repeat “ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them”.
Note that the Transportation Secretary Buttigieg is an incompetent ideologue who got his job only because he is gay.
Yep! And we got a VP and a Supreme Court Justice because they were the right shade on the Pantone chart and were women, although one of them isn’t sure what a woman is. And to make up for that we got a public health “admiral” who’s a man who thinks he’s a woman. None of these people got their jobs because they could do them. And I don’t think it mattered if any of them went to the right schools or not. They ticked a box.
We got unserious, narcissistic people populating the government like clowns in a VW, and they’re gonna jump the ring and drive that thing right through the stands.
For breast-fondling enthusiasts.
Consider this alternate material.
but they can also be very stupid when it comes to realities.
Because their experience with reality, in any practical sense, is very limited. PB grew up a red diaper baby, valedictorian of his high school, academic parents who taught at New Mexico State and Notre Dame, Rhodes scholarship. Yet the closest he ever had to a real world job was as a “military Uber”. No indication that he ever came under fire and had to put anything he learned into practical experience. But take this same young man and put him through different experiences and he’s a very different man. Or maybe dead. Who knows? But I would venture that it’s not ‘intelligence’ that is a factor here. It’s not that they don’t think. It’s that thinking is pretty much the only thing they do.
This is a cultural problem. We fall for the Marxist BS of seeing everything through class, blue/white collar, and race but try to make up for that by shoehorning these things into a smart/not smart narrative. The emphasis, and thus dividing line on who is worth more to society, needs to be on objective reality. Hard experience with endeavors whose outcomes are objectively successful or not. Smart people who pass through that crucible are truly smart.
‘Emerge from’ not ‘pass through’, lest someone thinks me is not smart.
Yet the closest he ever had to a real world job was as a “military Uber”.
You mean “everybody rode him”? (Crude, but I couldn’t resist.)
It’s not that they don’t think. It’s that thinking is pretty much the only thing they do.
A reasonable point, but I would maintain that people in the grip of an ideology such as Marxism do not really think much because the ideology largely relieves them of the need to think: Instead of actual thinking they merely turn the crank to get the canned answers provided by the ideology. Chatty
CathyCommie. The ideology makes them ignorant and lazy, and ultimately cripples them.Rats love to drive tiny cars. So give them beers and watch the happy mayhem.
A reasonable point, but I would maintain that people in the grip of an ideology such as Marxism do not really think much because the ideology largely relieves them of the need to think: Instead of actual thinking they merely turn the crank to get the canned answers provided by the ideology.
Yes – thank you pst – that’s what I was going for.
What the “smarrrt” people do is to thinking what parrots do is to speech. It might sound like it and look like it, but it’s not it. It’s repeating without understanding.
A question about children’s stories from up to 100 years ago: Which series was it where each chapter or story would end with some sort of absurd construction such as “Now if Mister A doesn’t do B so that the C goes all D, So-and-so will tell you another story”?
Instead of actual thinking they merely turn the crank to get the canned answers provided by the ideology.
Watch just about any scene from the movie Reds as an illustration of this point. Except, of course, the scene where Jack Nicholson makes it clear to Diane Keaton just how ridiculous she and Warren Beatty really are.
WTP: what you point out is so true. These people have never encountered practical things. They have not worked in a factory, done construction, rebuilt a car, or even gone camping. I can say that doing such things had a big impact on me personally. Especially young people are starting to think reality is like their iphone–you can just swipe to change what you are seeing. That everything is just an app. The arbitrariness of the digital world is NOT like the hard boundaries of the real world. If you walk behind a horse it may kick you (he can’t see you back there and it makes him nervous). You can’t just decide the horse won’t kick, there is no app for the horse. So young people protest to end capitalism or racism or war, as if someone somewhere can just change the app of reality and do those things. Poof, no capitalism (whatever the hell that would mean). If they just throw food on a famous painting or glue themselves to the street, that will do it, the man in charge will just fix these problems. It is idiotic.
A reasonable point, but I would maintain that people in the grip of an ideology such as Marxism do not really think much because the ideology largely relieves them of the need to think
But we also should keep in mind that this applies more broadly than to just Marxism. A big problem that I see with the GOP and what little I know about the UK Tories, aside from the likes of St. Margaret T, is this same inexperience with real world experience. Think Karl Rove or George Will or Boris Johnson. And a lot of religion falls under this umbrella as well. On the conservative side, it’s not so much that they do damage by being “wrong” per se but in that their inability to truly understand why they believe what they believe such that they are more easily misled or fail to properly sell conservative ideas.
It is idiotic.
While it is and they themselves may be, the idiocy develops and is much more wide spread directly due to the overwhelming success of free markets and/or capitalism (draw the line where you may). The market being made to mass replicate knowledge with real world experience playing a lesser role has not worked well and we are paying a price for that. Additionally, it has done significant damage to our social institutions.
Jack Nicholson makes it clear to Diane Keaton just how ridiculous she and Warren Beatty really are.
Don’t remember that. Of course I hated the movie…well not hated pe se, but it didn’t stick with me. A quick search brought up more Warren Beatty than I can stomach (I sat through Bullworth, I have scars).
Don’t remember that.
Jack Nicholson played Eugene O’Neill, this is probably the best scene in the movie. I’m not a big fan either, but it stood out to me as a great illustration of just how ridiculous western communists are. Also, a girl I was trying to impress really wanted to see the movie. Not a Warren Beatty fan either. Insufferable egotist not nearly as talented as they made him out to be.
But we also should keep in mind that this applies more broadly than to just Marxism.
Indeed. Libertarianism can be like that, too. Just think of the libertarians who cannot recognize the problems with open borders: They see everything through the narrow lens of total liberty, and therefore cannot even comprehend how different cultures can be and how much conflict can arise when you mix them. Even more impossible for them to understand is that culture–the totality of our customs and habits and rituals and enjoyments– is vitally important to human life, and that it is entirely legitimate and praiseworthy to protect that culture.
8 years to “attain the rank of Lieutenant” !? Seriously? It is to laugh.
Or cry.
Thanks, Steve E. My recollection is quite weak and I likely gave up on that movie before that scene. I believe I only saw it because it was on one of the movie packages we had in college. The only time I ever had such hbo/Cinemax/etc. because I wasn’t paying for them. Well, split 5-7 ways anyhow. I’m curious how that scene fits into the general Narrative. Is O’Neil the bad guy or is he in there to provide some, shall we dare say, “balance”? I am a bit of a Jack Nicholson fan, as much as I can be any sort of fan at this cynical point, I’m rather surprised that I don’t remember it. Props to Nicholson however.
8 years to “attain the rank of Lieutenant” !?
Good point. Though….Doesn’t ‘Lieutenant’ pretty much come with the commission? 8 years and zero promotions? Though I believe some of that was in reserve status. Still as “military uber” and “intelligence” you would think that would make you somewhat valuable for keeping around. Yet OTOH, wouldn’t “military uber” be more of a senior NCO job? Odd that no one has bothered to look into this. Odd. But hey, bone spurs.
Us Navy officers: Ensign, Lieutenant Junior Grade, Lieutenant, Lt. Commander, Commander, Catpain,…
I’d expect a fresh Ensign to get Lieutenant JG after a year or so, then Lt. after another year or so. Plus, there’s often a “promotion” just before retirement (although we’re not looking at a career man here).
Eight years and still a Lt. seems…weak.
Catpain,…
The US military is in worse shape than I realized.
Is O’Neil the bad guy or is he in there to provide some, shall we dare say, “balance”?
The movie is based on real people and real events with a whole lot of license taken with both. Eugene O’Neill started out as a philosophical anarchist and a political socialist, at least that’s how it’s taught when you study his plays. He is supposed to have abandoned socialism fairly early in his life because he questioned its viability, which is what I think they tried to show with his characterization in Reds. This scene is to demonstrate just that. I think Beatty (who also directed) intended this to portray O’Neill as a cynical sheep who was cut from the flock. To any normal person it comes across more as irony for its accuracy.
I love most Nicholson characters too. Most of them are 90% Jack and 10% the actual character which works out just fine in most cases.
This is my favourite Jack scene. “I want you to hold it between your knees.”
A close second is this. “Here’s Bobby. My wife. Fastest tits in the west and king of the ballbusters.”