And In Thong-Related News
A project is undertaken:
Years of “working through” one’s state of heftiness obviously being preferable to actual, you know, weight loss. Which, one suspects, might have taken less time. But hey, we mustn’t reach for the stars.
Fearlessly, heroically, said garment was duly rocked. The result, needless to say, is “cool-girl style vibes” – a “body-baring sheer look,” complete with what I’m assured are a corset and “strappy, rhinestone heels.”
Other perspectives are available.
When not “pushing boundaries” and invoking the feminism of taking up space “unapologetically,” the author, Ms Margie Plus, is a “confidence activist” and a musician. Those with a taste for pitch correction and overstretched PVC can behold her creativity here.
Via Mr Worstall.
Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.
‘…constantly translating the latest clothing trends for plus-size bodies.’
Translating them into what?!
That’s what we need. A woman’s perspective.
Why, it’s fabulousness all the way down.
TBF she doesn’t lack confidence. Too much, maybe.
Yes, there’s something to be said for an occasional flickering of doubt and entertaining the thought that, hmm, maybe I shouldn’t.
Well, when you surround yourself with people who are willing to pretend, affirming and gushing as required…
Much societal strife is caused by people who have too much confidence.
Just as criminals tend to be people with too high an opinion of themselves.
Think I’ll re-post that one in case anyone missed it:
Trying to follow the logic, or supposed logic, takes some concentration. From what I could make out, it’s basically,
Or, if you prefer an actual quote,
And their politeness, or complicity, is the sole yardstick of what is real, you see. There being no other basis on which to make a determination.
This is followed almost immediately with claims of feeling “not safe” among people who, while polite and in no way threatening, may not feel obliged to play The Pretend Game. Because a reluctance to pretend is some kind of mortal threat to a supposedly unshakable and very real identity that requires continual external validation and must never, ever be in question.
As trains of thought go, it’s a bumpy ride.
I never cease to marvel at the professional fools–sociologists and criminologists and teachers–who think that criminals are criminals because they “lack self esteem”. They seem incapable of understanding anything about sociopathy which does not confolrm to their leftist ideology.
Just as there are those who see this creature, or one of many like it, and expect the rest of us to see victimhood, and by extension an entitlement to indulgence, rather than seeing, say, pathological selfishness.
Self-esteem: this pop-psych fad has done lots of damage. In schools it is leading to getting rid of honors classes and valedictorians. In homes it is giving us spoiled children who are 25 yrs old. The sad truth of life is that not everyone can be rich or famous and the world does not care about you, but the self-esteem BS convinces people that they deserve special recognition. For nothing in particular. This goes for the trans creeps who want constant praise and stroking. As mentioned, gang members are full of their self-importance based on nothing but swaggering. A normal adult rarely gets praise. One gets to feel a sense of accomplishment for the things you have done. If you rub it in with others they will get annoyed. One could say “keep it in your pants”. Requiring praise for nothing at all is doubly annoying.
Self-esteem: this pop-psych fad has done lots of damage. In schools it is leading to getting rid of honors classes
Also because eliminating honors classes “allows” the smarter kids to spend time tutoring the slower kids. I was hearing that argument even back in the mid sixties.
The reality is that it doesn’t help the slower kids much, and it greatly deprives the smarter kids of the chance to fully develop their potential during the few precious years they are in school. Lefties–is there anything they do not ruin?
Translating them into what?!
Jibs and spinnakers.
The term ‘success’ is doing some rather heavy lifting here.
Something with reinforced seams one would hope.
*snort*
Folie à foule?
Well, it does seem a round-the-houses approach. I mean, if being fat is making you unhappy or resentful, then, instead of farting about with therapy and years of working through your issues, just lose the bloody weight.
There’s someone I know who’s been very fat for the decade or so I’ve known her. She grew more so with each passing year, and some years quite a lot more, until a recent health scare made course correction necessary. In the few months since I last saw her, she’s lost 44 kg or 97 lbs or 7 Stone. No small feat. She’s still big, but no longer, I think, in danger of expiring before her children finish secondary school. And it occurs to me that it’s probably best not to leave that particular chore until the klaxon sounds.
Self-esteem. I can’t ever remember this being a term in common currency, or even a concept in search of a label, during my childhood and youth. People would sometimes suggest that an individual either lacked ‘self-confidence’ or displayed a surfeit of it, both of which states can be sub-optimal when taken to excess. It wasn’t until I began what I must laughingly call my career and started working in education that I encountered the notion of self-esteem and other batty theories. In my work I dealt with young people with ‘special needs’, including those with ’emotional and behavioural difficulties’ (what would have been called in a less dishonest time ‘rogues and rapscallions’). As has been noted, such people are not lacking in ‘self-esteem’, but rather empathy, self-reflection and consideration for others.
It certainly qualifies as an Extraordinary Popular Delusion.
Not knowing your age or side of the pond or whatever but I personally was scolded in school approximately 50 years ago for fighting back against a bully. And actually once or twice even earlier but different context…I was told that *I* should feel sorry for him because he “suffered” from low self-esteem. My 12-13 year old self could not understand how that SOB somehow had low self-esteem. Seemed mighty f’n high in every aspect of his personality in every other regard. And then the tv shows the kids that I baby-sat watched. “The most important person in the whole wide world is you…”.
Excess weight: the fat positive people are grabbing the wrong end of the stick. They are all worked up about how people see them, but really few of us care. We have fat friends and thin friends. If anything, our “disapproval” is concern that the weight will kill them. The proper framework is their own busted out knees, diabetes, fatty liver (ie cancer), inability to do ordinary things.
Unrelated to thongs and self-esteem but similarly batty. A report on BBC local news page for Derbyshire.
Paramedics could not tell deaf Derby widow her husband had died
A deaf woman is calling for ambulance crews to learn basic sign language after paramedics were unable to tell her that her husband had died.
[snip]
By the time she got home, paramedics had arrived but could not explain to Mrs X what had happened.
So – train every paramedic in sign language (and probably they still can’t explain). At what expense of time and money?
WTF is wrong with pencil and paper?
You need to think more like a victim, h8r.
I recently head of “engineers that don’t do calculations”, which I presume means work is done in groups at school where the brainy one does all the calculus while the others enjoy the perks and benefits of being called engineers without knowing what will explode/fall down themselves.
Women of all sizes should have sole ownership of their bodies in every form
I think it’s a given no one is trying to outbid them for said ownership
…which I presume means work is done in groups at school where the brainy one does all the calculus…
Ah yes, group work. A favorite of educators everywhere. I could never understand it and got into many arguments with teachers over it. One or two (if you’re lucky) carry the weight for the entire team. Not only doing all the work but carrying all the stress of getting the thing done on time. It was obvious the teachers knew what was going on but they obviously didn’t care. What it taught me was that benefits always slide downhill. Slackers get credit for things they didn’t do and those who carry the load don’t get compensated for their extra work. If anything was learned, it’s knowing when you’ve reached your contribution limit and backing off appropriately. Oh and if you’re smart and capable, avoid group work like the plague.
It provides the teachers with a staff of unpaid tutoring assistants who can’t quit.
Agreed! Even teams of two can be a problem, as I learned when I got stuck with a lab partner whose intellect was less than stellar and, as the icing on the cake, would refuse to explain his reasoning when we disagreed.
Bolt ropes, said the old sailor.
group work: we had group projects in some professional courses (sort of engineering) in the US. My group could not do the computing part. They told me if I did that part they would do the rest and tell the prof I did it. I did, they did, and the prof gave me an A and them a B (which they were ok with). That is how group work should be done.
The term ‘success’ is doing some rather heavy lifting here.
So is the thong.
Self-esteem: this pop-psych fad has done lots of damage.
What I find ironic is the “self-esteem” in the fad is in fact the exact opposite of what that word means. The movement teaches children (and sadly, adults) to seek external validation. That’s not what self-esteem is; self-esteem comes form the self (duh) from having a strong internalized moral code and sense of one’s intrinsic value and ability, usually based on one’s own achievements.
As with so many things, it’s about sex roles. Men derive their self-worth from personal accomplishments and competition with other men against an external standard. Women derive their self-worth from their ability to increase their social position within the group. Most pop psychology is driven by a desire to make the feminine ideal universal, and when an opposite fad arises – like, say, Jordan B. Peterson’s male-centric philosophies – it has to stamped out as a threat.
WTF is wrong with pencil and paper?
I’m currently in a part of Mexico where very few people speak English and I don’t speak a lick of Spanish. Google Translate and $200 phone is near as dammit to a Star Trek universal translator.
It’s worth keeping in mind that the deaf community is easily the most militant of the disabled activist movements, to the point that they’ve lobbied to outlaw corrective surgery for deaf children.
This. Objectivity has been under attack ever since we started giving women, all women, more power.
Album title.
to the point that they’ve lobbied to outlaw corrective surgery for deaf children.
Yes. They’ve gone as far as to say it’s an attempt to eradicate deaf “culture”. (Culture–another overused and misused word.) I think the extreme, militant deaf have even called it genocide.
That.
I don’t doubt that losing weight is quite boring, a bit of a slog. But it’s not like the fat person is being asked to sail solo across the Atlantic, or to master Hungul from scratch for an exam tomorrow morning. If being fat bothers you, the solution isn’t hard to fathom. It is actually do-able, given some crumb of self-possession.
Weight: my 35 yr old son in law decided his desk job was making him chubby and he lost 30 lbs over 3 months (diet and going to gym regularly). He looks great and has more energy. The main judgement people make about the obese is that they lack discipline –a probably true statement.
A preacher gives a sermon about lies and dishonesty.
to the point that they’ve lobbied to outlaw corrective surgery for deaf children.
Remember the two deaf lesbians? [No, I’m not going to say it…]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1916462.stm
IIRC, they split. I assume the child still exists.
For those of you over in Blighty, your TV license fee at work.
The women, from Bethesda, Maryland, are both mental health therapists and deaf therapists.
“The women, from Bethesda, Maryland, are both mental health therapists and deaf therapists.”
Of course they are.
We will never reach Peak Clown World, because there is always more peaks.
To paraphrase a Haitian proverb, behind the mountains of madness there are more mountains of madness.
He fucked around and found out.
His father describes the kid’s YouTube channel as “fun” and “goofy”, but a fast look suggests he is obnoxious and deserves to get punched in the face. Shot in the stomach, however, might be a bit much. 😉
Shot in the stomach, however, might be a bit much.
The shootee, “…moved to Virginia to pursue his dream of being a youtube “influencer”…”
Lofty goal indeed.
Rap musician Cardi B drugged and robbed men when she worked as a stripper:
“I did what I needed to survive”.
Were there laws barring her from any other form of employment? A toxic, evil culture–which liberals make endless excuses for.
Hide the good spoon and breakables, possible Moron-O-Lanche as Ace has linked this post.
Lofty goal indeed.
I used to think so, too, but I’ve changed my mind a bit of late.
With the ready availability of handheld HD video cameras in smartphones and powerful digital editing tools, media creation has become democratized like never before. Streaming video platforms mean that anyone can broadcast worldwide for a trivial cost.
(Yes, there are all kinds of political issues surrounding that, but set those aside for now)
I think what we’re seeing is the fragmentation of video the same way MP3s and digital delivery platforms fragmented music, and podcasts fragmented radio. Like music and podcasts, what you can consume or produce is no longer controlled by a small group of publishers.
It’s certainly true that the majority of such content out there is vulgar and puerile, but there’s nothing stopping people from making, say, high quality production video versions of The Explorers Podcast or Trojan War: The Podcast. The Teaching Company/The Modern Scholar/The Great Courses[1] now has a $7/month streaming service.
[1] These guys change their name more often than a cartel shell company
For instance, the accusations of “audism,” mentioned here some time ago, in which activists displace the aggravations of deafness onto people with functional hearing, such that we, not deafness itself, are construed as the sole cause of disadvantage and isolation. And so, the rest of us are denounced as oppressive and “violent,” not because of any actual violence, you understand, but simply because we can hear.
It’s easier to direct long-term resentment at other people rather than abstractions or impersonal things – a disability, for instance. I mean, you can only rail against the universe, or circumstance or whatever, for so long. People, on the other hand, you can resent for a lifetime. And so, a preference for not being disabled is construed, ludicrously, as “oppression” and “violence,” and a basis for intersectional chastisement.
I have a niece who was born with a hearing problem, successfully corrected with an implant. My late father-in-law relied on various hearing aids. So far as I can recall, I haven’t ever felt “superior” to either of them, or been eager to “dominate” them, on grounds that my hearing works better than theirs. And both have been immensely grateful for the devices that allow them to enjoy music, and family gossip, and questionable gameshows.
asiaseen: “WTF is wrong with pencil and paper?“
I thought the ‘throat cutting’ gesture was pretty universal, as universal as any sign language, no?
Sweep gets the message across in this stirring version of Bohemian Rhapsody:-
https://sweepfanpage.wordpress.com/sweep-sings/
I’m just going to leave this here for no reason whatsoever.
‘I’m just going to leave this here for no reason whatsoever.’
Ah, but David, can we be sure that ‘Obesity’ and ‘Diabetes’ aren’t ghetto names for other black performers, and maybe this was a murder?
Diabetes has a… certain ring to it. Sort of, Diabetes Jones: Private Detective.
Some wise observations on engineering by Tim Newman for those who believed that STEM would be a firewall for the idiocy. Much of STEM is the idiocy.
Nah. She’s just a fat ass. And if someone wants to reply “It takes one to know one,” okay, I’m one, too. But that makes me qualified to know a fat ass when I see one.
The post reminds me of this comedy routine.
Utterly tragic (follow the thread).
No, Modern Scholar was a now-defunct competitor of The Teaching Company. The latest name for The Teaching Company is Wondrium, which sounds like the horrible invention of some MBA marketing dweebs.
Ghetto name actually seen: Latrina. It’s only a matter of time before someone names her daughter Chlamydia.
Thoughts so stupid only an “activist” could have them.
Chas Moore is given the Key to the City of Austin (of course) and wants all police and prisons abolished, which I am sure has nothing to do with his being a convicted felon.
a) No police, so who apprehends the alleged perpetrator, and who makes him show up to clean your dump let alone do other than a half-assed job of it?
b) Having the guy who robbed your house in to clean your house is pure genius, what could possibly go wrong?
He also wants no jail time for murder.
No retribution? Not even the Lubyanka treatment?
Just spitballing here, but unless he decides to identify as a woman and is transferred to a women’s prison and shanks someone’s grandma who is also in the slammer, I’m guessing what you gain is he won’t kill someone else’s grandma.
I am firmly convinced the main method of any leftist idea is never to think things through.
“Sometimes our children lead the way.”
Among the many, shall we say, problems that occur to me is the suspicion that the kind of person who will happily break into your home and steal your belongings, having almost certainly done such things before, probably won’t have the most diligent approach to cleaning up afterwards. Or indeed to much of anything.
But hey, let’s listen to the fatuous, self-serving ramblings of a moral degenerate.
And as we’ve seen many times, some people will perform almost any contortion to avoid being realistic, and thus become statusful. If only among other moral idiots.
…fatuous, self-serving ramblings…
Speaking of which, the “trans” “activists” are at it again in France.
Just blueskying here, but ersatz women shutting down women trying to support actually oppressed women isn’t exactly helping their argument that they are not ersatz women, because that is what the actual men oppressing women are doing in the first place.
Who would’ve guessed that a demographic prone to Cluster B personality disorders would engage in obnoxious and threatening behaviour?
Dead at 25
At least no amputations & blindness occurred.
That’s a blessing
Instead say:
I’m not infected;
I am disease free;
I am devoid of genital pathology;
Yeah, no, you didn’t get that from me.
Or, riddled with slag pox.
What?
¡Orale! ¡Noticieas muy importante del Dotación Nacional para las Humanidades!
Many of the recent campaigns to destigmatise certain kinds of behaviour, or the consequences of such behaviour – opiate addiction, fentanyl use, whoring about, etc – seem geared to suppressing the kind of information that the rest of us might conceivably find useful if we wished to minimise contact with shitty people.
As if shame should be banished from the moral universe, even as a concept.
As I said when the link immediately above first appeared,
Or, “Just keep on doing whatever is ruining your life and degrading the social environment of those around you. Everything is fine.”
Not an entirely happy development.
It’s only a matter of time before someone names her daughter Chlamydia.
Already been done pst, in Hong Kong, together with a whole host of risible names “because they sound nice”
OK, that video was annoying AF. It was obviously sped up, for wtf reason I do not get. I could not find any way to slow it down. WTF was the point?
Cute. Still thinking it’s about the argument. The logic & reason thing. Again, the respect for L&R sailed long, long ago. Somewhat related to:
You’re just supposed to accept that rationalization. You L&R as to the consequences of living in such a society are just tiresome BS that they will ignore. Because they can. The fact that they can is the whole point of why they do what they do.
Re my previous comment, not entirely unrelated.
Again, note the attempt to flatten values, to erase any distinction between the deserving and the not.
Instead say:
“Cupid’s eczema”?
That it’s a buyer’s market for clowns might have some bearing.
From Planned Parenthood’s bullet points at the link:
They were not common when I was a kid. Herpes used to be very rare, until the “sexual revolution” of the sixties.
A science fiction writer, known for picking up strangers for casual one-night stands, boasted that he was sleeping his way across the continent. He eventually got herpes and I always wondered how many women he gave it to.
Very insightful.
Some years ago in New Orleans, during an outbreak, there were a number of girls born at Charity Hospital given, at the suggestion of puckish interns, the name Roseola.
“We will never reach Peak Clown World, because there is always more peaks.”
Indeed. For those of us who are… old “ish”, the past is instructive. One might recall the “satanic everything” of the 60’s and 70’s, or the “child abuse” idiocy of the late 80’s and early 90’s.
What we see here is simply another peak. And just as stupid.
Chas Moore: punishing a murderer is not supposed to make you feel better (though it may) but to prevent that person from killing again. Same with other crimes. Most crimes are committed by thugs with dozens or hundreds of crimes under their belts. A rapist with 20 rapes for example. A thug who shoots people rather often. Removal from society is the goal. Secondarily, prison informs the other thugs that it may not be worth being a criminal. For this to work, prison needs to be likely.
Nah, bro. Yes, another peak to be followed by another and another. The big difference, the accelerant added to the current fire, is that those stupid things back then were nowhere near as widely accepted. Once openly exposed there was pushback from the community. People, most of whom are now likely dead or in nursing homes too old to matter, pushed back on the idiocy, openly, and unafraid of being called names and laughed at. They were of course called names and laughed at by the younger culture who wrote them off as obtuse, prudish, and “not getting it”. Movies were made, comedians did sets, tv shows were produced on a weekly basis mocking those older people. But they had a moral backbone and they were not afraid to speak up. Critical mass or no critical mass. Deep down, they knew that they were right. For all their faults, some of us knew as well.
Banishing shame: If you declare that there is no morality and there should be no judgement on you, you must banish shame because shame is the result of someone judging you. Logically, then, we must normalize everything. Nothing can be said to be an outcome to be avoided, such as incurable STIs or permanent amputations of body parts by teens or playing around with lethal drugs or hooking up with strangers or illnesses caused by obesity. No no no. We must not inform our youth or selves of dangers. We may not ask if a romantic partner has herpes. During a pandemic of covid we must delicately say “preexisting conditions” without mentioning that obesity/diabetes is one of those conditions lets we shame the obese. We also must logically put manuals for every sexual option into elementary schools because it is now normalized. The logic is valid once you accept the premise.
Or curable STI’s, since increased drug use leads to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which in turn leads to suffering for people who contracted infections though no fault of their own.
I wonder if anyone has ever asked John Cleese and other famous comedians if they now have doubts about the wisdom of mocking prudence, not to mention sacred things.
punishing a murderer is not supposed to make you feel better
Ironic, given how everything today is based on one’s feelings
“the wisdom of mocking prudence”
Some wish to upset the proverbial apple cart…
Then complain on the lack of apples.
Like jolly escaped asses (band name):
—
If you make a revolution, make it for fun,
don’t make it in ghastly seriousness,
don’t do it in deadly earnest,
do it for fun.
Don’t do it because you hate people,
do it just to spit in their eye.
Don’t do it for the money,
do it and be damned to the money.
Don’t do it for equality,
do it because we’ve got too much equality
and it would be fun to upset the apple—cart
and see which way the apples would go a—rolling.
Don’t do it for the working classes.
Do it so that we can all of us be little aristocracies on our own
and kick our heels like jolly escaped asses.
Don’t do it, anyhow, for international Labour.
Labour is the one thing a man has had too much of.
Let’s abolish labour, let’s have done with labouring!
Work can be fun, and men can enjoy it; then it’s not labour.
Let’s have it so! Let’s make a revolution for fun!
Well, it makes me feel better about going on a walk down the street, answering knocks on my door, letting my kids play with their friends outside, etc.
Obesity: Chris Farley (died age 33) and John Candy (d age 44) were both rather…round. I predicted that they would both perish early, and they both did. Age 33 is pretty young to die I think. But hey, fat is healthy donchaknow.
[ Does last-minute check of links for tomorrow’s Ephemera. ]
Third time I’ve had to do this today, by the way.
[ Shakes fist at Reddit moderators. ]
Psst! Want to borrow a trebuchet?
trebuchet not restricted under gun control laws…
This lady want to relieve himself on the steps of No. 10 Downing Street, most likely not squatting, if you catch my meaning, if you get my drift.
There’s a reason thongs went out of style. They are uncomfortable and don’t provide any protection where a woman needs it.
She’s late to the party. And holy shit, is bad taste a prerequisite for these “look at me!” types?