Friday Ephemera (705)
Judgement promptly validated. || Ice-cream scoop insertions and other medical emergencies. || Somewhat related: Things done to penises in 2023. || Recovered Kodachromes of New York in the Fifties and Sixties. (h/t, Lancastrian Oik) || Like conkers, I guess. || On crime and incarceration. || Question asked, answered. || Being so clever, he doesn’t believe in sky daddy. || Lion relocation. || If you got rid of the toaster, you’d have space for one of these. || Suboptimal road surface. || Set-up and payoff. || The progressive retail experience, parts 526 and 527. || Pressing oil. || For enthusiasts of diecast model cars, The Little Wheels Museum. (h/t, Things) || I laughed and I’m not sorry. || A little artistic licence. || At last, a shower-toilet combo. || And finally, a hawk encounters a kitten with a force field.
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I’m sure there will be no shortage of “progressive” activists and lawyers to tell us that #justice and #equity require his release from prison.
Religion is one of the worst things to happen to mankind, quoth he.
Looking at him, random genetics have a lot to answer for as well.
“I lived in Manhattan in the 80s and always loved how a demolished building left a schematic layout on the side of the adjacent surviving building – imagining people moving within those spaces, up and down the stairs.”
I, too, have seen some fascinating examples of that. And also faded 1940’s advertisements painted on the sides of old buildings.
Nature, nuture, or both? I often ask that, inn general and about specific sad cases. I know some well adjusted socially competent gays and lesbians (as well as some who are badly messed up) but no such trans people. I hope that some day this wide range in psychology will be understood and treatments found–horrible to go through life so messed up and unhappy. And the applies to the fates of people of low intelligence:
The neuroscience of intelligence: Jordan Peterson interviews neuroscientist Richard J. Haier. 40 years ago the question was “Do intelligence and other cognitive traits have a genetic component?” Now the question is “Can we identify those genetic components?”
I know and knew a few people who liked to sneer about “sky daddy” and “flying spaghetti monster”. In the end, it became clear that all of them were each in their own ways toxic; the hostility to religion was just one facet of their defects.
Jordan Peterson’s research has shown that many far left dogmas correlate highly so that if someone holds one of those extreme beliefs it is highly likely that he will hold most or even all of the others as well, even though you might naively think there is no logical connection between, for example, hating Christianity and supporting BLM and Antifa.
This is the transgender movement:
“The NYT did a piece about a guy who spent decades in prison for killing two women, ‘identified’ as a woman while in prison, was released at the age 83, spent time in a women’s only shelter over the objections of its staff and the other women, beheaded another women weeks later, and is now in a women’s prison in NY because he “identifies” as a woman.”
Remember the Texas taqueria shooting back on January 5 2023? A Texas grand jury has declined to indict the shooter. Shot the thug 9 times. I think the last shot was clearly an execution shot (the thug was motionless face down after absorbing 8 bullets in the back) but perhaps one can excuse that final shot due to adrenalin. And it’s a very good thing the thug is dead–regardless of what his grieving mama says.
At last, a shower-toilet combo.
Wouldn’t the toilet paper get all wet and soggy? Or do you have to remember to take your roll in with you when you want to use that part of the facility?
Wouldn’t the toilet paper get all wet and soggy?
Who needs toilet paper when you’re literally standing in a bidet.
Love the Kodachromes.
Simple solution: the old corncob!
“If you got rid of the toaster, you’d have space for one of these.“
Damn, the AirFryer wasn’t the last craze to hit kitchens after all…
“And finally, a hawk encounters a kitten with a force field.“
The ‘expression’ of bafflement on the hawk rather reminds me of Claudine Gay during those hearings, somehow…
Morning, all.
Some street gyrations.
Well, as noted here, chappie’s long history of violent crimes and feral behaviour includes battery, robberies, repeated domestic violence, home invasion, and umpteen other things, and yet he wants us to believe that he deserves to be spared the customary, if belated, consequences.
Again, I miss the concept of shame.
I also miss the concept of dealing with dangerous animals before the list of horrors gets quite so extensive.
Just to be clear, clearly clear clear up front, this guy belongs in prison. He apparently should have been in prison long before this. Possibly an insane asylum as well. Either way this incident should never have had the opportunity to occur. What this judge handed out, or was attempting to hand out seems very appropriate even before he attacked her. That said, and again that said…
I have seen further context on this and more video. I’m not completely clear on the total context of course, neither is anyone outside of that specific courtroom. That said…again, that said…ahem…There is something about her body language and voice (though I could be wrong as I was having some bloody technical glitch such that the **** video kept stopping/glitching a few seconds into her speaking that likely impacted my perception) that comes across a bit arrogant. A man judge, that is a real man judge not the sort of …well you get the idea, would likely have come across much more firm yet also less arrogant. Maybe just being a man would have made a difference, I don’t know. But given the demographic, the attitudes towards women by male members of his demographic, having a white female in this role is its own problem. Putting on a robe does not magically make one an embodiment of legal authority. There needs to be some serious, non-intellectual gravitas involved as well. For a number of reasons beyond just this case. Yet similar situations, minus the linebacker stuff, go on every day in courtrooms across this country. The consequences are rarely this immediate or visible but the consequences are there nonetheless.
From the recovered Kodachromes, linked above.
As soon as I got the Sign of the Horns (hook ’em or otherwise) I soooo wanted to see them lions wake up.
Attention, Star Wars enthusiasts.
Should any still exist, I mean.
“Just like us” as our host would say.
I’ll just leave this here, shall I…?
Oh, and this.
And this.
And… well, we’ll be here all day.
Attention, Star Wars enthusiasts.
I grew bored just listening to her. How tedious these people are. And it is sad for someone like me who saw the first Star Wars film when it caem out. I remember when the Millenium Falcon first flew onto the screen: there were murmurs, gasps, “whoahs,” and other reactions from us 70s teens watching, having grown up on cheesy special effects.
It doesn’t inspire great confidence, no.
I was never a big Star Wars devotee, though I enjoyed the first two films as a child, so the collapse of the franchise, along with many others, doesn’t really impinge on my life. But it is quite extraordinary how these vast pop-cultural staples, once widely entertaining and enormously lucrative, are all now being driven into a ditch, the same ditch, and then set on fire.
In a way that, from here, looks determined.
Again, I miss the concept of shame.
“All cultures are equal and valid™.”
Clearly a machine for commercial bakeries, but I wouldn’t put it past some wealthy gadget faddists to buy one.
It’s also worth noting how the more activism-driven these things become, the more incompetent the execution seems to be. From basic scripting and pacing howlers to fight choreography and special effects, the drop in standards is often striking, sometimes hilarious.
And much the same thing can be seen in the equally woke online media that breathlessly fellates these things. Sites like io9 used to have quite in-depth articles by people who knew their nerdish stuff. But now, the content is by default ineptly-written trash. And again, it’s often inadvertently comical.
Wokeness and incompetence do seem to go hand-in-hand.
Seems like part (if not most) of his problem is a lack of impulse control, which I seem to recall is a typical characteristic of psychopaths: No restraint. Whatever they want, they take without thought for consequences or matters of right/wrong. So yes, prison or an asylum for the criminally insane seems the only right thing.
EDIT:
Could well be: It is well established that criminals in general do not respect women’s authority.
They do still exist, although it’s been over 5 years since I last talked face-to-face with any. In my experience, they will buy tickets for any Star Wars and Star Trek drek that Hollywood produces, even when they know it is drek.
Mama took our Kodachrome away. 🙁
The masses of shop signs, all jammed together and going up multiple floors, is fascinating–and quite different from current downtown street scenes.
[ Raises one eyebrow, in Spock-like inquiry. ]
Just how young are you?
My personal expectation is that any series will run out of steam, usually sooner rather than later, and become tedious and boring as the author runs out of ideas and motivation. It is best, therefore, for the author to stop before he embarrasses himself. George RR Martin’s Game of Thrones series is the example most frequently cited nowadays, but I could mention Frank Herbert’s Dune novels and Farmer’s Riverworld series, both of which I tired of after a few books. But hard core fans tend to be uncritical and will buy anything, and thus publishers will pressure authors to keep churning them out. An exception are Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories which seem to hold up well, presumably because each story is self-contained rather than being part of a story arc which the author grows tired of. (Or cannot figure out how to continue: It is very common for authors to start a series without any clear idea of the story arc, or for the story to take off in unexpected directions which make the originally conceived story arc impossible, and thus the author ends up not knowing what to do.)
My understanding is that most British TV series are planned this way from the beginning: A fixed number of episodes or seasons, with a known story arc, and that’s it. This seems like an admirable practice.
Ideologues are that way. It’s in the genes.
Have you read accounts of peasant life in Maoist China? After a hard day working in the fields, everyone was required to attend political indoctrination sessions which lasted well into the evening. There must have been plenty of haranguing, but I strongly suspect that it was usually just mind-numbingly dull and boring. Especially since these men and women were tired and just wanted to go home and sleep.
I have had only two female supervisors in my career, fortunately. Both were problems to work for. I admit that this is not always the case, but it does seem to be a pattern.
[ Applies moisturiser, dims lighting. ]
From the link:
That reminds me of an essay I read long ago, which quoted (disapprovingly) a literary critic who had “discovered” science fiction and praised it for its pulp trashyness.
If I remember enough to find it again, or if you nag me, I will dig it up and post a quote here. It must have been an elegant take-down if I remember its existence after all these years.
I’ll speculate that we don’t see this anymore because of the proliferation of building codes dictating in ever more detail what must and must not be done. In this case, the motivation being to keep downtown looking “clean” in an “elegant simplicity”. I don’t know much about this, but I do see news items on occasion about shops getting in trouble over signage.
“I’m not gay!”
Above, translated.
Assuming that affirming surgeries have been done, maybe he just likes open wounds and the smell of necrotic tissue.
Wait, did I say that out loud?
Them’s name is Tempest.
Why does she think she’s in a video game?
Re the above:
As the Critical Drinker notes in the video, a diversity-hire director pre-emptively boasting of setting up a gratuitously adversarial relationship with more than half of her expected audience – i.e., men – is not an obvious strategy for commercial success. Or indeed a fun two hours in the cinema.
I’ve been considering the various obnoxious public statements by man-hating Pakistani bigot Obaid-Chinoy, currently being promoted as the next Star Wars film director. Pronouncements guaranteed to alienate at least 80% of any potential future Star Wars audience:
“I like to make men uncomfortable. I enjoy making men uncomfortable“
“It’s 2024 now and I think that it’s about time that we had a woman come forward to shape the story in a galaxy far, far away”
Now firstly Ovoid-Chino’s strategy of directly appealing to the bloated ego of the similarly deranged “leader” of Lucas Film – Kathleen Kennedy (who you might think has already amply demonstrated the consequence of having a woman shaping the story in a galaxy far, far away) with these kind of hateful and divisive comments makes complete sense. And it’s obviously paid off well for her, because after all, here she is.
But here’s the thing I just don’t understand: How is there no-one in a senior position at Disney, watching their 4 BILLION dollar investment in Lucas being flushed down the shitter by these preening talentless woke zealots, willing or able to put a stop to the money-haemorrhage? No-one at all?
But what do i know? I’m probably just a cis-hetro-patriarchical-whyte-supremacist-ahole whose just terrified of a brown woman of talent. Or something.
Also.
HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!
My experience was that early on, the few female leads and managers…but mostly leads, were above average. Likely because they had to be very, very good/conscientious about their situation. After about the mid-90’s s*** went downhill fast.
Assuming any of that is real. Smells very suspect to me. I would need more reason to believe that these people are not play-acting than face value will permit. Are any of these people known entities? Like from more than five minutes ago?
Maybe they are like a few of the science fiction fans I occasionally speak with, who are certain that the future is woke and dysmorphic/dysfunctional, and that therefore the only profitable strategy is to cater to these twisted personalities.
Bruce Gilley on the New York Times “Arts” section. Do read the whole thing:
Things We Did Not Learn – Aporia (aporiamagazine.com)
You are assuming these people are motivated by money. Once people have hundreds of millions, or even tens of millions of dollars, what is more money? Just an objective form of dick measuring. The problematic word there being ‘objective’. Wokeness provides a much more subjective means of doing so. Kinda how cucumbers will disappear from the produce section at the grocery store.
Added: Note that the billions of dollars themselves do not belong to the senior people at Disney. They’re just mercenaries. And they continue to get paid win or lose.
I was looking at that yesterday.
It’s fair to suppose that those people at Disney completely possessed by the Cult of Woke are interested in Disney products only as a means to proselytise their faith, and to sexually groom children. But given that Disney is a multi-billion-dollar international corporation with stock-holders and (presumably) teams of accountants, I can’t believe that no-one in a senior position is motivated by money. Or concerned at the steadily falling objective financial returns on the Star Wars films and serieseses.
Even were that true, they’re obviously losing money now. The return on their massive investment, seeming pretty healthy at first, is showing steadily falling revenues now. The commercial and artistic disaster that is Kathleen Kennedy has been helming this car crash now for 10 years, and what would you guess is the remaining value of the Star Wars IP? Nothing like what they paid for it I would say. Surely there ought to be an adult at Disney able to fire the clusterB of incompetent ideological parasites running the place into the ground, before it’s too late?
I hadn’t realised that Absolutely Fabulous was a documentary.
That one should have been held back.
Today’s word is dupes.
Wonder how well that would work on the Just Stop Oil types.
The soon-to-be-useless bog roll is a nice touch.
That is a valid point. Yes indeed.
But I do wonder if, in part, we are seeing a large scale version of the decades long delusions that my liberal acquaintances have been lost in: They have not abandoned any of the ruling myths that motivated them 40 to 60 years ago: In spite of all the evidence of the failure of “affirmative action” programs, they continue to cling to the belief that all that’s needed to equalize the racial achievement gap in education and employment is to water down standards and institute more quotas in admissions and hiring. Similarly, they continue to believe in the need for “equity” in policing and the courts, which includes replacing prison with various fashionable fads–in spite of the evidence that the only thing that works with repeat offenders is to keep them locked up until they are about 40 years old (and sometimes for much longer) and that criminality is sometimes due to something fundamentally wrong in the brain which no amount of “therapy” can fix.
Old photos: 60 yrs ago in Chicago, the soot from coal meant that every spring we had to wash down our porch. On old buildings in back alleys where the building had not been power washed or painted, you could still see the black soot even recently.
Question – what is the safety harness for? Is it to prevent her breaking her hip if she weebles too enthusiastically?
Judgement: I have to say, that was a hell of a leap. Talk about lack of impulse control, which is what probably brought him to court in the first place.
Note that the account is called “upscale luxury” although this combo could only be marketed to downscale plebs being forced into micro apartments.
I saw that a lot, especially since at one time businesses did not routinely clean off that soot–even downtown.
Neck tattoos do seem to be an indicator of often psychopathic criminality.
An irony being that Absolutely Fabulous, an initially funny parody of such conceits, didn’t know when to bow out either.
Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different. -Claudine Gay…or me…honestly, I forget.
Seriously though, think about this. If someone was to hand anyone on this space a million dollars, that likely would significantly change their lives. Any opportunity to possibly earn a million dollars over say the next year would very likely be seized upon. Maybe I underestimate but I would be surprised that anyone here is worth multiples of tens of millions of dollars. At some point over the Christmas holidays we took a water taxi ($40/pp) down the intracoastal waterway in Ft. Lauderdale. Homes worth tens of millions of dollars, yachts worth nearly 100 million sit idle except for maybe a few weeks of the year. These people have more money than you or I or even they can imagine. And it just keeps rolling in. Especially in the “entertainment” business. Unless they, or their money managers, are very, very stupid, they diversify out of Disney or whatever stock. Sure they keep some play money in the game. For appearances. Because it’s all about appearances. Because the money itself isn’t the thing. It’s the status. The 20th century, especially the latter half, has seen such a tremendous acceleration in wealth, absolutely unprecedented in human history. Generational wealth that at least in the past, in the times of kings and empires and such, still required work, effort, fight to hold onto. The Gods of the Copybook Headings sleep much longer than they used to. There’s a lot of ruin in a nation and/or a society. This lull between times of terror and slaughter will end at some point. Even for many of them once their stupid runs out of reserves.
(if the font on that stays big after posting, I apologize. I couldn’t figure out how to change it as my usual tool of Notepad isn’t on this device)
On a local perambulation a friend and I passed the parochial old manor house, dating back to 1614, and I remarked upon the dark soot-stained stonework. My friend demurred, opining that the variety of stone from which the building was constructed naturally blackened over time due to certain miasmic influences in the air.
I suppose I could Google that to see if it’s true, but now it’s your job.
They deserve what they get at this point.
In a never-ending gyre, the one excuses the other.
I once read about someone who had great difficulties fitting in/being accepted when he moved into a New York City coop building. You see, his net worth was only in the tens of millions while everyone else was far more wealthy. And they looked down on him.
Sorry I don’t remember the details or where I read this.
Perhaps.
I do known that the despite showing casual disregard for many of their jaw-droppingly expensive possessions, I’ve never met anyone become more aggrieved at the notion that somebody somewhere might be cheating them out of a single penny than the fabulously rich.
Well, we can but hope.
Yes, but I would still worry a great deal about the future, since a stock market crash can wipe out large fortunes.
Them’s name is Tempest.
Tempest meet teapot. Use the wrong pronouns and reduce it to tears. So tough.
If they keep buying shit, then they deserve shit.
Doyle killed off Holmes at Reichenbach Falls as he was tired of writing the stories. The subsequent stories, driven in part by public clamour for the of Holmes’, lacked some of the brio of the earlier tales.
Star Wars: even in the original, women had privilege. For example, Anakin’s twin kids were treated differently. The girl became a princess. The boy was sent to a desert planet to be adopted by poor shlubs who treated him like a servant.
Then, in the reboot, the female soon-to-be jedi simply starts manifesting huge powers without any coaching, without learning anything about the war or the jedi way, and without any doubts or difficulties. There were never any female jedi before her and this is never explained.
And the conceit that you can make an action sci-fi movie that insults men…without guys and couples on dates (which includes a guy), who will the audience be? Just children?
I have indeed known a lot of fans with very bad taste: They were blind to stylistic differences between utter pulp and finely written stories. They made no aesthetic distinction between Thomas Kinkaid and N C Wyeth (much less Vermeer and Da Vinci.) They could not appreciate the difference between a moderately competent singer’s interpretation of a song and that of a superb singer. They didn’t notice subtle allusions and clues in stories and could not see them even when pointed out–not even very overt ones like the Nazi imagery in Verhoeven’s butchery of Starship Troopers.
Them has the very definition of a punch-able face.
It’s also not a good strategy for maintaining a healthy society. But radical leftists tend to be Dark Tetrad personalities who want to tear down society.
It must be defeated, you know.
Yes, I recall that. But the subsequent tales were, I think, still quite readable. (I cannot say whether I would agree that they were somewhat less lively than the earlier stories, as it’s been awhile since I’ve read through them all. Damn you! <wink> Now I’m going to have to pull them off the shelf and see!) In contrast, I gave up on Frank Herbert and Philip Jose Farmer after a few volumes and never wanted to return.
Was that <wink> necessary? Might it otherwise have sounded like actual anger rather than silliness?
She looking for a teapot?
David says:
Yes, because the common thread is laziness. All that stuff about standards and quality and hard work is just so white and oppressive. All us woke people should just be affirmed for our essential selves. No one should be a failure. Hey, let’s put a mediocre talent in charge of what would otherwise be a billion dollar movie!!! The money should just flow in because of how transgressive and brave we are.
Without reviewing her back-catalogue, I think it might be Baggage Claim who suggested that one of the reasons for the grotesque ideological debasement of Star Wars under Disney is that they are still, fundamentally, pursuing family entertainment. And consequently they can’t help bastardising even their ostensibly adult properties by attempting to make them appealing to children.
Not sure I see much difference between feminisation and infantilism myself.
Pardon me, but who (or what) is that?
On the whole I prefer the medieval flagellants.
A sitcom.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I was asking about the personage (?) featured in the clip.
I’ve seen an episode Absolutely Fabulous. Well, part of one. Drunken antics pall quickly.
Ah, the gyrating, er, vision is Madonna.
Hieronymus Bosch, call your office.
…we don’t see this anymore because of the proliferation of building codes dictating in ever more detail what must and must not be done.In this case, the motivation being to keep downtown looking “clean” in an “elegant simplicity”.
As opposed to having it all on the sidewalk and in the street in the form of homeless encampments and endless trash and waste?
In the hellhole in which I currently reside, the city charges businesses a fee for every outside sign, which would naturally reduce signage, and I have no reason to doubt other cities are doing something similar. And like you said, the building codes are likely getting onerous, too. Everything going up looks the same now, soon to be covered in graffiti and garbage. Some codes/laws get enforced, others don’t.
Aporia magazine: marginalized art: hahaha one of the things about art is that the viewer does not even know the sex, race, nationality or sexual deviation of the artist. The art speaks for itself. That a museum must make a special exhibit for minorities says louder than words that the art is crap.\
It is the same with scientific work. When a journal gets a manuscript, they (and the reviewers) generally do not know the author and are thus unable to discriminate.
Heh:
I found Dune Messiah to be half as good as Dune, and Children of Dune to be half as good as Dune Messiah. God Emperor of Dune put me off completely.
I only recall 3 books or so of the Riverworld series. If there were more, they escaped my notice.
pst314 wrote
Please do, at least for some future open thread.
Please feel free to nag me, if I not come though within 2 days. I should have time; the only thing that gets in the way is getting distracted due to numerous demands on my time.
Geometric progression, yes.
Each subsequent book became less interesting and more occupied by byzantine plots within plots.
There were about 6. I abandoned the series long before that, though.
That seemed to be one of Herbert’s predilections which showed up in other series as well.
Mental health professional struggles with basic concept: