Reheated (106)
For newcomers, some items from the archives:
An encounter with the incongruous.
The Progressive Retail Experience. And the contortions it requires.
Oddly, Mr Wentworth, whose business is planning to close another 450 stores during the coming year, avoids any use of the words shoplifting, looting, or theft.
It has to be said, the prospect of shopping for shampoo in a store where pretty much everything, including shampoo, is under lock and key and requires elaborate and protracted negotiation in order to actually buy it, and in which looters might at any time appear and start smashing up the place, with little opposition, does not entice. But hey, maybe that’s just me.
A stolen phone, a worldview in snapshot form.
I Know, Let’s All Film Our Mental Breakdowns.
An election occurs. Cue meltdowns and moon-howling.
Of course, Ms Prose was far from alone in her weird theatre of distress, and social media was ablaze with performative convulsion. Among the titans of the fabulist resistance was a tightly wound progressive chap, who envisioned internment camps for those like himself, i.e., tightly wound progressives, with the streets being patrolled by some Trumpian Sturmabteilung.
Oh, and let’s not forget the Ohio high-school teacher Danielle Mann, whose post-election demands, issued from her classroom, included a list of the addresses of likeminded progressives, all of them, everywhere, and the mandatory wearing of identifying bracelets. So that she would know how everyone else voted.
Progressive parenting, with bonus crack and badger.
It must be quite strange to go through life feeling a need to boast in print of some pointed behaviour – specifically, “showing my sons what a real woman’s body… looks like” – as if this feat of not wearing knickers were somehow radical, empowering, and a basis for applause. And to then have to justify this lifestyle affectation in ways that are somewhat contradictory and not particularly convincing. As if no-one would notice. It seems a lot of effort.
For those craving more, this is a pretty good place to start.
This blog is kept afloat by the tip jar buttons below.
It’s what AWFULs do.
Among the type, there does seem to be quite a lot of contrivance.
Remind me again who the ‘fascists’ are supposed to be…
“Being trans is natural” so to ensure our “visibility” we are going to dress up like a park ranger and hang a 55 foot flag half way up a 3000 ft. cliff.
That’ll show ’em.
The Progressive Retail Experience.
Meanwhile in New Jersey, let’s all go to the mall.
I’m inclined to suggest that one of the more unhappy developments for sexually dysmorphic people has been the rise to round-the-clock prominence – something close to ubiquity – of trans activists.
Just noticed that I’ve posted almost 10,000 comments since the blog’s migration from Typepad in November 2022.
Today’s word is gasbag.
…has been the rise to round-the-clock prominence…
Nonsense, they “just want to exist”. This message has been approved by The Central Committee.
*notices thing you’re not supposed to notice*
Now that he’s a woman he can just gain weight.
David’s new online nom de blog is Aeolus.
[ Imagines arming mall cops with M16’s. Or something belt-fed. ]
[ Looks up pst314’s comment count. ]
Sentence of note. From the pages of Gothamist.
But should you trust crazy people to prepare and serve anything you eat?
And I regret nothing!
[ Recalls recent post of parrot babbling in Portuguese. ]
One of the reasons I did not keep my parents’ duplex, even though it was in a prime location, was how difficult it is to be a landlord in a culture that hates landlords and celebrates stealing from them.
Well, I’ve known people whose attitude towards landlords seemed to be, “I obviously need a roof over my head, so therefore I shouldn’t have to be diligent about avoiding damage or paying my rent. I should just get the housing anyway.”
Which, said out loud, is quite… odd.
See also this – though, sadly, the video has since been deleted.
Video restored.
Now that he’s a woman he can just gain weight.
I hate to break it to him, but as fat distribution in men and women is different, I think he will be disappointed.
The compassionate left, Part 9,445.
[ Makes last-minute addition to tomorrow’s Ephemera, chuckles. ]
Oh, and as we haven’t had a thing-that-never-happens for at least two days.
Ranger Smith is looking a bit seedy.
Does his mother know he’s been rummaging in her wardrobe?
It was the, “Now that I’m, like, a woman…”
The commas were doing some work there.
Mental health crisis: how could mental health vary over time? Surely actual medical issues like schizophrenia are, you know, medical…
I believe the answer is that a lot of mental health issues in saner times were overcome or suppressed by people busy just living. There was social pressure against acting out, whining, dressing weird. No one gave you points for self-pity. A lot of what we see is what Freud would have called neuroses, which are not medical
Well yes. Now there are unlimited forums catering to every “condition”, imaginary or real. And there are bad actors in those forums…
That’s a funny way to spell “alcoholism, drug addiction, self-mutilation and dangerous sexual activity”.
I get a lot of flack for the “it is always, always, always about childhood sexual abuse” line but really, it is always, always, always about childhood sexual abuse. I have a great deal of sympathy for people with severe mental health issues because I know what the etiology is in a great many of these cases. The problem is with the activists using this as leverage to bring about the Great Revolution, not the mentally ill. They need treatment, and where necessary, isolation from the vulnerable when they’ve demonstrated an inability to comprehend or respect boundaries. The people dressing up in flamboyant drag in front of schoolchildren would have been bug chasing in the 1980s and dying of drug overdoses in the 1990s.
Daniel: perhaps you are thinking of the more extreme cases. I am thinking of Guardian columnistas who bang on about their hard life, or people making tiktoks of themselves screaming about Trump, or rich kids rioting for Gaza. In the past, most people were too busy to act out this way, had no forum to do so, and were discouraged from it. If you are on the assembly line all day and have 4 kids at home, neither you nor your wife can act like that.
Also, we have an awful lot of young people with too much time on their hands and who have few stable social connections.
I am drinking a gin and tonic. It has ice and two wedges of lime.
That is all.
I am drinking a gin and tonic. It has ice and two wedges of lime.
Dang – every time I read a British murder mystery and it mentions this or you post here about it, I get a strong desire to try it. The drink sounds so refreshing. But what’s a curious damned Yankee to do – we’re limited on the nicer English gins – I think Bombay Sapphire and Beefeaters are the best I know about. I’ll be at one of the bigger, nicer liquor stores this weekend – suggestions for a novice to look for?
Did you bring enough to share?
[ Opens coat. ] Here, try this. Only $2 a bottle.
Oh, I’m sorry. Do you not have a gin and tonic with ice and two wedges of lime?
Oh dear.
[ Squeezes wedge of lime. ]
I’m not really a gin snob, so I’m not much help on that front. Currently drinking a Gordon’s that came in a can, premixed. I like Bombay Sapphire, though I prefer Whitby Gin. Their Original Edition is very good, and their Prince of Darkness is my favourite.
Currently drinking a Gordon’s that came in a can, premixed
I mentioned this before, but it was delightful to walk into a neighborhood Marks & Spencer and find small individual cans of G&T (I think it was 5 O’Clock) for sale. Made a refreshing contrast to the Katsu Sando, Greek feta salad and strawberry tarts.
While I disagree with the degree of always, I do believe that and other similar or even more extreme childhood traumas are 99.94665% of it.
Not much of a gin snob either, though…ginning up for G&T season, while I was content with Blue Sapphire, here in the US I have been enjoying Aviator recently. Don’t know how widely available St. Augustine Distillery products are, but they have a gin that has a hint of citrus in it that makes for a good G&T.
If you don’t care for the taste of gin – I don’t – try brandy and soda.
It took me a while to warm up to it. Most gin cocktails are too sweet for me but a G&T in the summer heat is perfect. I have come around to even drinking gin martinis now, after a few years of mixing 1/2 gin & 1/2 vodka.
I looked it up and was disappointed it wasn’t doing this
I had to review “letters of comment” on a regulatory hearing to determine what an electric utility should charge for electricity to re-charge electric vehicles. There were a huge number of letters that said “We bought our” [Tesla / Volt / Bolt / Leaf / etc] “to save the planet, so we should get the power for free.”
I couldn’t believe the entitlement (and the stupidity) – you think the stuff just arrives at the charger by magic, or what?
“you think the stuff just arrives at the charger by magic, or what?”
yes, yes they do.
As I said here,
I mean, it’s not a great way to go through life. Endless pouting and ingratitude.
Just as food magically appears in the supermarket, drugs in the pharmacy, etc.
Badly in need of a Boot to the Head.
Well, I don’t consider those mental health issues. That’s just bog-standard fashion signaling. The fashion in this case might be luxury beliefs rather than a mink stole, but it’s still fashion, easily discarded in favour of the next trend to come along.
There is a degree of hyperbole, yes, but it’s deliberate, as a reaction to being told for decades that it was never, never, never about childhood sexual abuse. And yet the best available research indicates that 90%+ of the time, it absolutely is.
I have a fairly close friend who was molested by the youth minister at our church when we were elementary school age. Fortunately he was able to get some good help/counseling about that and has been quite successful. A tad undersized and maybe even a tad wimpy as a kid, now a rugged, ski demon mountain man, successful software developer, made good money consulting while simultaneously able to do an incredible amount of skiing. Gets plenty of attention from the women/girls we knew back in the day, yet neither I nor any of our mutual friends have known him to have any sort of a female relationship. For reasons too complex to get into, I think I am the only one of us who knows what happened to him. I don’t think that he even knows that I know though he is certainly smart enough to be able to figure it out. Makes for slightly awkward conversation when his name comes up. He’s successful enough to do whatever he wants in life so it’s not like I feel sorry for him but in a way…well…then again at times I think he’s lucky that way as well…kinda…