Reheated (107)
From the archives – and from the golden age of the Guardian – some examples of improbable agonising.
Women, we’re told, are being mentally injured by small baked goods.
A commenter asks, “What is it with people’s inability to ignore the things they don’t like?” Meaning things you don’t like and which have no bearing whatsoever on your everyday life or the turning of the world. Say, “our” alleged “obsession” with cupcakes and their supposedly debilitating effects on helpless, hapless womenfolk. Women being so mentally insubstantial that even a tiny cake can unhinge their minds, apparently.
But fretting ostentatiously about things of no importance has long been a standard template for Guardian articles, especially if you can shoehorn in some sophomoric theorising. It’s something most papers do to some extent, due to the obligation to Fill Space Somehow, but the Guardian is by far the greatest exponent and the most grandiose. Many of its contributors have mastered inadvertent surrealism.
As commenter sk60 quipped in reply,
On being oppressed by suburban barbecues, where, it turns out, the Patriarchy reigns and women are crushed underfoot.
I’ve been to a few barbecues over the years, one or two with female grill-keepers, though most with males wielding the Plastic Spatula of Oppression™. I can’t say I was ever aware of much argument as to roles. It generally seems to depend on who’s in the mood or who’s the better cook, at least of the items in question, or – perhaps more commonly – who’s prepared to spend the day on duty, sweating, while smelling of grease and smoke.
I’ve yet to hear of womenfolk being locked indoors, away from the charcoal and firelighters, by surly, hissing men. And at the barbecue I attended recently, the matriarch of the house had a much more important job than merely cooking sausages. My sister-in-law kept the day lubricated with endless, quite colossal, pitchers of Pimms. Priorities, you see.
It doesn’t seem to have occurred to Mr Power that quite a few people, male and female, actually enjoy the role-play opportunity of the barbecue – the theatre, the ritual, the fun. Even – heresy! – gendered fun. But hey, the point is that some of you heathens are still arranging your leisure time and social gatherings in a way of which our Guardianista disapproves. Your barbecues aren’t being gender balanced in the way he would like.
Also, the assertion by our learned journalist:
Guardian writer is psychologically crushed by spellcheck software, disposable paper cups.
“Angela could get coffee at Starbucks with ease,” says Ms Rojas, “while Icess was still spelling her name out.” Oh, this new realm of suffering: “Jessica was a staple at my local Chinese place even though Icess paid. And even Microsoft Word recognised Jenny as a proper pronoun, a proper person, over me; the red squiggle line was a constant reminder.”
Spellcheck too? Will this oppression never end? And doubtless Ms Rojas is intimately familiar with the spelling and pronunciation of every name of every employee at her local Chinese restaurant.
Prompted by Ted S in the comments. Which you’re reading, of course.
For those craving more, this is a pretty good place to start.
[ Klaxon ] Steven Pinker appears on podcast “linked to” racism.
And “dangerous, discredited ideas” is Guardian-speak for solid scientific evidence.
All my life I have had to tell people how to spell my last name. It never occurred to me to be angry with them or blame some vague “system”.
Mamet’s The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture is on my reading list.
Odds that she voted for Obama and Biden: 99.998%.
Many of today’s assault cases would be murder cases if it were not for medical advances of the last 60 years. And thus, correcting murder statistics for that factor suggests that we have a lot of people serving short prison sentences who really ought to be dangling from gallows.
The other day the Mexican President flirted with the idea of threatening the US over the riots in Los Angeles and the idea of taxing remittances, now the Mexican Senate is openly floating the “Reconquista” nonsense.
The People Make The Country: How Low-Trust Immigration Turns Cooperation Into Conflict
And don’t forget that for many years Mexico has openly facilitated and encouraged illegal immigration.
I would have no objection to America using whatever means are effective to harm Mexico’s ruling regime. We’ve known for a very long time that they were corrupt scum.
Or, Man Speaks To Man Who Passed Someone In A Hallway Who Once Said Something. Probably about aggregate differences in cognitive wherewithal, which, while obvious and endlessly verified in a dozen different ways, we must never, ever mention. Lest our worldview crumble.
And despite all this gasping into a paper bag, the most damning interaction to be quoted from the supposedly offensive podcast is this:
That’s it. Endless, near-total dependency on the state is not, shockingly, an entirely good thing. I may need to sit down.
By the way, Mr Wilson, our Guardian contributor and self-styled champion of righteousness, has been mentioned here before. His credentials on that front are, shall we say, somewhat questionable.
Hannah is a teacher who struggles with causality.
I think we’ll give that one a post of its own.
Comments that-a-way.
The modern trial by ordeal (continued)
Termites everywhere.