Background Check
For all entertainment and cultural consumption:
I hate to break it to you, but everyone is “problematic.” Human beings are flawed. If they weren’t, literature and art would not exist. You’ve been duped by an ideology that will happily rob you of all joy and complexity in life and art. https://t.co/kLY3CGmnMo
— Joseph Massey (@jmasseypoet) May 3, 2026
Imagine the hours of fun. All that tutting and disapproval.
Update, via the comments:
The urge to achieve purity in such matters is, I think, a little odd. I look at my own bookshelves and I’ve long since become accustomed to reading things by authors whose political opinions – insofar as they’re known to me and insofar as I’d care to find out – may not be entirely congenial. Given the progressive dominance of cultural production, that’s kind of difficult to avoid.
Ditto TV and cinema.
And if madam feels a need to pre-emptively vet authors for ideological congeniality on every issue before investing time in their work, I’m guessing she may extend much the same filtering to friends, of whom similar conformity is presumably expected, and possibly family too. Which doesn’t strike me as a recipe for a happy life. Or one in which new things may be found out.
Unless you’ve been exposed to enough Japanese geek culture, which either generally comes from being a member of certain Western subcultures or deliberately seeking it out, it likely shouldn’t make sense, in the same way that Bollywood musicals seem largely odd to Western movie sensibilities.
That being said, Japan seems much less affected (but not completely unaffected) by many of the problems with Western pop culture mentioned in this very thread, which is why I find myself defending it.
To explain that particular clip:
I posted the story about that on a previous thread. Not sure what this narrator’s point is. The fuller story is those bikers were riding two abreast and according to the rider who fell, the driver had been following them for two minutes or a few minutes, I forget what he specifically said. Either way, the bikers knew he was behind them and had been leaning on the horn. I saw another report where they said the driver had called 911 on these cyclists several times. Driver is 72 yo man who has been held in jail without bail for a couple of weeks now. The arrogance of the bikers, the media, the cops, etc. has made the guy a bit of a local hero. One biker said why people don’t like cyclists mystified him. The media has laid low on the story lately, near as I can tell.
Oh good God, no.
On second thought, let’s give them an island. I’d might watch that show.
I suggested a TV show of two women pitching a tent. It hasn’t been well received.
I guess that might depend on the women
[thinks fondly of years of camping starting with Girl Scouts]
Oh hell yes. This. Very much this. They can take along with them that chick that insisted we all need to go back to the land.
I WOULD pay to see that.
It’s true that seeing a work of art in person is a much different experience from seeing it in a book.
I saw Seurat’s “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” (which I remember only as “Sunday in the Park with George,” thank you Stephen), and I was stunned.
First, the canvas is enormous, and second, the dots of color are exceptionally bright, even to the point of being neon shades. You really have to walk a bit back to see it properly, such that you see the images and not the dots.
Michelangelo’s David is the most impressive artwork I’ve ever seen, though. There are reproductions of David all over Firenze, but then you get into the gallery and see the real one, poised on a pedestal over everyone’s heads so you can see him even when you’re at the back of the crowded room.
I could swear he was on the verge of shifting his weight onto the back foot, right before launching the sling. That thing had PRESENCE, which the reproductions utterly lacked. That’s what makes artworks great — when you see them in person, you just about swallow your teeth, and you never forget the experience. Mine was in 1989, BTW.
We had a series of budgies when I was growing up, some male, some female. The females always preferred my dad and the males preferred my mom.
Sexual dimorphism in budgies is limited to the color of the cere (skin above the beak), so how did they distinguish human males from females?
I’m persuaded that animals can read our minds, tho, so don’t mind me. Or maybe they see an aura. I don’t know. But critters seem to know who’s who in the human species, for no discernible reason.
Oh, yes. We all need a good laugh and what could provide that better than an ‘estrogen-filled utopia’?
If I were a betting man I’d put money on scent.
Call me shallow if you must, but I found this amusing.
Very much related.
And in turn, not unrelated.
I can appreciate her perspective. I am uncomfortable financially contributing to people who hate me and want me dead.
We should all respect their wishes by refraining from all travel to the Netherlands.
Foreigners with Dutch paperwork will continue to be frequent flyers to and from the countries they’re really from.
The “anywhere class” will continue to spend 200 days a year maintaining the rules based international order in airport VIP lounges and boutique hotels.
But it’s a policy priority that the “somewhere class”, the rooted ancestral Dutch, stop being prompted that a week in Lanzarote might be a nice change, or even a burger.
Funny how none of them have room.
As one of them all but says, it’s supposed to be someone else’s problem. They feel entitled to the glory, the unearned moral preening, but they don’t want to encounter the consequences of what it is they’re calling for. The social cost, the degradation, should happen somewhere else, to someone else, someone who isn’t them.
It’s very much the morality, or pseudo-morality, of that particular demographic.
Yes. And there’s the rub. Two specific women can and do accomplish such a task. The show’s success would require the selection of the two women to be completely random. Which the system would have to subvert, of course. The Narrative wouldn’t tolerate it.
Quiet part out loud: “We wouldn’t take this lying down.”
But *other* people should, right?
Which is how it was intended to be seen.
God, I don’t understand anime.
Well, for one, the chins on faces never move.
…showing that tiny differences, by measurement, can have huge effects.
Michelangelo’s David is the most impressive artwork I’ve ever seen, though. There are reproductions of David all over Firenze, but then you get into the gallery and see the real one, poised on a pedestal over everyone’s heads so you can see him even when you’re at the back of the crowded room.
Largest schvang I have ever seen, staring you right in the face.
But magnificent overall. Worth seeing despite lines, ticket prices, and sub-Saharan shucksters trying to put a friendship bracelet on your wrist.
Scent, body language*, tone of voice, etc. They don’t rely on language the way we do, so they must pay close attention to all the things that many of us are blind to.
In fact we sometimes use language to deceive others and ourselves, hence the university professors who are so easily led into abject folly. What was it Stephen Maturin said to Jack Aubrey about the insightfulness of illiterate sailors and villagers?
* An expression that encompasses so much–speed of movement, smoothness of movement, muscle tension/relaxation, facial muscles, eye movement, etc.
“He’s going to be very popular.” –Michelangelo’s assistant Igor
You haven’t seen that many collections of Classical Greek sculpture, then.
Well, quite.
And regarding which, we mustn’t forget BBC broadcaster Dan Snow.
Evidently it is in Wisconsin.
Victor Davis Hanson is a geek, right.
It has been done, one of Bear Grylls survival island shows where men and women were put in separate places to see who would do better. It did not go well.
There have been other links here that show the comparison of the groups if you want to go hunting.
That is, it has to be said, a densely packed opening sentence. Gonna need a minute.
And possibly a drink.
This has already been achieved in several metropolitan areas, considering the documented low-testosterone of progressive males. Certainly men who express sympathy for muggers and can/do not defend their female partners have already, uhhh, made the cut…
Deportment.
But remember, dear citizens, we mustn’t mention the mental illness.
True.
Oh my.
It’s not about the racism, it’s about the socialism. Which itself isn’t about the socialism, it’s about the power. Of course we all know that. But needs to be repeated over and over and over again.
Am I wrong for thinking this the perfect bath toy?
I think this is a good time for your threadly reminder that the next elections (AFAIK) in this country are in Indiana and Ohio on TUESDAY (THAT IS TODAY!!!) May 5. There are also ones coming up in Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Oregon and maybe even other states on TUESDAY, May 19. Also May 26 in Texas.
Also June 2 in California (top-two primary; includes governor, U.S. House, and more), Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota.
Wisconsin isn’t until August 11, however.
Pro-tip that is apparently necessary for republicans…If you look at your watch and see that it is a TUESDAY, ask yourself…”Do I need to vote today? If not, what upcoming TUESDAY will I need to vote, who are the candidates, and what are the issues?” Hope this helps!
Not a flattering comparison, but not unfair.
Regarding “men don’t read books,” Echo Chamberlain has thoughts about “White Women Have Ruined Fiction.”
His thesis is that male authors wrote about society and the zeitgeist. Stop publishing these books (which I suspect nowadays would take aim at feminists, DEI, progressive madness, and The Message, which explains their banning), and you get Alphabet Soup messaging and the lamentations of women, published in books whose covers show a woman walking away.
Over at Samizdata – a good deed, suitably punished.
Along with de Tocqueville (‘Sacré bleu! A Frenchman! Quelle horreur!’ — @pst314), C. S. Lewis comes to mind.
The pretense may be “health and safety” but it seems very likely that the true reason is a desire to stamp out volunteer labor which reduces the need for overpaid underperforming union labor.
A large fraction of his constituents are lifelong recipients of government welfare. They thus have a baked-in-from-childhood subconscious believe that they are eternally entitled to…everything.
Don’t discount the spite and malevolence of the useless.
Indeed. Thanks for the reminder.
(And malice/resentment are the the prime motives for most leftists.)
Hmmmm…. there’s a word for this …
Can’t help feeling we deserve better Betters.
Stick around for the civil rights lawsuit.
Over at Wayne’s commenters claim that Walgreens is sort of a government entity and gets most of its $ from the gov, and therefore it is ok for them to lose money forever. Another one claims a corp is just a bunch of people with a piece of paper and maybe uniforms, ie not real. A third says corps are all totally corrupt. The level of ignorance is staggering. The idea and actuality of the corp was one of the great inventions of the modern era. No “small business” could make steel at scale or build affordable cars or develop new meds.
On the evidence, monkeys are more educable.
Which is why it surprises me that the Unspanked are not yet eaten by alligators.
I can remember when our heroes made life better for others, by, at the least, hitting a baseball well without mouthing off, and often by inventing vaccines and such. Ah, the good old days before assassins (Mangione) and gang members had groupies.