Yes, a chance to assemble your own pile of links and oddities in the comments. I’ll set the ball rolling with some interrupted smuggling; a faint hint of subtext; some unforeseen consequences; some little critters; and this, which is one of these.

Oh, and how to impress the neighbours.

Salon interrupts its usual programming – repeatedly announcing how terrible white people are – to bring us this:

Trump’s assault on the country’s mental health is part of a much larger pattern: the Republican Party and the conservative movement have, for decades, advanced an agenda which has hurt the overall health and well-being of most Americans.

I suspect the “most Americans” bit is doing some heavy lifting there. As we saw recently, those whose minds come undone at the mere thought of Mr Trump – resulting in alcoholism, divorces, the stalking of ex-boyfriends, and sessions with psychiatrists – tend to belong to a fairly specific demographic. One that, oddly enough, includes readers of Salon.

Donald Trump’s negative impact on mental health extends to the intimate sexual lives of many people as well.

We’re told this by Mr Chauncey DeVega, Salon’s politics staff writer, who attempts to bolster his claims by wheeling out some niche expertise:

I recently spoke with Dr Susan Block. “Dr Suzy” is the founder and director of the Dr Susan Block Institute for the Erotic Arts & Sciences.

Okay, then.

Dr Suzy, our high priestess of the erotic arts and sciences, promptly informs us,

Dr Suzy’s pronouncements are varied and numerous, though her train of thought is, it has to be said, not the easiest to follow:

The news media is part of the problem as well. The news is full of stories about bad sex. They don’t really like to talk about good sex. When you have this media obsession with bad sex with the usual “all American” war worship and racism, as well as economic disparities and the way that corporations are in control, it really sucks the life out of a person.

Apparently, the news media and unspecified corporations are behind it all. Stealing our sexual essence, I mean.

Author Lynn Enright is an empowered feminist – and is therefore crushed and rendered tearful by a commonplace word: 

I realised that by not using the word vulva, I was doing myself and my genitals a disservice… Using the words vulva and vagina interchangeably isn’t a harmless linguistic quirk: it’s actually a technique for diminishing a woman’s sexual agency.

Ms Enright invokes fellow feminist Harriet Lerner, who claims that the common usage of vagina is an act of “psychic genital mutilation.”

Via Darleen, Mary Hudson on the dirty secrets of ‘progressive’ public education:

There was an ethos of hostile resistance. Those who wanted to learn were prevented from doing so. Anyone who “cooperated with the system” was bullied. No homework was done. Students said they couldn’t do it because if textbooks were found in their backpacks, the offending students would be beaten up… I tried everything imaginable to overcome student resistance. Nothing worked. At one point I rearranged the seating to enable the students who wanted to engage to come to the front of the classroom. The principal was informed, and I was reprimanded. This was “discriminatory.” 

Somewhat related, this, this, and the third item here. 

Jonah Goldberg on the immorality of “social justice”: 

Among the myriad problems with this worldview is that individual circumstances are boiled away… Vast abstract categories of human beings are swept up into notions of collective guilt — or victimhood… Traditionally, a person is only supposed to be responsible for the wrongs he or she committed against a specific person. If Person A does something terrible entirely unbeknownst to Person B, it is unjust to hold Person B accountable solely because of the colour of his skin. It’s even more grotesque to hold Person B accountable for the things done by Person A if Person A lived 300 years ago.

Andy Meek on a modern vice: 

Robocallers and spam callers are getting quite good at masking their identity. They do this partly by “spoofing” local numbers, making it seem like a legitimate local number is calling to increase the likelihood that you’ll answer. That’s the reason, according to [caller-ID app] Hiya, that around 9 percent of spam calls a month actually get answered by phone owners even though they don’t recognise the number calling. Nine percent might not sound like much, until you consider the fact that 26.3 billion robocalls were made to American phones in 2018. That’s up 46 percent from 2017’s total of 18 billion.

And via Ace, some news from the world of powerlifting, an activity we don’t often cover here:

Tomorrow, Saturday, is this blog’s twelfth birthday. That’s a stretch of time I hadn’t envisioned when I started doing this. Back in February 2007, I had no idea what I was doing with this thing – and no expectation that I’d still be doing it, hopefully a little better, more than a decade later. I can’t quite decide if this is a feat of unparalleled heroism on my part, or just bloody-minded obstinacy.

Either way, it’s a tissue-thin pretext to remind patrons that this rickety barge is kept afloat by the kindness of strangers. If you’d like to help it remain buoyant a while longer, and remain ad-free, there’s an orange button below with which to monetise any love. Debit and credit cards are accepted. For those wishing to express their love regularly, there’s a monthly subscription option top left. And if one-click haste is called for, my PalPay.Me page can be found here. Additionally, any Amazon UK shopping done via this link or the search widget top right, or for Amazon US via this link, results in a small fee for your host at no extra cost to you.

For newcomers wishing to know more about what’s been going on here for the last twelve years, in over 2,600 posts and more than 90,000 comments, the reheated series is a pretty good place to start – in particular, the end-of-year summaries. There you’ll find the gaseous emissions of ecologically-minded artists; adventures at the arse-end of academia; thoughts on rioting and the left-leaning media; and much pondering of the thought processes of empowered feminists. If you can, do take a moment to poke through the discussion threads too. The posts are intended as starting points, not full stops, and the comments are where much of the good stuff is waiting to be found. And do please join in.

As always, thanks for the support, the comments, and the company. 

Today’s word is multitasking. A story unfolds. || Shocking scenes of Canadian road rage. || Redundant words. || CIA-issue rectal tool kit. For when you need to discreetly stash those tiny saws and drills. || Calligraphy with drill. || Crash heard, culprit detected. || Tone-deafness test. || Pop stars and their younger selves. || Ceaseless vigilance. || Don’t try this at home. || A drink and a show, in one. || Why women are often nesh. || This is one of these. || A Scandal in Bohemia. Starring Jeremy Brett. || When butterflies attack. || Making chains. || Maximum wife points. || You want one and you know it. || Local woman rendered in yarn. || Swell jelly. || Festive scenes. | Feel-good footage. || Or nearest offer.

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In no way related to anything seen above.

This made me chuckle. I’m not sure whether Nancy Pelosi has much control over her face, so her expressions can be quite difficult to read; though I’m guessing her applause was not entirely enthusiastic. Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, was less inscrutable.

I’m sensing it may be time for an open thread, in which to share links and bicker. We could, for instance, establish, on a level of 1-10, how indecent and distressing this thing here is, and whether it constitutes grounds for divorce.

And some of you may care to theorise about this other thing and how it came to be.

If the cravings are too much, you can always poke through the reheated series and greatest hits.

8am scenes. Embrace the morning. (h/t, Damian) || Big-haired Victorians. || She does this better than you do. || Ditto. || I do like the cubes. || It’s all kicking off at Essex County Council. || Snow clearance of note. || Chicago club scene, 1931. || Landing in Greenland, a pilot’s view. (h/t, Holborn) || The evolution of the alphabet. || Stability issues. || Islam versus the menace of haram emoticons. (h/t, Dicentra) || Meanwhile, at Tate Modern. || Witchcraft undone. || When your towels are too orderly. || Optically deceptive spinning top of note. || The Sequence 2 is a game. || Today’s words are glittered dog scrotum. || Folding guitar of note. (h/t, Things) || Defiant fluff. || And finally, you first. No, really. I insist.