And in the world of The Progressive Retail Experience: 

From Fortune magazine:

During the lengthy interview quoted above, Walgreens CEO Tim Wentworth hints at the development of “creative” solutions for customers demoralised by unimpeded thieving and the subsequent lockdown status of many stores. Paying customers, a seemingly shrinking demographic, will, we’re assured, be offered a “better… in-store experience” via “new scheduling optimisation logic” and “leveraging our omnichannel capabilities.”

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.

Perhaps he finds such terms unsavoury, much like the Observer‘s Martha Gill, the Guardian‘s Owen Jones, and academic Gloria Laycock, according to whom, the law-abiding should resign themselves to ever more inconvenience and social degradation, and being alienated from their own neighbourhoods, because punishing habitual criminals – who are, we’re told, “traumatised” and “vulnerable” – is somehow unfair and terribly unfashionable.

Update: 

Commenter [+] adds,

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.

John D observes, not without cause,

It doesn’t exactly bode well. And as noted previously,

And being insulted in this way, as if one were uncivilised and not to be trusted, seems unlikely to invite warm feelings or repeat custom.

Quetzalovercoatl adds,

At which point, readers may wish to cast an eye over the previous shoplifting post, linked above, in which you almost have to marvel at the mental contortions, the elaborate contrivance. Whereby this increasingly aggressive and routine predation is romanticised, despite all evidence to the contrary, including countless videoed examples and the use of machetes. And in which, the aforementioned Observer columnist dismisses the thieving and looting as “relatively trivial,” as businesses close and entire neighbourhoods are demoralised and robbed of amenities.

Mental contortions in which the obvious, practical, and traditional response to such behaviour is hastily waved aside as “exactly the wrong approach” and “the worst instincts of the electorate.” As if arresting and imprisoning habitual thieves, thereby interrupting their criminal adventures, should be considered a total failure and unworthy of the effort. Instead, our Observer columnist and her equally progressive peers blame the retailers, the victims, and suggest more padlocks, and more barriers on shelves of shampoo.

Oh, and “decriminalise shop theft,” of course.

As if that weren’t already a common assumption of those doing the looting. And as if the lack of prompt punishment, and the consequent air of impunity, somehow wouldn’t embolden the creatures being so grotesquely indulged. A boldness with no obvious upper limit. As if signs of weakness in one area of life, this cowed impotence, couldn’t possibly inspire other kinds of crime and antisocial behaviour. As if the response could never, ever be, “Ooh, what else can I get away with?”

All to avoid enforcing even the most basic standards of behaviour. Of civilisation. Because, what, somehow that would look bad…?

For those unfamiliar with The Progressive Retail Experience, the series to date, numbering some 608 entries, can be found here.

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

Oh, and in travel news, I bring you this:

maybe maybe maybe
byu/Zorrodelaarena inmaybemaybemaybe

And in can-anyone-else-smell-paedophilia? news:

Pictures of mentally ill, self-mutilating men. In kindergarten settings. To facilitate discussions. With pre-school children.

Strange is a good start. Other descriptors are available.

Should any readers be trying to think of reasons not to raise an eyebrow, it should be pointed out that roughly half of sexually dysmorphic male prisoners – so-called trans women – are there for sexual offences, including, quite often, offences against children – a rate that is much higher than that for the male prison population in general, whether for adult sexual offences or paedophilia.

Likewise, dysmorphic men and women report severe childhood abuse, often childhood sexual abuse, at rates far higher than is found in the wider population. Adults who have been violated as children are in turn much more likely to have, shall we say, issues regarding normal boundaries, and to act inappropriately with minors.

The consequences of which aren’t exactly hard to find. To say nothing of child abusers who invoke some sudden-onset transgenderism once their activities have been discovered and interrupted.

In light of which, encouraging small children to “accept others as they are” – a euphemism for not being wary of sexually dysmorphic men, a demographic among which paedophilia is much more common – seems rather unwise. For reasons we’ve seen many times. Yet this pre-emptive dulling of any wariness is the stated goal of the poster’s creator, illustrator and activist Tyler Feder.

As one might.

However, this is the bedlamite timeline, and so,

And,

At which point, the words foxes and henhouse spring to mind.

And it has to be said, “Your Four-Year-Old Children Will Look At Our Pictures Of Weird, Naked Men” is an odd flex. A peculiar hill to die on. 

If you read the full Reduxx article, linked above, it doesn’t get any more reassuring. The smell does seem to persist.

Update, via the comments: 

As someone who isn’t by temperament easily scandalised or particularly prudish, I nonetheless find myself in the position of having to say, “Er, are you sure about this? This seems all kinds of weird and inappropriate.”

And it seems to be happening more often than I’d expected.

Sharp-eyed readers may also note the assumption that exposure to, and familiarity with, the subject of transgenderism – and by extension, autogynephilia, and drag queens, and cross-dressing more generally – will invariably make one feel great warmth towards these phenomena – and the things that often go with them.

When in fact, the opposite may be true. And not infrequently.

Update 2:

In the comments, Aelfheld adds, 

Well, even if we assume implausibly benign motives, which may be a bit of an ask, premature exposure to sexuality, even in its more humdrum forms, isn’t generally regarded as beneficial. And it seems to me that transgender people would have an easier ride, and a less contentious group reputation, if they observed the obvious courtesy and stayed the hell away from children.

And yet, as we’ve seen repeatedly, many schools seem to be actively recruiting the psychologically marginal – say, attention-craving men in painted nails and make-up who think “looking cute” is the highest function of those employed as a primary-school educator.

And then there’s the peddling of dysmorphic cartoon pornography to middle-school children, without parents’ knowledge or consent, via which eleven-year-olds are introduced to “vagina slime,” fellatio, and “strap-on hotness,” and the joys of masturbating while driving.

Or middle-school librarians who seem convinced that eleven-year-olds need to know how to whore themselves – and to know that whoring is both valid and empowering. Because they may be transgender and may have to pay for hormones and surgical mutilations.

If this all sounds rather lurid and improbable, do follow the links.

Oh, and frottage-seeking drag queens.

And this hiring of the inapt, the incongruous and inadequate, is done as if it were a way for schools to display their own sophistication and fashionable status. As if this “queering” of children’s minds, this erosion of reality, of probity, of normal boundaries, could have no downsides, no dubious effects.

And of course we’ve encountered things of this kind:

Again, at risk of sounding stuffy, these feats of posturing and perversity do not strike me as wholesome, or a path to a brighter, more fragrant tomorrow.

Or, The Thigh Straps Were To Ensure Comfort. 

One for ladies of child-bearing age:

And so, obviously,

This patented invention from 1963 was designed to help women give birth easily

📹Hashem Al-Ghaili pic.twitter.com/VBrlB6N1L7

— Game of X (@froggyups) January 11, 2025

I can tell you’re impressed. The net and bell combo is a lovely touch. “In case medical personnel are momentarily distracted.” 

The patent, from 1963, can be found here.

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

Wind instrument of note. || Let’s just say mistakes were made. || Just one or two drinks during lunch. || The demands of glamorous dining. || On thin wings and flying faster than the speed of sound. (h/t, Elephants Gerald) || Stroppy and incoming. || Not as easy as it looks. || Adventures in large rock relocation. || Ripples. || Nodules. || More joys of public transport. || Zipper trouble. || Pigeon peepers. || The attempt to steal propane did not go entirely as planned. || The progressive retail experience, parts 607 and 608. || Helping hand. || Are you not inspired? || Well, I suppose he treated her as an equal. || Why spiders don’t (yet) rule the Earth. || Flatbread proportions. || Fishing will be fun, they said. || And finally, is your womb “an energetic vessel that holds ancestral imprints”?

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