If You Could Use a Sunday Larf
I know these days I’ll take ’em anytime I can get ’em. Here (the very very funny) Daniel Kibblesmith demands Hillary gracefully bow out.
Dame of Thrones
“Dragonsong”–me
I tell you what, the women of Westeros know how to get shit done. They tame babies and birth dragons and look good doing it. It’s called REAL FEMINISM, snowflakes. The Federalist‘s Kristi Stone Hamrick is here to blow your mind with truths…about how a show about (I don’t watch…dragons, group sex and beheadings?)…should provide a template for modern feminism.
For those who have followed George R. R. Martin’s “Game of Thrones” from printed word to HBO powerhouse, the characters now have the status of family and obsession. The faithful have followed the conflicts through bloody feuds, endless war, frustrated love, unexpected death, and crushing evil, now choosing sides.
The question of who will sit uneasily on the throne once held by Robert Baratheon makes excellent conversation as you consider the size of armies, dragons, and magic that make the players compelling. What no one seems to talk about, however, is that almost all the top contenders for the crown are women. Perhaps because it doesn’t matter.
There’s no need to claim “I’m with Her” to force a loyalty to any one leader based solely on sex. The women poised to fight for the throne are complex, strong women, mothers (even of dragons) who are not at war with their bodies or the demands of work and family. They stand side by side with equally strong men and fight in the battle common to all people: the struggle to take one’s place in the world and to build something that is your unique vision.
OK, so I read this so you don’t have to, and it can really be summed up in two points:
1.) The women have babies, which makes them better at feministing because everybody knows modern feminists don’t have babies.
2.) There is no affirmative action in Westeros, so the women can’t blame their shortcomings on misogyny. Or as Kristi puts it “And attributing every failure to sexist attitudes ignores the reality that sometimes people—even women—make mistakes.” This is obviously an outrageous lie because it’s a documented fact that no woman ever has made a mistake. And fuck Westeros if I can’t blame my carpal tunnel and lack of impulse control on the patriarchy.
But as funny as the column is, it’s the comments that make it truly sublime. Here’s a guy who almost–not quite!–seems to understand what the genre of fiction is:
The Hamburger Problem
Josh Barro–who became a Democrat about 5 minutes ago–is already helpfully doling out advice on how to advance Democratic causes. His first piece of advice? Quit being so annoying!
This combination of facts has me thinking a lot about what I call “the hamburger problem.” As I see it, Democrats’ problem isn’t that they’re on the wrong side of policy issues. It’s that they’re too ready to bother too many ordinary people about too many of their personal choices, all the way down to the hamburgers they eat.
Listen as an annoying liberal I want to help out but honestly I have no fucking clue what to do about this guy pic.twitter.com/o4fzMoWsqD
— superkaratemonkey (@LedZepBoxedSet) July 18, 2017
They don’t always want to prohibit those choices. But they have become smug and condescending toward anyone who does not match the personal lifestyle choices of liberal elites. Why would the voters on the receiving end of that smug condescension trust such a movement to operate the government in their best interest?
The nice thing about the hamburger problem is that Democrats can fix it without moving substantially on policy. They just have to become less annoying.
I’m annoyed.
The one major exception to the Democratic edge on cultural policy is abortion, a closely divided issue on which public opinion has barely shifted since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.
But the median voter’s position on abortion boils down to “It should be legal, but only early in pregnancy and only if you have a good reason.” If Democrats have a problem with their broad-access position on abortion being too extreme for the median voter, then so do Republicans who want to prohibit it.
… but they do not like being told to feel guilty about personal choices
That Democrats are on solid political ground with the biggest planks of their culture-related policy agenda does not mean Lowry is wrong about the culture gap. What it does mean, I think, is that “cultural politics” is barely about public policy at all.
This hand-waving away of an issue that affects half the population is infuriating to me. When you combine that with the fact that many Trump voters will be happy with the appointment of Gorsuch, even if that proves to be Trump’s only legislative accomplishment and that many Trump voters are rabidly anti-choice and anti-woman, I think this particular passage feels like a head-fake to me. Trump voters are conservatives/Republicans/white supremacists/outright Klan members. A lot of them are profoundly misogynistic, in addition to being profoundly racist. Lustily eating hamburgers are not gonna get these buttboils on our side.
Let’s discuss the hamburger example.
Suppose you’re a middle-income man with a full-time job, a wife who also works outside the home, and some children. Suppose it’s a Sunday in the early fall, and your plan for today is to relax, have a burger, and watch a football game.
Conservatives will say, “Go ahead, that sounds like a nice Sunday.” (In the Trump era, they’re not going to bother you about not going to church.) But you may find that liberals have a few points of concern they want to raise about what you mistakenly thought was your fundamentally nonpolitical plan for the day.
Liberals want you to know that you should eat less meat so as to contribute less to global warming. They’re concerned that your diet is too high in sodium and saturated fat. They’re upset that the beef in your hamburger was factory-farmed.
They think the name of your favorite football team is racist. Or even if you hate the Washington Redskins, they have a long list of other reasons that football is problematic.
We really dodged a bullet I think Hillary's first order of biz was to fly around the country knocking meat out of people's hands. pic.twitter.com/WQHMx9gjDA
— superkaratemonkey (@LedZepBoxedSet) July 18, 2017
Liberals are from the planet Buttsexia where eating hamburgers and watching football is illegal. Everyone knows this.
And, seriously, “The Redskins” is a racist name. And everyone should be eating less meat. (Including me!) That doesn’t mean I don’t think you shouldn’t be able kick back with a burger and watch some guys play grabass. That’s just good old American fun.
Beyond what you’re doing this weekend, this movement has a long list of moral judgments about your ongoing personal behavior.
The SUV you bought because it was easier to install car seats in doesn’t get good enough gas mileage. Why don’t you have an electric car?
The gender-reveal party you held for your most recent child inaccurately conflated gender with biological sex. (“Cutting into a pink or blue cake seems innocent enough — but honestly, it’s not,” Marie Claire warned earlier this month.)
You don’t ride the subway because you have that gas-guzzling car, but if you did, the way you would sit on it would be sexist.
The thing is, all these things are problematic. But the idea that libs are just constantly barging into Superbowl parties to lecture people and knock meat out of people’s hands is kind of ludicrous. The complaint here is that liberals are silently (mostly) judging people. But I’m not quite sure why our judgement should matter if these Real Americans aren’t doing anything wrong.
I get weary of conservatives painting women who have abortions as murdering sluts. I also worry about people who view LGBT people as alien sex-monsters, and the reason I do is because these people VOTE…for actual legislation that can hurt actual people. So forgive me if I don’t find the idea that I am…annoying…particularly compelling.
In the past few years, conservatives have made a strategic retreat from telling people what to do in their personal lives. Except on abortion, where public opinion remains about evenly divided, conservatives have implicitly admitted that they have lost certain parts of the cultural war.
This is truly baffling passage. Again, he waves away the issue of abortion as if it’s not hugely important to women, both substantively and symbolically and he acts as if conservatives have not been in hysterical meltdown mode for around 25 years now.
Where are these meek, quiet conservatives? I want to meet them.
EDIT:
Speaking of the "Hamburger Problem…" pic.twitter.com/TRoIRy7l3m
— тιғғαηү🎭 (@NotTiff_Tiffany) July 17, 2017
The Cowboy Test
Suppose your favorite film critic started sprinkling his reviews with references to the “Cowboy Test” and made it clear that he was factoring into his appraisal of a work of art whether it contained cowboys. La La Land? Manchester by the Sea? Moonlight? All problematic, as these benighted films contain no cowboys. On the other hand, Cowboys and Aliens, Armageddon, and the Village People movie Can’t Stop the Music, each of which contains cowboy characters, would easily pass the Cowboy Test and receive a hearty blessing.
Well, first, I would wonder why an 8-year-old were reviewing movies. And also I’d wonder why Kyle Smith was dropped on his head so many times as a child, I’d ponder how tragic it is and how it’s the only explanation for perhaps the dumbest attempt at an analogy of all time.
You would think this approach to movies a bit odd. It is. But no odder than the Bechdel Test, a feminist litmus test that is currently being thrown around by movie critics as an important way to assess the quality or at least the political correctness of a film.
No. I would find it considerably odder.
Today Bechdel is an over-ground artist, a very big deal. In 2014, she won a MacArthur “genius award.”
Grant. I have no idea why this is in quotes.
Hey, and you know what? Tom Selleck’s Matthew Quigley appears almost immediately in Quigley Down Under. Hurrah, this film breezes through the Cowboy Test by the end of the opening scene!
*long long long sigh*
Neither of these two tests gives you any hint as to the worth of a film, and furthermore neither of them tells you anything about a film’s general feminist wokeness.
Well, if nothing else it tells you whether the film-makers view women characters as anything other than saintly wives or sex objects, and mere appendages to the male characters (who actually get to be complex and interesting).
It doesn’t even tell you whether the film is entirely about a woman. Lots of films that have female protagonists fail the Bechdel Test — notably Alien 3; Run, Lola, Run; Breakfast at Tiffany’s (there is actual heated debate on this one, but if it passes it barely does so); and Gravity. The Princess Bride fails the Bechdel Test, as does Finding Nemo, and some argue that The Little Mermaid does, too. (Again, it might barely earn a passing grade.) Lots of blockbusters with beloved female characters fail the Bechdel Test, including the original Star Wars trilogy, Avatar, and all of the Lord of the Rings films.
I’m starting to get the idea he doesn’t understand the purpose of the test. He literally thinks it’s like a cowboy test. I’m sad.
To give you some inkling of how little the Bechdel Test matters when it comes to filmmaking, consider that Sofia Coppola had never heard of it when asked about it in a recent interview. Coppola is one of today’s most accomplished and acclaimed female directors, and all of her seven films prominently feature women, usually in the main roles. Yet her latest movie, The Beguiled, passes only incidentally.
Yet you’re devoting an entire column to it. Something’s not meshing here.
Movies (at least Hollywood movies) are about people on the extremes of society — cops, criminals, superheroes.
Right. Everybody knows women can’t be cops, criminals or superheroes. In fact, why do women need to be in movies at all?
These extreme characters tend to be men, and men tend to be the ones who create them.
Only men write “extreme” characters, they only write them to be male, and only men should be represented in film. These are interesting theories!
When I began reading this column I thought it might be difficult to exceed the dumbness of the deeply dumb cowboy test analogy, but somehow Smith managed to do it, by wrapping things up with the assertion that, really, women just aren’t very interesting, don’t make exciting art, and, well…read for yourself.
It might be true that there would be more women prominently featured in movies if more women were writing and directing more movies. But it might also be true that the reason there aren’t as many women making films is that women’s movie ideas aren’t commercial enough for Hollywood studios. To be slightly less reductionist than the Bechdel Test, women tend to write movies about relationships, and men tend to write movies about aliens and shootouts. Have a wander through the sci-fi and fantasy section of your local bookstore: How many of these books’ authors are female? Yet these are where the big movie ideas come from. If a woman wants the next Lord of the Rings–style franchise to pass the Bechdel Test, then a woman should come up with a story with as much earning potential as J. R. R. Tolkien’s.
Oof.
Food Obsessions
I get a craving for pasta with Italian sausage and peppers and/or fennel sauce at least once a week. Not proud of it, but it's an obsession.
— superkaratemonkey (@LedZepBoxedSet) February 15, 2017
Lately I’ve been obsessed with making pasta with Italian sausage and peppers. I’ve been obsessed with perfecting the recipe, and I think I have, because I can’t stop eating the stuff. Been thinking about my food obsessions over the years and I recall going through a sushi phase. (I did not make it, alas.) I also recall making a thousand variations of a Thai-inspired coconut milk-based soup. I recall frying up salmon and serving it on a bed of herb salad…a lot. I made more than my fair share of a fairly authentic (I think) chicken curry using a recipe I got from an actual (actual! Scotland exists!) Scotsman.
Here’s my recipe for Italian Sausage and Peppers Sauce:
- 1 lb. ground hot Italian sausage
- olive oil
- 1 large or 2 small onions, cut into thin strips
- 2 bell peppers, cut into thin strips
- 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
- pinch red pepper flakes
- generous splash red wine
- generous dash of grated Parmesan cheese
- a pinch of sugar
- 2 tsp. red wine or balsamic vinegar
- 28 oz. crushed tomatoes + plus 14 oz. diced or crushed tomatoes
- Italian herb blend
- Fresh basil (optional)
- In a big pot, saute the red pepper flakes and onion in the oil until the onions turn golden.
- Add the sausage and saute until sausage is browned. Add the garlic and saute for 30 seconds or so, so as not to brown it.
- Deglaze the pan with the wine and vinegar, then stir in the bell peppers, plenty of salt, pepper, Italian seasoning and the remaining ingredients.
- Let simmer until the peppers are quite tender and the flavors have had a chance to meld.
- If desired, add some chopped, fresh basil to the sauce after removing from the heat. Stir into hot, cooked pasta.
What is your current food obsession?
I’m David Brooks. Nice to meat you.
HOLD ME I’M FRIGHTENED
There’s lots to find problematic about David Brooks’ latest column, not the least of which is the assignment of innate brightness/sophistication/good taste to people with college degrees. But beyond that, it’s the dang weirdness of the whole thing that struck me, this passage in particular:
Recently I took a friend with only a high school degree to lunch. Insensitively, I led her into a gourmet sandwich shop. Suddenly I saw her face freeze up as she was confronted with sandwiches named “Padrino” and “Pomodoro” and ingredients like soppressata, capicollo and a striata baguette. I quickly asked her if she wanted to go somewhere else and she anxiously nodded yes and we ate Mexican.
A few questions:
- Is he implying that Mexican is an inherently unsophisticated cuisine, because the exact opposite is true.
- Is there any particular reason his friend could have asked about the meats/breads on the menu? I’d be way out of my depth in a New York deli, too, so I’d probably ask someone for help with the menu.
- Is there any particular reason he couldn’t have said something like “Here’s what I recommend” to put her at ease? (This is, of course, assuming she really did get triggered by a meat list.)
I mean…it’s just so…weird.
And then there’s this:
The educated class has built an ever more intricate net to cradle us in and ease everyone else out. It’s not really the prices that ensure 80 percent of your co-shoppers at Whole Foods are, comfortingly, also college grads; it’s the cultural codes.
Uh, dude…
…
…
…
(It’s the prices.)
Jesus Christ.
Trollin’ Coal
Happy Saturday, everyone!
The wait is finally over! My latest music video has just released!
FAKE NEWS (The Enemy Of The People)
YT link: https://t.co/9aXPFTI4X1 pic.twitter.com/l1BBGBKlT3
— MINT CHIP👌 (@BasketOfSexy) July 4, 2017
Fitbitch
At The Federalist Inez Feltscher implores women to “stay fit” for their husbands.
really you should stay fit for the dudes you are banging on the side
— Atrios (@Atrios) July 6, 2017
Having been sold a pack of feminist lies that make both men and women unhappier, those of us in the millennial generation who are interested in happy marriages have had to rediscover a lot of politically incorrect truths from scratch.
I hate rediscovering things from scratch.
But there’s one truth that is particularly difficult for our genderless, sexless culture to accept, because it eviscerates not one, but two shibboleths of the age: first, that men and women desire the same things in relationships, and second, that a selfish, “be yourself” attitude is a good prescription for marital bliss.
We live in a culture where a major network features an annual lingerie fashion show and until recently a major fast food chain frequently featured bikini-clad women sloppily eating burgers. We have not reached genderless, sexless nirvana yet near as I can tell.
Also, I’m not sure how being oneself is inherently selfish, and I’m pretty sure being oneself is actually a pretty good prescription for marital bliss. I waited years to tell my husband I did Juggalo porn* and it didn’t go over sexily.
*Porn, but you’re a Juggalo
Terrifying truth number one: a spouse’s looks are much more important to men than women. That men are visual creatures when it comes to picking a mate has been confirmed by brain scans, but any appraisal of the dating scene will lead the average intellectually-honest person to the same conclusion via observation.
Terrifying truth number one: a spouse’s looks are much more important to men than women. That men are visual creatures when it comes to picking a mate has been confirmed by brain scans, but any appraisal of the dating scene will lead the average intellectually-honest person to the same conclusion via observation.
Women are no less shallow than men when it comes to sheer attraction, but they are different. Women tend to be turned on by men who display social dominance, power, or the ability to provide more than by hunky looks. The de-emphasis that women place on physical appearance sometimes leads us to project our own attraction patterns onto our spouses: sure, it’s easy for us to imagine still loving our husbands plus 50 pounds, but how easy is it for us to feel as gung-ho about, say, their extended unemployment?
When will this myth that women aren’t visually stimulated die? I’ve written before on the topic, but I feel like I could write until my fingers fell off and people would just be like “Women love dad bod, it’s what Jesus wanted” and then shrug sadly.
I do think that men place a bit more importance on looks than women do, but I’m just gonna lay my cards on the table now and say maybe that–fuck it–maybe it’s time for men to evolve a bit, ya know?
You know that friend who gets you the gift she would have wanted instead of the one you did? That’s an example of this projection. But instead of the pain and confusion that projection causes, what if we women instead embraced the ways our desires differ from our husbands’? There are some responsibilities men have to women and some women have to men. Taking care of yourself is one of those responsibilities.
Men, you can look like a boil on Steve Bannon’s ass and that’s cool as long as you bring home the bacon.
Instead, try shifting your appearance a notch or two up your priorities list. Cultivate an active lifestyle or carve out the time to work out regularly, and curb your caloric indulgences. Wear clothes that flatter you instead of those that are just easiest to reach for. Even in the busiest of schedules, find the five minutes to put on a little lipstick or a spritz of the perfume you used back when the two of you were dating. He’ll appreciate you making the effort.
*Sigh*
There is a Marilyn Monroe quote that frequents social media profiles these days: “if you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve my best.” This sentiment—that if they’re truly in love, men should just put up with any amount of negative behavior and presentation from women without even voicing a complaint—is echoed in romantic Hollywood movies, and dressed up as female liberation from the “male gaze” or the Patriarchy™.
But if you’re truly in love, why would you want to make the man who loves you put up with your worst? Really, it boils down to an ideological, you-go-girl gloss on selfishness.
WHERE CAN I GET “YOU GO GIRL” GLOSS IT SOUNDS AWESOME.
It’s best to make a good-faith effort to stay in shape and keep up your beauty routine for yourself, of course, but if you’re happy in those sweats with the “holiday weight” starting to pile on, do not be afraid to consider your husband’s happiness, and how important your physical appearance might be to him. Making an effort to please the man you married is not an act of sisterhood betrayal. Honoring your husband’s masculine nature—and the desires that come with it—is one of the best gifts you can give the man you love.
I honestly don’t know what to say in this response to this, so I’ll just leave you with this image; it was the ad displayed on the page where this article appeared:
Beautiful young sexy blond girl with a sporty physique slender figure doing yoga exercises fitness in slinky suit meditates relaxes pilates
Eric Trump Has a Fashy Haircut Now
The officially call this haircut the Dog Whistle. pic.twitter.com/TeSkCQLRYh
— Maris Kreizman (@mariskreizman) June 26, 2017
I Divorce You, Dumb Wapo Opinion-Man!
“May have micropenis.” –Charles Murray
Marc Thiessen of the Wapo opinion section is afraid America is headed for divorce court and tells us–more in sadness than in anger–that it’s probably the fault of mean liberals.
There is a place for contempt in our public discourse. We should have contempt for a regime in North Korea that brutalized a young American student named Otto Warmbier. We should have contempt for a regime in Syria that uses poison gas to massacre innocent men, women and children. We should have contempt for Islamic State terrorists who behead Americans, burn people alive in cages and systematically rape Yazidi girls.
But we should not have contempt for each other.
TL;DR: “Be angry about the things I tell you to be angry about and not behaviors I may be complicit in.”
Yet, we do. Our politics today is descending into a bitter spiral of contempt. And we saw the consequences in the attempted assassination of Republican members of Congress on a baseball field in Alexandria, Va., last week. Back when Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) was shot in 2011, many on the left were quick to blame conservative political rhetoric — falsely it turned out.
Actually, it didn’t turn out that way, so either Theissen is misinformed or just lying. I couldn’t begin to guess which.
Case in point: A few weeks before the Alexandria shooting, Hillary Clinton gave a commencement speech at Wellesley College where she declared that Trump’s budget is “an attack of unimaginable cruelty on the most vulnerable among us, the youngest, the oldest, the poorest” (emphasis added). No, it is not. Using nerve agent on the innocent is “an attack of unimaginable cruelty.” Putting a hapless college student into a coma is an “attack of unimaginable cruelty.” Reducing the growth of government spending is not.
Well, it might be if people literally die because of it.
Think for a moment what Clinton was saying: It’s not simply that Democrats and Republicans have an honest disagreement about how best to help the most vulnerable among us.
It would be a lie if she implied that such a thing were happening because R’s and D’s don’t have a disagreement about how to help the vulnerable. D’s genuinely want to help the vulnerable and R’s don’t give a shit about them but can’t think of a face-saving way to say this.
No doubt, Trump has contributed mightily to our descent into the culture of contempt. (For example, the media is not the “enemy of the American people,” Mr. President). But since Trump’s election, the scope and scale of political contempt on the left have reached unprecedented heights.
It’s almost as if there’s an vicious, unstable toddler in the White House and that makes people nervous. Anyway, UNCIVIL.
Worst of all, we are in the process of cementing these attitudes in the next generation. On college campuses, students are being taught that it is acceptable to treat with contempt those with different ideas. We saw this phenomenon on display when Charles Murray —
racist racista distinguished conservative scholar — was shouted down and assaulted at Middlebury College in a riot that sent a professor to the hospital.
Right. Charles Murray just thinks black people are inherently inferior. It’s just his opinion. No biggie. I’m sure Marc Theissen would be cool if Murray thought all “Marks” who spell their name with a “c” had micropenis because it would just be his opinion. But again, TL;DR: folks are being mean, but literally every example Marc “Micropenis” Theissen is sharing is that of perceived liberal malfeasance.
Liberals need to understand: When they show contempt for Trump, they are expressing contempt for the millions of Americans who voted for him — including millions who twice voted for Obama.
I’m happy to own this; I do hold them in contempt, which was so very unlike the Obama years, where right-leaning folks had nothing but kind words to say during his presidency. But, Marc, come on: it was 80,000, not millions. Does micropenis make you bad at math?
These Americans felt that the establishments of both parties were ignoring them and wanted to send Washington a message. The response they are receiving could not be clearer: We have contempt for the man you elected, and we have contempt for all of you who put him into office. They will never forget it.
OK. I’m cool with that.
That Time Connor Kilpatrick Told Michael Tracey to Hold His Beer
About 90% settled in at the new abode and I’m planning a post about my old one, which I’ll remember very fondly. In the meantime, please enjoy this:
*looks at alt-right board for 1st time*
getting white kids to think about their whiteness & not their class position has backfired horribly
— Connor Kilpatrick (@ckilpatrick) June 16, 2017
The Earl of Hotdog
Pictured: A sandwich
Sandwich Recognition Disorder or SRD is a serious personality disorder recognized by the American Medical Association. Its symptoms include:
- Inability to decipher between sandwiches and other foodstuffs
- The desire to describe all foodstuffs as sandwiches
- A tendency to describe food items like Spaghetti and Marinara as “deconstructed sandwiches.”
- A libertine, anything-goes attitude toward sandwiches and other foodstuffs
To be clear, a sandwich is is a flat or flat-ish conveyance for meats, veggies, fruits, condiments, and cheeses. These items must be…sandwiched between two bready substances.
Things that are not sandwiches:
- Pizza
- Hot dogs
- Pho
- Spaghetti
- Erotic doodles of America’s sweetheart, Jennifer Anniston, lovingly caressing a carousel horse
- Marble obelisks
- The delicious skin-plumping tears of white people
If you recognize the symptoms of SRD in you or someone you love, please get professional help immediately.
