Underpromise, Overdeliver…

A Bar Of Their Own” – a bar devoted to women’s sports – opens tomorrow in Minneapolis.

I wish them, and just about any new business trying to make a go of it, all the best.

There are some who’ve mocked the concept. I don’t – anyone who tries to contribute more growth and wealth to our society is doing the right thing, even if they seem to couch the idea in terms of “community” and “inclusion”.

Profiting from a consensual transaction is as inclusive as it gets.

Now, I have a few questions. For example…:

The bar was made possible in part by a crowdfunding campaign that managed to exceed its fundraising goal of $200,000 by more than $5,000. 

The notion of starting a business via crowdfunding is kind of a new one. On the one hand, if you can get people to pony up for a concept, maybe they’ll patronize the business.

On the other, investing based on emotion isn’t a smart play, and crowdfunding isn’t even investing, per se.

At any rate, I do wish them success. While I imagine most of the donors would get hives seeing it this way, that’s what makes free-market capitalism work.

No, my question is this: “Bring Me The News” added:

A Bar of Their Own is part of a rising trend kicked off last year when The Sports Bra — the very first women’s sports bar in the U.S. — opened to huge fanfare in Portland. You can read more about it right here. 

Boy howdy, did they ever get the fanfare. They got more free media coverage than any new business I’ve ever seen – sorta like ABoTO is getting in the Twin Cities. I fully expect to see the Fox9 Morning News to do one of their “free ad” standups at the bar on Friday morning.

But is two bars actually a “trend”?

By the way – leave your predictions for the bar’s future in the comments.

I Try To Aim Higher

When it comes to the turmoil of peoples lives, I try to listen more than talk.

Everyone’s life has innumerable nuances, countless surprises sitting like little booby-traps waiting to blow up anyone’s smug, solipsistic assumptions about the lives of others. I’ve made great sport out of impaling the drooling cretins of the lefty alt-media on some of the untold pitfalls of my own life.

I try not to judge people in whose shoes I’ve not walked. I’m a person of perhaps excessive empathy.

But I read this woman’s story, and I just have to ask…:

I didn’t have a secret life. But I had a secret dream life—which might have been worse. I loved my husband; it’s not that I didn’t. But I felt that he was standing between me and the world, between me and myself. Everything I experienced—relationships, reality, my understanding of my own identity and desires—were filtered through him before I could access them. The worst part was that it wasn’t remotely his fault; this is probably exactly what I asked him to do when we were 21 and first in love, even if I never said it out loud. To shelter me from the elements; to be caring and broad-shouldered. But now it was like I was always on my tiptoes, trying to see around him. I couldn’t see, but I could imagine. I started imagining other lives. Other homes.

What is it with divorced women and real estate? After the terrible conversation when I told my husband how I felt, and that I didn’t think I could change how I felt, I read Dana Spiotta’s new book, Wayward, about a woman who realizes she wants to leave her marriage only after she impulsively buys a fixer-upper. I read Deborah Levy’s Real Estate, about imagining into existence a home of her own after her children are grown and gone. Meanwhile, I called the real-estate agent who’d sold us our house to tell her that we probably needed to put it back on the market, and she told me all about her own divorce—how long she’d stayed, how hard it was to go, and how she still, decades later, sometimes wondered whether it was the right thing to do. Don’t worry about the house, she said; it’ll sell. This happens all the time.

I wanted to be thinking about art and sex and politics and the patriarchy. How much of my life—I mean the architecture of my life, but also its essence, my soul, my mind—had I built around my husband? Who could I be if I wasn’t his wife? Maybe I would microdose. Maybe I would have sex with women. Maybe I would write a book. Not a book about real estate!

…am I the only one just absolutely consumed with hatred for this vapid, trite, entitled, upper-middle-class dilettante-ette?

Pronouns: Ass/Kicked

I have a few transgender people in y social circle. All of them did their transitions, for whatever reason, as adults. I treat them with respect. They (mostly) reciprocate – I’ve had no ugly little moments over pronouns.

Because that’s kinda the point – voluntary human interaction requires some degree of mutual respect, as opposed to using every interaction as an excuse to try to squeedge a publicly-airable grievance out onto social media – something that might be equally well-termed “narcissism”.

And some of the LGB crowd is seeing it the same way.

Gay black guy comments on videos of Trans people complaining about being “misgendered”:

And I think he nails it.

One of many highlights: “If you’ve been to 25 restaurants and everyone’s calling you “Sir’, there’s a theme and consensus“.

Of course, as Camille Paglia points out, it’s not all laughs and games:

Amicus Curiae

In a conversation with a couple of other conservative alternative media pluggers a few months ago, the question of where the trans argument goes from here popped up.

The consensus was that eventually, given the exceedingly experimental nature of the “treatments” involved, is that eventually the courts are going to settle this – making a lot of plaintiffs attorneys exceedingly wealthy.

Exhibit for the plaintiff provided – the initial tweet is included with the entire thread unrolled in text below (numerous attached references available in the Tweet thread):

To understand what PBs [puberty blockers] do to cognitive development and IQ, you first need to understand what IQ is, how it is constructed and how it’s measured. The following explanation is of one model of IQ. There are others. 

Definition: IQ is a property of the mind encompassing many related intellectual abilities, eg the capacities to reason; to plan, to solve problems; to think abstractly; to comprehend ideas; to use language; and to learn. 

Definition: When aggregated, these factors determine the individual’s ability to act purposefully, to think rationally and to deal effectively with their environment. This is their IQ, or their level of cognitive functioning. The average IQ falls between 85 and 115. 

Types of IQ: Intelligence can be split into two subtypes: Crystalline (Gc) and Fluid (Gf). Gc (Crystalline IQ) is LEARNED or ACQUIRED knowledge: eg ‘When was the Magna Carta signed’?; ‘What is the name of the Earth’s satellite’? It is heavily dependent on education. 

Gc remains stable and/or increases over time as knowledge is gained. Gf (Fluid IQ) is related to novel problem solving, eg, how to put up an Ikea wardrobe, or how to plan a journey from say Cornwall to Aberdeen. Gf increases as the brain matures from childhood to adulthood. 

Because Gf measures NOVEL problem-solving it is largely independent of educational attainment. 

IQ is usually measured using the 3 Weschler scales:
WIPPSI young children (2-7); WISC children (6-16); and WAIS adults (16-91). There are between 10 and 15 subtests, aggregated to give the overall FULL SCALE IQ score (FSIQ). The test also yields separate Index scores. 

Impact of PBs: PBs are given when the brain is maturing, through the creation of neural connections and the laying down of fatty tissue (Myelination). PB’s interrupt this process. The following table shows the cognitive decline in a Brazillian child over 3 years on Lupron

Her FSIQ fell from 80 to 70. From Low Average to Borderline Learning Disabilities. Her performance also fell on EVERY Index score. This is unprecedented. It is really important to know that IQ is a very STABLE construct. It does not change significantly over the lifespan. 

Using the various Weschler scales, IQ should be roughly the same measured at ages 5, 25, 55 or 85. There will be some small changes (depending on external factors like fatigue, rapport, testing conditions, etc). These are accounted for by reporting the Confidence Interval 

But generally, IQ does NOT change significantly over the lifespan. Unless there is an ‘insult’ to the brain: eg head injury, infection ordisease etc, IQ absolutely SHOULD NOT be dropping by 10 points over 3 years!!!!! 

In 30 years of giving hundreds of IQ tests, I have only seen such a decline ONCE (a few weeks ago), in a man with severe Autism. Otherwise, a fall of this magnitude, without a head injury, tumour or other disease process, is simply unprecedented. 

This finding ALONE, in this single child, should have been enough to immediately halt ALL administration of PBs worldwide until more data was collected. In medical terms, this is almost as unusual and alarming as if her blood type or fingerprints had changed. 

But here’s more evidence: Below shows an average 7-point drop in IQ of 25 kids after 2 years on PBs. This rate of decline is consistent with the Brazilian finding. It’s not an ‘artefact’ of testing. Something very serious and dangerous is happening as a result of PBs.

This data is known. This information is out there, yet PBs are still being pushed as ‘Affirming’ and ‘lifesaving’ care for children. In reality, PBs are causing significant and possibly IRREVERSIBLE BRAIN DAMAGE. They are impacting both Gf and Gc. 

ALL children should routinely have their IQ tested at the beginning of ‘treatment’ and periodically whilst on PBs. But gender clinics are not collecting this data, so the true scale of the disaster in terms of the cognitive damage to children is not yet known. 

It’s possible these children’s IQs are CONTINUING TO FALL. A 10-point drop is the difference between getting a degree or not. A 20-point drop is the difference between living independently or staying at home with parents because you cannot manage life without help. 

This is a scandal of unprecedented and unimaginable proportions. But there’s also mounting evidence that X-sex hormones are also causing a decline in IQ in adults even AFTER the critical Myelination process is complete (age 25 to 30). I will do another thread on that. 

 Please Rx. Transgender ‘healthcare’ for children is a Crime Against Humanity. It MUST be stopped. By us. 

PBs do have a role: For a 4-year-old who starts menstruating, the risk of cognitive impairment is less than the psychological consequences of CPP. But they have absolutely NO place in ‘treating’ the psychological dysfunction of otherwise perfectly HEALTHY children. 

Somehow, shockingly, puberty is now seen as an illness which must be blocked. Regardless of the consequences to children. But PBs affect the ENTIRE body. Not just sexual development They don’t mysteriously and miraculously stop working above the shoulders! 

And, before I get all the usual, nonsensical pushback: I am a ‘real’ psychologist; I do have a DClinPsych; I am not, and have never claimed to be a medical doctor; I’m not a ‘crackpot’; my views are not outliers; every clinical psychologist knows the truth of this thread. 

Side question: so what do PBs do to the adult brain?

And in the case of adults – is transition a treatment for mental illness, or a symptom? Or self-medication?

Prediction

I’m going to go out on a short, sturdy limb and say that either…

  • Her husband is a shriveled little low-T millennial Twerp who agreed that he was in fact gay on Christmas morning, or…
  • He’s on the market as of today.

For his sake, I’m going to cross my fingers and hope for “b”.

What If Someone Threw A “Genocide”, And No Entire Groups Were Murdered?

In addition to football, we saw last week the annual “progressive” tradition of wrapping one’s self and others in un-earned victimhood.

It was “Trans Violence Awareness Week”, during which Leftis pols conjured up victims from the ether to rally the soft-minded to their cause.

Senator Smith, for starters (with a riposte from Shawh Holster)

If the Human Rights Coalition says it, its worth fact-checking:

The only catch is that no such systemic violence exists. According to Jean-Pierre herself — and, presumably, to an LGBT-rights group with every interest in magnifying the phenomenon — the total number of trans-identified Americans known to have been killed in 2023 is 26. If we round that up to 30 (to account for December) and assume that just 1 percent of the U.S. population is trans (given that, as one very limited survey shows, around 3 percent of young Americans are), we obtain an annual transgender-murder rate of 30 in 3.32 million, or just 0.9 people per 100,000 people. Even if we, alternatively, assume an American trans population of just 1.6 million — to gel with one high-quality but conservative recent estimate — the resulting murder rate would be merely 1.9 per 100,000 people.

To put that in context, the murder rate for blacks in the U.S. is currently 30–33 per 100,000 people. The African-American community is an outlier but not necessarily a remarkable one: In a representative recent year, 4.5 percent of black-male deaths were the results of homicide, versus 2.3 percent for American Indians, 2.2 percent for Hispanics, 2 percent for Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders . . . and 4.9 percent for all whites under full majority. To say the obvious, all of these groups are currently living far more dangerously than “trans women.”

Holster ran down the HRC’s numbers in this twitter thread:

Long story short – like iron ore, Big Left wants to take the raw material of intra-relationship and street violence, and try to refine it into yet another social grievance to keep the ignorant and uncritical in a hot lather.

Insidious

Article on how to respond to being “gaslit”…

…gaslights half the species (emphasis added by me):

The form of emotional abuse, where someone seeks to make a person doubt their own sanity, is something experienced by many – particularly women, who, according to a 2018 policing report, account for 95% of all gaslighting victims

The linked report, by the way, relies on British police reports from domestic abuse situations in relation to an expansion of domestic abuse law to cover “coercive control”, something that the researchers point out is fuzzy, vague and not the subject of any broad consensus, but was passed by a legislature wanting to expand the definition of “domestic abuse”.

Put another way – data gathered by mental health non-professionals about an ill-defined offense in an area of law that is heavily weighted against men to begin with, related to a psychological phenomenon that even mental health professionals don’t entirely agree on, is being used to tell men they are inclined to abuse women – not to mention giving women the oddly Victorian notion that they are just plain less capable of abuse, particularly psychological abuse, than men.

So – do I credit this to a writer with an agenda? Or to a sloppy, probably 20-something pseudoacademic writer who eagerly prattles what she’s told on command?

I say “why choose?”

The Definition Of “Insanity”…

…is apparently…

…uh…:

…reciting scientific reality.

In a video clip that surfaced this week, the musician, who grew up in San Francisco, asserted, “When God made you and me, before we came out of the womb, you know who you are and what you are. Later on, when you grow out of it, you see things and you start believing that you could be something that sounds good, but you know it ain’t right. Because a woman is a woman and a man is a man. That’s it. Whatever you wanna do in the closet, that’s your business. I’m OK with that.”

So to recap: according to the SanFranChron, “Insanity” is something that wouldl have been considered too obvious to bother saying 15 years ago.

Filmy Streak

Movies are pretty streaky to me.

Before Gran Torino came out I think I’d gone something like 3-4 years without seeing a movie in a theater. No big deal – I scarcely noticed it, and had plenty of other stuff to keep me busy.

After the “lockdown” ended, I went to a couple of films just to throw a throbbing middle fingers at the Karens of the world. I don’t even remember the movies – just how good throwing. that finger fels. Also how much room I had. I literally was the only person in the theater more than once. #ThaanksGovernorWalz

But I’ve been light on movies again, for a while now. I didn’t grow up with comic books (other than “Flaming Carrot” and, later, “King and Country”), so I have no nostalgia for the endless Marvel and DC franchises. For that matters, I lost all interest in Star Wars after “Attack of the Clones or whatever it was called. I literally haven’t seen a single one after the third episode/sixth movie. When asked which universe I prefer, Star Trek or Star Wars, I reply “Firefly“.

And I try to avoid going to movies I reasonably believe are going to be a waste of time and money. I’ve literally walked out of one movie in my life (The Burbs with Tom Hanks).

But I’ve been on a bit of a tear lately. I’ve seen movies four weekends in a row. And – unbelievably – they’ve all been good.

  • Sound of Freedom. Amazing film. . Unbelievably intense. Its critics say “it manipulates the audience ZOMG”. Right . So did “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, “Oliver Twist” and “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner”. That’s art, especially art for a cause, for you. .
  • No Hard Feelings. Yep ,a Jennifer Lawrence film. “But she’s a lefty”. I don’t care – it’s a movie with a fundamentally conservative message. One reviewer called it “a sex comedy without the sex”, and it’s not wrong – especially given that the one nude scene is hilarious and diametrically not erotic in the least.
  • Oppenheimer. I love the fact that a director trusts and audience to be able to follow a complex, non-sequential plot.

Aaaaaaaand Barbie.

“Wait – wut”

Yep. Barbie. And I’d do it again – entirely on conservative social criticism grounds .

More tomorrow .

The Racket

I’m not the world’s biggest Matt Walsh fan.

Not because of what he says. Mostly because he’s a podcaster whose podcast gets plopped onto radio with a little editing. It’s not necessarily great radio.

But radio purism aside, I watched “What is a Woman?” last week.

And the part that stuck with me, the part I didn’t already know?

Between hormones, surgery and other clinical charges, every single transition yields a total of $1.3 Million.

The return on investment has to be far better than Covid was.

With that in mind, I caught this the other day. It’s a thread – if you cllck into it, it should yield 5-6 related tweets:

“It’s a racket” would certainly explain a lot of the hamfisted way the DFL jammed the issue down this past session.

Pronouns

Minnesota is transferring his first transgender female to the Shakopee women’s prison.

But I’m not here to talk about the obvious issue.

No – there are two issues that go way beyond putting (deep breath) bio-men into women’s prisons.

Stay In Your Lane: Shakopee is referred to as a “women’s. prison”.

Is the MN Department of Corrections a bunch of biologists?

Do are they experts in what “women” are? Like this PhD?

Which leads us to another, inarguably more serious problem.

Pronouns Pronouns Pronouns: What’s in the world “Prison?”

The word “Son”.

Since we don’t know the genders of the incarcerated (indeed, the incarcerated themselves may not know at any given time), it’s time to change the name of the facility to “Shakopee Prixyn”.

Continue reading

What’s Good For The Goose Is Good For The Gender

Hot on the heels of the pummeling of Bud Light over choosing a transgender spokesminstrel, this ad campaign claiming the history of beer for feminism, has surfaced:

Corporate virtue-signaling? Sure.

But that’s not the part that annoys me the most.

The worst part is what this says about women in America today.


Money Where Their Mouth Is: Advertisers are, in normal times, perhaps the ultimate practitioners of the free market. They, their campaigns, and their agencies and departments rise and fall on how successfully they gauge the sentiments of their audiences.

For example, the ad agency that conceived of a “Clydesdale” campaign for a certain brand of beer managed to do a superlative job of gauging the effect that ad would have on the ad-viewing audience – not only selling lots of beer, but creating perhaps America’s foremost celebrity draft horse team.

Likewise, the ad agency that thought a group of cute frogs croaking the name of the beer into the dark would sell beer – and they were right.

Good ad agencies, execs and campaigns “read” society correctly.

So – what are they reading?


Impressions: It’s not a big stretch – ads are aimed at the people who buy products.

And within families, households and communities, that varies by what’s being sold.

So think about products where the primary buy/don’t buy decision is men. Classic example – firearms. Ads for firearms portray men as sober, decisive, serious people. That’s how gun owners see themselves and their paths. An ad agency that portrayed their male customers as doughy comic relief would probably have a hard time getting their contract renewed, since the brand’s sales would probably tank. By the way – the women portrayed are also solid, serious people, as well.

Home improvement brands, like hardware stores, tend to take men fairly seriously as well

Beer? Well, the portrayal of men in beer ads is often tongue-in-cheek…:

…and the women portrayed with them tend to be – as the shrieking harpy in the Miller ad notes – somewhat idealized:

In a bikini? Sometimes. The purple middy top is close, in its own way.

But women are portrayed as idealized as a rule. Young, pretty, not stupid – it’s affectionate.

So – when the target audience is women, what then?


Complete contempt, that’s what. The males – especially fathers and boyfriends – in commercials these days wish they were portrayed with the sensitivity of a hot chick in a bikini (although the guy narrating this video gets the message all wrong):

The point being, our ads tell us something about how advertisers (who get paid to get attitudes right) see how we see each other. And from the ads – and the crushing preponderance of them by volume – we learn:

  • Men, at least in the last 30-40 years, have affectionate respect for women, while celebrating attraction
  • Women think men are hopeless incompetents.

And this has been going on for well over a decade.

So is it any wonder the young fellas of GenZ are forsaking the mating game for video games and pr0n?

Just Remember…

…that the DFL made Minnesota a sanctuary state for Munchausen Mommies like this soulless crone.

(WARNING: You may vomit):

And when a Munchhausen Mom like this walks through a custody order to bring the kid that they’re “transing” to MN, the state will put her wishes above that of the other state’s court order.

Food for ugly, nightmarish thought.

Stochastic Terror, Part II: Whitewashed

Yesterday, we talked about the Five Christians You Meet in the Movies.

And it started me thinking.

Last year, I started but didn’t quite follow through on a statistical study of race and gender characteristics in TV advertisements, as well as the tone or general sense of stereotype associated with the “Characters”. Spoiler alert: white males are subject to a certain…stereotyping, outside of ads for home improvement, sometimes. The numbers were jarringly uniform; there seems to be an unspoken (maybe) pact to portray white males as dim buffoons at best, cads at worst.

And while I don’t watch a ton of TV, I see enough to know the parallels are there.

There are five kinds of men – of all races – visible on television, either programming or advertisement, today:

The Impotent Buffoon: The most notable example of this “male” is the “boyfriend” on most TV/streamingt shows aimed at Millennials and younger. Mewling, incompetent, the inevitable inferior in the relationship whether he knows it or not. The first crisis in the plot inevitably shows him to be about as useful as a set of debate notes in front of Lieutenant Governor Flanagan. This is also the “husband” in most TV ads, these days; schlubby, married to a woman who’s waaaaay out of his league (and, in many cases, with kids who are made to appear much, much smarter than him). In a recent development, that incompetent male isn’t always white anymore (the guy in the “WeBuyAnyCar.com” ad jumps to mind).

The Douchebag: These are the people that all the “Jocks” in every John Hughes teensploitation movie grew up to be. The recent simulacrum of this type was the “partner” FBI agent in the (often excellent) Christina Applegate/Linda Cardellini streamer Dead to Me; a youngish man with all the physical symbols of being upper-middle class; he went to a pseudy-Ivy on, of course, a lacrosse scholarship, and exudes the casual arrogance that the modern TV viewer has been trained to expect to shortly see torn straight down by his senior partner – a (grabs checklist of modern “virtue” tropes) Latina single mother who worked her way up from a street, uh, FBI agent. (Sub-flavor: The gay douchebag, who usually ends up being the good guy).

Old Money: The definitive versions? The senior partners in the arbitrage firm in Trading Places.

The Melodrama Villain: Usually middle aged or older, usually coded as American aristocrats. If a show needs an “evil” Macguffin, it’s usually one of these guys. Even in car ads, for crying out loud, the “baddie” usuallyl resembles the “Goldstein” character in the Macintosh “1984” ad.

The Bankable A-Lister: Bankable A-listers are always exempt from all these tropes. Competent, intelligent, hot…perfect. The sort of thing that we’re supposed to be moving away from when the character is female.

Now, on level this is all good critical fun.

On the other hand – remember the complaints of African-Americans to Stepin Fetchit and Amos and Andy, or Natives to a century of movie stereotypes of Indians, or Latinos to decades of “lazy Mexican” tropes, who asked “why should our young people grow up with this vision of themselves all round them in popular culture?”

They were right.

If you’re a young man today, growing up as a generation of young men that’ve had their boyish “male” traits sanded off or drugged into submission by a feminized school system – and whose very testosterone levels are being eroded by diet or environment or God only knows what? When you look at pop culture around you, what do you see?

The loudest voices in our culture telling you “your type” is impotent, ineffective, useless, and if you draw a winning ticket in life’s lottery, anything from insufferable to evil?

Perhaps the proper term isn’t “stochastic terror”.

Maybe gaslighting?

Grooming for failure and misery?

Intergenerational abuse?

The more I think about it, I’m talking myself back to “stochastic terror”.

I’m Old Enough To Remember…

…when minstrel shows were considered bad form.

That’s apparently changed:

Jeffrey Marsh is enough to give me species dysmorphia.

One Morning In The Duchey Household

SCENE: It’s an ordinary morning in the home of Edwin DUCHEY, Proprietor at the (possibly fictional) progressive blog “MinnesotaLiberalAlliance.Blogspot.com”.    DuChey was badly scarred by a childhood in which he was routinely bullied – by much younger children.

He’s sitting in the living room, sorting through emails on his phone, as his partner, Stacey Hinton, Executive Director of “Keep All Racists Eternally Nonplussed”, a white progressive support group and, like DuChey, a commited but unremarkable DFL activist, does much the same.

Their daughter, NIGELLA DUCHEY-HINTON, age 6, crawls into the room on all fours.

NIGELLA: Look, meowther and ffffffffather. I’m a kitty cat!

DUCHEY: (Looks at HINTON). What do you think, honey?

HINTON: Nigella? That’s an important decision, but you know I support and love you no matter what.

DUCHEY: (Looks at his phone). Honey? There’s a clinic in Honduras that specializes in species transition…oh, look, it says “for American progressives!”.

HINTON: Perfect!

NIGELLA: You mean puurrrrrr-fect! (NIGELLA crawls from the room)

DUCHEY: Yes, Nigella!! I’ll book a ticket to…uh, what’s the capital of Honduras, hon?

HINTON: Austin.

DUCHEY: I’ll get on it.

(As DUCHEY scrolls around looking for tickets to Austin, Honduras, their oldest son, Bjorn O’BRIEN – Hinton’s 14 year old son from a previous relationship, walks into the room.

O’BRIEN: I am Napoleon Buonaparte!

HINTON: Do tell, Bjorn.

O’BRIEN: It’s not Bjorn. I am Napoleon. My destiny is to conquer the world.

DUCHEY: So you identify as…Napoleon, the president of France in World War 2w?

HINTON: (Sotto Voce). The Civil War, honey.

O’BRIEN: Identifying has nothing to do with it. I am Napoleon. Could you lend me $500 until Jefferson buys Louisiana from me?

HINTON: Give him my MAPE Credit Union card, Ed.

(DUCHEY fishes card out of his fanny pack and gives it to young Bjorn, who doffs his “admiral” hat in a grand imperial salute before leaving the room)

HINTON: He needs a shower.

HINTON: They didn’t take as many of them in 1895, during the Civil War.

HINTON: Oh, right. Of course.

(Sean KASSEBAUM-HINTON, age 10 and Hinton’s son from a “break” in her and DUCHEY’s relationship, enters the room,

SEAN: Mom? Dad? Can I get some running shoes?

DUCHEY: Sure, son.

HINTON: Not your son. Sure, Sean. What’s up?

SEAN: I want to get in shape so that when I’m old enough I can join the Army or the Marines or something.

(HINTON and DUCHEY sit, blanching in poorly-muted horror).

HINTON: The military?

SEAN: Yes, mom. I want to serve this country. And tanks are cool!

(DUCHEY and HINTON exchange glances).

DUCHEY: Your mother and I will need to talk about it, son.

HINTON: Not your son.

SEAN: OK, Mom and Ed. (SEAN leaves the room)

DUCHEY: OMG.

HINTON: What have we done wrong?

DUCHEY: Well, according to Lt. Governor Peggy…:

DUCHEY: …nothing at all.

HINTON: But this is just so wrong. How have we failed him so?

DUCHEY: Maybe I can get him in to see a therapist…

(COLIN MANDELA DuChey, age 17, Edwin’s son from an earlier relationship, walks into the room)

COLIN MANDELA: Hey, I need the keys to the car and some money for liquor; Terry’s older brother is buying. We’re going to LaCrosse to hit on biker chicks.

DUCHEY: I hear you and believe you. (Digs keys and a couple of hundreds from the fanny pack).

COLIN MANDELA: (Grabs the money). No, stupid. Not the Prius. That’s gay. I want the Jeep.

(HINTON digs keys from purse).

COLIN MANDELA: Later, b*t*hes.

HINTON: It’s part of being a good parent.

DUCHEY: The Lieutenant Governor says so.

And SCENE.

Metaphor Alert

The latest Moms Want Action tweet. Like everything MWA says, it’s counterfactual…

…but let’s stick with appearances and play a game of “Where’s Waldo”, where “Waldo” = “a black person”.

\

See her back there? Peering over the shoulder of the woman with ELCA Hair, not that that narrows it down any?

White, upper-middle-class female, utterly entitled, and keeping a few minorities around as visual accessories.

There is no more perfect metaphor for the gun control movement.

Isolationists Fighting The World

Democrats, especially the MN DFL, pine for European style “social democracy” – or at least the kind they’ve incorporated into their romantic interpretation of 1970s-style Swedish and Danish socialism.

Their teenage-girl-level keening is selective – they are quiet about the fact that Denmark, for example, has no minimum wage.

But for the most part, DFLers are figuratively pining for the fjords most of the time.

Will that change soon?

Minnesota just signed a law legalizing kidnapping kids and playing Mr. Potato Head with their body parts and endocrine system, while allowing unlicensed, unqualified paraprofessionals to conceal what’s going on from parents.

Or as they refer to it, “guaranteeing gender-affirming care”.

This, they do just as Europe wakes up from its fifty year trip through the looking glass:

The United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, and France have all taken steps recently to pull back on transgender medical treatments for seemingly gender-dysphoric children.

Sweden has been one of the most progressive nations on transgender health care for decades. Back in 1972, Sweden became the first country to allow transgender people to change their legal gender.

Last year though, Swedish hospitals halted the use of puberty blockers in five of the country’s six clinics for minors with gender dysphoria. The last clinic only uses puberty blockers in clinical trials. The country now emphasizes psychotherapy for minors with gender dysphoria instead.

In particular, the always freaky-deaky Swedes have slapped themselves upside the head and spun a proverbial bootlegger turn:

The Karolinska Hospital in Sweden recently issued a new policy statement regarding treatment of gender-dysphoric minors. This policy, affecting Karolinska’s pediatric gender services at Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital (ALB), has ended the practice of prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to gender-dysphoric patients under the age of 18.

This is a watershed moment, with one of world’s most renowned hospitals calling the “Dutch Protocol” experimental and discontinuing its routine use outside of research settings. According to the ”Dutch Protocol,” which has gained popularity in recent years, gender-dysphoric minors are treated with puberty blockers at age 12 (and in some interpretations, upon reaching Tanner stage 2 of puberty, which in girls can occur at age 8), and cross-sex hormones at the age of 16. This approach, also known as medical “affirmation,” has been endorsed by the WPATH ”Standards of Care 7” guideline.

Never thought I’d see sanity creeping across the Atlantic to the west, but then the whole world is pretty much upside down these days.

Paranoid!!!!

I was reliably informed that stories of teachers subverting parents will to “transition” or otherwise influence (but don’t you dare say “groom”) children were “paranoisa”, misinformation and right wing hate speech:

A family in New York has filed a lawsuit against the Brookhaven-Comsewogue School District, Terryville Road Elementary School, and 5th-grade teacher Debra Rosenquist because they allege that Rosenquist attempted to secretly transition the gender of their 10-year-old daughter without notifying the parents.

The student – who is identified as A.V. in the complaint – became confused as to her gender during the 2021-2022 school year because Rosenquist insisted on using a male name and male pronouns to refer to the student.

Weird. I’m reliably – and very angriliy – informed this can not be:

In October 2021, the teacher began to call A.V. by the name “Leo” and use he/him pronouns for the child. No one in the district informed the parents (referred to as L.N. and E.V. in the complaint) of these changes.

Several months later, in January 2022, the school’s principal informed the parents that the child had met with the school psychologist (without the parents’ knowledge) and had drawn a girl with the words “I wanna kill myself” and “I feel sad a lot.” The psychologist determined this was because A.V. was confused about her gender identity.

This was the first time A.V.’s parents had heard anything about the confusion regarding A.V.’s gender identity or new name and pronouns forced on the child by the teacher.

Here’s the entire complaint against the Suffolk County schools, over the episode…

…that can not possibly have happened.

Root Causes

“It’s Been a Minute” (henceforth IBaM) s one of the current plague of podcasts repackaged as radio shows that plagues both public and commercial broadcasting. As we discussed yesterday, some are better than others – some are OK radio, some are utterly dreadful as radio.

IBaM is pretty clearly trying to sell infotainment coverage smothered in public broadcasting convention, but to a black audience. It is, by public radio standards, breezy, sometimes to the point of sounding just a little contrived. But radio standards, it’s not the worst podcast on the air.

But this past weekend’s episode – about the wave of social media misogyny aimed at rapper “Megan Thee Stallion”, after she was shot in the foot by her…uh, paramour, rapper Tory Lanez. It features a “senior producer” from, guess what, another NPR podcast – Gabby Bulgarelli from a podcast called “Louder than a Riot”, and you’re on your own with that one.

Dog Bites Man. There’s an old newsroom bromide, passed down through Journalism 101 classes throughout the past 100-odd years. “Dog bites man isn’t news. Man bites dog is news”. If something is the norm, the expected, the utterly mundane? If you’re not the man being bit, it’s not realy news.

Anyway – I listened to this epi of IBaM, so you don’t have to. But if you’re curious – smoke ’em if you got ’em.

Here’s the part I wanted to focus on. It’s around 6:00 into the segment:

BRITNEY LEWIS (HOST): The coverage of this trial feels somewhat muted compared to the coverage of another trail that gained a lot of public attention this year, Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard. Why do you think that this case feels so different?

BULGARELLI: One, nobody cares about black people. Two, it’s close to the holidays. Three, because it’s a closed court…in some ways they feel similar. A lot of the arguing (sic) against Megan feels similar to how people rallied against Amber in support of Johnny Depp…

LEWIS: Mmm Hmmm

BULGARELLI: …the way Megan has been made out to be a liar – I don’t think anyone believes Megan to be a victim, so they don’t care…

I can’t comment on the merits of Bulgarelli’s argument, presuming there are any.

But she’s ignoring two elephants in the room:

  • Rappers shooting rappers is, regrettably and tragically, dog bites man. No, seriously – the list is long, and spans genres, coasts, even nations. It’s been a generation, and we still haven’t a conclusive idea who killed Tupac and Biggie. Ms. Thee Stallion was shot in the foot during a domestic squabble. It’s senseless, and stupid – but Ms. Thee Stallion survived, and will no doubt see her profile increase as a result. Oh, yeah – violent misogyny in the world of hip-hop doesn’t even rise to the level of dog-bites-man; it’s more like “Dog Licks Dog” . It’s ugly, and awful, and it’s the norm, to the point that pushing back against it is, in fact, the news in the show-biz press.
  • On the other hand, what – besides skin color – distinguishes the Depp/Heard trial from the Lanez/Thee Stallion dust-up? A woman’s claims of victimhood have been torpedoed by overwhelming, sworn evidence that she was in fact an emotional and violent abuser – something mainstream narrative denies exists. Millions of men who’ve suffered, either in silence or in the face of open derision from cops, social service professionals and society at large saw at least some vindication, even if only vicarious. The dominant narrative – “the power differential means only men can commit abuse” – was stomped flat, opening the door for millions of men to perhaps, one day, be taken seriously.

The inconvenient truth for identity-thrashers like Bulgarelli is the Lanez/Thee Stallion is “Dog Bites Man”; Heard/Depp is “Man puts mayo and a slice of tomato on a dog and takes a big chomp”, trashing a different bit of identitarian dogma outside Bulgarelli’s career specialty.

Think anyone at NPR will cover that angle?

Big Brother Is Watching Your Profile

In my ears as a single guy, I’ve gotten used to women running background checks before meeting me for a drink. It’s only common sense, these days, what with n ews and the Lifetime network getting women convinced that men are serial killers oh or Keith Ellison until proven otherwise. I can’t say I blame them.

But a new dating app apparently goes above and beyond.

The app, called The Right Stuff, starts with two strikes against it; it’s invite only, it doesn’t have a whole lot of women on it (which is not all that unusual on any dating sites and apps)…

… and it also appears to draw FBI attention. (ia Power Line):

But now, a third complaint is emerging from users — that answering a profile prompt question that asked “January 6 was …” has led to them being contacted by law enforcement.

A quick scroll through the reviews in the app store reveal several comments complaining of having a phone call from the FBI shortly after filling out the profile.

And it’s online feedback for a dating app.

But does anybody honestly think this sort of thing would be above Joe Biden‘s FBI?

Correction

To: Gavin Newsom, Governor, the Peoples Republic of California
From: Mitch Berg, Irascible Peasant
Re: Fact

Governor Newsom,

You tweeted:

May be a Twitter screenshot of 9 people, people standing and text that says 'NevilleTheCat @FearTheFloof 13m Look who' now biologist... 1h Gavin Newsom @GavinNewsom If men could get pregnant, this wouldn't even be a conversation. This decision isn't about strengthening families it's about extremism. It's about control. We will fight for the right to choose MAMME 100D 0:46 225.7K views 38'

I am reliably informed by people not only aligned with your party, but teaching in several of your state universities, that “men can get pregnant”.

That is all.

DeSantis: Troll Level PhD

Fatherhood is high on Big Left’s hit list – especially Big Feminism and Big Intersectionality. Without strong fathers, families are missing half of the behavioral background the children need to grow to be strong people.

Debasing fatherhood is key to Big Left’s crusade to “reinvent” – i.e. destroy – the nuclear family.

Ron DeSantis signed a bill designed to rehabilitate fathers in Florida. And there’s a Minnesota connection:

DeSantis signed the bill at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers training facility in Tampa, according to WTSP, noting that he put pen to paper at the team’s AdventHealth Training Center alongside former Bucs head coach Tony Dungy, who is also the spokesperson of and contributor to All Pro Dad, a national fatherhood nonprofit program that will be provided funding via grant opportunities by the bill. DeSantis said the organization uses “evidence-based parenting education.”

Dungy gave an impassioned speech as he backed the bill, saying that it will “be such a big help to fathers in Florida agencies that support fathers in Florida.” He commended DeSantis for bringing his children with him.

The program is designed to rehab fathers who’ve gotten out of jail, and whose kids are in the social-services system.

I’m waiting for Big Feminism to start with the gaslighting.

I’m also waiting for DeSantis to make them look like the yawping psychopaths they are.

DeSantis is pulling waaaay out front in my personal 2024 poll. .

The Invisible Man

SCENE: A suburban family room. MOTHER and FATHER are anxiously looking at their SON, who’s watching…TV.

MOTHER: It’s all he’s watching lately. .

FATHER: What is it?

MOTHER: He’s binging Band of Brothers

FATHER: Again? This is like the third time.

MOTHER: And before that, it was 13 Hours. And then Taken.

FATHER: I caught him watching Die Hard the other day.

MOTHER: He has the scene of him rescuing his wife from being pulled out the window with Hans Gruber as his social media avatar.

FATHER: God. I wonder what’s going on with him?


So I started binge watching “The Flight Attendant” last night.

Pros: it’s really well written. That’s nothing to sneeze at. I’ve been terribly disappointed by the writing in a lot of things I’ve seen lately (I’m looking at you, Love Life, whose laziness completely wasted Anna Kendrick).

The writers toss out a completely un-subtle “Crime and Punishment“ reference in the first couple minutes, and then go on to deliver on it throughout everything I’ve seen so far (#StuffEnglishMajorsLike). And Kaley Cuoco makes a completely believable protagonist.

Bonus pro: it’s got Rosie Perez, who may be the most underrated actress of her generation (although she’s just a tad underutilized in the first couple episodes).

It’s not Dial M for Murder, much less Gaslight, but it ain’t bad.

Speaking of that Ingrid Bergman / Charles Boyer classic…

Cons: These aren’t all in re Flight Attendant alone – far from it.

Hollywood writers seemed to have gotten together and signed a weird, junior high quality pact amongst themselves: “For decades, we wrote women as one dimensional caricatures; madonnas, whores, bimbos and housewives. Let’s pack a century of retribution into a couple of years worth of television and movies.“

Apparently, women can be protagonists, or nuanced, complex characters, or turbocharged badasses, for good or evil – or at least not incompetent caricatures.  That’s a good thing.

On the other hand, rules for men of these days seem to be boiled down to:

  • Gay besties
  • stock black, Asian, Latino or Semitic guys
  • The villain (usually an older white guy, usually played with all the subtlety of a mustache-twisting melodrama villain, although occasionally a white woman)
    – The love interest – who is usually safely ethnically ambiguous.
  • pathetic, beaten down sacks
  • Buffoons, tools, frat bros (apparently all white anglo-saxon protestant males get lacrosse scholarships. I didn’t know that), frat bros that have grown up to be buffoons and tools, cliché rednecks and every kind of cad ever offered up by central casting.. Almost inevitably white, although I guess it’s a sign of evolution the screen writers are showing the occasional less than bright/moral/ethical black male character.
  • Part of a married couple – usually as a hapless schlub whose league his spouse is waaay out of, but with plenty of dysfunctional, abusive cads thrown in. (Same sex couples apparently are immune to most serious dysfunction in Hollywood. Who knew?)

Patronizing? I think so.

Virtue signaling? Sure.

 Lazy? Completely.

Gaslighting?


FATHER: Junior? Why are you watching all these…

MOTHER: …movies and TV shows?

SON: Because it’s fun, for a change, for the first time in my life, to see people like I am, or plan to become, not portrayed as idiots, buffoons, fools, blackguards and expendable simps?

MOTHER: (sotto voce, to FATHER). Do. you think we should call a therapist?

Lions Are Lying Down With Lambs…

… And I’m finding myself jumping to Sean Penn’s defense, against the wokeists

“I don’t think that being a brute or having insensitivity or disrespect for women is anything to do with masculinity, or ever did. But I don’t think that [in order] to be fair to women, we should become them,” the outspoken actor added.

Penn is defending the idea that the opposite of “toxic masculinity” isn’t “femininity”, but “good, well-formed masculinity”.

Which is a fight our whole culture needs to wage, and win, for its own sake.

Which is ,I guess, why Penn is being pummeled today.