Saw Ralph Nader on TV for the first time in my life. Feel shocked that this weird goofball is the reason the horror of Bush was inflicted on the world. Feel even more shocked by the possibility that some people are trying to carry out a repeat of that fiasco.

There is this old joke I remembered a propos today’s discussion.

“This Luciano Pavarotti fellow can’t sing worth a damn! His voice is horrible and he can’t hit a single note. I don’t get why he’s so famous.”

“Really? Did you hear him live or in a recording?”

“Oh, neither. My friend Rabinowitz sang one of Pavarotti’s arias for me. It was horrid!”

You know what I hate? Fake, self-righteous outrage.

“Bernie Sanders fell asleep while fallen soldiers were being honored! He despises the dead heroes! They died for his freedom and he doesn’t even care! I won’t vote for him now!”

Oh, go eat an Advil and stop making a spectacle out of yourself. How great must it be to live in a world where every problem has been solved and all that remains to be outraged about is Bernie’s nap or lack thereof. Of course, the reason why he closed his eyes at a ceremony is so much more important than any of the issues he has been trying to get people to discuss.

I’m sure the same people who made a scandal out of this trivial event go around all outraged over the vulgarization of our political space.

Not only are some people egregiously dumb, they are proud to announce their dumbness to the world. Here is an example I found in an anti-TPP post. Before I proceed, I need to mention that this is not about “Bleh, TPP” or “Yay, TPP.” Both approaches are as dumb as the article I’m quoting, and I want neither of them to pollute my line of vision. Complex issues deserve of complex approaches. Having said that, here is the offending quote:

Public Citizen also has concerns.  These include, among others, that the TPP would. . . tacitly permit human rights violations in partner countries (the agreement does not mention “human rights”).

The US has a long and painfully history of trying to introduce the language of “human rights” into trade agreements and making such agreements contingent on partner countries respecting those rights. Every single one of these attempts failed pathetically. Every single time, it led to extreme resentment and souring of international relations with zero gains. This happened all through the 1990s. It happened with China, it happened with Russia, it happened with many other countries. Russians, for instance, are still livid that Americans, of all people, tried to lecture them about human rights. Chinese are deeply resentful, too. Both countries stepped up human rights abuses to show Americans that they should stop butting into their internal affairs.

Since then, the language of human rights has been dropped from trade agreements because it leads nowhere but to fostering anger. This issue has been studied and discussed at length, and it’s unbelievable that “a fresh fool that has come in from the cold” would brightly chirp about the issue before reading anything about it. Dumbass.

By all means, be against TPP is you’ve managed to read the entire text of the agreement. I haven’t, so I have no right to an opinion. But don’t be against it or in favor of it for idiotic reasons.

The Polish government finally wants to hand over pedophile Polanski to the US. What a shame that only an ultraconservative government would even consider offering a vicious criminal like him up for justice.

It would be so amazing to see this piece of trash go to jail.

I’m a kick-ass barbecued, folks. You haven’t been to heaven before you tried one of my barbecues.

Incredible! For the first time in years, Vine offered me books that I actually want to read. It only took a dozen purchases of Zygmunt Bauman’s books for the program to offer me a new Bauman and a new Ulrich Beck. Of course, it classified Beck as “Medicine” and Bauman as “Science and Technology”, but it’s miles better than the time when I was offered a novel by Tess Gerritsen about gruesome serial murders under the heading of “Christian Books and Bibles.”

So all of this ridiculous blethering about the evil nature of Debbie Wasserman Schultz and some completely idiotic fantasies about her collusion with Hillary led to. . . support for a Trump-like anti-semitic opponent of the Iran deal?

Yes, nothing sexist here at all. Not even remotely.

Women who complain that they do a lot more childcare than their husbands, leading to losses in professional development or beauty time, need to ask themselves: do they contribute to manufacturing a distance between father and child? Do they insert themselves into their relationship with suggestions, control, hovering, constant presence and supervision?

Because I know I do.

I’m the last person I would have expected to be a helicoptering Mommy. Over the years, I have worn my tongue to a stub and my fingers to nibs telling women in RL and online to stop inserting themselves between fathers and children. I can recite miles upon miles of theory on the importance of paternal involvement and of a timely transition through all the stages of cutting the emotional umbilical cord. And here I am, having to fight a veritable battle with my desire to hover. I’m boring myself stiff with how stupid and useless I’m being about this. 

I’ll win this battle for sure but I have to conclude that, in developed countries, just like the “women do more housework” slogan, the “women do more childcare” trope is meticulously constructed by women themselves. At least, I didn’t have to fight myself over the pathetic “I do the dishes / clean / do laundry, etc because if I let him do it, I’ll have to rewash / clean all over again, etc afterwards.” That kind of insanity, at least, I have been spared. 

Who’s with me in that the notorious “Confessions of a Recovering Tumblr Feminist” post that is being massively linked and cited is a fake?

I got suspicious of it from its very beginning when I read the following [emphasis is mine]:

For me, feminism was an enticing religion. Raised in a home devoid of faith, I eagerly accepted its philosophy as my ticket to salvation.

Really? A home devoid of faith? Secular people don’t speak like that. This is the flowery and exalted language of an Evangelical who is posing as a feminist. But wait, there is more:

For example, feminist ideology taught me that any opinions that were conservative, or just didn’t align with the party line were violence.  It also taught me that the best way to fight opposition is to try to silence it. Don’t like what someone says? Protest them. Shut their event down.

This is a parody of feminism that I keep encountering on the ultra-conservative websites that I read assiduously. Nobody in actual feminist circles says things like “any conservative opinions are violence.” I detest Women’s Studies departments as much as the next person but they don’t speak this way. To the contrary, what’s exasperating about them is how hard they try to be inclusive and not to criticise anybody for fear of hurting feelings.

This was seen most recently, when Milo Yiannopoulos’s speech at DePaul University came to an end when two social justice warriors ran onto the stage and hijacked the mic in protest of Milo’s views.

A real ex-feminist would mention the de-platforming of Madeleine Albright, not this mumbly fellow. He is of interest only to the Evangelicals whose websites, I repeat, I read all the time.

It’s not the substance of what she is saying that I find suspicious. It’s the language, the exaltation, and the examples she chooses.