I remember how back in 2008 I discovered some really disgusting calumnies about Sarah Palin (whom I always detested) being spread by droves of Democrats. I was then on the Left, and I was very put off by the horrible things people would say about Palin (and more importantly, her Down Syndrome baby) for the sake of progress and women’s rights. I wrote a lot about it back in the day, so I won’t repeat myself. But I have to say I am surprised with the suggestion that Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say extremely sexist things about female politicians.
Here is an example I came across randomly in my Twitter feed just now:
And more:
I detest Boebert’s politics, obviously. But I don’t understand why we are pretending that Republicans have some exceptionally sexist bent when this kind of thing is rampant on social media.
I personally happen to think that politicians should take this in their stride. They are well-compensated, after all. The Palin story bothered me because a disabled baby was involved but Boebert and Harris will very much survive the jokes.
Also, since we are at it, I always was and remain supportive of abortion rights but whoever came up with the idea that “reproductive freedom” should refer only to the right not to have children is no champion of feminism and no friend of women. The female body is devalued and despised quite equally by both sides and only blind partisanship might prevent one from seeing it.
Clarissa's Blog 
Interestingly, back when Palin was on the ticket and all those rumors were going around… nearly everyone I knew was on the right, and those exact same rumors actually *boosted* her support with conservative religious people. Among traditional big-family Catholics in particular, it is a time-honored tradition that if your teenage daughter gets knocked up, baby’s grandparents simply adopt the kid and let the girl go on with her life, finish college, whatever. Stuff happens, teenagers do stupid things, life goes on, and this is not a huge deal for pro-lifers who really mean it. I know at least two families who’ve done this–where youngest kid is actually a grandkid– it’s pretty seamless, the kid looks just like the rest of the family, and is universally doted on.
What was super-weird about the whole thing was the picture that emerged, of how lefties themselves saw this situation, and how they *assumed* conservatives would see it. They seemed to have an unshakable mental picture of religious people as… I dunno. Like we should think teenagers getting pregnant at all was some kind of unrecoverable shame. No wonder they are so rabidly pro-abortion.
LikeLiked by 5 people
They had such an unhealthy obsession going. Poring over pictures, analyzing every inch of her body. The garbagey things said about her daughter and the baby. Why anybody would think it was a good look I’ll never understand.
LikeLike
I’m all for letting people say ugly things in public. Forcing everyone into a straitjacket of surface niceness makes it harder to tell what they’re really like.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I agree. But to claim that this happens only to female politicians and only at the hands of Republicans is simply not true.
LikeLike
Indeed. I would not give much weight to the opinions or advice of anyone so willingly blind. But hey, let them talk. If they felt more constrained, I might’ve mistaken them for someone I should listen to.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great post. But I want to approach it with a different angle. My contention is that playing the “who is more racist/sexist” is a losing game because that is a game where our opponents hold all the cards, including the card that tells you how to play, haha. The bigger ideological victory is not in deciding who is more racist. It is in framing the terms of the debate: no matter who wins, only one consensus can emerge: that racism/sexism is the ultimate sin. I think we need to break away from that. I dunno, for me, implementing a lockdown policy that resulted in millions of people losing their jobs, unable to see their dying relatives, children left developmentally challenged because of stunted speech due to constant masking, etc. THAT to me is a bigger sin that this vague notion of “racism” that floats around us, invisible like ether.
And to add to your example, the amount of absolutely vicious racism liberals have lobbed against Clarence Thomas has to be unmatched by anything I have ever seen. Openly calling him dumb with zero consequences. By the same people who would cancel you and your entire family for using the wrong pronoun.
This is a rigged game and the only way to win is not to play.
Also, it’s so touching when your ideological enemies (like “Anonymous” on this blog) give you election strategy advice. “If the GOP wants to win, here’s what it should do..”
Doesn’t that sound absolutely insane? It’s like you posting on Daily Kos with stuff like “I’m a conservative and here’s what you should do to beat my party come november.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
All day today, Dems are spreading an egregious lie about JD Vance describing “having sex with a couch” in his memoir. There’s, of course, nothing remotely like it in the book. The number of people who picked up this slander and shared it is enormous.
It bugs me beyond belief that people keep claiming this is only done to women. And it also bugs me that a lie is invented about a widely available book and nobody cares to check before stupidly repeating the lie.
I totally agree with everything you said but I can’t stop myself from reacting to this dishonesty.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Remember all the floats and murals depicting Trump’s naked body with a small penis and Trump and Putin french-kissing each other during his presidency? Or wishing Trump be raped in prison? Literally using “gay” as an insult.
This from people belonging to a fiercely pro-LGBT, pro-fat acceptance party. Like I said, this fight is pointless. Powerful is he who decides the exception. They’ve won the culture wars and they get to decide who gets punished and who gets off for these transgressions.
LikeLike
What you may or may not be seeing from your vantage, is that the pendulum has already started swinging back the other way.
What started as a surprise influx of new people in our (very conservative, very liturgical, very traditional, and very stagnant) church parish after the lockdowns… is in its third year now and it is accelerating and broadening. It is overwhelmingly young people. At the beginning, it was mostly people coming from other Christian denominations, feeling rather betrayed by the boomers in their parishes strangling church life and locking the doors indefinitely (long after it was required by law) in the name of safety.
That is less and less true. I’ve been talking to them whenever possible, and there are more and more of them now, who are coming from either no religion at all, or just “I went to church with my grandma some when I was a kid… but haven’t been since.”
I’ve talked to enough people outside my denomination now to see that it’s a much, much broader cultural trend. The fluff churches are emptying out, serious liturgical churches are expanding so quickly their buildings cannot keep up, and the influx is like 90%+ people under the age of 35.
It’s far from ALL the young people, but there is a very remarkable trend of young folks who are rejecting modern lifestyle dictates, and actively looking for something that still *works*. They seem to be finding it in Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and even some spillover into Anglican (in the US at least).
These are overwhelmingly young married people with kids, and young single people who are actively looking to be married with kids: people seeking a settled, normal-until-ten-minutes-ago permanent hetero married home life.
This didn’t happen because of anything our church did. We haven’t done any new outreach, advertising, nothing like that. They’re finding us, and whatever is driving them is *out there* in the broader culture.
LikeLiked by 2 people
…so, you know, the culture wars aren’t static. They won the last round. I suspect the next round is ours.
LikeLiked by 2 people
From your lips to God’s ears.
LikeLiked by 2 people
🙂
When this started, there were *maybe* 8 kids in the sunday school, most of them headed off to college shortly. Not enough to have a Christmas pageant. Pretty close to just cancelling sunday school entirely.
In under three years, that has morphed into over fifty kids in the sunday school, and they are having to write new parts into the old pageant scripts.
And that’s not even counting all the babies and under-3 kids who aren’t old enough yet.
It is hard to describe how dramatic the shift has been. We are mulling over starting a homeschool co-op.
LikeLiked by 2 people
A brilliant idea to start a co-op to teach the kids. We are seeing right now during summer camp where public school kids are accepted that they share the stories of their home life that our kids (my nephew is in the camp, too) didn’t even know existed. I want my kid to be surrounded by examples of normalcy. People leading normal, ordered lives. It was an inspired decision to place our daughter in the Christian school because there are so many things I don’t have to worry about.
LikeLike
YES!!
We already try to orient our kids’ social life around church, because that’s where all the normal healthy 2-parent families are. I am delighted that my eldest (nerdy, a bit autistic) has finally made good friends… at church. He had reluctantly played with the neighborhood kids, but finds they have little in common. But at church, he’s finally meeting kids around his age who’ve read a lot of the same books, are on a similar intellectual level, have a shared culture, and are happy well-adjusted people who aren’t overwhelmed by family baggage. They lend each other books and talk hobbies and stuff. It’s so sweet.
LikeLiked by 1 person
My kid is now bringing home stories such as “my mom’s new boyfriend cheated on her, so she threw him out and now I’m worried she’ll get back with the previous boyfriend who was a total jerk.” My kid didn’t even know this kind of a lifestyle was a possibility, and I keep explaining that it’s not going to happen to us, please don’t worry.
LikeLiked by 1 person
exactly.
We live in a low-rent neighborhood. Intact families are rare birds here. Trying to talk through neighbor-kids’ family situations with them, without freaking them out, has been truly weird. Why do A’s mom and dad live in different houses? Why don’t B, C, D, or E’s families have dads? Why did F’s family move away and leave all their stuff on the roadside?
We respond by trying to give them a positive identity: we don’t do that because we’re a different sort of people. We are (family name here). We are Christians. Because we are those things, we get married before we have kids, and we stay married, and Dads and Moms raise kids together. We go to church, and we say prayers together at home. We care about your education because it is important to us that you become good, responsible, Christian men who can support families of your own, and help others in need. That’s who we are.
Not everybody’s like that, but you don’t have to worry about that stuff at home. Home is secure.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Especially, I’m seeing this with young men. Not only in church but in class, too. I hear quite often, “thank you for saying this, professor. Thank you for recommending these books. I had no idea there were professors who felt this way.” It’s a new, timid movement but it’s there. Young people need to see someone they recognize as an intellectual authority to legitimize these ideas. I have so many students from broken families, bizarre and chaotic home situations that it’s no wonder young people are starting to think that maybe something better is out there.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I worried that we were getting tons of young men, many of them eager to find a nice girl and settle down– and zero young single women.
My middle-aged busybody self fretted about how we could find wives for these guys. They can’t *all* be headed for a monastery.
Just in the last two months, the young women have started showing up. I need to get out and talk to them more. I’m guessing that… men are the trailblazers here. The ones willing to go sign up for a religion nobody they know has ever even heard of. Maybe we’ve finally reached the phase where most people now have a friend, cousin, coworker, or acquaintance who’s already made the leap, so it’s no longer terra incognita. That is what it looks like in the pews: people who were just baptized over Pascha, are now bringing friends and relatives to church with them. One older gentleman who’s still a catechumen started showing up with four or five of his teen/adult grandkids. This is completely new.
The two new ladies I’ve spoken to (briefly) did not just wander in to scope out a service or two, they walked in the door for the first time asking how to get into the inquirers’ class. Which says they’ve already done some research. How did that happen?
I feel like a covert journalist working on an investigative report… it’s so crazy and I so want to get to the bottom of it.
LikeLike
It’s disgusting the sort of contempt liberals heap upon Clarence Thomas, on paper he should be hailed as a success story. He came from an impoverished background and was raised primarily by his grandparents, then worked his way up to Supreme Court justice. But because he’s an African American who is conservative, he’s evil at worst and brainwashed at best.
I hate that because it’s personal, my mother is a Cuban immigrant and a registered Republican ever since getting her citizenship in 2005. People think she’s nuts for being a woman of color and a Republican, but it makes sense in context.
My older brother is in the military and very conservative, more of a libertarian than a Republican, in military circles this is a common affiliation. In the civilian world, this caused him to be called a coconut, which resulted in a couple of fights. But seriously, I hate the idea that people of color have to vote Democrat or else they’re a traitor.
LikeLike
LikeLike
This one is easy to answer, because I’m not a freaking dolt.
EVERYONE in the world knows that the person Kamala eventually chooses as her VP will be a white male. Why? For diversity, for equity, and for inclusion (and for political pragmatism). That’s a DEI hire. Nothing wrong with that.
The problem is that the right has turned it into a slur, because they assume that the only beneficiaries of DEI are minorities, and how else to express outrage that minorities are “taking our jobs”?
Whereas the whole purpose of DEI is to ensure equity where there otherwise isn’t. Kamala choosing Stacy Abrams in this case would NOT be a DEI hire, because there’s nothing she’s diversifying. Kamala choosing Whitmer will be DEI, but not as diverse as a white male.
Yet the idiots on the right will call Stacey a DEI hire if that happened, but not Whitmer or Kelly/Shapiro/Cooper, because they can’t help themselves.
Hope you’ve learnt something.
LikeLike
“EVERYONE in the world knows “
I didn’t know.
I guess I’m not a person. (struck through the heart! Will never recover because I base my self-worth on the opinions of internet anons).
Guess I’ll go eat worms…
LikeLiked by 1 person
At least you learnt something.
LikeLike
Yes, I have learned over the years that “EVERYONE does xyz” is the favorite cudgel of normies to try and beat others into compliance. The sad part is that it works on other normies, generally. They’re so afraid of people not liking them, of being in the outgroup.
In adolescence this was pretty rough. In adulthood I realize what a gift I was granted, and that is valuable learning indeed!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Leaving aside your inability to understand hyperbole, if you ever find important one person online or offline who believes Kamala would choose a black, female, or minority VP rather than a white male (for DEI reasons), please point it to me. I have a bridge to sell you in Southern Illinois.
LikeLike
I could not care any less about who Kamala picks.
You were asked to support some incendiary claims with evidence, and you responded with a typical normie dodge: “if you don’t believe me, you must be the outgroup!”
Evidence remains missing.
Nice job dodging. Avoiding the question and changing the subject seems to be your specialty. Is that in the troll manual or did you figure it out all on your own?
LikeLike
She will choose a white male, but not for DEI reasons.
LikeLike
“At least you learnt something.“
Well, you too can learn to wipe off your smug self-satisfied sarcasm off your snarky mug.
LikeLiked by 1 person
With all due respect, I do not believe you understand the way DEI hires work in the US. A white cis-male will never be hired to increase diversity and will not be called a DEI hire by anyone whether on the left or right. There are already many white males in politics (both in the past and currently), so if Kamala was truly invested in increasing the diversity at the top echelons of the politics, she would bring on board another woman or a minority. This is not about diversifying her ticket composed of two people, this about looking into all the past and present elections and observing that most presidential/VP candidates were white cis-males, so having two women/minorities on a ticket would be a good, laudable and diverse thing to do. No one (whether on the left or right) in the US will think of Kelly/Shapiro/Cooper as a DEI hire. Kamala is already being presented as the first Black/South Asian woman candidate for the president. She checked the DEI box and can present her ticket as the more diverse than the other side (which is important for many liberal voters), she is done in this respect. She needs to choose her VP well for electability purposes (someone who will not overshadow her, someone she can work with well and someone who will appeal to most voters), and let’s face it, Stacey Abrams that you just mentioned would really hurt her case and not because the ticket would not be diverse enough.
Hope you have learnt something 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Recently, a well-meaning middle-Eastern professor tried to defend his department from accusations that it wasn’t diverse by arguing that their 2 Chinese, 1 Indian and 1 Middle Eastern professor made them very diverse. It was painful to watch the poor man’s complete lack of understanding of what counts as diverse.
It’s impossible for a person who isn’t very American and in an intellectual job to figure this out. It’s very bizarre and complicated.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am sorry for the professor. DEI is one of those things that sounds logical and even very good on the surface. Unfortunately, it is not logical and the implementation is counter-productive and counter-intuitive. I watched people who profess their love for DEI mistreat a minority colleague, which left a bad taste in my mouth. Sometimes I long for the simpler times when “Lenin lived, Lenin lives, Lenin will live forever” 😉 At least no one took those things seriously anymore by the time I was around to remember anything.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s what I keep saying! Nobody believed the Soviet propaganda in the 1970s or 1980s. We all cracked jokes, it was all a pretense. That’s why I can’t get over the wide-eyed earnestness with which many people in the US react to this stuff. Where’s their sense of humor? Who can possibly take this crap seriously? But no, they are sincere. They look genuinely wounded when I make fun of it all.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’re wrong, random reader. The reason why “everyone” (put in quote marks because of the earlier literal reader) already presumes that Kamala will choose a male VP is precisely because of DEI. You may not call it that, or think it is, but it’s no different from Joe Biden choosing Kamala. He was losing the primary, he needed something to solidify his ticket, so he chose someone from a demographic he needed to win, who also happens to be above criticism from the opposition, but who is not incompetent. So she’s DEI in the same way as a Kelly or Shapiro would be. Shapiro even more, to show that she’s not antisemitic. He couldn’t have chosen JUST ANY black woman, just because of DEI. A Candace Owen would have wrecked his candidacy.
I know that you, and others, have a problem with the term or its purpose, but it’s no different than the many things we do every day to get what we want. AS LONG AS the person is competent. This is the part where it gets murky. If you choose someone JUST BECAUSE they’re white or black or green, and forget the most important element, then you lose anyway. This is why calling someone “a DEI hire” is usually insulting (along with the fact that it’s usually meant to be), because in most cases, the user is saying “you didn’t deserve it, you are not qualified, but you’ve been given JUST BECAUSE of your colour/race/gender”, which, of course is meant to be demeaning and dismissive.
If Kamala chooses JUST ANY white man, she’d lose. Try Romney (whom I even like) or Anthony Weiner or Gavin Newsom (who is as sleek as they come, but doesn’t add anything to the ticket). DEI means not depending on competence ALONE as the criteria for choice. Because the system has discriminated against others for years, being deliberate in choosing someone who makes your workplace/job/ticket, etc more diverse CAN be a great thing.
So yes, by all means, she’d make a DEI hire. And we’d all know that’s what she’s done. And no one will insult the white man with it.
LikeLike
(does not understand sarcasm even when it’s marked as such, thinks I am a literalist 😀 )
Where is this person from? This whole line of reasoning sounds so foreign to US politics in every way.
Still no evidence.
Now that DEI is an insult, we’re gonna claim that DEI doesn’t actually mean what everybody thinks it means, but actually you can DEI-hire a jewish dude, and therefore, because of this brand-new definition of DEI, that means when you argue against DEI, you’re racist, and when DEI supporters argue for DEI, that means whatever they say it means right now, and has nothing to do with actual policy/hiring decisions that’ve been going on all over the country in colleges, corporations, and government up to 1.5 seconds ago.
Got it.
Motte and bailey, no?
LikeLike
You either hate DEI or love it. But you can’t claim to hate it, and say, when it’s actually used for someone/something you like, say “oh no, that’s not DEI”.
Maybe rethink your own assumptions about what DEI hopes to achieve, and then try again.
LikeLike
I have no idea what you’re talking about.
You are trying to muddy the waters by re-defining DEI on the spot as… whatever the hell you want it to be, rather than what’s actually being implemented in hiring and college admissions.
Why should we buy your definition over actual policy?
LikeLike
I’m not asking you to “buy” anything, Madam/Mr. Meth.
I’m telling you what I see. That you refuse to see it is not my business.
LikeLike
For the particularly talented among us, I repeat once again: diverse means African American. It means absolutely nothing else. Please ask your HR people if you have them at your place of employment. I did, and that’s the answer I got. We are a state university, so our policies are official on the state level.
LikeLike
You’re not, though. You’re taking the very well-understood concept of DEI, and trying to gaslight everybody into thinking they were wrong about what they thought DEI was.
There are zero white/jewish male DEI hires. That’s not a thing. Why do you keep insisting it is?
LikeLike
And Clarissa, maybe it’s you who needs to talk to your HR and get them replaced.
The idea of diversity and inclusion is literally in the name: diversity, equity, and inclusion. An all-black basketball team needs inclusion. If a white dude can play well, he should be given a chance to join first before twenty other black dudes. That’s DEI.
To Meth, show me when a Jewish dude has ever been a US Vice President and you’ll get the point of Shapiro being a DEI hire.
I personally don’t think she’d choose him, because of how badly Netanyahu has rubbished the image of Israel in the US, and how much of an apologist for him Shapiro has been. But had things been different, Shapiro would certainly be a great DEI Vice President. He’s a good and charismatic governor, from all I’ve heard, and the party needs Pennsylvania.
You seem to hate that idea for some reason, though.
LikeLike
Before we start accusing me of hating Jews, khm, khm … 🙂
It’s good to have new readers but the inevitable downside is that they don’t know the history that old-time readers know.
LikeLike
For the fifteenth time, diverse means African American.
LikeLike
No, it does not. Sarah Palin was seen as diverse in 2008. Marco Rubio was seen as “diverse” in 2012. Shapiro is diverse TODAY.
You try to keep up.
LikeLike
In what company or college would Marco Rubio or Sarah Palin count toward DEI quotas?
LikeLike
In the GOP in 2008, Palin was a DEI pick. McCain wanted to be a Marverick. Marco was loudly cheered as the possibility of GOP’s change of attitude in 2012. Maybe it’s you who haven’t been paying attention.
LikeLike
You have yet to provide any evidence that hiring a jewish dude is a DEI choice.
Dodge, dodge, dodge.
Are you getting paid by the amount of engagement you generate, or just doing it for shits and giggles?
LikeLiked by 1 person
A Jew in an intellectual job cannot be a DEI hire for the simple reasons that Jews are massively overrepresented in such jobs. And by massively I mean the numbers are absolutely insane.
As we used to quip in the USSR, the shortest joke in the world is “there’s a Jew who’s a janitor.” It takes 2 words in Russian to say this, so it was funny.
LikeLike
I should totally bring up the need to hire more Jews at our next diversity training. That’s a joke that will absolutely slay.
LikeLike
“bring up the need to hire jews”
If you do it, can we get an audio recording??
LikeLike
@Anonymous “An all-black basketball team needs inclusion. If a white dude can play well, he should be given a chance to join first before twenty other black dudes. That’s DEI.“
This beats all levels of madness. Are you serious? But, are you serious? Where have you been these past three years? Who can take you seriously after writing such egregious bulls**t as the above?
No one will ever call for an all-black team to be infused with some DEI white hires because it is not diverse enough. NO ONE, EVER. What is it that you don’t understand about that?
LikeLike
Avi, if a white dude WHO CAN PLAY applies to get into an all-black team, he WILL be given a chance before 20 other blacks. Or SHOULD. That’s the whole purpose of DEI: Diversify places of work on the basis of competence, BUT with the knowledge and deliberate intention of bringing people in who have been otherwise excluded.
LikeLike
People in SA argue that all-black teams need to include whites for DEI purposes all the time, but we’ve been arguing about this stuff for a lot longer than 3 years.
LikeLike
I totally recommend arguing to include more whites in whatever for diversity reasons during a work meeting. Highly, highly recommend. Please let us know how it goes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, in SA, it’s just as much about including the language and culture as the specific individuals.
https://dailyfriend.co.za/2024/07/22/a-goal-for-gayton-and-a-win-for-the-country/
LikeLike
Except for white women in the secret service, right?
LikeLike
That’s a physical job. We are discussing intellectual work. Please concentrate.
LikeLike
“A Jew in an intellectual job cannot be a DEI hire for the simple reasons that Jews are massively overrepresented in such jobs.”
LMAO. Thanks for bringing this up becuause it actually perfectly illustrates my point.
There has never been a Jewish VP in US history. Let me know if I’m wrong here. The closest was Lieberman, who lost.
So, yes Josh Shapiro WOULD absolutely be a DEI pick, especially in today’s politics and Netanyahu’s manaical behaviour, and the rising antisemitism in the US. The VP isn’t as much an “intellectual job”, in any case, as it is a backstop job you’re usually hoping is a transitional job to one that is actually substantive. All you need is political heft, diversity qualification for an electorate block (black, Jewish, women, white, gay, etc), and an attitude that the person at the top of the ticket doesn’t find overshadowing of their own successes.
Now, that you think Shapiro being a DEi pick is an insult just illustrates everything I’ve been trying to say up until now.
So all that is left is to question why you feel so defensive about it.
LikeLike
At least at the (fairly large) MNC that I work for, ‘diversity’ also means LGBTQIA+ people. I suspect this is the same for most liberal corporate circles, given the constant propaganda FAANG-like companies are pushing out.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Anonymous,
You are funny. DEI is not what you think it is. I gave you a benefit of doubt since you claim not be in the US – perhaps that is how it works where you are. Several of us live and work in the US and deal with DEI issues since we work with/supervise people, participate in their hiring and deal with state and federal bureaucracies. We tried to explain it to you, but you know better, which is fine by me and no problem for you since you do not live and work here. Just don’t try your arguments on far-left US folks. They will not be as nice as us, especially once you tell them that a white cis-man is a diversity pick. Good luck with that.
P.S. Once again, whoever is Kamala going to pick is with the intention to make her more electable. There is no reason for her to take DEI into account at all, since she is diverse enough.
LikeLike
I’ve not told you where I live and work. I only told you that I’m not American. All other assumptions you made are yours.
LikeLike
Are you paid by someone for doing this, do you use ChatGPT to generate your posts, or are you a chatbot? With the amount of posts you generate and the speed that you generate them, I am not sure you have time to do anything else. (Don’t answer that, it was a rhetorical question.) Anyway, I am done. I actually do have work to do.
LikeLiked by 1 person
To RandomReader,
It’s a good question, so I’ll answer it.
I DO have a day job, and it happens to give me some time to read blogs and books. This is one of my favourite blogs, because it gives me a number of people to argue with (because they have bad ideas, of course).
Lol at ChatGPT. Do you just generally assume that anyone who has superior arguments to yours must have been augmented by something? Either ChatGPT if it’s online, or DEI if it’s in politics/workplace? That’s a terrible attitude, my friend.
My productivity doesn’t match Clarissa’s in any way — I really don’t know how she does it, while heading a language department, and teaching full time, AND raising a child. So it’s doable. I’m barely here, if you can believe it. All you need is to keep one page open so you can refresh, when you’re bored, to see if another bad argument has dropped. There’s some dopamin involved, I must confess, when I’m composing my response. Tells you how easy many of you make it to expose the vacuity of your viewpoints.
And I’m only generally interested in those.
LikeLike
I’m sick in bed right now. I’ve been sick all through July. It’s really getting to me, to be honest.
LikeLike
Clarissa, I’m sorry to hear that. I hope you get better. Much as it pains me to say it, you should spend less time here. Get lots of sleep, music, comedy/movie, and sunshine.
I know I give you (and some of your commenters) a hard time here often, but I’ve known you to generally be a decent person — even if the things you say here sometimes makes me scratch my head.
Health is wealth, like they say.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you! Out of the 5 things you listed, I hate 4, though. 🙂
It’s OK, I’m hoping to venture back to work Monday.
LikeLike
And yes, DEI can make you electable, as it did for Biden. So her choosing a DEI white man will certainly make her more electable. I haven’t seen anyone who disagrees.
LikeLike
“doing it for shits and giggles?”
Either that or that they’re doing it because they are a sincere true believer…. (far scarier thought).
I’m reminded of the old saying about why it’s not a good idea to wrestle pigs (you get covered in shit and mud… and the pig enjoys it):.
LikeLiked by 3 people
True, it’s like feeding the ducks: you get more ducks and next thing you know the walkways are slick with duck poop, your shoes are caked, and all the neighbors are all cursing you.
Please forgive me, combox, for feeding the ducks. I’m sorry.
LikeLike
Of course, you can just accept that your ideas are crap and that an anonymous stranger pointing it out makes you feel like duck poop. That’s fun to watch too.
LikeLike
May God bless you, and may He help you fill your unmet needs. I acknowledge the divine image in you, I love you, and I hope that you find peace.
LikeLike
Amen.
LikeLike
And I acknowledge the same in you. May God bless and keep you, and help you find love and joy.
LikeLiked by 1 person
A few random observations:
I’m pretty sure criticizing Clarence Thomas doesn’t have much to do with race. He’s accepted expensive gifts and probably stuck some of his dick hairs on a Coke can for Anita Hill. The guy is bad news, irrespective of race.
DEI is complicated–lots of good intentions, and lots of divisive results. But one of the tenets has to do with decentralizing the white voice while giving room to underrepresented voices and cultures. So in practice, there really isn’t such a thing as, “we need a certain amount of white guys.” White women get a point for breaking a glass ceiling; a Jewish VP might get a historical point–headlines in the Forward, and some memories of Nichols and May or Lenny Bruce making “first Jewish president” jokes. But Anonymous is quite right that the term, much like Affirmative Action some years back, is most commonly used by conservatives as a slur and putdown, and the response of “well, gosh and golly, if DEI is so positive, why does it become a slur when I say it?” is a bit… disingenuous? Naive? Bullshitty?
Finally, I find the observation “They won the last round. I suspect the next round is ours” really confusing. Who’s “they”? Who is “ours”? And what’s the fight?
LikeLike
Sorry, forgot to de-anonymous myself. I made the random observations.
LikeLike
Okay, I don’t know how to de-anonymous myself. Sorry.
LikeLike
Click on the little envelope below the posting window (it will appear once you start writing) which will allow you to write in an alias before posting. You could also just write your alias below your comment. It does get very confusing here with all the anonymous comments.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m so so sorry about the change in the comment box format. I have no control over it, and I hate that it’s happening. Maybe I should change the entire theme to see if that helps. It’s been endless confusion for everybody, and I apologize.
LikeLike
Thank you, random reader! Very helpful.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nowhere to go but up in this extremely biased poll for Vance, who is obviously not a DEI hire (just ignore history of growing up not rich, that’s not DEI) and the best qualified candidate Trump could pick for a running mate!
https://x.com/ForecasterEnten/status/1815905253793095967
LikeLike
Can we consider this matter of Kamala being the DEI candidate officially settled?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think the discussion somehow led us to the idea that it’s only really DEI if white dudes get promoted.
Even the proponents and passionate supporters of the DEI are so ashamed of it, they refuse to acknowledge publicly what it is.
LikeLike
Have you heard the latest yelpings from the DEI crowd? That the word DEI has now become the substitute for the ‘n word’ lol. That’s the thing they don’t get. It’s not the word, it’s the behavior. You could call DEI “the bestest most awesomest policy in the world” and soon it’ll be associated with something negative. It’s not the word, it’s what it does. You can keep coming up with new names for what you do; they’ll all acquire the same stink.
Can’t use “affirmative action” anymore, it’s too old fashioned, so let’s go with this shiny new thing called DEI. Oh wait, that’s started to look bad too, let’s think of some new acronym. As if the name is the problem.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Seems like a version of the euphemism treadmill.
LikeLike
It’s all about words for them. Words are everything. Reality is nothing. They will go around in circles, getting angrier with every step because they simply don’t understand that words don’t have magic properties and can’t recreate reality.
This mentality is so contagious that my widowed 70-year-old mother doesn’t identify as a widow. And gets very upset when people refer to her as a widow. She’s of perfectly sound mind, thank God. It’s not dementia. It’s the magic power of the word.
LikeLiked by 2 people
” California judge has ruled that teachers were right to punish a seven-year-old girl over a Black Lives Matter drawing because ‘she’s too young to have First Amendment rights.’ The first grader was banned from recess and drawing pictures at Viejo Elementary in Orange County after she added the words ‘any life’ below Black Lives Matter on a picture she drew and and gave to a black friend.”
What kind of an exceptional bastard would do this to a small child over some stupid drawing with a couple of utterly innocent words on it?
May these teachers and the judge rot in hell.
LikeLike
The kind of exceptional bastard that would do this:
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wait, WHAT??
LikeLike