I maintain that a strong enough physical attraction can’t be killed off by a nuclear explosion but the irritants the poster lists (rolling dice off a table repeatedly, walking into a screen door, wearing lip balm, dropping coins out of a wallet) definitely do downgrade a man in terms of attractiveness.
In the opposite direction, a woman is always rendered more attractive by needing help. Men love to help women. If you are searching for a dude to date, simply stand somewhere in a public place with a somewhat despondent, helpless look.
This is the only other novel Agustina Bazterrica has published so far, and of course I had to read it, too. The Unworthy doesn’t have a very original premise or a shocking ending like Tender Is the Flesh. But it’s so beautifully written. I especially recommend listening to it on Audible narrated by Maru Drozd. She does a phenomenal job with the author’s hypnotic language.
Bazterrica’s books have been translated into English but I can’t comment on the quality of the translation.
The Unworthy is set in a post-apocalyptic world where the only form of civilization that remains is an anti-Christian religious cult. Yes, this setting has been done to death, I know. But check this out. There’s a scene where bad people kill a dog, and I was brought almost to tears by the description. We all know that I’m not a fan of dogs, to put it mildly, so imagine the power of Bazterrica’s talent to get me to feel it.
Bazterrica writes despondent, depressing books. Be forewarned if you are not in the right place for descriptions of misery and depravity. But she’s exceptionally talented. These are excellent books.
If you teach Spanish literature, these books can be great for your classroom. The students who won’t be moved to discuss these books vigorously will need to have their vitals checked because they probably expired.
Speaking of denying reality, here’s a real fact that goes against the “it’s because of the NATO expansion” narrative:
Asked how far his army will go in Ukraine, Putin says: "I consider the Russian and Ukrainian people to be one people. In that sense all Ukraine is ours." pic.twitter.com/xwRGJCXwWe
“There are a lot of conversations happening right now,” said Dana Beyer, a physician and longtime trans activist in Maryland. “People know the movement is stuck. They know we’ve gone too far. They know we’ve lost the thread.”
I like this useful self-awareness. This is a step in the right direction.
The L.G.B.T.Q. movement drove itself toward a cliff — and took the Democratic Party with it, chaining the Biden administration to one of the most divisive issues in American politics.
Yes. But there’s a reason why this happened and, of course, the article was published in the NYTimes, so it would be futile to expect it to go beyond superficialities. The real problem is that the entire Democrat agenda is at odds with reality. Liberals don’t have a working theory of the mind. They can’t make their ideas coexist with the laws of nature. Their understanding of how individuals and groups function is grounded in almost childish myth-making. People who control academia should be able to produce ideas with ease. Yet they are signally incapable of coming up with anything beyond the hubristic tantrums of the modern Left.
This sentence is the perfect example of liberal manipulation:
It starts with the favorite liberal idea that any disagreement with the progressivist agenda is rooted in hatred. This gets to such a ludicrous point that not wanting war becomes labeled hate. Yes, pacifists are such a hateful bunch. Totally makes sense. I’m clearly burning with hatred for Jews, of whom I am one, if I don’t want my country to go to war.
Then there’s the idea that not wanting the US to go to war with Iran means you are defending the country’s regime. That one can despise a regime—like I despise the regime in Mexico, for example—and be simultaneously opposed to dropping bombs on Mexico City doesn’t seem to occur to these people. I’m not even talking about the more complex idea of respecting national sovereignty. Mexico (Russia, Iran, North Korea) should be as nutty as they wish within their national borders. Dropping bombs on people’s heads because you don’t appreciate their customs leaves us with no argument to explain why those who disapprove of our culture shouldn’t drop bombs on us. We live in a large and complicated world. People differ greatly from each other. Are we planning to murder everybody who disagrees with the readers of the New York Times? Because that doesn’t sound like a plan filled with love and tolerance.
This brings us to the argument about women’s hair. You know a liberal by an intense preoccupation with hair. They bring up hair way more often than is justified by any form of logic and reason. But the idea that it’s ok to invade in order to dictate to people far, far away what they should do with their hair is very cuckoo. I have no clue whether the majority of Iranian women is pro or anti-hijab. I can safely assume, however, that they are very pro-staying alive. “Yes, they are now dead but at least nobody is forcing them to wear a hijab” does not sound like a great tradeoff.
I have also noticed that the people we invade with the purpose of improving their lives always end up hating us. Look at Latin America in the aftermath of the Cold War. They hate us. We were trying to save them from socialism, and I deeply hate socialism. I hate the burqa, too. But I’m not ready to say, “let’s go murder some people to prevent them from doing these things I dislike.”
I despise the Iranian mullahs. I believe that they are total garbage. But guess what? I’m pretty confident that if the mullahs knew about my existence, they wouldn’t be huge fans of me either. What’s next? Might makes right? Whoever has the military capacity to murder everybody else should go and do it?
Border Patrol agents didn’t release a single migrant into the US last month — a staggering drop after the Biden administration allowed 62,000 illegal crossers in the country in May 2024.
Curiously, this result was achieved without the “bipartisan border bill” we heard so much about.
This suggests three questions:
What other supposedly intractable problems have easy solutions that we aren’t allowed to see? I suggest my preceding post as one possibility.
What is the logic behind believing the politicians and the media who repeated the expression “bipartisan border bill” like parrots about other subjects?
Why are these 62,000 people still in the country? Nobody can reasonably claim that they have put roots and have nowhere to go back to.
There’s no need to sell off public land “for housing” when we have one city after another looking like abandoned trash heaps. Parts of St Louis look like a war zone. Remove the gangs, rebuild, and you’ll have plenty of housing. Instead, we have pretty much given up on urban life to cater to the ideological fads of a small bunch of very confused people.
Unconditional U.S. support causes a corrupting effect on the Israeli politics stripping it of every incentive to normalise its relations with neighbours and with its own subject, non-citizen population numbering millions
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