Strange Rituals

~ Clarissa ~ 13 Comments

Americans are obsessed with swimming. And potties, but that’s a story for another time. I don’t know what it is about swimming in land-locked Illinois that gets people going all gaga but every time I said I’m not putting my kid in swimming lessons, I’d get the same reaction as if I said I refuse to feed her. “But what if she never learns!!” Yeah, what if, we could think about that or watch paint dry because that would be less boring.

Klara decided she was ready to swim last Saturday. So she swam. That’s it, no lessons, no weird experiments like in this nutso-crazy-boom-boom video. Incidentally, it was the same with the weird ritual people call “potty-training.” I ran out of diapers one day, couldn’t be bothered to drive to the store, told her it’s toilet from now on, and that was the end of the “training.”

People complicate their lives unnecessarily. With potties I can at least understand the need but swimming baffles me. Everybody learns eventually. Or not. May that be our biggest problem in life, seriously.

Travel Ban

~ Clarissa ~ 3 Comments

Here goes my Fulbrighter from Yemen. The backup was from Libya, so that one goes, too.

It’s fine, it was time to take a break from teaching Arabic. I’ve had only negative experiences with Arabic Fulbrighters for several years.

I Voted for This

~ Clarissa ~ 11 Comments

I am so on Lutnick’s side, it’s not even funny:

I am so, so glad that finally, FINALLY, somebody in politics is stepping away from the neoliberal dogma of “removing all trade barriers”. No trade barriers means no nation-state. It means no country as a meaningful concept. It means uncontrolled migration. It means no culture, no civilization, and no America. It means one enormous global favela with a tiny oligarchy conducting medical experiments on the vast, undifferentiated mass of miserable, poor peasants.

I so voted for what Lutnick is saying. You go, Lutnick.

Different Degrees of Neoliberal

~ Clarissa ~ 4 Comments

I rarely agree with this guy but I agree with him here:

Trump did well by kicking Elon to the curb. Elon is neoliberal, and doesn’t see anything beyond his neoliberal obsessions.

Yes, Trump is also neoliberal. Everybody is neoliberal. I’m neoliberal. But it’s a question of degree. Musk is out-there neoliberal compared to the rest of us. That’s why he can’t function without huge doses of drugs.

Khelif Is Male

~ Clarissa ~ 7 Comments

Alan Abrahamson — a seasoned American journalist and member of the International Olympic Committee’s press committee — just published an excerpt of Khelif’s 2023 test results from a certified and accredited lab that stated “chromosome analysis reveals male karyotype.”

Test Results Confirm How Bad the Fact-Checking Was on Algerian Boxer Imane Khelif

It’s ok, you don’t have to apologize. All I ask is, please consider why the very obvious fact that he’s a man was not obvious to you. And why “believe women” was suspended in the case of an Italian female boxer who stood very close to Khelif and got hit in the face by him. Why can’t we trust that a woman knows if she was hit by a man? Can we trust women at all or only when no man finds their conclusions objectionable?

AI Progress

~ Clarissa ~ 4 Comments

That’s fine but I spent 15 minutes with ChatGPT yesterday, reading long and inventive explanations on how having sex with underage kids is not pedophilia if it’s done by Harvey Milk. Let’s definitely hand over these economically valuable tasks to an algorithm that considers pedophilia to be a great thing.

TV Notes: Orgasm, Inc

~ Clarissa ~ 3 Comments

Orgasm, Inc is a Netflix documentary about a Silicon Valley startup “One Taste” that sold sexual empowerment to women. The dreaded principle of “markets in everything” has managed to turn even sex into something that requires a pyramid scheme of seminars and coaching sessions.

What “One Taste” did was have women get sexually serviced in public. The really funny part is that, 60 years into the sexual revolution, people still haven’t figured out that in any scenario of sexual freedom many women will discover that they were coerced into sex and only agreed to participate because they wanted to be liked. This is exactly what happened, and the female-owned and female-run company was #MeTooted all the way into an FBI investigation and criminal charges.

There’s a telling moment in the documentary when one of the former workers and enthusiasts of the company was asked by the owner of “One Taste” to reveal her deepest fantasy. The woman struggled for a while but finally blurted out, “I want a baby!” This did not sit well with the owner whose business model was about selling orgasms.

While the story of the orgasm startup is hilarious, Netflix doesn’t tell it well. The creators of the movie don’t have the words to explain what the company did wrong. Sex orgies are supposed to be great and liberating. So how to criticize the startup and for what? Netflix concocts weird accusations, such as, for example, that “a queer woman” was teased at the company for not being feminine and finally realized – such horror! – that nobody at the startup “really cared” about her.

Mysterious Candle

~ Clarissa ~ 7 Comments

I saw a 10,5 ounce candle at a store yesterday called Carby Musk Candle. It cost $80. As in eighty. Dollars.

Is it some sort of a status symbol? What am I not understanding?

Yes, I smelled it. It has a strongly masculine scent. Is it supposed to attract dudes? Or make women feel like they have a dude? Because I’m very certain there’s no man on the planet who’d buy it.

As Gullible As Ever

~ Clarissa ~ 2 Comments

The BBC and all the other liars also admitted they lied.

It’s not surprising that left-wing journalists invented this story. What’s strange is that there are people who believed something this obviously ludicrous.

The gullibility is very concerning.

Tradeoffs

~ Clarissa ~ 21 Comments

People keep reposting this video and expressing compassion for the guy in it:

I find it all to be childish and hypocritical. The guy wants to spend 15-20 years of his life ejaculating into a wide variety of women. I’m sure this is very pleasurable to him. But everything in life comes at a price. This is the price of his sexual freedom. He wants to shoot his load freely, and women into whom he freely shoots it want to be as free from him and his seed as he wants to be from them.

There’s no scenario under which he gets to treat women like interchangeable rubber dolls and they in return treat him like a human being worthy of respect.

You want to owe nothing to women you bed? Fantastic. They owe nothing to you either. Don’t like this setup? Have only married sex in a deeply committed, profound, loving relationship.

When will people understand the basic idea of tradeoffs?