Opinions, art, debate
On the one hand, we should all support DEI. But on the other, we should never acknowledge it exists.
It’s such a strange thing. If DEI is good – and aren’t we told all day and every day that it’s not only good but absolutely crucial – then why is mentioning its existence akin to uttering a terrible insult?
Back in 2018, a homeless shelter in California was sued by a group of homeless women who were sexually harassed at the shelter. One of the conditions of staying there is a daily shower which homeless women attend in groups. The shelter allowed a “trans woman” to join the showering. The “trans woman” then proceeded to harass the naked and terrified women. And they couldn’t refuse the shower altogether because then they’d be back on the street.
The homeless women lost their lawsuit on civil rights grounds. The shelter is legally obligated to accept men and let them into female showers at all times. Men have a civil right to force themselves into the presence of naked women. Women, on the other hand, have no civil right not to have men harass them and wave their penises at them. (Curiously, no “trans men” are eager to erupt into places filled with naked men. It’s a mystery how that works.)
This is why Christopher Caldwell says that we have turned the civil rights legislation into an alternative constitution and it made our original constitution quite irrelevant. It’s now all about who can wrangle out the most bizarre of “right” based on the most successful victimhood claims. And it’s all insanely fluid because exactly at the time when the homeless women were being harassed at the shelter, we were all being #MeTooted out of existence and daily heard claims of harassment that were nothing compared to the horror experienced by the homeless women.
It’s like being stuck in a loop. Once again I have COVID and stay in bed reading the inimitable Alex Berenson who breaks yet another huge story:
Maybe a dumb question but why does my app say that “policeman” in German is “Polizist” when I know very well from the Soviet movies about Nazis that it’s “Polizei”?
I haven’t read the books, but the movies Dune 1 and 2 are a male formation story with a failed Bildung. It’s rare to find in the entire male Bildungsroman genre a tale of a comparable fiasco of a masculine identity building. In female growing-up tales, yes, a woman’s failure to grow up is not only frequent but coquettishly embraced, in particular where feminism has triumphed. In the male versions of the genre, you don’t find that much failure, especially not in the colossal and obvious proportions of Dune.
At the end of his development, the hero of a Bildungsroman must become his own person. That’s the whole point of every one of these stories. He looks for his own way, has a conflict with his family or social milieu, breaks away, stumbles, recovers, stumbles again, and finally forges his own path.
Dune 2, on the other hand, ends with Paul dramatically rejecting his own happiness in order to follow the wishes of his mom and avenge the memory of his dad. The parents own him completely. Paul puts even his sexuality in service of his mom’s desires. Even in 19th-century female Bildungsromane, a heroine would resist being married off to some dude her dad finds useful, so this is as dramatic a capitulation as the genre allows. This goes to show that no amount of superpowers and prophetic visions will make the process of growing up easier.
I very much hope the poor dude grows a pair in the upcoming episodes and sends the helicopter mommy packing but no spoilers, I beg you.
This is step one on the journey to “my husband doesn’t help me with our kid,” “I feel like a single mother of two”, “I’m exhausted because he rarely does anything with our kid, and it’s all on me.”
Time and again, women engineer these sad architectures of paternal exclusion for the dubious payoff of feeding their ego in the first couple of months of the child’s life. The result is always the same and so is their absolute shock that it happened.
So, I’m sick with COVID. Bad symptoms, both respiratory and gastrointestinal. Plus, very unpleasant muscle spasms and fear of food.
But I found a cure. Maybe it only works on me but who knows? It doesn’t hurt to try.
The cure is alcohol-free Blue Moon beer. Maybe alcoholic beer works, too, but I didn’t try it. I drank a can, and it’s extraordinary. I feel quite human.
The human body is truly fascinating.
Why I don’t like sci-fi is because there’s never any logic to it. In Dune, high-tech cultures of nukes, interstellar travel, and long-range fire weaponry all have their soldiers drag around swords and machetes and engage in knife fights. Nobody knows why. They just do.
Oh, that’s a good one. Ideally, I’d go up North. Alaska, or Northwest Territories if it has to be Canada. As far up North as possible would be great for me. I checked out Yellowstone, and they have very attractive temperatures.
Unfortunately, N doesn’t want to go that close to the Arctic Circle, so I’ve been eyeing Minot, North Dakota.
It’s all between the US and Canada because I wouldn’t consider living anywhere else at this point. Smallish towns with large wooded areas and tons of snow. Yes, it’s all about the weather and the quiet at this point. There’s too much happening on the inside to be able to put up with outside noise.
Please, everybody, participate. If you could live anywhere (else), where would it be?
I’ve got COVID, people. It’s about 80% as bad as it was when I had it the first time 3 years ago. Does anybody have recent experiences, recommendations, funny jokes?
How many days after symptoms start is it OK to go to a farmer’s market, you think?
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