This Is Why We Lose

Everybody seems to have forgotten about Tyler Robinson, the murderer of Charlie Kirk. Here’s a new investigation into him and his boyfriend who has now seemingly been allowed to evade all responsibility for egging on the murderer:

The Right refuses to honor its dead and turns the investigation of a brutal assassination into a self-promotion opportunity for its most tenuously grounded members. The discussion of Kirk’s murder should go back to Robinson, Twiggs, and the subculture that created them but too many people are finding it profitable to derail the investigation.

In a similar situation, the Left would have arrested everybody who ever was in the same room with the killer, reshaped every institution in the country and assigned collective condemnation of the perpetrator in every classroom starting from infant daycare.

This is why we lose. We can’t stay on point, can’t avoid getting baited into attacking each other and giving the opponent a pass on everything.

Let’s find some inner discipline and go back to discussing what actually happened.

50-Year Mortgages

I swear, I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer, I swear.

OK, it’s everyone for himself. Everybody save your own hide. Let’s talk about productivity strategies and individual psychological resilience.

Wicked Merch

I was at Ulta yesterday. It’s a makeup chain, in case people don’t know. The front part of the store is given over to stuff branded with the movie Wicked franchise. Make-up, hair clips – it’s all very expensive and very clearly aimed at middle-aged women. I liked most of the products, which goes to show that they are not for teenage girls or young adults.

I find it very hard to understand this. I like the products but the ditzy children’s fairy tale association makes me not want to buy them. And a young girl who likes the movie won’t wear the heavy dark colors in a momsy palette.

Then I started thinking, what are the cultural references for people in my age category, and there’s nothing. Everything is based on the idea that you will be a teenager forever.

Kaffee mit Milch

I have my own coffeemaker that I love and pour my morning cup as a wakeup ritual. I can’t have more than one cup a day because I get jittery but that first morning sip is wonderful.

This is why I haven’t bought coffee at local coffee shops for years. Today, I went to a locally owned café (not a chain), and asked for a 12-ounce cup of coffee with milk. No fancy syrups, cold brews, nitro soy whipped flavored seasonal weird name concoctions. Simply Kaffee mit Milch. It cost me $6.80 and the cash register suggested adding a 20% tip.

The coffee wasn’t worth the price but the enlightenment it brought was.

J6 Pipe Bomber Found?

The mysterious J6 Pipe bomber may have been identified. This  fascinating investigation by The Blaze is a must-read on this Saturday morning.

Former Capitol Police officer a forensic match for Jan. 6 pipe bomber, sources say.

A forensic analysis of a female former U.S. Capitol Police officer’s gait is a 94%-98% match to the unique stride of the long-sought Jan. 6 pipe-bomb suspect, according to a Blaze News investigation confirmed by several intelligence sources.

A source close to a congressional investigation of Jan. 6 additionally told Blaze News evidence has emerged recently that pointed toward law enforcement possibly being involved in the planting of the pipe bombs.

The Most Outraged

People with more refined sensibilities and higher intellectual capacity perceive themselves as such. And they want to be recognized as smart, refined people.

But if they live in a culture where there’s a gigantic taboo on recognizing that more refined sensibilities and higher IQs exist, what will they do? They’ll try to attract attention to their very exceptional refinement by being more outraged than anybody else by the idea that refinement and intellect exist.

Welcome to America

I mean, good. Or whatever.

Can somebody explain why the travails of the Daarood clan should be of this momentous importance to Minneapolis?

Q&A on Performative Behaviors

First of all, there’s always a small chance this is physical. Please make sure to bring this up to your GP.

If it’s not physical (and it probably isn’t), you will find the reason by answering the following questions:

What does this behavior allow you to do?

What does it allow you to avoid doing?

Who is the audience of the behavior?

To give an example, my mother suffered from horrific migraines for twenty years. The medical science was impotent to find a cause, let alone to offer relief. My mother’s very last migraine happened on the day before her youngest child moved out. Then she was cured. It’s a medical miracle.

The audience left, and the behavior was no longer needed. Mind you, this doesn’t mean the migraines weren’t real. They were very, very real. And so was the gain they brought her, outweighing the costs of the terrible suffering they inflicted.

With the accidents, you are either addressing somebody else or yourself. There’s something in your current situation that you want to change in the direction allowed to you by the accidents. Only you know what it is. When I advise people to remove themselves from the proximity of the sufferer, it’s not to be cruel. To the contrary, it might be very helpful to the sufferer to have the audience leave the theater.

Airbnb vs Hotels

For young, single, healthy people hotels are fine. But if you travel with a child and need to be able to eat healthy without going broke, Airbnb is the obvious choice.

It’s not a vacation if parents have to sleep in the same room with the child. What do you do, turn off the lights at 8 pm and sit there in complete silence? Never have any intimacy or even a conversation with your spouse? That sounds fun. Not.

It’s also not a vacation if whenever the child is hungry – which they tend to be at unpredictable times – you have to get dressed and trudge to a restaurant that is in no way guaranteed to have the food the child will actually eat.

And I’m not even talking about people like me who have to eat often, in small portions, and within a very limited range of possibilities. Yes, you can do room service, which brings me back to the point about going broke.

I stayed at an Airbnb in Madrid last week, and it was blissful not to have to go to restaurants at all. I was in complete control of my food supply and spent a ridiculously low amount of money cooking all of my own meals. My blood sugar remained perfect throughout the trip.