Your Envy is Not a Super Power

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

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My friend Charlie Martin shared this link on facebook, (the link is not facebook) as he often does with cool/old images.

I clicked through both because I also like cool/old images, and because I was waiting for dinner to finish cooking, and didn’t want to start something like an article in the fifteen minutes I had.

And then I hit the comments.  Yeah, I know, never hit the comments.

I want to talk in this post (there’s another one about this pictures tomorrow) about how ridiculous the commenters striking blows for equality or race equality or whatever the hell they thought they were doing were.

Sure, I know, there was a ton more inequality in the early 20th century (which btw, should tell you how much we actually need the government to intervene to create “equality.”  The equalization has been through prosperity which mostly happens when the government leaves people alone) because the industrial revolution was just gathering steam around the world, and therefore prosperity wasn’t as widespread.

I.e. people lived better than their ancestors, just not nearly as well as us.  And the people who were at the forefront of investing/taking risks, were often obscenely rich by the standards of their time.  Just keep in mind that all their wealth couldn’t buy them the air conditioning, entertainment or modern medicine available to our “poor” today.

Some of the people in these pictures were singled out as “victims” by the Marxists in the comments, which of course know a lot of things that just ain’t so, and are terribly proud of themselves for parroting them.

One of the pictures for instance is of an Irish woman identified as “mother of seven” knotting fringe for shawls.  There are holes in her dress, so of course, I expected the Marxists to strike at that. They sort of did, but just by saying she should repair her own dress.  You know, people should be required to run SOMETHING even if just a lemonade stand for profit before the age of 18. Understanding that profit doesn’t come from mending your own dress in your scant time might be salutary.

But I’d forgotten — silly me — that in the course of my adult lifetime, the Marxists have moved on from making every “working class” person a victim to carving victims out of various genders and races.

For instance, it’s a terrible thing that the woman is only identified as “Mother of Seven” and not by name.

Because, you know, these many years later, knowing her name is really important.  And not that she was a stranger to the photographer, and that her labor was ennobled by her working for her seven children. I.e. if you asked her, she’d likely rather — proudly — be known as mother of seven (by which I presume they meant seven living children, which spoke to both her genes and her abilities as a housewife and mother) than by her name, which again would mean bloody nothing to any of us.

Note that the idiots don’t know this is how paintings were titled. I.e. unless they were portraits of someone known to the painter and probably paying for the portrait, they got called either after the myth they represented or by the generic description of the subject.  “Poor man” “beggars at the door of the church” is in line with “mother of seven.”

Also they don’t understand how valued motherhood was. Also, oh, what the heck.  To them the long-dead woman should be retroactively empowered by us demanding that she have her name. Because they’re provincial, blinkered and stupid, and their view of the world was shaped by being taught a poisonous philosophy dreamed up by an envious little man who never worked a day in his life.

Then there was the picture of the photographer’s wife on a camel.  The photographer named the picture “Else on Camel.”  The outraged armies of outrageousness were furious because he didn’t name the camel drivers (and why not the camels, too. Does PETA know of your slight?) in the picture.

And someone else, superciliously came and explained it was okay because in the early twentieth century all these people were considered little more than savages.

Yeah. They were. That’s because they came from countries where the culture made them into little more (and sometimes little less) than savages. Many of those countries are still populated by savages, by any objective, civilized standard.

The sad part is that our country too is filled with educated savages, who think that because people can tan, or have fiddly bits of the inny variety they should be given all deference, even if there’s objectively no reason for it.

We’ve allowed our children to be educated by loons who think that tribalism (that old foe of mankind) is a good thing, and that what we need is more victim tribes until everyone is — by the magic of intersectionalism — compensated to the exact degree that people who looked vaguely like them were once victimized.

Let’s leave aside the fact that the subject of the picture is the photographer’s wife, and that adding the eight or nine names to it would make the art piece (which color photographs very much were. Rare too.) less valuable and more confusing to refer to/sell.

What these ridiculous provincials don’t realize is that the camel drovers might not have wanted to give their names to complete strangers.  Or that they wouldn’t feel slighted by their name not being in the pictures. Why should they?  Do these idiots think the camel drovers logged onto facebook later and were pissed at not being tagged?

The chances of them ever seeing that photograph was nil, and burdening the picture with a never-ending name would only hurt it/its popularity.

But more importantly, at the base of it, these insane idiots think that these drovers and their descendants need their exceedingly woke selves to come and de-victimize them or elevate them, or something.

Their assumption of superiority and their cultural-colonist attitude is so complete they don’t realize that the Arabs of the time — looked down onto or not  by the Europeans — considered themselves immensely superior to the Europeans.  In fact, so did every little tribe in Africa.  The Maasai (admittedly not a a little tribe) word for “European” is “Confines their farts with clothes.” (Or at least one of the words. I came across it in an article written by a Maasai.  Entirely possible he was pulling our legs. Because people that the left feels they need to white-knight for often do pull the legs of idiot Europeans.)

I grew up in Portugal when the rest o Europe considered it somewhat of a third world hellhole (it wasn’t, but it wasn’t very far off) and none of us felt beholden of the rest of Europe’s opinion of us.  In fact, most Portuguese felt themselves immensely superior.  For reasons.  (Mostly cultural reasons: the language, the poetry, the history.)  In fact “For Englishman to see” was the equivalent of our “Good enough for government work” and referenced the fact Englishmen (which was sort of shorthand for all tourists) were gullible and should be taken advantage of.

And then — THEN — there was the picture of the little girl with 20 dolls or something like that.  It’s a portrait. Probably done of the daughter of the photographer’s friend.  As the other photos, they showcase the thing the person being portrayed is proud of.

Wouldn’t you know it? Some woke idiot took exception to the little girl having so many dolls when other people were poor.  And some other suffering from Marxist Tourette’s said “no little girl needs that many dolls.”

This is why my desk has head-shaped dents.  Does any little girl need 20 dolls?  Depends on the little girl, doesn’t it?

I just did a headcount, and I think the most I ever had were 12, but then I spent more time reading than playing with dolls. (Not that I didn’t play with dolls.)

Were 12 excessive?  I was a sickly kid, with no relatives/friends close to my age, in a time with no computer entertainment, no video.  I often used my dolls (or the far more numerous little plastic dogs I used to people my lego cities) as actors to tell myself stories.

My parents (and relatives) could afford the dolls, and I enjoyed playing with them.  Were there kids without dolls?  Probably. At least there were kids with no plastic dolls, as cheap as they were.  (My mom made her own dolls when she was little. From fabric scraps.) And?  Envy is not a virtue. And one shouldn’t encourage it in anyone, kids or not.  You want better, work for it. Is this fair to kids?  No.  But how would depriving me of my dozen or so dolls give dolls to everyone else.  My parents would just stop buying dolls for me, if they were to be given away, the doll industry would collapse, and dolls would become rarer and more expensive.  (For the record mom always gave toys away to children in various charities, because she’d had to make her own.)

Who is to say what I needed or not? And who is to say how many dolls that long-dead little girl needed?  People who think they can dictate how many dolls a child needs also think “At some point, you’ve made enough money.”

It’s as though they believe envy is a kind of superpower, and by aiming it at other people they can make everyone else miserable and they, themselves powerful.

They need to be answered early and often “you’re not my judge.  Your envy is not a superpower. I will not submit. Take a hike.”

Because otherwise they propagate according to their own kind, and like locusts eat at civilization.

If they’d had their way and “equalized” the early 20th century society according to a list of victimhood and spoils, the world we live in today would resemble the darkest hours of the USSR.

Envy is a sin, not a virtue.

To invert morality that way leads to hell. Even when the hell is on Earth.

 

273 thoughts on “Your Envy is Not a Super Power”

  1. One of the many reasons I don’t do social media is the culture that has evolved there. It seems obligatory to find something to complain about, to virtue signal about, or otherwise climb up into high dudgeon. I do get so tired of the stream of catty nit-piking, back-biting and general negativity.

    1. Getting steamed at something on the internet is an easier road to feeling Morally Superior over actually getting of one’s fat SJW arse and helping people.

        1. IMO Bullies likely always “feel good” about being a Bully.

          This is a type of Bullying that is more “socially acceptable” (in the SJW society). 😦

          1. If a person is seen as “bad” or “evil”, then people tend to believe that one can be as horrific and terrible and mean to that person as they want.
            That they then become themselves bad & evil doen’t enter into their little brains.

            1. A person seen as “bad” or “evil” becomes a non-person and may be treated as such.

              Thus we understand Progressive double-standards in which they argue for one set of values/licenses for “people” and a separate standard for “non-people” such as Republicans and Conservatives (two groups with less intersection than many imagine.)

      2. Oh man. You wanna know how much lazy I’ve been watching this sink to? Not even helping oneself because CAPITALISM IS EVIL.

        Not getting a job because that would be participating in Capitalism.
        Capitalism is at fault for making parents abusive (something convoluted and weird about the prison system not profiting from having more women in prison)
        It’s also the reason why the courts are not trying to punish an abusive mother.
        Simultaneously it is why women are exploited and don’t unionize.
        It’s also why reporting or asking for help from say, help hotlines or women’s shelters is not worth it.
        It’s capitalism’s fault that they have a several thousand dollars’ college loan debt. But they won’t get a job to repay it because capitalism.
        A third-worldism communist advising the socialist not to listen to the Capitalists give advice about how to get out of the supposed horrible family situation because they don’t really have your best interests in mind or really care.

        Also, success stories about people who are worse off and dragged themselves out of the mud through hard work don’t count because they’re just anecdotes and not data, and it SHOULDN’T BE SO HARD.

  2. Does any little girl need 20 dolls?

    I really don’t know.Does anyone need more than 30 books?  This question came up when a friend has been following the popular de-clutterer from Japan mentioned that apparently she suggested that 30 books was enough.  I doubt I could happily get down to 30 of any category.   

    (This was just the first of many problems I had with the woman’s method — I am not Donovan, I have not become emotionally entangled with my shirt or jeans.)

    I do know one thing.  To keep an economy rolling the people who make stuff, the people who ship stuff, and the people who sell stuff need people to buy the stuff — or they loose their jobs.

      2. Only if the collection is static. If the 30 books change regularly as they are read, then the term is ‘well read, but not a collector’.

        2. Have you know anyone who reads, that keeps only 30 books? Is that even possible. I can see only being able to keep some books because of space, shipping, moving, etc. But even then it might be 10 not 30.
          If you can have 30 books, unless you live in a tiny house, you have space for more books.

      3. I have a friend who used to work in a majority-Muslim country which I won’t identify. (My friend is a Christian). He tells a story about engaging in a debate of some kind with a local imam, who in an attempt to impress my friend, pointed to his bookshelf and said, “See those books? I’ve read all those books. Have you read that many?” The bookshelf, my friend says, had about thirty books on it. My friend said that: a) he decided it wasn’t worth telling the imam how many books he’d actually read, because the guy would be certain he was lying, and b) this kind of appeal to authority was typical of Islam in the region he was in. “Believe it because I say so, and I’m the educated authority,” and all that. Which… explains a lot about that region, actually.

        1. We’ve friends who work in places we cannot name, and good friends such people be. Your friend might have pulled out a smart phone and started scrolling through the books on them … which might have created social pressure to ban smart phones, eh?

          Besides, it isn’t how many books you’ve read, but which ones and how well you’ve read them. I’d put two George S. MacDonald up against a dozen Phillip Pullman any day … although, properly read I suspect the Pullman would be very instructive, almost as instructive as Screwtape.

          1. I was never able to get any sense of whether Pullman was a manufactured hit, or a real storyteller with a POV on the Left side of things. My gut reaction to how the fantasies were presented to me was “oh, great.”, but a woman I know and whose taste I generally like was in alt over some of his earlier work.

            I didn’t like the writing style, but felt that that was personal rather than something HE did wrong. Never tried the fantasies, though.

            1. I’ve never read his anti-Narnia trilogy (I think its official name is “His Dark Materials”, but it’s really the anti-Narnia trilogy), though I probably should sometime just so I know what’s in it. I’m not looking forward to it, because unlike Narnia, the anti-Narnia stories were designed as message fiction. Narnia, OTOH, grew out of a single “What if?” question: “What if there was a land of talking animals: what would Jesus be like in that land?” And then the rest followed from there. Whereas Pullman was, by his own account, deliberately trying to write an antithesis to Narnia, a story that would persuade children to be atheists instead of Christians. Lewis’s story is alive and vibrant because he’s not trying* to persuade, he’s just trying to tell stories that are consistent with the big ideas of his setting.

              * Which is precisely why he does persuade, and why Pullman found the Narnia stories to be so dangerous to his chosen worldview that he felt the need to write a counterpoint. But since he set out to write message fic, I’m pretty sure I’m going to dislike his stories far more than I liked Narnia, and not just because of what message he was trying to put in.

                1. The Daughter read the first book of His Dark Materials shortly after it was published and waited with anticipation for the next.  Then, when she read it, she realized the Mr. Pullman saw no problem with breaking his world building in favor of hammering a point.  (In her opinion this utterly failed to make argument or tell a tale worth the reading.)  She read the third reluctantly, hoping that somehow he would find his footing once again.  Her sad conclusion was that he was more interested in making his point than telling a good and cohesive story.

                  2. That was more or less my experience, except I wasn’t gullible enough to waste time on the third. The first book created an interesting world, and while there was definitely an anti-religion message there, it wasn’t so overwhelming as to destroy everything else. The second book, however, hit the wall, then got returned to the library, and I’ve never read anything by him again.

                    1. I believe that The Daughter was given the third by her Grandfather, my Daddy, for, of all things, Christmas.

                  3. I read the first, picked up the second ( from the library) and realized that I didn’t care.

              2. I will note mildly that of all the tales that have lasted past original push, and are used as part of Christmas marketing (no matter how tenuous a connection), A Christmas Story and The Polar Express have lives of their own, independent and organic. The golden compass? really cool polar bears with armor, nicole kidman, plucky kid heroes…nope, not so much.

                Goonies has more staying power.

            2. As I said in my other comment, the first of his fantasy novels was good, from there it went downhill rapidly. Falling off a cliff rapidly.

              I read one of his historical ones, Ruby in the Smoke, and was left with just a vague sense of disappointment. I didn’t hate it, precisely, but I didn’t have any desire to go hunt down the rest of the series.

              1. I did read the rest of the series, and yeah… ‘vague disappointment’ was a big part of it.

                Looking back at it with more sense and history under my belt, a big part of that was his ‘woke and self made woman’ plot just wasn’t working. Because her being all woke and self made (sexually independent, had a child outside of wedlock…and then he killed off the lover, sigh, then she becomes a big business owner) just…didn’t quite work. It’s not that there *weren’t* a very few women who lived on their own terms in that era, it’s just that…she never dealt with any social consequences? And, more to the point, her being all woke and stuff sort of overtook the supposed point of the books, which was mystery. Which, after the first one, there wasn’t. And, like I gather his Golden Compass stuff was, it was depressing and grey and grim to boot. :/

                I so desperately wanted to like his historical novels (which were contemporary to me as a teen), and just…couldn’t.

          2. Bit of a WPDE example here: looking at your comment in the notification menu, I am being presented with blog-owner options like flagging it as spam, and/or editing it. I don’t know if those would work as I’m not going to try them, but I shouldn’t have access to the spam and edit buttons regardless. Tut tut, WordPress.

      4. I have considered there are circumstances where you might highly limit the books you have in your home.  Those who live in extremely small apartments or dorm rooms might find it necessary.  A friend of mine, a teacher, has a loaded e-reader and only a few select dead tree volumes because shipping books in and out of Afghanistan is a nuisance to say the least.

        1. I *am* purging my dead-tree books…when all is said and done I might have a few hundred instead of a few thousand…But it’s only to spare my back when I move. 😀

        1. I dated a library tech with more books than that and a card catalog.

          I took her to my favorite used bookstores she didn’t know. When she walked into the sci-fi room and saw all the DAW yellow spines (she was working on collecting DAW #1-100) I all but got molested.

        2. Oh, hell, I remember an elementary school teacher who wanted us to list the books we read the previous summer. She all but called me a liar, but I was able to demonstrate that I was thoroughly familiar with the contents of the thirty or so books I’d listed.

          How can you be a teacher and have NEVER encountered a child who would read nearly all the time? In a suburb that was home to the faculties of two colleges and a teaching hospital?

          I didn’t even include everything. 😊

            1. Me too. Starting with 5th grade. My response “ask the school librarian.” School librarian’s response to the teacher “she dropped a dozen or so …” That didn’t count the books for the 6 weeks I was in Baker (okay … horses came before books …).

              Before 5th grade, not that I couldn’t read, although that was the perception (just couldn’t read aloud, still can’t), wasn’t allowed to read anything other than the “acceptable” reading material until could prove I could read. That stopped cold (mom & dad were NOT happy with the school) when grandma found a bunch of what are considered now as “chapter books”, old Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Bobsey Twins, Tarzan, Black Stallion, Heinlein Juveniles, etc., books. Devoured them. Moved on to Clark, Norton, Dune, …, etc.

                1. Yes. It is obvious to me that not being able to read aloud is not the same as not being able to read … NOW (well for a long time now). Definitely wasn’t then. Heck then my sister was considered mentally disabled because she rarely spoke; you know the engineer graduate from Standford … now it’s called the youngest baby syndrome. She didn’t talk much because she had older sisters who did it for her, we were only a few years older than her. It was worse with her youngest who is 12 years younger than his siblings.

                  Reading. Made darn sure my kid didn’t suffer from the same thing. There are ways to know if they are reading without requiring to read allowed.

              2. My problem is that my eyes get ahead of my mouth and I start stumbling. Most of my typos have the same cause: My thoughts are faster than my fingers and a letter from a later word gets stuck in.

                Both have the same solution: Stay synchronized. When reading out loud, do not read ahead – even if that is really hard to do. Same with typing. Focus on the words as they come up, not on what you want to say (not sure that works for writing-typing; I don’t plot fast enough for it to matter).

                1. “My problem is that my eyes get ahead of my mouth and I start stumbling.”

                  This. Plus I can not pronounce new words until I hear it, then work on getting the pronunciation correct. Even then later on I’ll slip up. Get dinged a time or two (or 100’s) over the last 57 years (hey, it’s “cute” until you are about 5), and you learn to “not read”; at least aloud. Happens in regular speech too. Just then I can (not always) have a “come back”. I think I’ve mentioned “it’s spelled ‘W A R S H’ ” (Washington) incident before.

                  Didn’t have any problems at work. Like everyone else, got dinged for talking in tech, not my pronunciation skills. Heck PTB were just glad I was willing to talk … most my coworkers weren’t.

          2. I had a teacher assign a task to the girl next to me. Her job, to nudge me occasionally to make sure I wasn’t reading in the middle of history.
            I also remember being very irked when my 3rd grade class had a reading competition and it was based on number of books read…I came in near last because I was reading Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Lloyd Alexander, etc. The other students were reading Clifford the big red dog and Dr. Seuss level stuff.

        3. My collection once contained 30000 books. In preparation for retirement, I have been reducing the collection. It is down to 20000 volumes.

          1. How could you DO that??
            WHY would you do that??
            My books are MINE!
            It has taken me decades to find them, get them, HAVE THEM.
            I know that SOME DAY they will belong to someone else but I will not care.

      7. Thirty books … Good lord, my maternal grandmother had that many, on the shelves above the bed in the back bedroom – maybe, slightly more. Most of them were by turn-of-the-last-century lady authors with three names (Gene Stratton Porter, for ex) and this marked out Granny Jessie as a cultured intellect on Pasadena’s South Lotus St. in the twenties and thirties. Me – I have thirty books on just ONE of the shelves above my desk. But I make my living through words, I lived for nearly two decades overseas where local English-language bookstore were few (Usually just one, the Stars & Stripes Bookstore), English-language libraries were non-existent or very limited, and another decade or two before the internet and ebooks.

        1. What you didn’t order from your book store back in the States???
          What was wrong with you? Did you enjoy suffering.

          1. Well … I did belong to a couple of Stateside book clubs, and I did get some remainders catalogs. But the Hatchards catalog was good enough for me, mostly. Their childrens’ book selection was amazing!

      8. I think it must be.

        We just recently moved to American Samoa, and put 3/4 of our book collection in storage. We still shipped more than 100 books… and have bought more (admittedly, those have been for the Young Master).

      9. What does it matter if the books are bought by the yard by your decorator and stuck in backwards because that looks more uniform?

        1. Oy.. it means someone made the mistake of going with a decorator when they needed to go with a designer, or at least not THAT decorator. Sheesh.

    2. A life well-lived is not defined by what you “need” but by what you want. So long as no persons or animals were harmed in the production, procurement and placement of those dolls there is no harm in owning that quantity as, perhaps, opposed to owning twenty place settings or twenty handguns.

      Besides, how is she to host a proper contract bridge tournament without twenty dolls? For that matter, how is she to learn to manage a classroom of unruly students without more dolls?

      1. I will disagree.

        A live well-lived is defined not by what you need or want.

        It is defined by what you do and achieve.

        Then again, I agree with Aristotle that the pursuit of happiness is folly. Happiness is the reward you get later in life from the pursuit of virtue.

        1. I’ll agree with Aristotle with the caveat that it is of vital importance to pursue Virtue, not virtue signalling. From what I’ve seen, pursuit of virtue signalling is rewarded with a perpetual sense of dscontent.

        2. “A live well-lived is defined … by what you do and achieve.”

          Sure – if that is what you want.

        1. Thank you!

          The number of times I’ve read “Does anyone really need a…” from Canadian government officials and Canadian media, it is appalling.

          I used to collect guns, when I lived in the USA. It was fun. They don’t all work the same, you know? Each one is a little project all its own.

          But now I live in Canada, where collecting guns is actively dangerous. (Yeah. Think about that for a second.) Dangerous because each addition to the collection brings added scrutiny from uniformed gentlemen who will come to your house and ask you, “Mr. Phantom, why do you need another X? How do you justify this purchase?”

          Oh yes, doubters. They will absolutely come to your house and ask you that. They came and asked me. Two of them.

          So now I collect cars, and wooden hand planes. Also fun, and no visits from the constabulary. And yet, I keep hearing sons of bitches asking “How many cars should one man own?”

          [inventive swearing for some considerable time, vigorous display of middle fingers.]

          The day I was finally done with blowhard Bill O’Reily was the day he said on his show: “Nobody needs an SUV! They should be illegal!”

          There is only one answer anymore to this kind of thing. The answer is: FREE COUNTRY. COME AND TAKE THEM.

          1. Never quite figured out why 100 guns makes you more individually dangerous than, say, 2.

            I mean, you can only use one at a time, right?

            1. Yeah, this^. Plus the ‘background check on every gun sale, every time’ thing. I already own (MYOB) guns; how is making me go through another background check when I get a new one going to make *anyone* safer?

              2. In Texas, if you have a Texas CHL, no background checks for any gun purchases thereafter – see gun, pay for gun, walk out of store with gun. This is wonderful and, ah, dangerous when a Colt Python is spotted lying there unloved and alone in the case, desperately hoping someone will give it a loving home and promising it’ll be a beautiful friendship, if you just pick it up…

                1. The range has this gigantic chrome revolver (I think it’s a Colt). Every time I see it I want to buy it. Then I think, “what would I do with this thing?” It’s totally made for open carry while riding the fence-line. I live in Denver, so zero for three.

              3. A real Common Sense Gun Law would be a background check being good for 30 days (or 90).

                1. Uh, what part of ” . . . shall not be infringed.” do you not understand?

                  “Common Sense” . . . I do not think they mean what you think they mean.

                  The only ‘common sense’ gun law I can think of would run something like, “Don’t shoot people, or things, that don’t need shooting.”

                  1. “The only ‘common sense’ gun law I can think of …”

                    How about “You shot it, you eat it.” Those mosque shooters in New Zealand might have thought an extra time had that been the law.

                    I suddenly perceive a market opportunity in edible targets. Chocolate bullseye, anyone?

            2. Dose response. More of them makes you go postal faster. I wish I was kidding.

            5. No, you can use 2 but most people can’t use 2 effectively.
              2 pistols, 2 rifles.
              The important part is effectively.

              Fear the man who ONLY Wants 1 gun. He has a plan to use it.

          3. I have to say, I can to a degree sympathize with the people fed up with SUVs. But most of the problems with them could be solved if peoplemwho wanted to own cars above a certain size were required to retake their driving test in one. It seems to me that much of the problem is folks who learnedmto drive in little hatchbacks, so their sense of where their wheels are is shot.

            1. Also, as seen here in snowy Minneapolis recently, the ‘I have 4WD so I can go in any conditions at any speed I want’ syndrome.

                1. If properly supplied with cozy blankets and non electric lighting sources this sounds like a great excuse for a pot of Earl Gray and READING TIME!!

                  Best wishes to you and yours for weathering the storm.

              2. Funny; my observations on the East Coast have been that in severe winter conditions one sees two sorts of driver.

                A) the ones who appear to believe that they can drive at or above the posted speed limit, conditions be damned

                And

                B) the ones who are crawling along well under the speed limit, treating the conditions with caution.

                In my experiece type A drive two wheel drive cars and type B drive four wheel or all wheel drive cars.

                🤷‍♂️

        2. Gee, wish I’d said this, but instead I must tip the Wallaby Hat to Power Line for repeating it:

          You can vote your way into socialism, but you have to shoot your way out.

          That ought to be on a T-shirt, it ought to be on a whole lot of T-shirts.

      3. A contract bridge tournament?  I would think it would be a good sized gambling parlor that required the presence of twenty dolls. 

          1. Da dolls is not for da playing of da cards. Da dolls is for da fetching. Both of da drinks and da being thereof.

            1. I cannot believe that a number one businessman like you could let himself go and fall in love with his own fiancee.

              When you see a guy reach for stars in the sky
              You can bet that he’s doing it for some doll.
              When you spot a John waiting out in the rain
              Chances are he’s insane as only a John can be for a Jane.
              When you meet a gent paying all kinds of rent
              For a flat that could flatten the Taj Mahal.
              Call it sad, call it funny.
              But it’s better than even money
              That the guy’s only doing it for some doll.

      4. I don’t have any problem what-so-ever about a doll made out of fur and leather. Which of course implies that some animal(s) gave their all to make it. Most of your large leather source animals are going to be harvested for more than just leather; usually for meat bone, and blood too. (Animal blood is used for quite a number of useful products, including non-toxic, bio-degradable, fire suppression foam.) Fur bearing animals not so much beyond their fur; although I can recall as a kid tanning mouse and squirrel skins that could be used for doll hair.

        1. In New Mexico, new-expensive or old-traditional houses might have adobe floors with animal blood as part of the mixture. Makes the surface tougher or something.

    3. Thirty?
      If I wanted to get my library to less than thirty, I’d have to burn the house down.

      1. I technically can’t even do that. Burning the house down, I’d loose some books, but I wouldn’t even loose the over 1400 I have from Nook. Okay, I’d be b**** about the ones not from Nook that I’d lost; having to setup to re-download all of them to remove the DRM … but still. I have at least one book that is not replaceable; pretty sure all the self ran printing have been “sold” or given away.

        https://www.amazon.com/Annies-story-century-Western-Oregon/dp/0967478502?SubscriptionId=AKIAJ2F6RDUSIYCWQMFQ&tag=sa-sym-new-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0967478502

        FWIW. It was written for the author’s grand & great-grand children describing her life. It was edited & self published by the authors daughters for the same reason. As one of the granddaughters, I got a copy …

        Aunt Leta & Aunt Denise autographed my copy.

    4. I feel the need to chime in on the 30 books thing, since I think a lot of people are rather deliberately misconstruing what Marie Kondo was actually talking about. She never said that nobody needs more than 30 books, or that everyone needs to get rid of all but 30 books. She did say that in her life, personally, she had reduced her collection of owned, physical books to about 30, and that she found that to be about the right number for her (also that it took a while before she reached that point).

      I know plenty of people who read all the time, but who get their books from the public library, or borrow them from friends, or have converted completely to digital, and thus own very few physical books.

      1. Which is why I did not credit Marie Kondo, but rather what others who are following have said. 

        Which leads to another point – so often in the social media war what was initially said is quickly obscured by a thickening fog.

        1. “so often in the social media war what was initially said is quickly obscured by a thickening fog.”

          And the context has approximately the life expectancy of a red cross wearer storming the beaches at Normandy.

          Or an uncredited extra clad in a red shirt on a ST:TOS landing party …

      4. Hey, if that whining little bitch has treed your prey she has proven herself worth her kibble and kennel.

    6. 30? I have that in ERBs Tarzan and Pellucidar books alone.
      Functionally illiterate? How about culturally illiterate also?

      1. Many of our “betters” revel and take pride in cultural illiteracy. I mean, look at the puppy kickers and the things they know about sci-fi in the past.

      1. I would say if you can make an accurate count of your books without resorting to some sort of cataloging method, you don’t have enough. Myself, I try to keep an accurate catalog of my books, mostly to avoid unintentional duplication (intentional duplication is an entirely different matter). Of course, my catalog is still incomplete, so I only have an accurate count of what I have cataloged, with a vague “and then some” for the rest.

        Thing is, if a person isn’t passionate about books? Well, they can have as many or as few as they like. I just don’t want ’em telling me what I should be doing with mine.

        1. Some decided keep lists to stop buying duplicates and actually get the volumes we needed to fill in gaps in series.

          Mind you, I gave up trying to make the list of books because it took too much time away from what I had been reading. Also, I kept finding myself opening up an old friend instead of listing it and getting on with the task. SIGH!!!

        1. This is how I initially estimated The Family cookbook collection… but the books have such a range of thicknesses.

          It worked better when applied to the paperback mysteries, penguin classics and science fiction. (Although Dickens and Dune kind of threw things off a bit.)

          I never even considered trying it when looking at the history shelves — a couple of Ron Chernow biographies or three Shelby Footes on a single shelf can really throw your count off.

        2. You are able to put ALL your books on SHELVES????
          You really don’t have enough.

          I solved the problem about rebuying books several years ago when I realized that the chances of buying a new find at the used book store was very small compared with rebuying a book. A couple of years later it wasn’t worth it anymore, so I gave up on Used Book Stores. Just wasn’t finding enough to be worth it.

          1. Look, the paperbacks in the hallway are stacked sideways on shelves, and many of the other shelves also have books stacked sideways on top of the upright books, wherever there is room!

            1. The Spouse found these nifty paperback book boxes. We then shelve the boxes two three high like drawers. I hang tags at the end indicating contents, such as ‘Heinlein #1’ or ‘Agatha Christie, Mrs. Marple #1’. Cuts down on the dusting and you can find what you want without having to open too many of the boxes.

              Still, in spite of all our attempts, we still don’t have all our books on shelves.

  3. Had it not occurred to some that perhaps “mother of seven” did NOT wish to be more well-known and desired some small bit of anonymity? She had seven or eight (I presume living husband) reasons to want to be left alone to deal with HER life/lives.

    1. Given we have designed a culture that encourages people to pursue their 15 minutes of fame, often no matter how gained, I doubt it has.

      1. $HOUSEMATE had (more than) the “fifteen minutes” of fame. And the vastly amusing thing was that, for a while, every time someone whined, “Aren’t his fifteen minutes over yet?” we’d get a phone call. $HOUSEMATE did NOT actively seek out such, they Just Happened. And the sign of being well-adjusted was that when a certain TV show re-tooled ($NETWORK execs wanted not MALE audience of X-to-Y age, but a FEMALE audience of X-to-Y age) and things dropped considerable, the Agent said, “You have a choice. You and move to Hollywood and work as if this bit is the ONLY thing… OR… you can resume normal life.” $HOUSEMATE thought about it, maybe a whole FIVE seconds, and resumed normal life. I suspect he is MUCH happier than those who would have moved to Hollywood.

  4. “Yeah, I know, never hit the comments.”

    Except here. Always read the comments at According to Hoyt.

    Because we’re exceptional.

    We also sweep/mop up the place, clear debris, wipe down the tables and run the vermin off.

    Not necessarily in that order.

    1. And there are wallabies and dragons and other Amazing Creatures.
      And some ox, too. Which you SHOULD be faster than. Or at least not as clumsy as.

      1. The aardvark brings out the bonbons.

        And reminds people that if you bring in plastic flamingos, they come to life and fly off to the lake. (Not the minion pool. Even before the sea serpent moved into the minion pool.)

    2. Run the vermin off, run the vermin down, run the vermin to the ground.

      Tomato, tomato, potato, potato, let’s hunt the vermin down.

  5. “she should repair her own dress”

    I have a pair of old worn trousers which I don for the various chores which make up the typical activities of home occupancy. I do not view holes in those pants a concern, and anyone suggesting I patch them before I scrub the bathroom, paint the hall closet or shift stored items about to clear dust should shut their yap and lend a hand.

    Or just foxtrot off.

    1. I patch my work jeans so they protect my skin from sparks, splinters, etc.

      So if a hole doesn’t affect that who cares.

        2. I usually admonish people to stop losing wait around me, I keep finding it! But for our generous hostess, good for you.

          3. Mork from Ork was a dork who fed the stork with a spork. (And now back to work – which doesn’t rhyme with any of the preceding -ork words,)

        4. 40#’s Congratulations!!!! NOW keep them lost …

          30 of the 60#’s I’ve lost, found me again 😦

        5. *innocent look*
          If your work jeans fall off your butt, what do you work in?
          /laugh

        6. That is what suspenders are for.
          Normally females don’t require them.
          Mostly older men use them because that suffer from Old Man’s Disease – He got no ASS. And without suspenders, his pants will fall around his feet.
          This is embarrassing to Old Men and to avoid it we are willing to use suspenders.

      2. I have a pair of overalls that had an unfortunate encounter with battery acid. Lots of drip-shaped holes in the legs. I’m saving them for an appropriate painting job for them (though there might be an old pair of light sweatpants underneath).

    2. The most dilapidated vehicle I ever drove was NOT a clunker Pa barely managed to keep running, nor another that $HOUSEMATE and I hauled out of a field, nor the even smoke-belching thing nicknamed the “Cartel Special”… but the loaner that was a mechanic’s personal daily driver. It was one of those vehicle you could leave unlocked, keys on the dash, DARING any potential thief to be stupid enough to try to drive the thing away. (I did not engage in said dare, but I surely understood it.)

    3. Better? Those holes were in her apron, not her dress. The holes were the result of protecting her dress (probably one of only a few she owned) and repairing them would have meant patching them, which may not have been the best use of her time or resources.

      1. My thought. That’s what aprons are for, despite what people think from seeing housemaids on TV with starched white aprons all the time. It’s like teacher clothes – comfortable, washable, look mostly professional, washable, allow a full range of reasonable motion, washable. If elementary teacher, large pockets (hankies, erasers, hankies, hand sanitizer, hankies…)

      2. I knew fellow who had nice, shiny new (back then) handheld transceiver with a thing rubber-ish case. Fellow drove a dump truck. One day he forget he set it on the fender and drove off. After he realized what had happened, he re-traced his route and found it. The outer case was scuffed and scarred and looked terrible, in dire need of replacement. The radio itself was fine. ‘Twas a fine case – it did what it was supposed to do: protect what was encased.

    4. We call those clothes grubbies, and they get used when working on projects, until they become rags.

      1. I would be willing to bet that several of the commenters of the shawl woman’s dress have at some point purchased a pair of artistically torn jeans (brand new ones naturally) and paid more them than that woman made in a week of work.
        Lord save me from these sanctimonious idiots who insist on committing reverse cultural appropriation by judging people living in a world they are entirely ignorant of by their own narrow, biased, and highly inappropriate standards.

        1. I have less-than-fond memories of learning how to patch jeans and other trousers. Less than fond because this was by hand, and a stiff patch on heavy material is not fun sewing.

          1. I recall someone saying they or someone they knew would prefer to leave a rip as a rip as that looked like an accident, while a patch indicated relative poverty. That the signs of accident and wear are now somehow fashion is very strange. The faux appearance of having done work? And it fools nobody, save the self-deluded.

            The 96 or so year old friend of my mother recalls a childhood were the homemade jeans he wore were the subject of ridicule. Since he was able to have say & purchasing power, he has never worn jeans since. He’s, quite naturally, far more incredulous at the fashion than I am.

            1. *chuckle!* I once wore out the knees on a pair of jeans from being a very active kid. I climbed trees, crawled regularly under bushes, tripped and fell a lot, picked myself up and ran more. Those activities mean that the knees take quite a beating – but those old denims really held up; protecting my knees from scrapes and dirt.

              Those denims got a second life because torn jeans were getting fashionable and I carefully made additional tears after turning them to knee-length shorts.
              I think I finally outgrew them when I was 14, when the hips started curving.

    5. I really need someone to teach me how to foxtrot.

      Just so I can surprise my wife sometime.

  6. ‘They need to be answered early and often “you’re not my judge. Your envy is not a superpower. I will not submit. Take a hike.”’

    Too nice, Sarah. Rather:

    “How precious. You imagine anyone cares what you think. No one does–your views are not only absurd, but supremely unimportant to anyone.”

    1. I prefer, “I’m sorry, you are…?” “Wait, remind me again, who died and made you God?” and/or “Go forth and fornicate with thyself and with the steed thou did venture here upon.”

      1. My difficulty with those responses, Andrew, are that they impute at lest some minimal acceptance of the idiot’s opinion as potentially valuable. I’m trying to tell them that nothing they have to say is even worth noticing, that it is as the cawing of crows…

        1. Though the cawing of crows, or the sudden stopping of same, can portend a change in circumstance.

      2. How about ‘Amazing, you are in a position to answer the age old question…do farts smell when still inside your rectum?’

      3. I usually phrase the latter as “I cordially invite you to autofornicate.”

        (Amusingly, my phone is smart enough to remember that I’ve used the word “autofornicate” before, and suggested it immediately.)

    2. I was watching a clip of some blather from the current darling of the media, our goddess come to save us all AOC. My mind immediately went straight to the classic quote by Dan Ackroyd in the early days of Saturday Night Live: “Jane, you ignorant slut!”
      Now every time I see footage of her his voice echoes in my ear.

      1. Hooo Boy. Can you imagine everyone responding to her starting their rebuttals with, “Ally, you ignorant slut!”? Perhaps she’d expire from apoplexy; except that usually requires she become unconscious as a result of the shock, and by all observations, she’s pretty much unconscious now. Humph. Guess you can get elected to Congress while asleep as long as your eyes are open and your mouth is wagging.

        1. Have you noticed that she never, ever, ever enters a public forum / interview / debate with anyone who might disagree with her? Her public pronouncements are always by fawning sycophants. Which tells you something.

          1. Well, I understand that she did publicly challenge her primary opponent, Joe Crowley, to a debate. Not that she told him …

            Ocasio-Cortez aide describes Crowley as ‘Celtic king’ in new book
            A new book by a campaign aide to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez casts her upset victory over former Congressman Joseph Crowley in starkly ethnic terms — and reveals how the 10-term incumbent got sandbagged into missing a key debate just two weeks before the election.

            Latino activist Ramon Ramirez plans to self-publish his memoir of last year’s election under the title “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: The Democrats’ Surprise.”

            [SNIP]

            Ramirez details how he and a fellow official of the Pan-American Democratic Association of Queens, William Salgado, worked with Ocasio-Cortez to circumvent Crowley’s refusal to debate the challenger by scheduling a bilingual June 11 showdown at the Jackson Heights Jewish Center — without informing Crowley’s camp.

            Ramirez says he had fliers printed and posted before notifying the opposition, which complained of a scheduling conflict and offered to send a surrogate in Crowley’s place.

            But the organizers refused, and Ocasio-Cortez wound up having the floor to herself in front of an audience of more than 200 people — and next to an empty chair with Crowley’s name on it.

            [SNIP]

            But while likening Ocasio-Cortez to the Greek goddess Artemis and Joan of Arc, Ramirez — a self-described socialist who boasts of having studied in Russia — says it was her progressive politics that really won his heart as she pledged her support for Medicare for all, free college tuition and defunding ICE.

            “This is not a project by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. We are part of a socialist movement at the national level,” he recalls her saying.

            Crowley’s former campaign spokesman, Vijay Chaudhuri, and Ocasio-Cortez’s spokesman, Corbin Trent, declined to comment.

  7. I didn’t look at all the images, but from the ones I did my biggest sense was one of loss.

    The women in them are so beautiful compared to modern women. Yes, I know they were posed, but so what. I’m comparing them to posed pictures of women now.

    #1 and #17, both titled “Christina in Red” and clearly from the same shoot are amazing. The brief red tunic, possibly daring for 1913, possibly not, are more enticing that a whole swimsuit issue of SI. Her face is alive and in #17 her eyes are. I am reminded of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s comment that when she watched some S&M porn to get ready for Secretary the thing that stood out was the actresses had eyes that were alive in contrast to regular porn. I think the same of #17 compared to the afore mentioned swimsuit pictures.

    But it isn’t just that pair. #2, the flower girl who I’m sure the Marxists saw as victim, was smiling and well kept. #6 Daydreams features a lovely, and feminine, young woman.

    I think the idea these pictures had was beauty. Most modern posed women are after sexy or, too often, it’s shallow relative hot.

    Why women put up with that downgrade, much less consider it empowering, is beyond men.

    Their assumption of superiority and their cultural colonist attitude is so complete

    I often gain great amusement that the people so quick to dump on Puritans and Victorians are their cultural descendants, especially of the Victorians they deride. Kipling is dropping his jaw in awe at the degree of the white man’s burden the typical Woke white person bears.

    It’s as though they believe envy is a kind of superpower, and by aiming it at other people they can make everyone else miserable and they, themselves powerful.

    Most times I think the latter is what they value most, but occasionally I think they only value it to achieve the former. A recent story at Daily Science Fiction (two Fridays ago if you care, I’m not linking it) is about the punishing of libertarians by the government broadcasting them images of the world they “really” want (typical Marxist scare stories). I’m being trying to come up with a blog post about it, but it hasn’t gelled yet.

    1. Women today have much higher testosterone. Turns out both the boys low testosterone and the women’s high, which are causing infertility all over the western world are explainable by our social engineering.
      Turns out humans are GREATLY adaptable. We respond to experiences and reengineer ourselves. Testosterone grows every time you win a competition or confrontation, and decreases when you lose.
      Our rigged schools and institutions are destroying the species.

      1. Also, women on hormonal birth control find lower testosterone more attractive, so they’re marrying and reproducing with low-T men, giving rise to more low-T men.

        I just want someone to find the reset button.

      2. Tucker Carlson had Blythe Pepino, founder of Birth Strike on his show recently, saddest thing I’ve seen in a long time. He was very gentle with her and respectful, bless his heart. Her sincere belief is that none of us should bother to have kids and start families because Global Warming is going to destroy the Earth in just a few short years. No joke, no put up job, she came across as calm, very sad, and 100 percent woke that life as we know it is doomed. Seeing her made me both sad and angry. I truly want to hunt down and beat to death the liars and scam artists whom have inflicted such beliefs on apparently far too many young folks. This poor deluded girl struck me as the epitome of a victim, her entire world based on falsehoods perpetrated by grifters looking to gin up a fake crisis to cash in on. I really want Al Gore and that whole crowd to be hung from lamp posts so that the Devil might claim his own.

        1. “The Future is Female!”

          The same people: “We’re all going to be dead in a few years!”

          Which is it?

        2. Heck, I had a classmate in college who felt that way – no point in having kids, the world will be destroyed in 10 or 15 years. To be fair, she was worried more about pollution, war, and overpopulation than climate change, but I graduated in 1991, so her fears were a tad overstated, to say the least.

      3. I think that’s part of it…it’s true that testosterone grows every time you win a competition or confrontation, and decreases when you lose…see John Coates’ ‘The Hour Between Dog and Wolf’ for interesting examples of this….but it can’t be the whole story, because fish are also showing decreased testosterone.

        This cross-species effect is probably *not* due to birth-control-pill residue in the water, as often alleged, but primarily to agricultural runoff.

            1. It doesn’t, but the fuss is from feminization of aquatic animals, not a 15ish percent shift to male as found in ag runoff areas.

              *******

              I found a copy of the article!

              Click to access 20110805162525_560187.pdf

              (as folks here know, that’s pretty dang rare when there’s a headline grabbing bit like this)

              Unfortunately, I’ll have to continue in the next response…..

            2. ……because two links will send it to spam and I try to avoid making Sarah work harder.

              I found the actual article via this:
              https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51568184_Comment_on_Are_Oral_Contraceptives_a_Significant_Contributor_to_the_Estrogenicity_of_Drinking_Water

              Which says they put in unstated assumptions about EE2-sulfate, didn’t account for how powerful an estrogen-mimic is, and actually quoted their footnotes saying other than what they said.

              ****

              For those who don’t want to go through– TECHNICALLY, if you grant their numbers, they are right that birth control pills are a tiny minority of estrogen and estrogen mimics found in drinking water. However, IF their numbers are correct, even without the (metabolized pill hormone), then that tiny amount would account for 50% of the dose.

            3. Poking around, it appears that the current worry is “endocrine-disrupting chemicals”– so basically anything that screws with hormones– and that the treated wastematter includes that fertilizer from human waste treatment plants.

              (Which has me wondering how they fixed the Random Tomato problem– they offer that stuff for free from a lot of plants, and tomato seeds are apparently second only to cockroaches for surviving. Maybe better cooking?)

    2. The confidence and serenity, as well as the clothes, caught my eye. Even (especially?) the women working look happy and confident, but not the modern “in-your-face” attitude called confidence. They are dignified in ways that so many “power women” today are not.

      It really is a loss.

      1. The confidence is a good point, because many of those “in-your-face” types (male and female) give off a stench of fear of incompetence.

        1. The guy that has to tell you he’s the top dog or makes sure to preen as if he, is often is not.

      2. So many great actresses of yesteryear would be ignored if starting out today because their grace, poise and dignity were a large part of their beauty. One of the main reasons that most actresses are here today, gone tomorrow, is they have nothing to sustain them after the appearance fades, they never learned how to transform true dignity and grace to replace mere looks.

        1. Well, back then grace, poise, and dignity used to be valued. Enough that some people paid for expensive boarding schools to get it.

          1. They still are or one of us wouldn’t be demanding that the patriarchy provide his odalisques and I wouldn’t brag about Z being mine.

            Nor would Southeast Leather Fest have a track called “Charm School” they were able to charge extra to attend.

    3. “punishing of libertarians by the government broadcasting them images of the world they ‘really’ want”

      Sadly, we are unable to broadcast images of the world Progressives and SJWs ‘really’ want because the electricity and water have both gone out.

      1. I do truly hope that I am never put into a position where I need to exert deadly force against a human being. Or even a Marxist, for that matter.

        2. I stopped with America because Crusade to Liberate Earth from Marxism ends up as CLEM, which sounds much worse than CLAM. Though if I called it the Crusade to Liberate Earth from Marxism and Substitute Ordinary Notions (CLEMSON) I might get support from some folks in South Carolina, but only at the price of heated opposition from elsewhere.

  9. he outraged armies of outrageousness were furious because he didn’t name the camel drivers

    Is it just me, or does anyone else wish they had the time to hit the FB pages of the people making that complaint and commenting on their hateful othering on every picture they have that doesn’t tag everyone in it?

    2. Book of Faces is inoperative this afternoon and tonight. Seems somebody has really messed up big time, or they’re getting hacked hard. I kind of hope they don’t come back up, and it forces everyone to migrate to another platform.

      1. Only problem with that is none of the other platforms I’ve seen are particularly user friendly

        1. I find all the facebook clones more or less similar to use. Lessee…
          minds.com
          mewe.com
          trumptown.com
          trumpbookusa.com
          wrongthink.net (down for percussive maintenance)
          …tho you may detect a slight difference in focus.

      2. Real problem too. EMS/Fire/Emergency Services was trying to use FB and Twitter to let people know they needed to evacuate ahead of a wild fire and ended up asking people to call anyone they knew in [little town] and warn them. Wind (80 MPH gusts, 65 MPH sustained) was dropping power lines and messing with cell signals.

  10. “At some point, you’ve made enough money.”

    Note that the assertion is absurd even from the perspective of him what uttered it.. What he means is, “At some point, you’ve got enough money.” He doesn’t want you to stop making money, he just wants to harvest what her deems your surplus.

    Because Society gets no benefit from leaving wealth in the hands of people gifted at creating more.

    1. Based on what I call the Scrooge McDuck scenario, what rich people do is keep all that money in a big vault that they periodically go into and wallow around in the bills and coins.
      Having no concept of putting your wealth to work, at risk, on loan, used to build infrastructure, to fund startups, to make payrolls, all that is beyond the comprehension of the true progressive socialist. Even ones that claim to have studied economics at some fairly prestigious Ivy League colleges.

    2. Today I read a leftarded article on Medium about how Trump is the ultimate in Dunning-Kruger…. written by a stellar example of same. She also went on about how she’d built a successful small business in the face of economic downturns.

      I restrained myself from commenting, “You didn’t build that.”

    3. I need enough money to fund development of an interstellar manned spacecraft capable of reaching Alpha Cent in one month or less travel time. Which means I need money to fund a think tank and R&D lab to develop some means of manned FTL travel (notice I said travel, not necessarily propulsion.) They’ve got 5 years to come up with a workable concept. And 5 more use to build it.

  11. People who look at random pictures of random folks and feel the compulsion to make up stories about them and pass ill-informed judgments are i need of psychological help, before they move on to gazing upon ink blots and denouncing them as racist, sexist and whatever-phobic.

    2. While I agree with the second half of your statement, we are SUPPOSED to make up stories about them, otherwise we are missing the point of Art, which is to make us feel emotion.

  12. I’m not sure it would be possible to get an accurate count of how many plushy toys my 14 yo daughter has. She LOVES them. And you know what? If anyone has a problem with it they can feel free to inspect my middle fingers as I extend them high. Wealth is not a zero-sum game, and my kid having a ridiculous number (you have no idea) of plush toys does not take a single solitary fuzzy butted bundle of happiness from anyone. The only times/places that wealth becomes a zero-sum game is when/where the Marxists win. Then wealth becomes zero-sum precisely because, under their policies, the sum of all wealth becomes zero. Just look at Venezuela for a prime example.

    1. Yeah, but what’s happening in Venezuela is because of Kulaks and wreckers. /sarc

    2. Go ahead – tell my Dragonette she has way too many of anything. Her response will be “have you seen my mother’s fabric stashes?”.

  13. OMG! In the #59 India picture of the Sadus, he called the city Bombay! Didn’t he know that the correct name of the place is Mumbai?

      1. The one in the green alcove, not the blue one.

        The fainting couch in the blue alcove will collapse under you when it faints.

    2. Every time I run into the attitude you satirize here, I wish I could make the perpetrator read Kipling’s essay on The Big Calcutta Stink.

      But then I’d have to clean up their exploded heads.

      2. ‘BY THE old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin’ lazy at the sea,
        There’s a Myanmar girl settin’, and I know she thinks o’ me;’

        Though I understand it is no longer ‘Moulmein’ . . .

  14. One of the bloggers I follow recently gave up on Bored Panda because she feels it is veering too far from cute and interesting pictures into hurtful and questionable posts that just cause her grief. She’s on the well-meaning-and-kind part of the politically correct spectrum. “First, hurt no one’s feelings” and all that. Nice person, does a lot of charitable works that I agree with, but tries hard to not see the wolves lurking behind the lambs and fuzzy chicks.

    1. The sort of person who has never really contemplated the meaning of “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions”, eh?

      And then there’s this quote from STALKY & CO. “But I don’t like Mason. I dislike him for the same reason that Prout advances to his credit; he means well.”

      1. I have found that those who “mean well” are often mean people, clad in a veneer of faux concern.

    2. I explained to one of my kids once… predators look for prey. Finding a way to be soft without being a soft-target is hard.

      1. I think it was Donald Barr who wrote something like this in one of his books,
        “Try to go through life a little edible. You never know when you’ll meet somebody hungry.”
        To which the response was,
        “I try to go through life a little hungry. I never know when I’ll meet somebody edible.”

        I think it was in Space Relations, but I don’t remember for sure.

        1. That quote is present in either the T.J. Bass Half Past Human or The Godwhale. Can’t remember which, and I don’t have the time to look for it again, but it was in one of those two for sure, because I went looking for it within the last couple of years. Duck Duck Go pulls up a quotation page that lists it as Half Past Human here:

          http://www.theotherpages.org/quote-02a.html

          It’s # 46. Can’t say for sure that that’s accurate, or the only place that quote may have been used, but I am willing to lay money on it being from T.J. Bass–Someone who should have written more than he did.

            1. Find it and read it… Unless The Godwhale wasn’t to your taste.

              Occasionally, you find authors you wish had written more. T.J. Bass is a guy who fits that category, and you wonder how it was that the publishing industry didn’t at least try to encourage him. Of course, the fact that what he was writing was mostly counter to the environmentalist dreck of the day might have something to do with that…

                1. I can’t remember where the heck my copy is, or if I had it digitally… Let me see where I came up with it.

  15. What amused me was one of the comments on the Swedish woman with two kids. The text says she is wearing traditional clothing, and there is debate why it’s called “clothing” and not a “costume” and so on. But that one commenter seems to think they are Sami. “But if the women of a Swedish family of indigenous reindeer herders wore it, it would simply be their everyday clothing”

    Nope, looks more like descendants of Vikings to me.

    Why do people now seem to assume that in order to be “indigenous” and to have “traditional clothing” one needs to be member of some group of people who stayed with some sort of more primitive lifestyle? Where do they think Europeans come from? Do they assume we are some sort of space aliens or something? 😀

    (Also, not their “everyday” clothing but something worn for special occasions, nobody would risk their best stuff getting ruined cooking or working, or especially let the kids play on the yard in theirs).

    1. Definitely space aliens.

      My great grandmother brought a traditional dress from Norway which all the girls dress up in for pictures when they fit into it. These days that’s at about age 8, though Malene wore it (presumably) as an adult. It would have been for dressing up. Certainly. No one would have worn it day to day. But day to day items would include some elements and something like hardanger lace was certainly a regional, actual, “ethnic” thing.

    2. I have work dirndles and church dirndles. The working version is sturdier, plainer, and the apron is thicker. The fit is also a little looser to make bending and picking up things easier. Less trim, higher neck line. Still a traditional dress, but very clearly meant to be work for work.

      1. I had to look “dirndles” up. They’re pretty expensive. (and singular is “dirndl” – is the plural “dirndlen”?)

        1. Depends. Some were, many I got vintage on E-bay for $50 or so. Some people just don’t know what they have*, or don’t want to go to the trouble of charging market value when they want cash ASAP.

          *TINS: teenaged girl asked her grandmother for a dirndl. So grandmother brings home about $800 – 1000 worth of dress and accessories. Girl dumped it on e-bay for $50 because she wanted a bar-maid costume, not a real dirndl. And said that in the listing. I think the outfit was listed for half an hour before it sold.

    3. As far as I can tell, the SJW contingent doesn’t think that white people are native to Europe.

      1. They think that whites are nothing that would require them to apply any beneficial category to them.

  16. Then there was the picture of the photographer’s wife on a camel. The photographer named the picture “Else on Camel.” The outraged armies of outrageousness were furious because he didn’t name the camel drivers (and why not the camels, too. Does PETA know of your slight?) in the picture.

    Do they expect the name of the limo driver to be posted on photos of people arriving on the red carpet at the Oscars? Did they give a damn about the attendants or the pilot at any of the photos of a President (even Obama!) as they entered or exited Air Force One? We could play this game all day.

    1. There doesn’t seem to be any outrage about the picture of an old man selling newspapers. Not that his name is not mentioned, not that he has to work at his age, not that his clothes and shoes seem rather worn.

      I guess he has white male privilege.

    2. “Do they expect the name of the limo driver to be posted on photos of people arriving on the red carpet at the Oscars?”

      Only if he’s [insert minority here].

  17. The relevance to things we’ve been discussing here is obvious, although this is too lengthy to post in its entirety. If you agree with this conclusion go thou and read the whole thing:

    Tucker Carlson’s Monday Night Opening Monologue
    [SNIP]
    This is a system built on deceit and enforced silence. Hypocrisy is its hallmark. Yet in Washington, it’s considered rude to ask questions about how exactly it works. Why are the people who considered Bill Clinton a hero lecturing me about sexism? How can the party that demands racial quotas denounce other people as racist? After a while you begin to think that maybe their criticisms aren’t sincere. Maybe their moral puffery is a costume. Maybe the whole conversation is an absurd joke. Maybe we’re falling for it.

    You sometimes hear modern progressives described as new puritans. That’s a slur on colonial Americans. Whatever their flaws, the puritans cared about the fate of the human soul and the moral regeneration of their society. Those are not topics that interest progressives. They’re too busy pushing late term abortion and cross dressing on fifth graders. These are the people who write our movies and our sitcoms. They are not shocked by naughty words. They just pretend to be when it’s useful.

    It’s been very useful lately. The left’s main goal, in case you haven’t noticed, is controlling what you think. In order to do that, they have to control the information that you receive. Google and Facebook and Twitter are on fully board with that. They’re happy to ban unapproved thoughts and they don’t apologize for it. They often do. So do the other cable channels, and virtually every major news outlet in this country. One of the only places left in the United States where independent thoughts are allowed is right here, the opinion hours on this network. Just a few hours in a sea of television programming. It’s not much, relatively speaking. For the left, it’s unacceptable. They demand total conformity.

    1. “These are the people who write our movies and our sitcoms. They are not shocked by naughty words. They just pretend to be when it’s useful.”

      That and the phrase “moral puffery” are my favorite take aways.

    2. This follow on has me giggling (links in original):

      The Astonishing Hypocrisy of Media Matters
      If there’s one thing we can absolutely count on in our post-ethical partisan era, it’s that for every scandal, there is, in short order, a similar — sometimes astoundingly similar — scandal on the other side. Sometimes, the comparisons are just so on-the-nose that you have a hard time believing they’re real. Remember when Virginia’s Democratic lieutenant governor hired Brett Kavanaugh’s lawyers to defend him from allegations of sexual assault? Remember when his accuser hired Christine Blasey Ford’s attorneys? Remember when the leader of a #MeToo organization called Time’s Up resigned to . . . vigorously defend her son against allegations of sexual misconduct?

      Well, here we are again, and this one is a doozy. It turns out that Google works for conservative organizations as well, and Daily Caller News Foundation reporter Peter Hasson found out that the president of Media Matters has his own checkered online past. Here’s Peter:

      But Carusone has his own track record of inflammatory statements. Carusone’s now-defunct blog included degrading references to “trannies,” “jewry” and Bangladeshis.

      For example, here’s a summary of a particularly insulting post called “Tranny Paradise”:

      Carusone posted a lengthy diatribe in November 2005 about a Bangladeshi man who was robbed by “a gang of transvestites,” as Carusone described it. Carusone was offended that the gang was described as “attractive” in an article.

      “Did you notice the word attractive? What the f**k is that doing in there? Is the write[r] a tranny lover too? Or, perhaps he’s trying to justify how these trannies tricked this Bangladeshi in the first place? Look man, we don’t need to know whether or not they were attractive. The f**king guy was Bangladeshi,” Carusone wrote. “And while we’re out, what the hell was he doing with $7,300 worth of stuff. The guy’s Banladeshi! [sic]”

      Carusone also chided police for not advising the public to “stay away from tranny bars, stay away from places [sic] where Eddie Murphy and Robert Downey Jr. have/are visiting, don’t f**king kiss a transvestite, don’t bring a group of transvestites back to your room, etc…”

      And that’s just one post. Read Peter’s entire report to get the full flavor of Carusone’s scintillating insights about “Japs” and Jews.

      [SNIP]

      A consistent free-speech stance has multiple virtues. For one, it preserves a culture of free expression that has helped build the world’s greatest republic and made it a beacon of liberty for people of every faith and creed. For another, you get to opt out of the ridiculous gotcha game that has nothing to do with real debate, is completely divorced from meaningful principles, and is all about vengeance and punishment. Men who live in glass houses pelt each other with stones. They shatter our political culture. Only hypocrisy endures.

      1. I have found the vigorousness someone polices the morality of others is generally a good sign of how immoral they are, usually on just the things they police.

        1. “generally a good sign of how immoral they are, usually on just the things they police”

          In my experience… Beyond a certain point, very much so. But much less clear the more reasonable and unambigious the standard is.

          At the less-clear-tendency more-reasonable-standard end, people can easily be very angry at cattle rustling or perjury or arson without any particular tendency to those vices themselves. In the middle ground, people who advocate for standards that can be very effective but are fiddly enough that they are fruitful ground for double standards — e.g. practical tolerance issues, such as freedom of speech or freedom of religion or rule of law or equality under the law — might or might not be aiming at a bait and switch whenever they get enough power they reveal that you can expect no tolerance for your false religion or hate speech or your small-minded appeals to the letter of the law or malingering negativity or irresponsibly greedy ambition or whatevs. And at the flagrantly unreasonable end, people who propagandize for standards that just ain’t gonna happen — e.g. oh-so-sincerely advocating getting rid of property rights or other rule-of-law basics, or attaining equality of outcomes by blaming all nonutopian limitations on the wickedness of their political rivals, while being comprehensively incurious about little questions like how the system will keep seed corn and breeding stock from being eaten (and stubbornly evasive if the questions are raised) — are very very likely to be angling for a system where the rights are controlled by some group in which they expect to be disproportionately important.

  19. And whenever someone asks, “Who needs X?” or “Why do you need X?” when it’s with the implication that you DON’T need X, the answer is, “You don’t need to know. Next stupid question?”

    1. And, if asked in a sufficiently scolding tone, answered with “F- you is why!” Or, when it comes to weaponry, “Because you’re trying to take it away from me.”

        2. Nah dude, you’re supposed to punch them in the face, and then yell “Because F-ck You, that’s why”.

          The punching them in the face part is so that they remember for next time. >:D

    2. Besides the responses already discussed, here’s another one:

      “You may rest assured that I will give your assessment of my needs all the consideration it deserves.”

      Adding “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to check Palmetto State Armory’s website for their latest deals on AR-15 firearms….” to your response earns bonus points (feel free to substitute another online firearms dealer as you see fit).

  21. I wonder what the Venn diagram of those who posted “Nobody Needs” and “Must Have Latest I-thingy” looks like?
    Or how many of those scolds posted photos of themselves dining at a trendy restaurant?

  22. The camel drivers are like bellhops. If you were photographing yourself in front of a hotel you would not name the bellhops or doormen.

  23. OK, is it just me?  I find myself feeling rather sad.  What became of these people in the next half century as two great wars and Marxism were unleashed?

  24. OT: Major kudos to a neighbor who just came over and helped DadRed replace a skylight that blew off its mounts this AM (75 MPH wind gust). They had to climb onto the roof, caulk the skylight, then put it back on the mount. The gents had a 20 minute window of calmer wind as a cold front came through. (I wanted to go up and do it, but MomRed vetoed both Dad and I on the roof at the same time.)

  25. My daughter has probably 30 Barbie dolls. She’s not playing with them anymore (it’s all American Girl stuff now), so I asked her what she wants to do with them. She said she wants to sell them, so she can buy other stuff she wants.

    Now that sounds like a win-win to me. She gets stuff she wants, and I don’t have to pay for it anymore.

  26. But more importantly, at the base of it, these insane idiots think that these drovers and their descendants need their exceedingly woke selves to come and de-victimize them or elevate them, or something.

    That everyone does. Hence “#NotYourshield” thing.
    Not that it changes anything.
    The creatures who feel entitled to speak for everyone without being deputized to do so became very noticeable back in Usenet/FidoNet age. Forms change, but not much else.

  29. Bwah-hah-ha

    Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez now as unpopular as Ted Cruz during 2013 government shutdown over Obamacare defunding
    Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s social media stardom has catapulted her to a place of national name recognition and influence that is unheard of for a freshman member of Congress. Yet as Americans get to know her, she’s only growing more unpopular. And she’s now actually as unpopular as Sen. Ted Cruz was as a young freshman when he was leading the 2013 effort to defund Obamacare that resulted in a government shutdown.

    A newly-released Gallup poll found that just 29 percent of Americans say they have never heard of Ocasio-Cortez. That’s unheard of for somebody who was only recently elected to the House. By way of comparison, that means her name recognition is higher than Chief Justice John Roberts (who 30 percent never heard of) as well as prominent senators who are running for president, such as Sens. Cory Booker (33 percent never heard of), Kirsten Gillibrand (41 percent never heard of), and Amy Klobuchar (45 percent never heard of).

    A problem for Ocasio-Cortez is that as people get to see more of her, their views become more negative. Last September, after her upset victory in the primary, 24 percent of those polled had a favorable view of her, compared to 26 percent who had an unfavorable view. Her notoriety has increased significantly since then, but while 31 percent now view her favorably, her unfavorable rating has shot up to 41 percent. That means on net, views of her are negative by 10 points — a 15 point swing.

    Back in the fall of 2013, Cruz was seen as one of the most hated figures in American politics for leading a quixotic campaign to get former President Barack Obama to defund Obamacare — his signature achievement — which led to a highly unpopular government shutdown. He received nearly universal negative attention, not just from the liberal media, but also from segments of the conservative media for leading a doomed effort that distracted attention from the disastrous launch of Obamacare.

    A Gallup poll taken in October 2013, at the height of the shutdown battle, showed Cruz with a 26 percent favorable rating versus a 36 percent unfavorable rating. So Ocasio-Cortez, has already bested him with 41 percent viewing her unfavorably, though on a net basis they are both at negative 10. She achieved this without being widely blamed for shutting down the government. …

    1. They want us to shut up. We want to hand them microphones and wander off, whistling innocently…

  30. Since you brought up Marxism as being the motivation for many of the comments (and I’m not going to argue with that — I’m pretty sure you’re right), I’m reminded of a conclusion I’ve reached for myself about Marxism:

    “From each according to his ability; to each, according to his need” is a fantastic creed, when exercised by individuals. Your Mom, when she has the ability to give dolls to children who need them, does so, in no small part because she remembers a time when she didn’t have the ability to buy her own dolls, so she had to rely on her own ability to create them.

    “From each according to his ability; to each, according to his need” is a horrible, downright EVIL creed, when exercised by bureaucrats. “She doesn’t need *that* many dolls” leads to the dolls being removed from her, and her dolls being given to people who don’t particularly want dolls (but who nonetheless want or need something entirely different), because the bureaucrat decides what these people’s abilities and needs are. And in the end, everyone’s miserable, nothing works, and the bureaucrat starts witch hunts to look for the “bourgeois capitalists” (who always happen to be everyone who looks or acts a little funny, and/or who the bureaucrat just doesn’t like) who are sabotaging the bureaucrat’s efforts to bring about paradise.

    I like Marx’s creed. It’s the foundation of Free Market Capitalism. I don’t like Marx or Marxists, because they have used this creed to undo everything that Free Market Capitalism has done to elevate humanity from poverty, and ironically enough, this has done everything to prevent the Communist paradise they envision will come about, sometime after rejecting Capitalism and giving “the dictatorship of the proletariat” full power to establish a Socialist society that will magically disappear as the proletariat gives up power over the means of production (because people with power are *always* looking for ways to give up that power!).

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