Things have been drifting my way that make me raise eyebrows and say with Inigo Montoya: I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
Apparently believing abortion is wrong is out of the mainstream; believing gay marriage is wrong is out of the mainstream; believing transexuality isn’t the load of hogswallow that our society is being fed is out of the mainstream; being a Christian is out of the mainstream; and being convinced that you have rights as an individual which were granted to you by G-d and the government can’t take away is out of the mainstream.
What they aren’t actually telling us is: Out of the mainstream WHERE?
I mean, of course all of those are out of the mainstream in our better universities, where no one would go so far as to espouse one of those opinions, where they might be overheard and mocked — mocked! — as being gauche by their fellow socialist pudding heads.
And some of them are out of the mainstream in various places around the world. I wouldn’t advise you to go to a non-European Catholic country where faith is taken seriously and start babbling about how men can be women, women can be men, and it’s all about just saying so.
For that matter, I wouldn’t advise you to go and be flamboyantly gay or trans in an European country, out of the hangouts of the bien pensant, and where the authorities can’t hear you. Take it from someone who has crossed Europe, inconspicuously speaking the local language, and too poor to stay in even medium-expensive places: the urbane European is a myth. The woke European is a myth. There might be a few, again, in the academic hangouts, but if you get them to let their hair down and speak frankly, after hours, you’re going to find yourself blinking and being rather puzzled. Because the imaginary “hatey” rednecks of leftism’s fevered imagination have absolutely nothing on a “Sophisticated” European when it comes to hating anyone who sticks out and is not “normal for local populations. A lot of naive Americans have found that to their shock.
As for most of Africa and the Middle East? Well, you know, local tribal customs might vary on what is homosexuality and transexuality throughout Africa (and trust me, okay? EVEN what looks like transexuality to western eyes often isn’t and is in fact a rather horrible situation that works — maybe — as well as anything works where you live close to the bone and life is a constant struggle. It ain’t because they’re “enlightened” or “more tolerant.”)
In the middle East…. I have absolutely no idea what Islam’s view on abortion is, though judging from some of its other dictates, I presume it’s a child if the father wants it, and not if the father doesn’t. But pretty much all the other things, other than individual rights — and individual rights aren’t believed in anywhere out of the West, and even there…. mostly in the US — are not just “disapproved of” in Islam. They’re crimes. Punishable by death.
So, yeah, I do realize the US is out of the mainstream with most of the world. At least in believing in individual rights.
Because we believe in individual rights, we’re also way more tolerant of individual quirks. Mostly gay marriage didn’t raise a lot of eyebrows. I mean, a lot of us would get pissed off at forcing churches to officiate at gay weddings, and don’t get me started on the idiotic lawfare against Christian Bakers (Look, it’s idiotic on both sides, okay? You’re allowed to think a “gay marriage” isn’t a real marriage, but realize it’s real to the people celebrating and do the cake on that principle. Like, I have a friend who is Hindu, but he’s okay with buying fake leather sofas, okay? I have no idea if he’d design one for them, but I imagine if his avocation ran to couture he’d be quite happy to make a fake leather jacket. Now, when it comes to stupid cakes with the devil and dildos? The chick engaging in that lawfare should be taken out and beaten in the public square for having the worst taste since Hillary Clinton wore a yellow pant suit. And OF COURSE if someone doesn’t want to bake a cake for sale — for any reason or none — the client should go elsewhere. THAT frankly is the biggest stupidity ever. The courts should throw all those cases out for the plaintiffs being too stupid to not drown when it rains. “Waitaminute…. you know this person disapproves of your choice, but what will make your day complete is having him bake your cake. You’re either dumber than your common garden rock or you are trying to get someone to engage in bondage and domination play with you without their consent. I do suggest you withdraw the suit, before I throw you in jail for rape.” ….. yeah, I know, I have beautiful dreams.)
Sure. A lot of people think is a sin, but they also know they, themselves are sinners. Among my inner circle are gay couples and committed Christians, and believe it or not no bonfires have been lit when we all get together; no one has dragged anyone to the roof, or dropped walls on them. Actually, I don’t remember any harsh words. Mind you, the subjects under discussion are usually science fiction, fantasy, politics (and our POLITICS) tend to be in tune or house decorating, not what anyone does in bed. Because seriously, who discusses that at a barbecue? The essence of it being that most Christians would think their engaging in it is wrong (though some still do, because they’re human and broken) but they’re not going to judge, lest they should be judged. And we’re wealthy and well mannered enough to live and let live.
In the same way if you come into our group, claiming to be a sex you obviously aren’t, most people will shrug and go along, because why not? I mean this was true in the eighties when a six foot seven Marine who looked like his face was ripped with an ax off a mountain crag lived under the charming delusion that when he dressed in a dress or skirt, with a wig EVERYONE thought he was a beautiful woman. Even though he wore size 14 wide seven inch heels.
Our group of rather introverted geeks would shrug and go “sure, why not. At least he doesn’t think he’s Napoleon. Addressing him as Emperor with a French accent would get old.” I objected to his hitting on me in the kitchen, but not because at the moment he was wearing a dress and thought he was female. I objected to it because he was coming on to a married woman and being obtuse about getting it through his head I really meant “no.” (No touching, otherwise I’d have done something interesting with a knife — even though he was a marine — but really stupidly persistent.)
Was he really trans? Don’t know. Don’t care. I’m not paid to evaluate the minds of others.
I do sternly object to having children on puberty blockers, because I know someone whose children have to be on these due to a rare genetic condition. When they were first prescribed he acquainted us with all the side effects. And you know what? NO ONE SHOULD SUBJECT A MINOR TO THAT UNLESS IT REALLY IS NEEDED FOR A PHYSICAL, NOT A PSYCHOLOGICAL CONDITION. Adults? Well…. if one of my kids were considering it, I’d argue like hell against it, not just because they’d make the world’s ugliest women, bar none, but because — seriously — even in cases of “real” gender dysphoria, in the present state of science it’s a very high price to pay to be a pretend version of what your mind tells you that you are.
ONLY if you absolutely have no other choice, should you consider it. And if you really want kids, have kids before. I’m not going to say there aren’t cases in which transitioning isn’t actually warranted. I’m not other people. I don’t know. But I’m going to say the process is horrific, and most people end up stuck somewhere neither fish nor fowl nor good red meat. That means for a lot of the rest of their lives, they’re going to be given very weird looks. And feel out of place. Still, as someone who immigrated and also inhabits a limbo region, at least as soon as she opens her mouth, I’m not going to say some people won’t prefer that to the natural self. I’m not them.
And I think most Americans are kind of in the same place.
Abortion? I am out of the mainstream here, for various reasons. And have changed my mind on it over my life time. I don’t think anyone should have an abortion, unless it’s medically required. There’s a ton of reasons, including the fact that I knew within five minutes I’d conceived older son and that he was a boy. Never wavered. And never had that before, despite trying for six years. Younger son, OTOH? Well, I still can’t “sense” him. Possibly because he’s too much like me. Who knows? Anyway, between that, the fact that I’ve seen women in abusive relationships get bullied into abortions, and the fact that there is quite safe contraception generally available, I think the bar for “I want an abortion” should be much higher.
BUT note, please, that I’m out of the American (and possibly the west) mainstream here. Most of America believes an abortion is okay up to ten weeks, and after that it should be restricted/forbidden. Or at least that’s what polls keep coming up with. That is in fact the law in most countries that allow abortion.
The crazy “abortion at any point for any reason” is not majority opinion here or anywhere in the world. So Governor Northam and his post birth abortion can go right to extremist hell.
As for being a Christian, it is, if not a majority belief certainly a widespread one worldwide. It is still a majority in America. How can something most people believe make you an extremist? I don’t know. Ask them.
Then there’s believing in individual rights. And they’ve got us dead to rights, there, boys: in a world filled with absolute monarchs, satraps, petty despots, totalitarian horrors (and Methodists! — reference joke) we are indeed unique and “Extreme.”
Should we suppress our extremist beliefs that we have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness unhindered by an abusive and intrusive government?
WHY?
The first question, of course, is who benefits. Certainly not individual Americans. So, why should we do it? In which way is it good for us?
Looking around at other countries where the belief doesn’t exist, what is in it for us?
I say often that the future comes from America. You might not get what I mean by that, but trust me. Almost all the innovations that make our life fat and comfortable started out in America. Sometimes Israel pitches in and more rarely another anglophone country.
However, most of what the rest of the world does is take what we invent and develop, or write, or put on screen, and try to give it some kind of a personal spin. But without us? none of it would exist.
Now, because America is a multi-racial nation, picking up the best from all over the world (and keeping it) this can’t be due to our vaunted blood lines.
So what is it due to?
Unless you’ve visited Europe, and, say, been sealed into a rapidly heating train in summer, despite the railway company knowing that the air conditioning is out in that carriage, you don’t appreciate how much that belief that individuals get to make their own choices matters in America.
The rest of the world, and those who are no longer our countrymen rail against central heating and air conditioning. Now, part of it is that none of these winnies know the climates most of us deal with. Sure, Portugal can go without central heating. Come over to my town and try it, in the dead of winter. Go to North Carolina in the heat of a very humid Summer without air conditioning. Then come and talk to us.
But the other part is “because we can.” And because individuals can choose to be comfortable. And most do.
Could we survive without those creature comforts? Sure. The pioneers did. And I once lived through a summer in Columbia South Carolina without air conditioning. You don’t want to know. Weirdly, too, I did no work all that summer.
And I remember being in Portugal — which is temperate if anything is — without air conditioning and/or heat, and let’s say most of my year was a lot less productive than it could be, because you’re not functioning very well when you’re dealing with extremes in weather.
So the American “extremism” of believing in individual rights is both more comfortable and more productive.
Therefore why call it “extreme” or try to suppress it. Unless you want to take those rights away so you can have absolute power, of course.
In which case you need to be aware you’re not G-d. Either real or imaginary. Your wants are not the law to me (no, not even if you’re a fat bastard who said that you believe in the rule of law and what you say is law. It ain’t. And I’m forever surprised you are smart enough to remember to exhale after each breath.) Nor should they be.
I’m not extreme. You are. You are an extreme, out of control loon who thinks that if everyone did what he/she said the world would be perfect.
I recommend you amend your extremism. Because in the path you’re taking us careening down, tolerance vanishes, and things get very very bad.
Places where there’s no bread, everyone argues, no one is right. Or if you prefer, societies that live close to the bone don’t believe in individual freedom. They also don’t believe in much of individual anything.
And the table is always set at the cannibal banquet.
Before you declare the US is “extreme” consider, in your heart of hearts what might happen to you if we weren’t.
And then, unless you’re as stupid as paste-eating Polis, you might consider giving thanks on your knees and fasting, that the rest of us are not in fact “extremist.”
According To Hoyt 
To Sarah, and like-minded folks:
…
For those who reject that, well, please have a nice day anyhow.
Dear heart, your kindly old Uncle Lar thinks your accent is charming and endearing.
Had I heard you before you hugged me at LC there is no way I could have failed to recognize you. In truth my mind was so focused that I would have failed to recognize my own mother at that point.
“you know this person disapproves of your choice, but what will make your day complete is having him bake your cake. ”
Because it’s not about rights. It’s all about the control, and programming people to submit to their control. To them, freedom is evil and needs to be stamped out everywhere.
“This is the cake that the court mandated I make for you. Go ahead. Eat it.”
Well, he could air dry it to the consistency of fiberboard, and then decorate it.
“Oh, I must have mixed up the sugar and the salt. They do look alike.”
Don’t forget the confidence that your target is too decent to use something vile as a substitute ingredient.
Or just the confidence that as soon as you get it, you’re going to get it tested.
Of course, my mind may not work the way theirs does.
Heck, just sugar alcohol instead of sugar. You’ll never detect it, but you’ll get the endless runs.
Also because he secretly believes you are a paragon of perfect virtue and forbearance. He trusts you.
Yep. Two weeks in Romania and we got an earful about the Rom, most of it fairly mild but still far more prejudiced than is thought polite in the South (now). Then I met my first Rom and while it didn’t make the comments right, it made them understandable.
I had a delightfully telling discussion with a Hungarian academic about the problems of the Rom. (This was as some in Brussels were causing administrative migraines for the EUrocrats.) The week before, I’d seen a gent in Czesky Krumlov with the largest, fluffiest Alsatians (German Shepherds) ever. Lovely dogs. My group stood there admiring the dogs, and the owner smiled. In German he said, “I feed them Gypsies.” I chuckled, quietly. The official interpreter/guide squirmed, then translated. The Roma I’ve crossed paths with were pickpockets, or selling junk on the trains one step ahead of the police and conductors.
As you say, it doesn’t make prejudice right, but it explains some of why it’s there.
I got cussed out by a young boy while all the adults stood and watched.
That’s because you don’t exist for them, you’re just a gadji.
I have limited experience with the Romani, but I have ample, too ample, experience with the Irish “Travelers.” Let’s just say that familiarity does breed contempt and leave it there,
Portuguese Ciganos. Ah yup
I have no experience with either group, but am familiar with the type– lost a couple that were long time family friends to one, because the state they were in was practicing the euro-style catch and release BS. If you look at their rap sheets, and who they were arrested with, you can see the pattern.
Same basic kind of pattern as that SOB that killed the cops having coffee before shift, in Parkland, Washington.
I found out that the entire upper and middle classes of the Romani were exterminated in the Holocaust. As in, well in excess of 95% of the known population. What was left were the itinerants and the dregs of society who had no official record.
Take your drug-addicted, mentally-ill homeless and the thieves who live among them and build a society off that. No wonder public view of them is so bad—everyone who improved their situation and functioned in society was killed off. Yeah, it’s been a few generations, but I can’t imagine that the sure knowledge of all the folk who “made it” and were killed off hasn’t had an effect too.
The Rom had the same bad reputation for centuries before the Holocaust.
European Romani. Not those who had already emigrated to the Americas. Don’t know if many of the Romani did before WWII.
uh
People tend to forget that while the Holocaust murdered six million Jews they also killed seven million “undesirables” including Gypsy, Rom, homosexuals, and anyone else deemed unfit by the Nazi ruling party.
That’s because the people teaching it didn’t want folks looking too closely at what they had to say about Poland, nor at what happened in the countries where the Church stood up and made public statements of opposition.
I had a really weird teacher who actually mentioned the whole “harvest the blond kids, wipe out the rest” approach to Poland, and he still didn’t give much information.
The whole thing where they started with the disabled, right off the bat, would probably be… uncomfortable… when euthanasia is being pushed.
They started with the handicapped.
Unlike certain current day regimes, they pretended that they had been driven to it by the necessities of war.
Heck, they even pretended that folks were dying of normal diseases!
“Oops, pneumonia, so sorry.”
Kind of makes me wonder about the institutions for Down’s kids.
Flyby c4c.
Whoosh
Okay, I need to stop doing these on my phone. I always forget to click the box. Got it this time, though.
Stop that! You woke up the dragons before they were ready!
Let’s wake EVERYONE up in three words:
Gamma. Ray. Coherence.
Ox, are you playing with the gravitational lens again?
Nope. Ox slow, not bloody insane.
Bomb-pumped lasers. Gotta love ’em.
Sarah, my friend I’ve never met but hope to one day, I sympathize. I survived either summers in Columbia, South Carolina (1997-2004) but at least I had semi-working A/C. I couldn’t have done it otherwise. There were many days during those summers it felt like Bill Sherman was STILL burning the place down.
“Either” = “eight.” What the heck, brain/finger connection?
Nope, the air would have been far less humid if things were actually burning.
As our pastor’s wife used to say, in Columbia there’s nothing between you and Hell but a screen door.
“But it’s a DRY HEAT!”
J. Carson: “So is a nuclear meltdown.”
Gen X here. Familiarity breeds contempt as far as meltdowns are concerned. 🙂 Now COLUMBIA heat is positively Lovecraftian.
Sigh. That was me. WPDE.
Yeah, the heat on the Columbia was probably hellish, just before the whole thing disintegrated.
Our clothes mildewed in the closet!
I absolutely believe it. Until I married, I lived in an itty-bitty efficiency with utilities included in the rent, and I took shameless advantage with 68-degree summers.
Oh I totally believe that. I remember moving into my new apartment just outside Columbia (St. Andrews Rd area) in July 1997, solo. After I got everything out of the U-Haul trailer I literally collapsed on the floor. I’m a born-and-bred Virginia boy so I thought I was used to summers…hell naw. 94 degrees, heat index 102, and as I lay in a puddle of sweat on the carpet, the radio was talking about how unseasonably cool a summer it had been. (Then they started taking phone calls on the upcoming South Carolina-Clemson game. On Thanksgiving weekend. It was July. That was my introduction to SEC sportsball.)
I used to walk to the mailbox at the end of the driveway, and come back looking like I’d been in the shower.
Ugh. I hate humidity so I’d better stay here in Utah.
Houston. August. “Dear Lord, in Your mercy, please send a Category 1 hurricane to move the air.”
Anyone on the Gulf Coast would echo that prayer….
Only time I’ve been subjected to that kind of weather for an extended spell was one July in Dallas. Rained buckets the whole time I was there, but the temperature never dipped below 90. A shuttle took me from DFW to my hotel, and in the 30 seconds it took me to go from the air-conditioned shuttle to the air-conditioned lobby, I swear I grew half an inch of moss all over my body. Outings for the remainder of my stay were no better, but less shock to the system; I believe the layer of sweaty slime between my clothes and my skin acted as some sort of infernal insulator.
That was the day I began to understand what General Sheridan meant about living in Hell and renting out Texas.
There’s a reason we will never live in the South, and it has nothing to do with politics, religion, or sportsball (but I repeat myself.)
Ditto.
Me, at Disney World, after an afternoon so humid you could almost see the water in the air: “Oh, thank god, it’s finally raining.”
Local-ish woman standing next to me: “Oh honey, it don’t get no better.”
We came out of the airport to fresh rain (really had rained). Could see the steam rising off the pooled water. This was in March. Was fairly “comfortable” for about an hour. We hit a rain storm on the day we drove over to Cape Kennedy and took the shuttle tour to the museum. It was COLD. So cold the bus driver joked that even the wildlife were hiding from the weather. Finally saw some manatees and one lone crocodile. Did not get off the bus to experience the Atlantic Ocean, rain was sideways, it was COLD. The rest of the week was decent (70F’s). While those, not from west, were hiding from the brief storm showers, we were in shorts, and getting wet, so we’d be semi cool as it dried out.
Yep. That’s March in Florida. Brrr.
Except that one day at Cape Kennedy (and once the rain storm stopped it was fine), the weather was perfect, as long as there were short squalls to clear out the humidity. We didn’t even wear coats and ran around in shorts and summer shirts.
Sometimes the rain cools things off and sometimes it turns it into a steam bath.
There was no A/C when I was growing up. There was a box fan running pretty much nonstop. Usually. Through triple digit temperatures and humidity to the point that sweat never dried, the air could not take one iota more of moisture. You boiled, you didn’t bake in the sun.
When I went to college, late, there was central heat. Steam boiler supplied central heat. Run-you-outta-there heat when the temp dropped below -10. But still no A/C.
There was no A/C in any car or truck I drove until just before the towers fell. I worked in concrete boxes with no A/C to speak of working a factory/warehouse floor that needed anti-slip coverings it was so humid in there.
I worked roofing in July, best time to lay shingles is when it’s hot and dry. The tar ain’t so bad, then. I actually got sunburned for once. The kind of heat that sucks the moisture straight out of you, you can drink ten gallons of water a day and not have to stop to pee once.
I can survive a hot day or three. Have done, time or two before.
Now ask me if’n I wanna?
What is it to rail against civilization? It’s not civilized. No, not even when it comes from the mouths of Ivy league educated, credentialed, and graduated mouths.
It’s barbarism, is what it is. To protest the very things that keep us warm, safe, well fed, and dry is like protesting a good night’s sleep. Or good health. It’s rank idiocy.
The fact that it is not treated with the proper disdain it deserves proves that there is something very wrong with the minds that utter such ignorant tripe. Very few, if any, of the speakers have ever experienced true privation in their entire lives.
The world would be in a better place, methinks, if such pretentious pismires got a punch in the nose every time they so much as spoke such drivel.
But then, that might just be me being a wee bit extreme…
For some, the reason to spout this idiocy is ignorance.
But there are others who do know better, and do it merely to impress others.
Extreme? Not really, and it’s no vice, if you catch my drift.
Is summer in Columbia, South Carolina anything like early August in Virginia? Lets just say when I finally flew home even TSA chuckled when I answered to their question of anything “violable or toxic” (whatever the exact wording, I fly sooooo much) of “only 2 weeks of unwashed National Jamboree tent camping clothing. I did air them out at the hotel yesterday,” in 2005. Also emptied the bags outside when I got home. Then everything went straight to the washer. Even the clothing I had set aside for the two days afterwards were damp. I’m not exactly used to humidity wet that has to be breathed.
As a Virginia native (Amherst County), it’s worse. Far worse. If you were at Scout Jamboree, you were, um, near Fredericksburg right? Fort A.P. Hill or whatever the woke bleepers in the Army are deciding to call it since A.P. Hill is now a non-person? Columbia is 300 miles further south and sits in a valley at the junction of three rivers. Sort of like a small, flatter, redneck Pittsburgh on Venus.
Summit Bechdel Reserve. At least, that’s what the Scout place is called. Don’t know what the Army calls it.
That is the new locations name in West Virginia. The one that BSA & benefactors bought, and donated, and is being developed for BSA/Venturing outdoor activities.
Ah, you were in WEST Virginia in that case. Up in the mountains just north of Beckley, in fact. That’s probably quite warm and I’m sure your clothes had achieved sentience by the end of two weeks camping but it’s a lot nicer in the summer than central or Lowcountry South Carolina, for sure. It’s absolutely beautiful country, though.
Summit Bechdel Reserve is the new location for National Scout Jamboree. Never been there. 2013 was the first year there, I think, might have been 2009. In fact based on medical requirements I’ll never be able to volunteer for National or Council staff, again. Not unless I lose about 80#s.
Yes, Fort A.P. Hill.
If SC is far worse than there then, I would have not survived. I was cocky in 2001, when I went to be staff. I survived the 2001 humidity. 2005 was 100X worse. At least to this western native. I consider 110F “hot” (a dry heat) in Oregon. 108F, heat index 115F, is impossible. No, I did not volunteer again. (Wouldn’t be allowed to volunteer at the new location. Medically I can’t, just on weight to height qualifications alone.)
Most newer homes have A/C, locally. Most older homes, unless retrofitted, do not. Our home does not have home A/C. We do have 3 floor, and one wall, units, that “help” on hotter days. We don’t have humidity or heat index. Unless one counts “It is 65F today, heat index 72F”. Which few east of the Rockies, or in Texas, will.
The worst heat / humidity the Reader ever encountered was in Gulfport Mississippi the week before Katrina hit. The Reader was there to get an understanding of what installing a new radar on an Arleigh Burke destroyer was going to entail. His kindly shipyard hosts (this was when the shipyard and the Reader’s sensor division were part of the same Great Big Defense Contractor) decided that the tour of the ship under construction would be at 2pm. The temperature in the shade was around 100 and below decks on the ship (AC wasn’t installed yet) had to have been around 120 or so.
Your tour was scheduled by somebody who either wasn’t from the South, or hated your guts.
The latter. They weren’t happy to have a ‘sensor guy’ poking around their business. The Reader grinned and bore it. He also thought he’d freeze to death when he checked into his hotel and found the thermostat in his room set to 65. They seriously like their AC down there.
Yeah, I never understood that about the AC belt. Visiting my grandparents in Bakersfield, we would bring along sweaters or jackets for when we went to the grocery store or the mall.
House: 70
Driveway: 105
Car: 68
Parking Lot: 107
Store: 62
How the hell do y’all not all have pneumonia all the time?
:suddenly makes a connection:
You know, the produce in places that are freaking cold to shop in is a lot better quality.
The offices of every single place I’ve worked. All winter, heat wasn’t that high, so sweater to wear in the office. Summer, when it was hot out, I swear A/C was set to arctic. Again sweater required.
I should point out that, being from Anchorage, 62° in absolute terms was “pleasant summer day”. It was the wild swings in relative temperature that made us so uncomfortable.
62° when you’re doing heavy physical work is pleasantly cool.
62° when you’re sitting at a desk all day is f’ing cold.
I know.
Make it cold, people start putting on layers. Make it hot, layers start coming off. Humans are eminently adaptable, and willing to do a lot for basic comfort.
So which one do you want in your workplace?
Ah, I see, I got you and B. Durbin crossed up, I thought he was the one that went to Jamboree. Yeah, Fredericksburg area is about like where I grew up weather-wise. Add 5 degrees and 5 percent humidity onto that and you start to get into what it’s like in Columbia during the summer.
Funny thing about SC is, the worst place to be in the summer is not actually the Lowcountry down near the coast. It’s across the state around the Aiken-Augusta GA area near the Savannah River, on the border with Georgia. They were always 2-3 degrees hotter than even Columbia (which is pretty much dead center of the state). Another river valley that just traps all the summer ick. The worst thing about the Lowcountry around Charleston wasn’t just the heat, unless you were at the beach, it was the smell. The estuaries inland of the beaches have this very…unique…funk. On a 92-degree day, it’s got to be at least three levels down into theoretical Dante hell.
(That having been said, Charleston is an amazing place to visit and I strongly encourage people to go and soak in the history. Just…not between June and the start of October. You will regret it.)
B. Durbin may have gone to National Jamboree, or prepping to go. Next Jamboree is this August and is at the new, not governmental property, owned by BSA: Summit Bechdel Reserve.
First year used: 2013
MCRD Parris Island in September was…memorable (and no, there was no A/C). But a summer spent in DaNang, also with no A/C, made it seem downright pleasant by comparison.
The late great Frank Jacobs, of MAD Magazine fame, wrote an updated version of the Marines’ Hymn:
‘From the neck-high mud of foxholes
To malaria-filled bogs,
We will march for 90 miles a day
And drop out and die like dogs.
We will land on mine-strewn beaches
And we’ll live with snakes and fleas.
Then we’ll all leave Parris Island for
Restful combat overseas!’
🙂
Sounds about right.
Heinlein’s Venus. That’s exactly right.
Florida in August.
98F / 99%
Seasons:
Early Summer, Summer, Late Summer, Christmas.
I’m tired of the activists jumping up and down and demanding that I support “family friendly drag shows” and predators who convince kids to take hormones and dress like the opposite sex and grifters who demand money in the name of “diversity and equity.” I want to be left alone. I’m slowly moving from “live and let live” to “go jump in a lake” to “plunge into a lake of burning fire” to . . . Something even less charitable.
Better to have a millstone about his neck, and cast into the sea.
Yep, one “person” in Truth vs Pravda (on Baen’s Bar) started with claiming that a woman in man’s clothing in the movie “The Passion Of The Christ” was a “drag show” (she was playing Satan) and went down hill from there.
Now he’s claiming that the “family friendly drag shows” aren’t “as bad as us stupid Christians are hearing”. 😡
Oh, I’ve blocked the idiot some time ago but I see the responses to the idiot.
Isn’t the term, “family friendly drag shows” an oxymoron?
Yes. 😡
I haven’t been in Baen’s bar in years, (I lost my login, and….) but I know PRECISELY who that is.
Too bad that the Moderators would object if I slew him with my Vorpal Blade. 😈
Been a while since I was on-Bar. Anyone I would know?
The left doesn’t just want people to obey, they want them to love Big Brother, and to boo, his and cheer as prompted by The Party. That is the reason they are doing this,
“Take a long walk off a short pier over the Mariana Trench, or the Grand Canyon. Take your pick.” Yep. My go along to get along has: Done left the building. Flown the coop. Scooted out the door. Is in hiding …. And my don’t give a S/F has fully taken over.
Sing along! 😀
I have no fks to give
My fks have all run dry
I tried to go fk shopping, but
There are no fks to buy…
That song is so funny. (If you haven’t seen it, a very dapper man with a banjo sings it, and it is very upbeat.)
Here it is, for your amusement and edification:
Those were all supposed to have asterisks in the middle — I have no f*ks to give — but WPDE used them to turn italics on and off.
If you put a backslash before a character that WordPress considers “special”, like asterisks, it will print it instead of using the default meaning. For example, here’s a line without any backslashes where I put asterisks in place of the letter o:
Hw nw, brwn cw?
Now here’s the same line with a backslash (\) in front of each asterisk:
H*w n*w, br*wn c*w?
And here’s that line showing how I wrote it to get the result above:
H\*w n\*w, br\*wn c\*w?
If only the WordPress template Sarah is using had a preview feature, it’d be much easier to catch these things. As it is, even though I’m confident I got the syntax right, I’m only 90% confident that it’ll come out the way I expect it to come out. Sigh…
Okay, that came out exactly the way I intended it to. Good.
I used the HTML code for ‘*’ — *
Or pyroclastic flow?
Have to find a “pyroclastic flow”. The ocean and canyons are more common. Heck, being in Oregon, I’d include Crater Lake, but the water there is pristine. Do not want to pollute the lake. At least the ocean has sharks for cleanup.
Please don’t use the Grand Canyon; the Colorado doesn’t need the pollution since it isn’t home to schools of piranha and trout have better taste. Ocean/sharks sounds right, although Florida gators or Maryland crabs would also work… 😉
From what I’ve heard about Amazon’s Tolkien fanfiction, those don’t do anything but scratch up people’s faces.
I’m picking out interesting spots no one would investigate for a while.
…For writing detective fiction! Honest!
What was that memorable line?
“Time to feed the hogs.”
Now, for humor that reads like prophecy six months to two years later, read “The Babylon Bee” web site.
THIS.
I advocate, and have always advocated, for every individual to have the same rights I claim for myself, no less, and no more.
Do I object to some of the things that happen at “pride” parades? Yes. But I would also object to those things (public displays of sexual behavior, genitalia in effigy, and so forth) if they were done by heterosexuals for heterosexual ends. I claim the right of my own personal choices of what to do in the bedroom (or kitchen, or hallway, or…) and allow others the same right. I do not claim the right to do it out on the street and “scare the horses.”
Do I object to “drag shows” for minors? Yes. But I would also object if it were female strippers doing the same kinds of things attired the same way in front of minors. I claim the right to present what entertainment I wish to for adults–including sexually charged entertainment (I don’t particularly plan on exercising that right–you’re welcome–but I claim the right). I don’t claim the right to do so in front of children.
Do I object to people being given unearned (as in they did nothing except being born to a certain group) preference for things like jobs, college entrance, etc? Yes. But I would also object to someone being given preference “just because he’s white” (as opposed to “has better test scores, better grades, demonstrated ability in the field, able to pay his own tuition without being a drain on finances that could help others, less/no criminal record, etc). I claim the right to be judged on my merits, not by the fact that my ancestors were oppressed by the English.
This, of course, in the eyes of the left, makes me Sexist, Racist, Transphobic, and every other “ist” and “phobe” out there.
If you take children, especially young ones, to Scores, the people doing so will be arrested for child endangerment and other such charges, and if the parents are the ones doing it, the children will be placed into protective services and the state will move to strip the parents of their parental rights of custody. Protest their being taken to a comparable drag show or something else that the woke crowd is pushing and the people protesting are denounced as literal Nazis.
There is a difference between what CONSENTING ADULTS do and are exposed to and children. Period.
Back in College 1.0, I was fussed at for objecting to a lesbian couple hard-core lip-locking in public. I replied that I also objected when it was straight people. I don’t want to see that level of intimacy, thank you. There’s a time and a place for everything, and that was neither.
My buddy blinked and allowed as how I had a good point. There’s a time and place for adult-themed stuff, be it trans, cis, gay, straight, your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine. The public square with kids around is not that place or time. Or with people who’d prefer not to be part of your thrill without giving advance permission, either.
The response, either way, is “Get a room.”
Yep.
Archaic.
Now, it is
Get an OnlyFans
“Do I object to some of the things that happen at “pride” parades? Yes. But I would also object to those things (public displays of sexual behavior, genitalia in effigy, and so forth) if they were done by heterosexuals for heterosexual ends.”
Agreed. I like sex. But I have no desire for even a drop dead gorgeous chick to try to do me on the sidewalk in downtown Portsmouth.
The Babylon Bee proving yet again it is a national treasuer:
https://babylonbee.com/news/democrats-fight-fascism-by-arresting-political-opponents
Babylon Bee
Read for the humor.
Re-read for the prophecy.
As each day goes by I find it harder and harder to even consider Liberals as anything more than modern day Nazi’s. Unfortunately the spark will soon come and those in the middle will no longer be able to ignore the Democrats and their Nazi ways. I pray that it will be a peaceful uprising, but I doubt it. You can vote Liberalism/Marxism/Nazism in, but you generally have to shoot your way out. And Fauci is the modern face of Dr. Mengle. May God have mercy on us all. Keep your powder dry.
No one voted them in. They’ve been frauding a long time.
No one voted for herpes.
Every time I see someone with their pronouns in their signature line I want to put “I’m a narcissistic mental health patient” in mine, just so they have to say those words if addressing me.