Sad Wings of Douchehattery
No, I don’t think I’ll ever let go your textbook example of literal gynophobia anytime soon. At least, not as long as you still keep trying to sell gender norms for women that went out of style about four hundred years ago.
Ross Douchehat, The New York Times is a Worthwhile Newspaper and Other Jokes:
The Daughter Theory
Holy fucking shit, first Bobo and now Douchehat with awkward apologia for think tank bullshit.
Did Krugthulu stomp around the NY Times office delivering smackdowns with a Cluebot 9000 or something? Because all the usual fuckwits seem to be licking their wounds about the fact that they are lifelong wingnut welfare hacks who wouldn’t know real science if it bit them on the taint.
And huzzah to that brave soul, whoever it was, that has them smarting so visibly as it’s at least got the cradle-to-grave shills to at least acknowledge the vile mess they’ve been leaving on the carpet and at least make some sort of half-hearted response.
And while, neither blow was wholly successful, they both seem to have left their share of psychic damage, reducing Bobo to a bizarre Two Face re-enactment as he tried to dodge self-awareness.
As for our favorite “Chunky Reese Witherspoon-fearing” gynophobe, his response is well…
Shorter (or the last port before Jungle):
- Are we complete hacks who cling to our think tank pseudoscience as if it was a life raft? Well, you love it when your so-called “real” science proves your point, so clearly this think tank piece I’m being asked to pimp arguing that everyone are stereotypical TV dads is super science and will make everyone a conservative and prevent us from ever having to drop our war on women so there!
Stupid? I think I’m going to go with stupid. But desperate would definitely be a close second.
FOR our age of wonks and white papers and warring experts,
Awww, he wants to pretend that the media debate between “think tanks” and actual scientific inquiry is a “debate” among equals.
That’s so self-delusional, it’s downright cute.
there ought to be a word — something just short of, though not shorter than, schadenfreude — for the gentle thrill inspired by a social-science finding that mildly unsettles one’s ideological opponents.
Being a complete hack?
I mean, yeah, I’m a giant fucking nerd who geeks out over interesting sociological research on the nature of social justice movements, or a fist-bump worthy queer theory or feminist theory paper, or hell, just a cool new development on mitochondrial DNAs affects on senescence and ageing.
But that’s because I care about genuine science. And view actual science as being more important than fighting an ideological “battle”.
In fact, that’s the case for most liberals in general. We want to accept the science and reality as it is rather than what would make it the easiest rhetorical argument. Whether that is the fact that queer people exist in a greater diversity of experiences than photogenic white people who want to marry in the suburbs with 2.5 children and a dog. Or the fact that catastrophic climate change isn’t just a nice round-the-year even increase in local temperatures but a massive clusterfuck of weather effects that adds up to an increase in “unusual” and “holy fucking shit is everything shifting around in a bad way”. Or even the fact that evolution doesn’t print a nice fat copyright on the side of each nucleus saying “no, there wasn’t a fucking God involved so shut your ignorant mouths”.
Reality isn’t ideologically convenient. It doesn’t fit nice little preconceived notions that don’t overly startle the gazelle-like sensibilities of privileged wankers. It’s a messy filthy mess that only becomes more intriguing and satisfying the more you morass yourself within its multitude of facets.
So no, most liberals don’t actually “thrill” to have a hack piece reinforce their preconceptions about conservatives or create a piece to make conservatives sputter.
It’s merely a happy side-effect of conservatives becoming increasingly aware that they can’t just stamp their little feet and make reality stop being so damn liberal just because they want it to.
And we already have a word for what observing that elicits. It’s schadenfreude.
I’m thinking of the satisfied tingle a liberal might get from a study that suggests high taxes are good for economic growth.
You’re just as bad as we are! Sure, your economic models are actually proven accurate again and again, whereas our fantasies collapse every single time they are tried, but uh… you’re just as bad as we are!
Or the spring added to a libertarian’s step by a report that environmental regulations hurt the poor.
This has pretty much been Douchehat’s dominant tactic since he was hired to be yet another wingnut affirmative action hire at the Old Grey Lady. Pairing off a complete fantasy of an IT’S ALWAYS PROJECTION with a very mild example of “conservative bad behavior” so as to argue that the true reality lies smack dab in the “middle” which just so happens to be whatever bit of sex-phobic nutjobbery his Church wants him to pimp this week.
I’d act shocked that people are paid 6-7 figure salaries to do work this shoddy and hacktastic, but I think I’m just numb to the insult by now.
Or the pleasure that I took recently from the headline: “Study: Having daughters makes parents more likely to be Republican.”
Why pleasure? Well, because previous research on this question had suggested the reverse, with parents of daughters leaning left and parents of sons rightward.
Well, what do you know, a “study” that’s not actually from any accredited university, but rather a think tank with a nasty habit of ignoring reality in order to defend the status quo disagrees with what the actual genuine sociological research on the subject says?
Well, that’s how you totally know it’s real and not just a smear piece designed to muddy the waters of discourse so that talking head hacks like you can tut-tut people who actually know what the fuck they are talking about for the benefit of the five or six people who still trust any news source outside of the Colbert Report and maybe Rachel Maddow.
I mean, fuck, he’s not even trying to hide the complete fail of this appeal to think tank. Straight up admitting that he’s latching onto it because it says what he wants to hear rather than what science has already concluded.
I don’t think I’m asking for much, when I ask that our hack overlords at least try to hide being willing to straight up fuck with our national understanding of science and academic research in order to score cheap ideological points.
And those earlier findings dovetailed neatly with liberal talking points about politics and gender: Republicans make war on women, Democrats protect them, so it’s only natural that raising girls would make parents see the wisdom of liberalism …
You know what?
Fine.
So it’s an inaccurate puff piece on a bit of think tank hackitude. That’s just how it works in these rock and roll shows, by which I mean on pretty much every page of the New York Times these days.
So instead of ripping apart yet another carefully chosen “counter-factual” bullshit story for aging octagenarians to angrily send to their kids, let’s just focus on the fact that even if you grant his ludicrous bullshit study as valid, his argument is fucking monstrous on its face.
I mean, fuck, look at his construction here. He is literally arguing that the idea that parents (and you know by parents, he is solely thinking “dads”) can love their daughters and view them as people who deserve to be treated as such is a liberal fucking talking point.
Which, hey, maybe that really is the sad reality we live in, but you’d expect like the barest glimpse of a smokescreen about it rather than a gleeful concession.
But the new study undercuts those talking points. Things are more complicated than you thought, liberals! You can love your daughters, want the best for them, and find yourself drawn to … conservative ideas!
You may think you love your daughters and want them to experience a life where they don’t have to fear that one broken condom could be a literal death sentence because of what a bunch of wanna be rapists think of the role of women in society, but HA, my made-up bullshit says you are naturally a sitcom dad nervously fingering a shotgun and aching to ban all sexuality in the hopes that it’ll prevent her from ever discovering kissing! TAKE THAT LIBERALS!
You’ll hate the filthy she-creatures as much as I do. YOU’LL SEE! YOU’LL SEE!!!
Especially if you’re highly educated, which is where the effect was strongest! Better dust off a different set of talking points — maybe something about the family as the source of all oppression and how deeply internalized patriarchal norms make parents subconsciously inclined to tyrannize their female offspring and then we can argue about that!
Yes, I’m afraid this is actually the kind of internal monologue that comes with arguing about politics for a living.
Two things:
A) Yes, if your study was real rather than the wishful thinking of a bunch of sexists, then yes, it would be a sign of a deep patriarchal rot that infantalizes and diminishes daughters and still views them as property instead of full human beings.
It would be a sign of a deep sickness in our very culture where women were regularly betrayed by their own families because loyalty to a disappearing system of gender norms was trumping the very notions of empathy and love.
So yeah, that would be a big fucking discussion point, Douchehat.
B) Maybe if you actually listened to the argument of those evil feminazis who apparently run in internal monologue in your head, instead of wondering how best to twist the argument to temporary rhetorical advantage, maybe you could take the first step to deconstructing your massive issues with sex and women and could begin the first step of becoming someone who was capable of friendships, much less love or humanity.
But let me make a more limited, more personal argument on the subject. The next round of research may “prove” something completely different about daughters and voting behavior. But as a father of girls
Oh fucking Bob, he’s a parent…
I don’t think any fact has ever filled me with such horror and empathetic pain as that in my entire life.
Those poor poor children.
Also, shock of shocks, paid hack latches onto made-up research that tells him that the way he is is totally the norm that everyone should be naturally.
NO ONE COULD HAVE PREDICTED!
and a parent whose adult social set still overlaps with the unmarried,
Wow, if that sentence was any more mangled in order to achieve maximum prudery, it’d be the hunk of wood jammed right up your ass right now.
I do have a sense of where a daughter-inspired conservatism might come from, whatever political form it takes.
It’s not narcissistic to assume everyone is exactly like me, right? Cause Jesus said some shit about being humble and I don’t want to get into trouble.
It comes from thinking about their future happiness, and about a young man named Nathaniel P.
This character, Nate to his friends, doesn’t technically exist: He’s the protagonist in Adelle Waldman’s recent novel of young-Brooklynite manners, “The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.”
But his type does exist, in multitudinous forms, wherever successful young people congregate, socialize, pair off. He’s not the worst sort of guy by any means — not a toxic bachelor or an obnoxious pick-up artist. He’s well intentioned, sensitive, mildly idealistic. Yet he’s also a source of immense misery — both short-term and potentially lifelong — for the young women in his circle.
“Contrary to what these women seemed to think,” Waldman writes of Nathaniel P.’s flings and semi-steady girlfriends, “he was not indifferent to their unhappiness. And yet he seemed, in spite of himself, to provoke it.”
Well, if random fiction books support… actually I don’t know what the hell this is supposed to support. Is this Nathaniel guy supposed to be a parent here or just the disaffected and romantically unsuccessful emo hero of pretty much every manic pixie dream girl story ever written?
He provokes it by taking advantage of a social landscape in which sex has been decoupled from marriage but biology hasn’t been abolished, which means women still operate on a shorter time horizon for crucial life choices — marriage, kids — than do men. In this landscape, what Nate wants — sex, and the validation that comes with being wanted — he reliably gets. But what his lovers want, increasingly, as their cohort grows older — a more permanent commitment — he can afford to persistently withhold, feeling guilty but not that guilty about doing so.
Heh.
BWAHAHAHA!
Wow! Not the idea presented in the mess of this paragraph, because that’s the same bullshit chestnut that evopsych con artists have been trying to push ever since the sexual revolution let the cat out of the bag about how women enjoy sex just as often and as much as men do. Men only want sex and women only want marriage because we’re hoping if we repeat that transparent falsity loudly enough everyone will kindly go back in their boxes and pretend the last 50 years of advancements for sexual rights never happened.
No, rather just how hilariously he tries to obscure his archaic gender norm argument by plumming the depths of his thesaurus and pulling out all his “one page argument into five page paper” essay writing tactics.
It’s just such a wonderful train wreck of mediocrity failing ambition that I can’t help but applaud it for its raw gumption.
Waldman’s portrait of Nate’s romantic life is sympathetic enough to have earned her fan mail from young men. But it’s precisely because Nate is sympathetic rather than toxic that the “Nathaniel P.” phenomenon — or what Rebecca Traister has dubbed “the scourge of indecisive men” — is a hard problem to escape.
I’m sorry, but I’m a little younger than your argument, so I have a hard time believing that the “scourge of indecisive men” was ever a serious problem, much less a problem that a meaningful number of women or men my age give a fuck about.
This is an era where no one blinks if you’ve been dating 5 years with no current plans for marriage (or even no plans on marrying ever), but chokes on their tea a little bit if you start talking about tying the knot without even dating for a year.
Everyone is getting the “sex for free”, i.e. not giving a shit about a particularly unromantic view of marriage as a duty one performs for gender norms and not worrying overly much about what a bunch of vagina-phobic prudes think is “proper”.
Indeed, it seems like one of the hidden taproots of well-educated women’s work-life-balance angst, and one of the plausible explanations for declining female happiness in a world of expanded female opportunity.
Well, if made-up bullshit think tank pieces and afactual evopsych “research” says it’s so, who are we to argue?
Clearly, all the women are unhappy because Mr. Right (because all women are heterosexual or they get the hose again) is dithering too long on the ring because of all the sex he can get if he’s not tricking a woman into an institution she hates and…
Yeah, seriously, who do you even think you’re going to fool with this garbage. It’s 2013. You’re not going to get your fictional 50s society back no matter how much you beg the Sky God.
And lurking in Waldman’s novel, as in many portraits of the dating scene (ahem, Lena Dunham, ahem), is a kind of moral traditionalism that dare not speak its name
Well, duh.
Any form of media is going to beholden to demands to cater to media tropes, many of which are far more archaic than the general pulse of the population.
Look at abortion for instance. By media depiction, it is a horror show and everyone is against the barbaric practice. By movie depiction, it is an option very seldom considered and when it is, it is always rejected because no director has the ovaries to stand behind the reality. And the reality is that 1 in 3 women get an abortion in the course of their lives. It’s just another routine surgery that a bunch of bigots decided to turn into a battleground in the hopes of turning back the clock and making women back into house slaves.
And it’s the same for relationship tropes. Look at actual instances of open relationships, BDSM practices in the bedroom, open dialogues about sex, non-normative gender norm dynamics and then look at what dominates our media representation of what a “husband and wife” looks like. How they have “sex”. What their relationship “looks like”.
What we see is often something that no one is.
But that doesn’t stop conservative idiots like you, unable to distinguish between media narrative and reality, from pointing to this bullshit narrative as if it was the way everybody be.
— or that can be spoken of only in half-jest, as when the novelist Benjamin Kunkel told Traister that the solution was “some sort of a sexual strike against just such men.”
Because Kunkel is right: One obvious solution to the Nathaniel P. problem is a romantic culture in which more is required of young men before the women in their lives will sleep with them.
Very true. I imagine it would solve a lot of problems if a man had to demonstrate a strong understanding of consent and basic respect for their partner’s autonomy before ever being allowed within 50 feet of anyone’s sex organs. Hell, if that was true for everyone without regards for sex. It is appalling that in this day and age, there are so many people who seem wholly ignorant and even hostile to the notion of consent and-
Oh… you mean some bullshit about being super fundie Christian and being the type of complete dick who’d freak out a prospective sexual partner because she was respectful enough of herself and her romantic partner to ensure that there was proper barrier protection instead of risking STDs and pregnancy so that repressed closet cases could pretend they’re “clean” for sexy shirtless Jesus…
Well, okay then. I’m sure that’s nice too, I guess…
To the extent that parents tend to see the next generation’s world through their children’s eyes, that’s an insight that’s more immediately available through daughters than through sons.
I don’t even know what the fuck he’s trying to say here. But hey, that’s probably already more thought given to this paragraph than Douchehat ever did.
And no matter what the next study says about your likelihood of actually turning into a Republican, once you’ve flirted with that insight, you’ve tiptoed a little closer to something that might be described as social conservatism.
Okay, fine, you’re right, damn you, it’s a transparent hack job so I can fuck off for Christmas an extra day early. And sure, it’s a meaningless think tank piece that does nothing to change the reality that surrounds us or make my fantasies into reality, but we can pretend can’t we?
That everyone is going to wake up one morning and realize they’ve been conservative all along and we can have the permanent Republican majority we were promised without ever ever having to change with the times?
We can do that, right?
Even if you live in Brooklyn.
Oh holy fuck, I might have to get a real job sometime in my lifespan…
I think I just wet myself.
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. ~Bring your daughters to the slaughter!~ We are aware of all Internet traditions.™
Do stop trolling my blog “Cerberus”.
I should think a 3-headed dog could be on 3 blogs.
Oops, new thread… Cerberus, happy holidays and please read my little note to you at the end of the last thread…
Dogman-
Dafuq?
The problem is that the media reinforces his delusions.
But the new study undercuts those talking points. Things are more complicated than you thought, liberals! You can love your daughters, want the best for them, and find yourself drawn to … conservative ideas!
And you can love your daughter and want what’s best for them but think that the “best” must be nothing other than finding a good man to “submit” to in a traditional marriage because that’s what the Baby Jesus would want and it’s for her own good… as many kids figure out soon enough, the parent’s idea of “what’s best for you” doesn’t necessarily track with what you want or what is in fact best for you.
I mean, even if this study is accurate, so what? If there are more people with daughters who are conservatives than liberals, how does that prove that the daughters are somehow better off under their upbringing? Heck, what in there even proves that those parents “love their daughters and want what’s best for them?” You don’t even have to wonder about the accuracy of the survey to wonder how the fuck he made that leap.
Well, if random fiction books support…
24 proves torture works and ticking time bomb scenarios are real! Liberal appeasers want to tie Jack Bauer’s hands!
Andy Griffith Show proves 1950s happiest and most family-valued of all!
Star Wars demonstrates laser weapon satellites can shoot down
ImperialSoviet ICBMs!Murphy Brown evidence that American women no longer uphold family values!
The Bible… well.
Because Kunkel is right: One obvious solution to the Nathaniel P. problem is a romantic culture in which more is required of young men before the women in their lives will sleep with them.
The “modern” romantic culture you’re criticizing requires exactly one thing of young men before the women in their lives will sleep with them – the women’s consent.
That alone makes it superior to all the old-fashioned gentlemanly bullshit you and your kind have been wringing your hands in nostalgia for.
there ought to be a word — something just short of, though not shorter than, schadenfreude — for the gentle thrill inspired by a social-science finding that mildly unsettles one’s ideological opponents.
“Confirmation bias boner.” Enjoy! But in private next time, please.
Once my very young daughters reach age of legal consent, I sincerely hope I won’t be nearly as interested in their sex lives as Douthat thinks I should be.
Having checked out Dogman’s blog Cerb, I can only assume the voices in his head told him that you were trolling him. The same ones that suggest some kind of conspiracy related to an MP being photographed with the leader of his party…
Let’s test this theory.
I’ve got two daughters. Nope. Still a Democrat.
PENIS
I must say that Mr.Douchehat–if that is his real name–misapprehends much of the novel in which I dwell. (Alas, this defect is shared by most superficial readers.)
Moreover, I resent being simplifed to a crude cartoon merely to support his defective political ideology and sophomoric ‘logic’. For example, the authentic Nataniel P. (me) strongly supports vigorous science … an entire branch of knowledge apparently unknown to Mr. Douchehat.
In my estimation, this Douchehat guy is a complete doofus … and a clunky writer to boot!
— Nataniel P.
Three daughters for me, and I still know conservatism is nothing more than a mystical religion that is completely detached from reality.
“To the extent that parents tend to see the next generation’s world through their children’s eyes, that’s an insight that’s more immediately available through daughters than through sons.”
Dunno what this means either, but just in case somebody should make sure to check in on Douchehat if he buys lotion and a basket. 😉
I’m sorry, what? I think ol’ Ross is stating (as if it were true) that parents successfully see their kid’s world through said kid’s eyes. Sorry, try again. The good parents try, but they’re still carrying around the baggage their parents and their culture freighted them with.
As for that “having daughters makes you conservative, so suck it libs,” “study” he’s waving around, I just have to say, anecdotally (which is every bit as scientific as his study is – which is to say not very), that both my parents started off pretty conservative/fundie, and despite having daughter(s), wound up pretty damn liberal. Likewise at least one of my stepfathers, my stepmother, various stepsisters, my sister, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera – all pretty liberal, whether they started that way or not. And that’s just my (rather extended) immediate family.
update: shiite catholic unfriends me on facebook…did not like comment that if pre-marital homo or hetero fornication was def a sin that would land you in hell, pretty much 80% of the world was going to be mighty toasty after they die…and if you consider the shellfish and mixed textiles, well, we are all gonna burn…
also, this too: loltroll!
did not like comment that if pre-marital homo or hetero fornication was def a sin that would land you in hell, pretty much 80% of the world was going to be mighty toasty after they die. My mom’s sex talk to me was basically “save it until you are married”. Even at 13 (in the 1970’s), I thought it was a pretty stupid concept.Still not married and didn’t save it.
my mom’s advice was pretty much the same…literally, her sex talk was ‘don’t have sex until you’re married.’ literally, that was it.
re: children make you who you vote for…i have one daughter and one boy…so what does that make me?
I was going to say “A Paulite?” and duck, but that doesn’t really work, as the Pauls, pere et fils, are not conservatives only in the world inhabited by the Village.
actually, it makes me very tired mother…the daughter hosted hubbkf’s side of the family for christmas at a local hotel…she’s super good at planning things, but the actual work…not so much…to be fair, she was just so thrilled to be with her cousins and aunts and uncles that it was a joy to watch her…’twas a successful soiree…complete with pranks (conning ‘uncle borat’ into trying the sriracha vodka) seeing grandma and grandpa beam with pride at their legacy-and join us in the hotel bar and dance to johnny horton-and falling in love with our great-nieces and nephews…but man, it was a lot of work! next time, we’re going catered…
Shorter Douche Rosshat:
Neckbeard’s point then, such as it is, is
& his subtext is that young women need an entire novel as well as a lecture from him to wise up (He doesn’t think women hear that biological clock ticking? Really, Ross?) & start holding out for a ring before any humping?
Also: Marriage & children (“Kids” are young goats, dou-ché.) are options, not “crucial life choices.” No one’s going to die any earlier because they didn’t marry or reproduce, & the species won’t disappear from the Earth if a few hipsters in Brooklyn become hip spinsters.
I wonder how many girls back in the day married just so they could finally see what their forbidden romance novels were talking about?
I wonder how many girls back in the day married just so they could finally see what their forbidden romance novels were talking about? .
Sorry about the double post. Typepad kept telling me I hadn’t typed a comment.
It’s WordPiss, but it blows either way.
— or that can be spoken of only in half-jest, as when the novelist Benjamin Kunkel told Traister that the solution was “some sort of a sexual strike against just such men.” Because Kunkel is right: One obvious solution to the Nathaniel P. problem is a romantic culture in which more is required of young men before the women in their lives will sleep with them. To the extent that parents tend to see the next generation’s world through their children’s eyes, that’s an insight that’s more immediately available through daughters than through sons.
Mr. D-Hat, from my point of view, seems to be getting his causation backwards here. He seems to be arguing that parents become more conservative in order to protect their daughters from a culture they see as hostile to women’s interests. However, only someone already conservative would see the kind of cultural trends mentioned above as bad for women. So, the more sensible conclusion here would be that being a conservative and having a daughter in a time of social liberalization makes you more conservative than you were already.
I have a daughter too and I will follow whichever political party is willing to put some god damn resources into the local distribution grid. Having fled one darkened icy hellscape of downed trees, our new sanctuary is now also without power.
Happy fucking Christmas. We’re going to have partially thawed turkey. Fortunately the stuff in the fridge is still good because our stupid home heating furnaces need a stable grid connection to keep people from freezing in the dark. If anything, it’s probably warmer inside the refrigerator.
Douthat’s piece is dumb-n-shallow, which is too bad — I was gonna say because the topic deserves better, but its specific topic is embarrassingly bad, and he seems at least fairly serious about it:
Things are more complicated than you thought, liberals! You can love your daughters, want the best for them, and find yourself drawn to … conservative ideas!
Drawn, yes! to Benghazi, Birtherism, Obama-as-muslim, -as-commie, -as-purposeful-destroyer-of-USA, & c. & c.
I kid. I’m sure there are conservative ideas a decent parent can be drawn to. I just wanted to note that plenty of modern US conservativism has jack-all to do with parenting, at least directly. Indirectly, who wants to raise a daughter in a smoking wasteland lorded-over a black commie muslim who keeps sacrificing our diplomats on the defenseless foreign altars to Baphomet he insists on calling “embassies”?
ooooh…chistmas by candlelight…how lovely!*
*no, not really
Lorded over BY.
Nobody, that’s who. I could countenance some sort of “boy named Sue” scenario, but you don’t raise a girl in an Obamascape!
biology hasn’t been abolished, which means women still operate on a shorter time horizon for crucial life choices — marriage, kids — than do men
Ah, marriage and reproduction: two things men care nothing about. Did his wife and kids know?
Interesting “not getting the point” FAIL that Douchehat engages in here. The “War on Women” is about GOP and social conservatives paternalistic authoritarian streak to control all aspects of a woman’s life – especially regarding her sexuality. That the “War” being waged here isn’t about lawmakers physically assualting women in a literal sense (although legally mandated transvaginal rape probes do cross that line) but rather a “War” on treating women as human beings able to make their own choices and granted the basic dignity of control over their own bodies.
In this sense, the idea that parents of daughters in a society where there is a standard construct that daughters need to be protected – totally consistent. All Ross is really saying is that parents who view their daughters as property which needs to be guarded against the ravening masses agree with the views of a political party that views all women as chattel. Whoop-dee-do.
It’s his abject failure to understand or accept women as full human beings and not as some sort of item whose sole purpose is to help define a man’s role in society – that’s the only reason he can view his “Gotcha!” as some sort of “Gotcha!”.
did not like comment that if pre-marital homo or hetero fornication was def a sin that would land you in hell, pretty much 80% of the world was going to be mighty toasty after they die.
Curtis said it best.
Ice Storm Update.
I have reports that they’ve restored power at the Dragon-Castle. Christmas is not ruined after all. Will likely be hosting the in-laws overnight as LEAFS SUCKians have now reverted to a nomadic lifestyle, following the hydro crews from one restored area to the next.
Anyways, that’s just what I hear. I am now safely ensconced at the office which has plenty of electrics and heat and coffee[1]. For all I know, we may be plunged back into darkness again at any moment. And the forecast is for temperatures to drop throughout the day with a low of -10 C (or about 14 Fahrenheit) overnight.
[1] Yes it is office coffee, but pretty fricking amazing for office coffee – i.e. almost drinkable!
So, not the usual corporate swill? Lucky you.
You missed an opportunity for a full paleo xmas, huddled around a fire of downed tree limbs scorching half thawed turkey pieces.
Here we are hours away from what may be a fatal drop in temperatures at a time when something like a quarter million homes are without power in LEAFS SUCK. Our mayor is nowhere to be found. Probably a good thing, as the odds of him actually doing anything helpful are slim. Fortunately we have had some experience with working around the drug abusing alcoholic we have as mayor. We’re pressing on without him.
I can see a new reality show Survivor Toronto in the making.
Here’s my Girl Named Baracka scenario, an exercise in tough love:
You’re a conservative dad, see. (Nevermind mom.) But you vote Obama as part of a “long game” to produce the toughest-possible conservative daughter. She’s spawned just before or during the Obama presidency, or at least prior to the dictatorship that will follow his second term. Next you abandon your family ASAP, or kick young Baracka out, point being she’s on her own. She wanders the blighted Obamascape, kicking hippies’ asses and raising hell, but moreover looking for the cruel bastard that voted wrong and named her Baracka. Finally she tracks you down, and says “Well how do you do! I’m conservative too!” and kicks your ass while saying all kinds of wingnut stuff, as good as you’ve ever heard or better. You’re so proud you declare yourself World’s Best Wingnut Dad.
This would make much more sense if the media had stuck with calling crystal meth “ice”.
It’s not really that bad (yet). It’s still only about -4C and the freezing rain has stopped. In Scarberia, it’s more than half the traffic lights that are out but the majority of drivers are treating it like a four-way stop, as we are required to. Not only that, but most are also treating the four-way stops as ones where yahoos will blow by without slowing – i.e. very cautiously.
Transit is still running, although not in its usual severely undercapacity fashion. Fortunately, most folks are huddled at the homes of the family and friends they have who do have power.
The surrounding area seems much less crippled. Enersource is the local utility here in Mississauga where my office is. They have around 500 customers without power. Powerstream runs things north of the city and they are in pretty good shape too.
Looks like a lot of the issues are due to the fact that the infrastructure in LEAFS SUCK is older and more worn. So it’s just that there is a lot of work for Toronto Hydro to tackle in the next couple of days. I don’t know if an official declaration of a State of Emergency by White Bronco would change things at all. Our local distribution companies already have agreements in place to lend work crews in situations like this.
They also have some sort of triage system figured out too. The high rises without elevators or active water pumps are high on the list, so they should be back online soon. I think they’ve already managed to restore the two hospitals which had to switch to back-up generators.
IOW, if they did do a LEAFS SUCK Survivor series, it would be not so different from most things in LEAFS SUCK. Boring[1].
[1] With notably rare mayoral exceptions.
Oh look, Ross is cheerleading a ‘study’ that seems to confirm his retrograde attitudes toward women and society. But our boy Ross doesn’t do science, so all he cares about is the ‘seems to support’part.
Also, is there a freaking difference between Ross Douthat and Rod Dreher? Why does the media need two pasty faced young voices all too eager to embrace the prejudices of the previous generation in order to cling to white christian male privilege? Is the existence of one of them not a sufficient embarrassment of the reputation of generation x? Is a freaking surprise that the system which created these wunderkinder and supported them in a fashion wildly in excess of their alleged talents, is endorsed by these same legacy hires? Why the fuck wouldn’t they be conservative? From their point of view the system is working, it has rewarded their obvious talent and hard work in the field of advanced brown-nosing. What I can’t understand is why anyone would pay to listen to them. What possible insight could they offer to the rest of the world, that we couldn’t get cheaper by reading any one of William F Buckley’s old columns with the names changed to reflect the scapegoat du jour? If someone like Substance would work up a Janusnode program, and fed it some old Bill Buckley and George
Will, he could churn this bilge out in half the time with twice the insight.
Why does the media need two pasty faced young voices all too eager to embrace the prejudices of the previous generation in order to cling to white christian male privilege? Is the existence of one of them not a sufficient embarrassment of the reputation of generation x?
That’s one of the foundational tenets of conservatism. The most famous of which is “I got mine, fuck you,” but only slightly less well known is this: “if one of something is
goodsomething we like, more is better.” Money. Tax cuts. Bombs. Morale-improving beatings. Torture sessions. Military spending. Austerity measures. Condescending pep talks to galvanize the poor into not being poor.Also, I wanna challenge Jonah Goldberg and Rich Lowry to a contest. We all put on plaid onesie pajamas and drink hot cocoa on a level playing field, and people get to vote on who’s the most masculine and sexy. I don’t care if I lose (I wouldn’t lose), it’d just be fun watching them suffer, because obviously this sort of thing pushes their buttons. I would not be suffering. I’d be cozy as hell and giving every indication of relaxing in the catbird seat.
I mean look — hasn’t Prince (the artist), among others, disproved the notion that women only find conventional masculinity sexy? Or whatever they’re on about; I don’t get it.
Re: Pajama Boy, how are conservative men not painfully aware that they’re having an insular douche-versation amongst themselves that’s as catty as anything the females of the species have meowed toward their perceived lessers? I can’t decide if it’s a circle jerk or a circular firing squad. Clueless twits. Any random gay dude that’s rocked a pair of assless chaps has more balls than the whole lot of shits that piled onto Pajama Boy.
I kid. I’m sure there are conservative ideas a decent parent can be drawn to
None of this works without a definition of what these ideas might be.
But if they’re the ideas I keep hearing:
NO access to birth control because that promotes fucking like bunnies
NO sex until marriage for WOMEN, but boys will be boys
Gray areas in the definition of rape
NO abortions under any circumstances, NO Plan B pill
Yeah, no, I’m not drawn to any of these ideas.
The ideas I’m drawn to are teaching girls to respect themselves, and to be happy with who they are so that they don’t feel they have earn the adoration of teenage boys by giving them sex. Also, letting them make their own decisions and being there as an objective NOT HYSTERICAL sounding board for advice…
Not really anything conservative or liberal about those ideas.
Since this “study” supposedly says “Having daughters makes parents more likely to be Republican” and since there are more female exotic dancers in the world than male exotic dancers, we can infer, using the “pulled-it-outta-my-ass-conservative-style-transitive-property-of-argumentation” that “Being Republican means your child will end up pole dancing down at the Pink Clam.”*
Q.E.D. mothafucka.
*Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Yeah, that’s the weirdest nontroversy I’ve ever seen. “OMG, dude in pajamas! Hot cocoa! Health care! IT’S CLEARLY THE END OF THE WORLD!!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!!eleven!!!!!!! AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH[cough]HHHHHHhhhhhh[cough, sputter, die].”
NO access to birth control because that promotes fucking like bunnies
Obviously in the same manner that seat belts promote head-on collisions.
Fucking like bunnies makes Jesus have a sad unless you’re married.
I knew the daughter of a minister who used to fool around with her boyfriend before they got engaged or married, they probably did everything except the PiV to keep her ‘technically’ pure. It’s just another line for the rubes to follow.
Q.O.T.D.
John Fugelsang.
Not really anything conservative or liberal about those ideas.
Right … later I said that conservatism has jack-all to do with parenting, and cited Benghazi, etc., but I didn’t supply any positive examples of conservative ideas a good parent could be drawn to. I couldn’t think of any, all I could do was imagine stripping away some unrelated wingnut excesses and hope some decent parenting was clinging to the skeleton.
I think there are still people out there (way out there) who are still making that argument about seatbelts and crumple zones and other safety engineeting in cars. I suspect there’s a fairly significant overlap, come to think of it.
This is actually the second major weather scenario[1] for LEAFS SUCK since Crackgate broke. And it marks two out of two instances where the Rob Ford parody account has done a better job than the Rob Ford’s actual Twitter.
Incidentally, one thing the city is doing is opening “reception centres” for people to warm up in. The one located near my place? Had to close because they lost power.
[1] The other one was the big flood that washed out two major Transmission Stations (Manby and Richview).
they probably did everything except the PiV to keep her ‘technically’ pure.
Saddlebacking.
Right … later I said that conservatism has jack-all to do with parenting,
I was meaning to enhance your point, not criticize it.
More to my added point: When my daughters are in crisis, I don’t watch Rachel Maddow to figure what to do about it, and anyone who listens to Rush for this or any other reason is a total toolshed in serious need of some high school level education.
I get a bit ticked off when conservatives try to hijack good ideas, too.
It’s common knowledge that the single method that is 100% effective in preventing pregnancy and STDs is abstinence with an encouragement to take care one’s own business. But then conservatives have to get all down on masturbation (probably because they’re so sexually broken that even masturbation feels icky to them, I don’t know)…
So, in short, conservatives suck at everything except being self congratulatory, egocentric busybody douchenozzles with creepy persecution complexes.
So, in short, conservatives suck at everything except being self congratulatory, egocentric busybody douchenozzles with creepy persecution complexes.
And chronic proctalgia. Don’t forget teh butthurt.
A southerner with a brain (YES, they do exist) talks about Fuck Dynasty
It’s a good watch. Found it on Kos, but I refuse to link that to butthole.
Conservatism has jack-all to do with parenting? Sadly, no…
Guess which parents use corporal punishment the most?
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2657502?uid=3739448&uid=2460338175&uid=2460337935&uid=2&uid=3737720&uid=4&uid=83&uid=63&sid=21103249220893
I get a bit ticked off when conservatives try to hijack good ideas, too.
They do nothing else. Their economics are a bastardization of Adam Smith, their religion is a bastardization of Jesus of Nazareth, their politics are a bastardization of the Founding Fathers… “Conservatism is the blind and fear-filled worship of dead radicals.”
There’s a popular Christian opinion that the devil cannot create, he can only corrupt. Good an explanation as any.
Eugene Delgaudio may be in trouble:
Only posted that because I was going through the spam folder and read his account of the threat to his miserable life.
I was meaning to enhance your point, not criticize it.
I thought so, but I got kinda nervous after you quoted me writing “I’m sure there are conservative ideas a decent parent can be drawn to.”
I wasn’t even drunk yet, at the time!
Only posted that because I was going through the spam folder and read his account of the threat to his miserable life.
This Eugene Delgaudio believes in short paragraphs.
I sometimes resort to that sort of formatting, but wow, that account of the threat to his miserable life could use a few less carriage returns, or whatever the kids are calling them these days.
but I got kinda nervous after you quoted me writing
I didn’t think too hard about what I was writing. Didn’t mean for it to sound like I was refuting your statement.
Christ almighty, but Delgaudio is long-winded. Anyway, where’s a Homosexual Lobby located? I figure they’ll sell better quality stuff than Hobby Lobby.
I don’t reckon you’d buy stuff in a Homosexual Lobby. You’d relax there in comfort, amid tasteful furnishings.
read his account of the threat to his miserable life.
wow…dude…a good fundraising letter makes an ask 3 time…not a billion…and yeah, what’s with the short paragraphy? i’m guessing eugene would make a fabulous fire and brimstone preacher…or quite possibly he are one in his spare time…
Since this “study” supposedly says “Having daughters makes parents more likely to be Republican” and since there are more female exotic dancers in the world than male exotic dancers, we can infer, using the “pulled-it-outta-my-ass-conservative-style-transitive-property-of-argumentation” that “Being Republican means your child will end up pole dancing down at the Pink Clam.”*
we watched ‘lovelace’ last night…textbook example…
New post
Douthat’s just getting an early start on the Yuletide absinthe.
I was just out in Arizona visiting family and they have a number of christianist teevee chanels like the kinds with which we are familiar on the East Coast.
But one channel seemed to be targeted at kids: tween and teenagers. It depicted them discussing whether or not to have sex in little scenes where the kids were in groups and alone. It showed the angst of the girls and the understanding and agreement of the boys that holding hands and a lot of kissing would be enough to satisfy their attachment to each other.
Well, either these kids’ hormones have not yet kicked in or they are projections of what their repressed parents would like to believe teenagers are like: because once a young couple start getting physical they stop talking like dweebs and just go with the flow.
Maybe a few kids will watch this stuff and believe it, but I have a hunch the show will mostly only make the parents relax once they have had the “talk”.