I am happy to say that I know nothing about all of the subjects mentioned today. One of the wonderfull things about being old is that not much is important and it's all small stuff.
oh, buddy - you do realize that, with that post, the Beltway's algorithm just flagged you as a potential challenger to the Orange Man in next year's election, don't you? :-)
Yes, but two things in it have value: Haruki Murakami books, and the Nick Cave book. At this point in our massive-worldwide-psychotic-break-of-an-excuse-for-a-life, we probably need to look at a few good things. Took a walk this morning, just to get out in nature. It was a good decision.
That was my thought too! I’m so happy I’m old and have learned that being blinded by shiny objects you don’t need equals boxes of crap to get rid of once you discover that you don’t use them because...you really didn’t need them.
The only thing this old person saw that seemed like it might have some substance was Bari’s book. The link didn’t tell me much except that it was about some rock star named Cave. A little searching led me to this:
This Catholic publication was very informative and I think this guy’s spirituality opens some new ideas even for a cradle Episcopalian who is thoroughly traditional.
Idk if the comment about Nellie is serious, but the gun range is hella fun and it's comforting to know I can defend myself because my government cannot.
Very sad to hear that so many of the FP folks are spending their time watching TV.
GO OUTSIDE. Go for a walk. Go fishing or get some cider. Go for a drive. Do anything other than watch that god damned TV!
I am perplexed by the power that progressive white women have on our culture. Beckham is a British Soccer star and has a beautiful wife, kids, and success. In the past, we needed people to emulate and admire. Then they came along with their rage and joined with the wacky POC progressive crowd and the weak weasel men who loved them. We have modern culture—the battle over "toxic" masculinity and even we have to acknowledge this stupidity. From BLM, the trans movement, to the speech codes on campus, all of this runs back to paying attention to a fringe group of people who somehow have become the clergy of modern society. Is this due to the loss of power of faith and the void in these people's hearts, and their proximity to power gave them actual power? For me, I will never watch Beckham, but I will cheer on success and allow men to be men. I always love that the group at the Free Press are proud warriors against the Woke White Women (W3?) and give a place for the majority to push back. P.S. No Flip for me, but it's good to know what the youngsters are doing.
Albert, I've always been a soccer hater, nothing but (American) football for me, from middle school on. I knew nothing about Beckham and assumed he was another arrogant pri*. But my wife and I watched Beckham and now I absolutely love the guy. Almost wish I'd have played soccer instead. You might want to give the documentary a try.
I rarely click on a link while reading comments. Today I did and I am glad I did. Thank you for sharing this well-written commentary. I will be passing it on.
Those women SAY that they prefer weasel men, but then they go and marry Alpha Males, because they offer comfort and protection. Notice, I didn't say "love".
Note, too, that every woman who's a 5 or less feel she "deserves" a 10 like Beckham. That and their idiotic rules such as 666, which is truly a devilish pact. Feminism gone mad - and the attempted feminization of boys and men - is responsible for most of our problems today.
Maybe, but remember the story I told of being in college, when a bunch of us were wondering how the campus clown was squiring around a 10 on his arm and our female colleague looked at us with disgust and said, witheringly, "because he asked her you idiots." In my experience, most guys shrink from asking out - or even talking to - a beautiful woman.
I'm sure that's true. But, I have seen a lot of comments putting down women in general though for their looks, and indicating that soon they will the hit the wall and be lonely and desperate (whilst the commenter will have the attention of all the young'uns of course). I'm not saying that's universal at all. And it may be 'cope'. But, it points to the idea that both men and women (or rather a small amount of them) consider they could find a more attractive partner than they might be considered themselves.
But so do the modern day incels. They're antisocial, festering with anger mainly against women because they blame women and girls for their pathetic incel lives. Yet they think they deserve the 10s and they're enraged that the 10s won't shower attention all over them and worship them as kings. And then they consider women and girls less than 10 as subhumans, not even women.
Incel is a word in the Anglo-American lexicon now. Been for years. It's even in the American Webster dictionary. Though the dictionary says in incel can be a "her" too, I'm pretty sure those "hers" are males who adopted "she/her" pronouns.
Woke progressives are the cause of tons of problems today, but I always find the point about progressive women making men weak illogical. Yes the "toxic masculinity" thing has gone over the line to parody. But at the end of the day, do men ever listen to women's demand? I really don't see it. Sure, criticize progressive women and the shitty causes they push now. But I just don't see men suddenly folding over and say ok we'll become weak now. In fact, I see tons of men like you saying all the time how much they despise it.
Men have to voluntarily choose to be weak for them to be weak. Women can't force them. Yes there's truth in what you said about the cultural hold they have today. But men don't just buckle over and become weak because women tell them to. If that's the case, there'd be no more rape or domestic violence.
What I suspect is making men today voluntarily choosing to be weak is something else with much greater cultural hold over men: Pornhub. Just about all Millennials and GenZ men are exposed to it or addicted to it. And the highest watched type of porn now is trans porn, as in the shemale type. It's probably spreading the social contagion of autogynephilia to men and introducing them to the idea of indulging in sexual fantasies of being women. If anything, Pornhub is way way more likely to have influence over men and persuading them to explore their feminine side than progressive women and cultural police who turn them off.
I always thought it's more important to teach our girls how to fight, since it may save their lives. I don't know why self defense class is not mandatory for girls.
Nothing like popping some caps and tearing shit up to unwind!
Too bad California has a ton of idiotic gun laws. It’ll take you months to get a carry permit, as compared to a week or two for most of the free states.
California is lost! Not only are they 75% Democrat, they also own ALL of the state elective offices! Despite that, they are becoming disenchanted with said Party, but if you think that means that they are re-looking at Republicans, forget it! They are talking Third Party! Yes, Californians are LOST!
Well, Miss N, you know the old saw: God made men and women; Sam Colt made 'em equal. Just remember, though - if you ever have to pull it in anger, pull it blazing.
I had carpel tunnel surgery on Wednesday, so I've been at forced leisure. Watching The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett (which was far better than I anticipated). Also reading a rather long and boring fantasy novel that I can't quite bring myself to DNF.
Get well soon! And use the dictation function on your keyboard more …😉
Wokeism is destroying literature. Starting in 2020 or 2021, it became harder and harder to find anything interesting to download on my local library’s website. Suddenly, nearly everything they were offering was from the Woke cannon (preachy, racialist, etc.). And things haven’t gotten better. Frankly, books have been savaged by sensitivity readers, who have given everything a flat, uninteresting tone, and changed plot development to favor certain ideas and categories of people. What a bore!
I just DNF’ed the last two books I picked up, out of frustration with these trends. Prior to the Woke era, I would DNF less than once a year. Back in the 80s, novels that had been shortlisted for the Booker prize were almost guaranteed to be worth reading. Now, they are almost guaranteed to be unreadable. Just more propaganda being propagated.
Try reading historical fiction. I escape to historical fiction for books and historical period dramas now for TV because I'm sick of woke infesting everything. And if you like horror fiction I can recommend some good podcasts tool
We’ve been completely surrounded by horror for the past decade or so (with a rapid escalation in the past few years), so I’ll pass on that.😉
Pre-2000 historical fiction would be a good choice, but the contemporary stuff is polluted by Wokeism (for example, a black Jarl on “Vikings”, the cringefest that is “Bridgerton”, absurdly inaccurate love between an indigenous dude and a “White Settler Colonizer” in “1883”…the list goes on and on). The books coming out now contain similar historical gaffes, especially with respect to women’s roles, religion’s role in society at that time, not to mention racial issues.
When one lives in an age where teachers are trying to take “To Kill a Mockingbird” off the curriculum because it “centers on Whiteness”…we’re probably just too far gone. But pre-2000 stuff should be okay. I’ve been contemplating rereading “A Suitable Boy”; at least on Kindle I won’t have to hold up a 10lb book for hours!
Considering how iffy the dictation function on DuoLingo is, I have little to no interest in exploring any other!
I subscribe to Kindle Unlimited. That generally gives me a lot of fantasy and Regency romance books from authors I'm already fond of. Occasionally I try a new author, and sometimes I am pleasantly surprised.
I've gotten very good at scanning book descriptions for signs of Wokeness. And I avoid "popular fiction" and "modern literature" like the plague. Even non-fiction is dubious unless it was published before 2000.
There's 200+ years of wonderful English-language literature, though.There's no need to read anything written after like 1930 and still have a lifetime of brilliant literature to read.
Well mostly. Will never make a complete fist again or straighten fully-but for the most part am not too impeded. PT twice a week until last week and was done. Bright side is my left hand does things I never thought possible. But when you talked about your husband’s hand and your surgeries for CT I wondered what about this year, 2023 makes it the hand year? I’m sure it must be related to the COVID shots-lol.-and oh, I’ll NEVER play pickle ball again.(accident on court)
I had my dominant hand done back in June, because it was worse by far--numb fingers and all. Wanted to get the other one done before the end of the year because my husband had a head injury in February that maxed out our out-of-pocket. Better to get as much in for "free" (to us) as possible.
I adore the OG Johnny Quest. The animation is so cool and stylistically creative. And all drawn by hand! The music is killer too. Now I feel pretty bad. Don’t search for Hadji memes btw!
I've been watching all versions of Pride and Prejudice, then moved on to North and South (the Elizabeth Gaskell novel) and now am immersed in the 1983 version of Mansfield Park. Are we detecting a pattern here??
I am happy to say that I know nothing about all of the subjects mentioned today. One of the wonderfull things about being old is that not much is important and it's all small stuff.
I guess there has to be a day now and then when I am just not interested in anything The Free Press offers. But I am glad Nellie is getting prepared.
Is there anything better than Weaponized Nellie??
Nellie + Weapons is my new favorite thing.
💅💅🔪🔪🔪🔫🔫
oh, buddy - you do realize that, with that post, the Beltway's algorithm just flagged you as a potential challenger to the Orange Man in next year's election, don't you? :-)
Most of this FP post falls under, "Who gives a shit!"
Yes, but two things in it have value: Haruki Murakami books, and the Nick Cave book. At this point in our massive-worldwide-psychotic-break-of-an-excuse-for-a-life, we probably need to look at a few good things. Took a walk this morning, just to get out in nature. It was a good decision.
That was my thought too! I’m so happy I’m old and have learned that being blinded by shiny objects you don’t need equals boxes of crap to get rid of once you discover that you don’t use them because...you really didn’t need them.
The only thing this old person saw that seemed like it might have some substance was Bari’s book. The link didn’t tell me much except that it was about some rock star named Cave. A little searching led me to this:
https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2022/05/19/nick-cave-red-hand-files-242982
This Catholic publication was very informative and I think this guy’s spirituality opens some new ideas even for a cradle Episcopalian who is thoroughly traditional.
I still don’t think I will read the book.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds were a cool underground band in the 1980s.
Same here, except Beckham. C'mon, how could you not know about the name at least?
I've heard his name but didn't know what he did. I don't follow sports, fashion or celebrities.
Idk if the comment about Nellie is serious, but the gun range is hella fun and it's comforting to know I can defend myself because my government cannot.
Very sad to hear that so many of the FP folks are spending their time watching TV.
GO OUTSIDE. Go for a walk. Go fishing or get some cider. Go for a drive. Do anything other than watch that god damned TV!
(I sound like my mother)
It's not like we can't do both.......
But that's how they responded when asked what they were up to. One can deduce that's how they're primarily spending their time.
Btw, isn't that a double negative? I am DEFINITELY sounding like my mother now. Sorry.
Not necessarily but good one.
Go Nellie!!!
I am perplexed by the power that progressive white women have on our culture. Beckham is a British Soccer star and has a beautiful wife, kids, and success. In the past, we needed people to emulate and admire. Then they came along with their rage and joined with the wacky POC progressive crowd and the weak weasel men who loved them. We have modern culture—the battle over "toxic" masculinity and even we have to acknowledge this stupidity. From BLM, the trans movement, to the speech codes on campus, all of this runs back to paying attention to a fringe group of people who somehow have become the clergy of modern society. Is this due to the loss of power of faith and the void in these people's hearts, and their proximity to power gave them actual power? For me, I will never watch Beckham, but I will cheer on success and allow men to be men. I always love that the group at the Free Press are proud warriors against the Woke White Women (W3?) and give a place for the majority to push back. P.S. No Flip for me, but it's good to know what the youngsters are doing.
Albert, I've always been a soccer hater, nothing but (American) football for me, from middle school on. I knew nothing about Beckham and assumed he was another arrogant pri*. But my wife and I watched Beckham and now I absolutely love the guy. Almost wish I'd have played soccer instead. You might want to give the documentary a try.
Sir, sounds like you would be interested in this piece: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2023/02/what-is-the-longhouse
I rarely click on a link while reading comments. Today I did and I am glad I did. Thank you for sharing this well-written commentary. I will be passing it on.
wow. loved that link. get out of the Longhouse. or else
Those women SAY that they prefer weasel men, but then they go and marry Alpha Males, because they offer comfort and protection. Notice, I didn't say "love".
Note, too, that every woman who's a 5 or less feel she "deserves" a 10 like Beckham. That and their idiotic rules such as 666, which is truly a devilish pact. Feminism gone mad - and the attempted feminization of boys and men - is responsible for most of our problems today.
That I think is true of men too. Always looking for 10s.
Maybe, but remember the story I told of being in college, when a bunch of us were wondering how the campus clown was squiring around a 10 on his arm and our female colleague looked at us with disgust and said, witheringly, "because he asked her you idiots." In my experience, most guys shrink from asking out - or even talking to - a beautiful woman.
Mark Harmon in one of his movies said beautiful women are the most lonely of all women. I took it to mean their good looks intimidate men.
100% true. And it isn't the fear of rejection. It's something else. Something intangible that just leaves us tongue-tied and feeling stupid.
I'm sure that's true. But, I have seen a lot of comments putting down women in general though for their looks, and indicating that soon they will the hit the wall and be lonely and desperate (whilst the commenter will have the attention of all the young'uns of course). I'm not saying that's universal at all. And it may be 'cope'. But, it points to the idea that both men and women (or rather a small amount of them) consider they could find a more attractive partner than they might be considered themselves.
Do you remember the old song from the 60s that went “ If you want to be happy for the rest of your life never make a pretty woman, your wife…”
The fear of “crash & burn” was a real thing!
Look no further Ellie, Bruce and I are geriatric 10s. If you are interested, Bruce will send you a signed picture.
Oh no! No 10s for me. I'd be having to fend off the other ladies with a broom handle. Far too much effort. ;)
You'll get no argument from ME!
But so do the modern day incels. They're antisocial, festering with anger mainly against women because they blame women and girls for their pathetic incel lives. Yet they think they deserve the 10s and they're enraged that the 10s won't shower attention all over them and worship them as kings. And then they consider women and girls less than 10 as subhumans, not even women.
"Incel???"
How about using common Anglo-American terms?
Incel is a word in the Anglo-American lexicon now. Been for years. It's even in the American Webster dictionary. Though the dictionary says in incel can be a "her" too, I'm pretty sure those "hers" are males who adopted "she/her" pronouns.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/incel
Perhaps but I choose to abjure words that are invented by lunatics.
They have a lot of cultural pull, but white men still own nearly everything of significance.
Gee, wonder why that is......
Woke progressives are the cause of tons of problems today, but I always find the point about progressive women making men weak illogical. Yes the "toxic masculinity" thing has gone over the line to parody. But at the end of the day, do men ever listen to women's demand? I really don't see it. Sure, criticize progressive women and the shitty causes they push now. But I just don't see men suddenly folding over and say ok we'll become weak now. In fact, I see tons of men like you saying all the time how much they despise it.
Men have to voluntarily choose to be weak for them to be weak. Women can't force them. Yes there's truth in what you said about the cultural hold they have today. But men don't just buckle over and become weak because women tell them to. If that's the case, there'd be no more rape or domestic violence.
What I suspect is making men today voluntarily choosing to be weak is something else with much greater cultural hold over men: Pornhub. Just about all Millennials and GenZ men are exposed to it or addicted to it. And the highest watched type of porn now is trans porn, as in the shemale type. It's probably spreading the social contagion of autogynephilia to men and introducing them to the idea of indulging in sexual fantasies of being women. If anything, Pornhub is way way more likely to have influence over men and persuading them to explore their feminine side than progressive women and cultural police who turn them off.
Fathers, teach your daughters how to shoot because a restraining order is just a piece of paper.
You go, Nellie!
I always thought it's more important to teach our girls how to fight, since it may save their lives. I don't know why self defense class is not mandatory for girls.
Nothing like popping some caps and tearing shit up to unwind!
Too bad California has a ton of idiotic gun laws. It’ll take you months to get a carry permit, as compared to a week or two for most of the free states.
California is lost! Not only are they 75% Democrat, they also own ALL of the state elective offices! Despite that, they are becoming disenchanted with said Party, but if you think that means that they are re-looking at Republicans, forget it! They are talking Third Party! Yes, Californians are LOST!
Well, Miss N, you know the old saw: God made men and women; Sam Colt made 'em equal. Just remember, though - if you ever have to pull it in anger, pull it blazing.
Two in the chest, one in the head. Don't leave them around to sue you.
I'm with Nellie!
Nellie, armed and dangerous. What is our world coming to?
I had carpel tunnel surgery on Wednesday, so I've been at forced leisure. Watching The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett (which was far better than I anticipated). Also reading a rather long and boring fantasy novel that I can't quite bring myself to DNF.
Get well soon! And use the dictation function on your keyboard more …😉
Wokeism is destroying literature. Starting in 2020 or 2021, it became harder and harder to find anything interesting to download on my local library’s website. Suddenly, nearly everything they were offering was from the Woke cannon (preachy, racialist, etc.). And things haven’t gotten better. Frankly, books have been savaged by sensitivity readers, who have given everything a flat, uninteresting tone, and changed plot development to favor certain ideas and categories of people. What a bore!
I just DNF’ed the last two books I picked up, out of frustration with these trends. Prior to the Woke era, I would DNF less than once a year. Back in the 80s, novels that had been shortlisted for the Booker prize were almost guaranteed to be worth reading. Now, they are almost guaranteed to be unreadable. Just more propaganda being propagated.
Try reading historical fiction. I escape to historical fiction for books and historical period dramas now for TV because I'm sick of woke infesting everything. And if you like horror fiction I can recommend some good podcasts tool
We’ve been completely surrounded by horror for the past decade or so (with a rapid escalation in the past few years), so I’ll pass on that.😉
Pre-2000 historical fiction would be a good choice, but the contemporary stuff is polluted by Wokeism (for example, a black Jarl on “Vikings”, the cringefest that is “Bridgerton”, absurdly inaccurate love between an indigenous dude and a “White Settler Colonizer” in “1883”…the list goes on and on). The books coming out now contain similar historical gaffes, especially with respect to women’s roles, religion’s role in society at that time, not to mention racial issues.
When one lives in an age where teachers are trying to take “To Kill a Mockingbird” off the curriculum because it “centers on Whiteness”…we’re probably just too far gone. But pre-2000 stuff should be okay. I’ve been contemplating rereading “A Suitable Boy”; at least on Kindle I won’t have to hold up a 10lb book for hours!
Considering how iffy the dictation function on DuoLingo is, I have little to no interest in exploring any other!
I subscribe to Kindle Unlimited. That generally gives me a lot of fantasy and Regency romance books from authors I'm already fond of. Occasionally I try a new author, and sometimes I am pleasantly surprised.
I've gotten very good at scanning book descriptions for signs of Wokeness. And I avoid "popular fiction" and "modern literature" like the plague. Even non-fiction is dubious unless it was published before 2000.
Wokeism is literally deterring people from reading now. Some progress.
There's 200+ years of wonderful English-language literature, though.There's no need to read anything written after like 1930 and still have a lifetime of brilliant literature to read.
Best wishes for a prompt recovery Celia.
Hope you heal quickly!
Must be a year for hand injuries. I broke my dominant hand in February-3 places…
Ouch! I hope you've recovered function!
Well mostly. Will never make a complete fist again or straighten fully-but for the most part am not too impeded. PT twice a week until last week and was done. Bright side is my left hand does things I never thought possible. But when you talked about your husband’s hand and your surgeries for CT I wondered what about this year, 2023 makes it the hand year? I’m sure it must be related to the COVID shots-lol.-and oh, I’ll NEVER play pickle ball again.(accident on court)
I hope you both are recovered.
Oops, now I see your husband had a head injury. Way different. I hope he’s okay.
He is much better. Thanks!
Get well soon!
Sorry for your struggle Celia but glad there is a remedy. Be better soon!
Hope you’ll be as good as new, soon! Ellen
Hope you feel better soon Celia. I'm assuming it was only one wrist? If so- god time to practice using non-dominant hand!
I had my dominant hand done back in June, because it was worse by far--numb fingers and all. Wanted to get the other one done before the end of the year because my husband had a head injury in February that maxed out our out-of-pocket. Better to get as much in for "free" (to us) as possible.
So sorry to hear! Hope your husband is all fine now and wishing you a speedy recovery. Hopefully a healthy year in 2024.
OUCH!! i hear you Celia!! Good plan! Hope you heal up quickly!
Although I have ZERO interest in either article, it is still nice to get a break from the depressing news abroad.
Love me some Nellie!
Watching Jonny quest, wild Wild West. Yes from the 1960s.
Did you mean Wild Wild West?
Artemus Gordon!
As far as Johnny Quest goes I think that Mike Pence should’ve kept his original name Race Bannon, stayed Dr Quest’s lover and never run for office.
Yes! And now you have ruined, I say ruined Jonny quest. I will always think of pence now. Cruel, cruel! Lol.
The first time I saw Pence I was like “ he looks just like Race Bannon!” It’s too bad he didn’t stick to judo.
🤦♂️🤣I’m so sorry!
I adore the OG Johnny Quest. The animation is so cool and stylistically creative. And all drawn by hand! The music is killer too. Now I feel pretty bad. Don’t search for Hadji memes btw!
I have been rereading Anna Karenina. Great great great.
Dear TFP: You were built for this moment. We thank you. Carry on.
I've been watching all versions of Pride and Prejudice, then moved on to North and South (the Elizabeth Gaskell novel) and now am immersed in the 1983 version of Mansfield Park. Are we detecting a pattern here??
Awesome! I did that too with pride and prejudice then sense and sensibility and all things Austin! Books too!