Category Archive 'Uncategorized'
19 Feb 2023
Los Angeles Police Chief Michael Moore.
The Los Angeles Daily News reports the city’s Chief of Police advising citizens that, despite an $11.8 billion budget and 9,974 officers and 3,000 civilian staff, the third largest police department in the united States cannot protect you. Don’t wear valuable stuff, don’t drive expensive cars. The criminals rule the city.
People move to Los Angeles from all over the world for the weather, glitz, glamour and a Hollywood lifestyle that only the City of Angels can offer.
However, our crime problem is now so out of control that we are now being told to leave our watches, expensive cars and wallets at home in order to protect ourselves from emboldened criminals.
We have essentially collectively thrown in the towel on trying to do something to catch and punish the criminals and instead just resorted to hiding everything that they might want to steal from us.
On March 24 of last year, LAPD Chief Michel Moore told Angelenos to leave their flashy jewelry and cars at home.
“What we’re asking the public to do with these crime increases is if they’re going to wear expensive jewelry or drive high-end cars, when leaving restaurants, taverns and other locations, they need to be mindful of their surroundings, and be in well lit areas. [We ask that] they recognize there are opportunists that are willing to take advantage of them and many times, these individuals are armed with firearms,” said Moore.
Moore said the LAPD is “tracking the increase in armed robberies.” Armed robberies are up 44% since last year, the police department reported.
So, let me get this straight — With armed robberies at an all-time high, Los Angeles residents are being warned by LAPD not to go out in public while prominently displaying lots of expensive jewelry.
So … what? Mr. T isn’t supposed to leave his house for months?
We’re also being advised not to drive expensive-looking cars, which would explain the uptick in Prius sales.
Remember those bumper stickers that read, “My Other Car Is A Mercedes”? Who knew those people were just trying to not get carjacked?
Even wearing well-fitting, stylish, expensive-looking clothes can get you robbed. So I guess Rihanna has nothing to worry about.
At an LAPD press conference on Jan. 12 of this year, the public was told to leave literally nothing visible in the car.
The LAPD’s campaign to get law-abiding citizens to hide their valuables is known as “Stash It Don’t Flash It,” which is better than the more accurate name, “We Give Up.”
“It could be anything from a phone charger to change in the cup holder, that they’re gonna break the window out and take,” said Sgt. Gordon Helper, leader of the campaign.
“Absolutely, they’ll even break a window to get a bottle of water so they can recycle its container, whether it’s aluminum or plastic,” added Capt. Elaine Morales.
RTWT
Of course, in reality, those nearly ten thousand cops certainly could stop crime in Los Angeles. Their government won’t let them. City government is controlled by a machine that stays in office by relying on a voting base whose foundation is the criminal/welfare class. That base is allied –of course– to precisely the same ideologically-deluded wet liberals who are the former predator’s natural prey. In US cities today, it’s as if the wildebeast and gazelles could be counted to vote against hunters harvesting lions and leopards.
18 Feb 2023
Todd Field’s Tár starring the inimitable Cate Blanchett is unquestionably the top film of 2022 and will undoubtedly soon be sweeping up a very large bagful of awards.
A hyper-reactionary Baby Boomer like myself will find a lot to admire and enjoy in Tár, despite being (as those younger generations say) “triggered” by its acceptance of sexual deviance as conventional and mainstream, of a “BIPOC pangender” identity implicitly conferring a special status, and of life under the tyrannical “sexual grievance” regime as normal.
Lydia Tár may be an arch member of the disgusting Community of Fashion elite, but she is also a highly talented professional and a staunch defender of high culture. We conservatives will appreciate the irony of her ultimate victimhood and pity her tragic end.
Zadie Smith, in the NYRB, published a distinctly brilliant review, appreciation, and analysis of the film whose take on generational differences and cultural change is quite illuminating, even across a partisan differences divide:
“To paraphrase Schopenhauer—who gets several shout-outs in Tár—every generation mistakes the limits of its own field of vision for the limits of the world. But what happens when generational visions collide? How should we respond?”
Cultural Luminaries make a lot of money. Their imperious attitudes and witty bons mots are in demand everywhere—until they aren’t. As Tár discovers the very next morning, while guest teaching at Juilliard. Here her charismatic lone-genius shtick—which so delighted the gray-haired festivalgoers—falls on stonier ground. Tár is now speaking to a different generation. The generation that says things like I’m not really into Bach. Such statements are calculated to bring out the hysteric in a middle-aged Cultural Luminary, and Tár immediately takes the bait, launching into an aggressive defense laced with high-handed pity (for the young man who dares say it) and a more generalized contempt for his cohort. Read the rest of this entry »
17 Feb 2023
New York and Washington have very different local industries, career opportunities, and local cultures. Their mores are naturally also distinctly different. Cultures, too, change dramatically over time and the world of today’s Zoomers is nothing like my generation’s or my parent’s generations.
New York Magazine illustrates the point with this rather elaborate, and decidedly Woke, guide to the rules of proper conduct in today’s Gotham. It’s apparently perfectly proper to ghost someone after one date.
45. White people should always clearly pronounce 50 Cent.
He’s not “Fiddy” for you.
46. Being an ally doesn’t mean debasing yourself.
Oh, look, you’re the center of attention again!
In a bit from 2022, the stand-up comedian Sureni Weerasekera describes a common interaction she had while living in Oakland. “White people meet me there and they’ll crumble like feta,” she says. “They’ll be like, ‘You’re a woman of color? How do I take up less space?’” — like their back goes bad, they get scoliosis, they go into fight-or-flight mode. I’m like, ‘Me and my girlfriend, like, we’re cool, like you don’t gotta be weird about it,’ and they’re like, ‘AND YOU’RE A QUEER? HOW DO I STOP EXISITING? HOW DO I CEASE TO EXIST? I’M SO SORRY.’”
We get it: You’ve Done the Work, you’ve Listened and Learned, you’ve purchased a copy of How to Be an Ally, and maybe you’ve even read it. But constantly reminding others that you understand how much more privilege you have than they do is — in addition to being an example of the dreaded “virtue signaling” — just condescending. … Read the rest of this entry »
16 Feb 2023
Atlas Obscura has a feature article celebrating an amusing new regional ethnic art form.
PEDESTRIANS IN NEW ORLEANS’ TREMÉ neighborhood might notice a collection of beautiful, patchwork wooden doors. Known as “wooden quilts,” the colorful interwoven entryways showcase one artist’s incredible craftsmanship and history.
Jean-Marcel St. Jacques is a self-taught folk artist with deep roots in the Louisiana soil. A 12th-generation Afro-Creole, he left the state in the 1970s, but returned 16 years ago to reconnect with the land of his ancestors. St. Jacques says he takes his inspiration from his great-grandmother, who made patchwork quilts, and his great-grandfather, who collected junk and upcycled materials in the early 1900s. Like his great-grandfather, St. Jacques transforms what has been destroyed or discarded into art. The materials used in his “wooden quilt” doors were salvaged from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the damage to his home. He considers this practice a way to find higher purpose from the disaster.
Just paint the underside of your porch roof haint blue, and you’re all set!
RTWT
15 Feb 2023
“This was one of the first photos taken when I arrived in Paris. 1 year later, we decided to take it again. Proudly the entrance to our embassy now better reflects the incredible diversity of my country. A value that I carry wherever I go in France.”
14 Feb 2023
Jacopo Bassano, St Valentine Baptizing St Lucilla, 1575, oil on canvas, Museo Civico, Bassano del Grappa
The popular customs associated with Saint Valentine’s Day undoubtedly had their origin in a conventional belief generally received in England and France during the Middle Ages, that on 14 February, i.e., half way through the second month of the year, the birds began to pair. Thus in Chaucer’s Parliament of Foules we read:
For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne’s day
Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate.
For this reason the day was looked upon as specially consecrated to lovers and as a proper occasion for writing love letters and sending lovers’ tokens. Both the French and English literatures of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries contain allusions to the practice. Perhaps the earliest to be found is in the 34th and 35th Ballades of the bilingual poet, John Gower, written in French; but Lydgate and Clauvowe supply other examples. Those who chose each other under these circumstances seem to have been called by each other their Valentines.
In the Paston Letters, Dame Elizabeth Brews writes thus about a match she hopes to make for her daughter (we modernize the spelling), addressing the favoured suitor:
And, cousin mine, upon Monday is Saint Valentine’s Day and every bird chooses himself a mate, and if it like you to come on Thursday night, and make provision that you may abide till then, I trust to God that ye shall speak to my husband and I shall pray that we may bring the matter to a conclusion.
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From Robert Chambers, The Book of Days, 1869: Feast Day: St. Valentine, priest and martyr, circ. 270.
Valentine’s Day is now almost everywhere a much degenerated festival, the only observance of any note consisting merely of the sending of jocular anonymous letters to parties whom one wishes to quiz, and this confined very much to the humbler classes. The approach of the day is now heralded by the appearance in the print-sellers’ shop windows of vast numbers of missives calculated for use on this occasion, each generally consisting of a single sheet of post paper, on the first page of which is seen some ridiculous coloured caricature of the male or female figure, with a few burlesque verses below. More rarely, the print is of a sentimental kind, such as a view of Hymen’s altar, with a pair undergoing initiation into wedded happiness before it, while Cupid flutters above, and hearts transfixed with his darts decorate the corners. Maid-servants and young fellows interchange such epistles with each other on the 14th of February, no doubt conceiving that the joke is amazingly good: and, generally, the newspapers do not fail to record that the London postmen delivered so many hundred thousand more letters on that day than they do in general. Such is nearly the whole extent of the observances now peculiar to St. Valentine’s Day.
At no remote period it was very different. Ridiculous letters were unknown: and, if letters of any kind were sent, they contained only a courteous profession of attachment from some young man to some young maiden, honeyed with a few compliments to her various perfections, and expressive of a hope that his love might meet with return. But the true proper ceremony of St. Valentine’s Day was the drawing of a kind of lottery, followed by ceremonies not much unlike what is generally called the game of forfeits. Misson, a learned traveller, of the early part of the last century, gives apparently a correct account of the principal ceremonial of the day.
‘On the eve of St. Valentine’s Day,’ he says, ‘the young folks in England and Scotland, by a very ancient custom, celebrate a little festival. An equal number of maids and bachelors get together: each writes their true or some feigned name upon separate billets, which they roll up, and draw by way of lots, the maids taking the men’s billets, and the men the maids’: so that each of the young men lights upon a girl that he calls his valentine, and each of the girls upon a young man whom she calls hers. By this means each has two valentines: but the man sticks faster to the valentine that has fallen to him than to the valentine to whom he is fallen. Fortune having thus divided the company into so many couples, the valentines give balls and treats to their mistresses, wear their billets several days upon their bosoms or sleeves, and this little sport often ends in love.’
…
St. Valentine’s Day is alluded to by Shakspeare and by Chaucer, and also by the poet Lydgate (who died in 1440). …
The origin of these peculiar observances of St. Valentine’s Day is a subject of some obscurity. The saint himself, who was a priest of Rome, martyred in the third century, seems to have had nothing to do with the matter, beyond the accident of his day being used for the purpose. Mr. Douce, in his Illustrations of Shakspeare, says:
‘It was the practice in ancient Rome, during a great part of the month of February, to celebrate the Lupercalia, which were feasts in honour of Pan and Juno. whence the latter deity was named Februata, Februalis, and Februlla. On this occasion, amidst a variety of ceremonies, the names of young women were put into a box, from which they were drawn by the men as chance directed. The pastors of the early Christian church, who, by every possible means, endeavoured to eradicate the vestiges of pagan superstitions, and chiefly by some commutations of their forms, substituted, in the present instance, the names of particular saints instead of those of the women: and as the festival of the Lupercalia had commenced about the middle of February, they appear to have chosen St. Valentine’s Day for celebrating the new feast, because it occurred nearly at the same time.
This is, in part, the opinion of a learned and rational compiler of the Lives of the Saints, the Rev. Alban Butler.
It should seem, however, that it was utterly impossible to extirpate altogether any ceremony to which the common people had been much accustomed—a fact which it were easy to prove in tracing the origin of various other popular superstitions. And, accordingly, the outline of the ancient ceremonies was preserved, but modified by some adaptation to the Christian system. It is reasonable to suppose, that the above practice of choosing mates would gradually become reciprocal in the sexes, and that all persons so chosen would be called Valentines, from the day on which the ceremony took place.’
***********************************************
February 14th, prior to 1969, was the feast day of two, or possibly three, saints and martyrs named Valentine, all reputedly of the Third Century.
The first Valentine, legend holds, was a physician and priest in Rome, arrested for giving aid to martyrs in prison, who while there converted his jailer by restoring sight to the jailer’s daughter. He was executed by being beaten with clubs, and afterwards beheaded, February 14, 270. He is traditionally the patron of affianced couples, bee keepers, lovers, travellers, young people, and greeting card manufacturers, and his special assistance may be sought in conection with epilepsy, fainting, and plague.
A second St. Valentine, reportedly bishop of Interamna (modern Terni) was also allegedly martyred under Claudius II, and also allegedly buried along the Flaminian Way.
A third St. Valentine is said to have also been martyred in Roman times, along with companions, in Africa.
Due to an insufficiency of historical evidence in the eyes of Vatican II modernizers, the Roman Catholic Church dropped the February 14th feast of St. Valentine from its calendar in 1969.
12 Feb 2023
As this year’s Superbowl nears, Wright Thompson writes on the legacy of the great Joe Montana, his rivalries with Steve Young and Tom Brady, and the sorrows of retirement.
Walmart once paid Joe Montana, John Elway, Dan Marino and Johnny Unitas to do an event. The four quarterbacks went out to dinner afterward. They laughed and told stories and drank expensive wine. Then the check came. The late, great Unitas loved to tell this story. Montana grinned and announced that whichever guy had the fewest rings would have to pay the bill. Joe had four, including one over Marino and one over Elway. Elway had two. Unitas said he only had one Super Bowl ring but had of course won three NFL titles before the Super Bowl existed.
Marino cursed and picked up the check.
RTWT
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