This woman says she’s going to seduce conservative men to distance them from their conservative wives.pic.twitter.com/aV3bHfuMan

— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) November 8, 2024

The Atlantic really is the magazine for rich, white, liberal wine moms and beta males who either devour MSNBC or watch CNN thinking they're like Jake Tapper — better than you and, if you disagree, they'll throw temper tantrums like they're four years old after a long day. https://t.co/3m2XKdOKgZ

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) September 9, 2024

Read The Free Press today and you’ll find that everything old is new again.

We’ve gone back to the prim “Banned in Boston” Puritan regime of the pre-1960s. No, actually, we’ve gone well beyond all that to a modern hellscape combining the sanctimony of the Puritan prig with the thuggish eliminationist inclinations of the totalitarian Stalinist.

As is often the case these days, the courageous J.K. Rowling has stood up Liberty and Reason and thereby provoked the mob.

Vladimir Nabokov’s most famous novel, featuring the memoirs of an unrepentant pedophile named Humbert Humbert, has often been a flashpoint for controversy—including at the time of its 1955 publication, when the only outfit that would touch it was a French press best known for publishing literal porn. But however foolish or prudish the mid-century imbroglio surrounding Lolita might have been, it pales in comparison to the one now raging on the internet, where a sizable crowd has been moralistically shrieking about the book for three straight days.

Like so many other digital-age absurdities, this one originates with a millennial who is mad at J.K. Rowling. Here’s what happened: in the year 2000, in an interview with BBC Radio 4, Rowling praised the novel, saying, “[A] plot that could have been the most worthless pornography becomes, in Nabokov’s hands, a great and tragic love story.” Rowling’s sentiments about Lolita are not unique; Stanley Kubrick and Dorothy Parker famously felt the same, and my own copy even has a blurb on it from Vanity Fair, calling it “the only convincing love story of our century.” But nearly 25 years later, an actress named Sooz Kempner unearthed the interview and was shocked, shocked!

“JK Rowling doesn’t understand Lolita,” she wrote on X. “It is not a great and tragic love story, it is terrifying book [sic] written from the POV of a peadophile [sic], a very obviously unreliable narrator, and at no point are you meant to say ‘this is so romantic.’ She’s 12, Joanne. What the FUCK, Joanne.” Her sentiments were echoed by countless others, including novelist Ryan Ruby, who sniped, “Lolita is a moral test. Kempner passes it. Rowling does not.”

On the one hand, this is very much a tempest in a terminally online teapot. On the other hand, the wild virality of Kempner’s post (which has 5.2 million views and over 9,000 reposts) does unfortunately tell us something about the cultural discourse in the year 2024: namely, that people, in their fervor for recreational hatred, are rendering themselves functionally illiterate.

RTWT

The Good Citizen summarizes the news story of the week.

Tonight at eleven, a spooky story of political rage and right-wing violence has shattered the moral fabric of our completely healthy and stable country.

Husband of the Speaker of the House and third in line to the throne of Oligarch servantry, undefeated stock market picker, part-time drunk driver with unlisted male companions, and lover of Do-It-Yourself home improvement work was assaulted at Speaker’s Manor in the early hours Friday morning.

Run footage of crime tape with FBI agents on the scene.

Paul Pelosi was doing urgent home improvement work at 2 am in his underwear at Speaker’s Manor when an Ultra MAGA intruder smashed through the back patio window of the Speaker’s Manor with a hammer.

The intruder was apparently yelling, “Where’s Nancy?” in reference to Paul’s wife Nancy Pelosi who was out of town.

Paul Pelosi was able to distance himself from the intruder by saying he needed to use the bathroom. The intruder was attempting to tie him up with leather and chains Paul had purchased as part of his home improvement project, but let Mr. Pelosi leave anyway to relieve himself.

From the bathroom, Paul found his phone, where he, like all people living in mega-mansions keeps his main phone charger. From there he was able to phone the police. During the call with the 9-1-1 dispatcher, Mr. Pelosi spoke in codes.

When police arrived they found both men in their underwear holding hammers. At that moment the Ultra MAGA intruder grabbed Mr. Pelosi’s hammer and hit him over the head, cracking his skull. Police quickly subdued the assailant and took him into custody where he definitely won’t be committing suicide at any moment.

The Ultra MAGA assailant has been identified as a professional nudist, drug addict, homeless psychotic, and blogger who lives across the bay in Ultra MAGA country, Berkeley.

We’re looking at a live shot of the intruder’s home now, as you can see the Ultra MAGA paraphernalia with the standard rainbow flag with marijuana leaf in the yard and a Black Lives Matter sign in the house window. The suspect lives in that broken down white school bus in the driveway that says You are beautiful, a common living arrangement for Ultra MAGA violent far-right extremists.

We will have more facts about this story as they become available.

RTWT

Le musée du Louvre hier: Un militant panfricain est rentré ds le musée et a déclaré qu'il était venu réclamer les biens "volés à l'Afrique" #Paris pic.twitter.com/xgTWILu01u

— Le Général 💎 (@LE_GENERAL_OFF) October 23, 2020

Not the Bee:

Activist Emery Mwazulu Diyabanza had a buddy film himself attempting to steal an artifact from the Louvre Museum! The purpose? To reclaim the sculpture for Africa, from where it was originally stolen.

One problem: The sculpture isn’t from Africa. It’s an 18th-century Indonesian sculpture.

Woman had a TDS meltdown over a MAGA street corner rally then proceeded to hit the vehicle in front of her while police were behind her 🤣pic.twitter.com/rEVEGeKNaj

— John D ● (@RedWingGrips) September 22, 2020

Omg! SOUND ON!!! 🤣🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/MeMUvzNOZt

— Tara LaRosa (@TaraLaRosa) September 6, 2020

Victoria Taft has more versions.

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RCGS Resolute cruise ship.

On March 30th, the Venezuelan Coast Guard ship Naiguatá lost a naval action it initiated against RCGS Resolute, a German-owned cruise ship sailing under the Portuguese flag. The Jerusalem Post has the hilarious details.

Columbia Cruise Services, the Hamburg-based company that owns the RCGS RESOLUTE, issued a statement on Wednesday: “In the early morning hours of the 30th of March 2020 (local time), the cruise vessel RCGS RESOLUTE has been subject to an act of aggression by the Venezuelan Navy in international waters, around 13.3 nautical miles from Isla de Tortuga with 32 crew member and no passengers on board.”

The company added that “When the event occurred, the cruise vessel RCGS RESOLUTE has already been drifting for one day off the coast of the island to conduct some routine engine maintenance on its idle voyage to its destination, Willemstad/ Curaçao. As maintenance was being performed on the starboard main engine, the port main engine was kept on standby to maintain a safe distance from the island at any time.”

Columbia Cruise Services continued, stating that “Shortly after mid-night, the cruise vessel was approached by an armed Venezuelan navy vessel, which via radio questioning the intentions of the RCGS RESOLUTE’s presence and gave the order to follow to Puerto Moreno on Isla De Margarita. As the RCGS RESOLUTE was sailing in international waters at that time, the Master wanted to reconfirm this particular request resulting into a serious deviation from the scheduled vessel’s route with the company DPA.”

According to the statement, “While the Master was in contact with the head office, gun shots were fired and, shortly thereafter, the navy vessel approached the starboard side at speed with an angle of 135° and purposely collided with the RCGS RESOLUTE. The navy vessel continued to ram the starboard bow in an apparent attempt to turn the ship’s head towards Venezuelan territorial waters.”

The cruise company said the RCGS RESOLUTE sustained minor damages, not affecting vessel’s seaworthiness, it occurs that the navy vessel suffered severe damages while making contact with the ice-strengthened bulbous bow of the ice-class expedition cruise vessel RCGS RESOLUTE and started to take water.”

RTWT

The Naiguatá subsequently sunk.

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Joseph Trevithick notes:

The 403-foot-long Resolute, which is flagged in Portugal, reportedly had a gross tonnage of around 8,445 tons at the time. The ship was laid down in September 1990 and completed in June 1991. Intended for Antarctic cruises, it has a reinforced ice-capable hull.
…
The Naiguatá, which is just over 262 feet long, is a Guaicamacuto class offshore patrol vessel and displaces around 1,720 tons with a full load.

I was puzzled trying to remember the last Portuguese naval victory. I think it may have been the Action of 1 February 1625, when the Portuguese defeated a combined Anglo-Dutch Fleet retaining control of the Persian Gulf.

Give that Captain the Military Order of St. James of the Sword!

BVL Naiguatá, Venezuelan Coast Guard littoral surveillance ship.

The Guardian reports on the latest form of self improvement catching on among female cloud people.

Freshly made pasta is drying on the wooden bannisters lining the hall of a beautiful home in Denver, Colorado. Fox-hunting photos decorate the walls in a room full of books. A fire is burning. And downstairs, a group of liberal white women have gathered around a long wooden table to admit how racist they are.

“Recently, I have been driving around, seeing a black person, and having an assumption that they are up to no good,” says Alison Gubser. “Immediately after I am like, that’s no good! This is a human, just doing their thing. Why do I think that?”

This is Race to Dinner. A white woman volunteers to host a dinner in her home for seven other white women – often strangers, perhaps acquaintances. (Each dinner costs $2,500, which can be covered by a generous host or divided among guests.) A frank discussion is led by co-founders Regina Jackson, who is black, and Saira Rao, who identifies as Indian American. They started Race to Dinner to challenge liberal white women to accept their racism, however subconscious. “If you did this in a conference room, they’d leave,” Rao says. “But wealthy white women have been taught never to leave the dinner table.”

Rao and Jackson believe white, liberal women are the most receptive audience because they are open to changing their behavior. They don’t bother with the 53% of white women who voted for Trump. White men, they feel, are similarly a lost cause. “White men are never going to change anything. If they were, they would have done it by now,” Jackson says.

White women, on the other hand, are uniquely placed to challenge racism because of their proximity to power and wealth, Jackson says. “If they don’t hold these positions themselves, the white men in power are often their family, friends and partners.”

It seems unlikely anyone would voluntarily go to a dinner party in which they’d be asked, one by one, “What was a racist thing you did recently?” by two women of color, before appetizers are served. But Jackson and Rao have hardly been able to take a break since they started these dinners in the spring of 2019. So far, 15 dinners have been held in big cities across the US.

The women who sign up for these dinners are not who most would see as racist. They are well-read and well-meaning. They are mostly Democrats. Some have adopted black children, many have partners who are people of color, some have been doing work towards inclusivity and diversity for decades. But they acknowledge they also have unchecked biases. They are there because they “know [they] are part of the problem, and want to be part of the solution,” as host Jess Campbell-Swanson says before dinner starts.

RTWT

I think we should have competing $3000 dinners (with better food) at which a couple of articulate conservatives tell them how stupid they are,.

Washington with slaves picking cotton.

At the height of the New Deal, government contracts for “works of art” by Bohemian radicals to decorate public buldings were passed out like salted peanuts.

One prominent beneficiary of all this public largesse was the very left-wing Russian muralist Victor Arnautoff who got to paint an endless series of “socially conscious” works taking pokes at both American history and the contemporary American scene all over the San Francisco Bay area.

Arnautoff started off as a Tsarist officer and fought for the Whites before fleeing into exile in the United States, but once in the New World, he fell in with the Mexican communist painter Diego Rivera, became Rivera’s assistant, and converted to Communism himself. He was investigated by HUAC in the 1950s in connection with a caricature he drew of Richard Nixon. Arnautoff in retirement returned to Russia to live out the end of his life, happily, under Communism.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s WPA naturally chose Arnautoff to decorate San Francisco’s George Washington High School. Araunoff’s series of Washington murals came out precisely as everything the left-wing heart could desire. Bari Weiss describes it, in the New York Times:

[His] “Life of Washington,” does not show the clichéd image of our first president kneeling in prayer at Valley Forge. Instead, the 13-panel, 1,600-square-foot mural, which was painted in 1936 in the just-built George Washington High School, depicts his slaves picking cotton in the fields of Mount Vernon and a group of colonizers walking past the corpse of a Native American.

There is a happy ending though. The ultra-leftwing SF School Board is so stupid that they have voted to spend $600,000 of the tax-payer’s dollars, not to cover up, but actually to destroy the communist series of paintings. Not because they are pretty crappy paintings abusing the Father of Our Country and treasonously siding with Stone Age Savages against the pioneers, but because the left-wing dimbulbs out there feel threatened and offended by these dreadful images which they interpret (erroneously) as glorifying Colonialism.

Here we have a case of Life not resembling Art, but rather approximating with perfection a satire based on extreme exaggeration.

You go, SF School Board! Trash that obnoxious Communist Colonialist bunch of paintings!

Evil, ruthless white settlers (one equipped with a pick to violate the landscape) advance past the body of the noble Indian they killed.

HT: Althouse.