Roundup
It’s another one of those days with lots to talk about:
(1) Mark Judge on how pop music criticism has become wholly taken over by wokeness. An excerpt:
Spence Kornhaber almost got there. He almost let himself admit that “Renaissance,” the new album by Beyoncé, is awful. “Renaissance” is an hour of clattering dance beats with no melody or direction, lyrics that mine the same tired tropes about loving yourself, and dull profanity.
Sounds fab.
Kornhaber’s review notes that in “Renaissance” “conventional songwriting rules, polite-test paradigms, and the best practices for headache avoidance were clearly not priorities here. The songs scatter, wobble and lurch into each other while Beyoncé wavers between singing and doing silly voices, in multitrack.”
Even more fab!
But then Kornhaber adds as a corrective:
‘Renaissance’ will play, to many, as exhausting, as indulgent, as ridiculous, as childish, as oversexed, as too much. But committing oneself to pleasure as fully as Beyoncé has here takes defiance and guts—and, more deeply, faith in the preciousness of one’s own experience. Somehow she has found a way to make messages of individual empowerment, which can be so trite in pop, jolt again.
Count me as one of the “many” in that first sentence, and please don’t limit it to the music of Beyoncé. Almost all of music of the 21st Century leaves me cold, but then again I’m not its target market. And I would expand that to include all the arts today, and I mean that literally. I cannot think of an art that hasn’t been ruined by a combination of vulgarity, the need to shock, wokeness, and a vapid emptiness that speaks of a general cultural enervation and disintegration.
(2) Outsourcing Europe’s energy to Russia was a very obviously bad idea. But when Trump warned Europe about it, they mocked him. Has any European country’s leader ever apologized for that? No? Quelle surprise.
We outsourced our medical supplies (as well as computer components) to China, another obviously terrible idea that was highlighted during the COVID pandemic. Has it been corrected?
Apple may be “headquartered” in Cupertino, but more than 90 percent of iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks are made in China, albeit “designed in California.” Despite their endless virtue-signaling, these corporations are indifferent to the national economy. Instead, many have become China’s ultimate cheerleaders and enablers, with venture capital firms raising billions to fund new firms in the Middle Kingdom—in other words, subsidizing the competition…
De-industrialization means more than just losing some “crappy jobs.” It means losing the critical skills required to design and produce products…
In accordance with this trend, U.S. medical equipment producers have left en masse for abroad, notably to China. As a result, Chinese dominance of the medical supply chain undermined our initial pandemic response, exposing us to the reality that we’re unable even to produce masks for our own people. Instead, we were forced to genuflect to Beijing, while they refused to share critical information on the pandemic…
As observed by Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, “China’s decision to block exports of these goods led to widespread shortages.” Moving forward, “there is also the concern that an increasingly assertive China might seek to exploit the world’s dependence on it for political purposes.”
Who could ever have imagined such a thing? And yes, that’s sarcasm. And Joe Biden is the last person on earth to address it, for a host of reasons – including his own enmeshment with China.
(3) Why is Pelosi in Taiwan? Byron York tackles the question – and fails to answer it. More speculation here, by Niall Ferguson. The bottom line? We don’t know.
(4) With monkeypox, the response is all about politics. There was a lot of this with AIDS, too, for quite a while.
(5) California’s war on independent truckers leads to demonstrations at the port of Oakland, but they’ve been dispersed and not covered much by the MSM. The Democrats want to destroy such entrepreneurship “for our own good,” and since in California Democrats have all the power, the truckers probably haven’t a chance. One-party Democrat rule, it’s great, isn’t it?
“California’s war on independent truckers”
“No man without a master” was a motto of the feudal ages.
Fauci first became modestly famous by lying about HIV and, subsequently, very famous and very wealthy by lying about the Wuhan-virus, all in the cause of “equity”. Kennedy of FoxNews disgraced herself a few days ago when she lambasted Ned Ryun for having the praiseworthy temerity to state the plain truth about who is at risk and which kind of behavior is most risky in the matter of what is now considered a “global emergency” by the worthless WHO. It is hardly a surprise that SF and NYC, both run by morons, are the most egregious examples of reacting irrationally and insanely to this latest “crisis”.
Once parents abandon faith in an afterlife, they have nothing left to bequeath their children but empty hedonism and the utopia of the woke. Insulation from contemplation that only the Big Dark awaits.
Implementing bad ideas has consequences. Which is why “deplorable” scapegoats are needed.
Pelosi’s visit, now backed by the Biden administration, sends a message to the CCP that they’re going to have to fight for Taiwan. But the CCP has correctly calculated that the Biden administration is all bark and no bite.
Coastal Californians have much to answer for…
maybe this time,
https://voxday.net/2022/08/02/were-the-chinese-bluffing/
The CDC, helpful as always, puts you some knowledge about safe sex in the time of monkeypox:
https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/sexualhealth/index.html
Sample heading: “How can a person lower the chance of getting monkeypox at places like raves, parties, clubs, and festivals?” Note the use of the gender-neutral term “person.” More advice for the aficionados of kink: “Remember to wash your hands, fetish gear, sex toys and any fabrics (bedding, towels, clothing) after having sex.”
Note also the CDC’s tender concern for the household pets of infected humans: “Infected animals can spread Monkeypox virus to people, and it is possible that people who are infected can spread Monkeypox virus to animals through close contact, including petting, cuddling, hugging, kissing, licking, sharing sleeping areas, and sharing food.” However, “If your pet is exposed to monkey pox: Do not surrender, euthanize, or abandon pets just because of a potential exposure or [sic] Monkeypox virus. Do not wipe or bathe your pet with chemical disinfectants, alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, or other products, such as hand sanitizer, counter-cleaning wipes, or other industrial or surface cleaners.”
https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/specific-settings/pets-in-homes.html
It would not surprise me at all if thousands of cats and dogs end up in shelters or on the streets because of human sexual irresponsibility.
“But committing oneself to pleasure as fully as Beyoncé has here takes defiance and guts—and, more deeply, faith in the preciousness of one’s own experience.”
The preciousness of one’s own experience. That explains a lot.
No it doesnt now talent is something else and this album seems to suggest shes coasting (although not the first one)
Again
https://mobile.twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1554681175553228802?cxt=HHwWhICy_diSq5MrAAAA
I want to know why Pelosi, who has no role in foreign relations whatsoever, is doing flying in a USAF VIP transport.
https://babylonbee.com/news/pelosi-cancels-taiwan-trip-over-fears-of-chinas-newly-developed-vodka-seeking-missile
AesopFan–
If China develops a Botox-seeking missile, SanFranNan is in real trouble.
I’d look at what her husband, family and friends are invested in, especially shorts.
Here’s my contribution to preventing monkeypox…
WRAP IT OR FAP IT
I did a quick survey of several LGBT forums and this isn’t being talked about at all on them, or wasn’t last week when I looked. A gun forum I’m on had a thread up about this on May 19th.
Checking again just now, one of the forums I surveyed finally has an article on it, and they’re mostly complaining about stigmatizing gay guys.
}}} I cannot think of an art that hasn’t been ruined by a combination of vulgarity, the need to shock, wokeness, and a vapid emptiness that speaks of a general cultural enervation and disintegration.
Alt Rock. There may be some of that there, but not enough to be significant.