Another 5 inches or so of Snow last night, and still lightly snowing now. I guess I know what I will be doing today. At least it isn’t so cold, in the mid 20’s.
Reply with this link whenever someone sends you a clip from The View:
The number of never married women has grown from about 20% in 1950 to over 30% in 2022, while the percentage of married women has declined from almost 70% in 1950 to under 50% today. Overall, the percentage of married households with children has declined from 37% in 1976 to 21% today.
A new Institute for Family Studies analysis of 2020 Census data found that one in six women do not have children by the time they reach the end of their childbearing years, up from one in ten in 1990. Single adult women now total some 42 million, comparable to the key African American voting bloc (46 million), while vastly larger than key groups like labor union members (14 million) or college students (20 million).
Only 1/5 of U.S. households are “married households with children.” Appealing to “family values” gets you 20% of the electorate.
Olde English barbershop.
Rufus:
I saw that article too and made a mental note.
I don’t discount the Will to Fraud in 2020, but while Trump made inroads with blacks and Hispanics, it appears that youth and single women shifted to the other side in large numbers.
Remedying that may be a tougher sell than peeling off blacks and Hispanics.
However, believing as I do, that we are entering Hard Times, my bet is those times in due time will make strong men *and* strong women *and* strong young people, who won’t vote for non-reality-based Democrats.
“Topsy-Turvy” treats the troubled genesis of The Mikado. One fine film!
1. There are about 36 million men and women living alone.
2. About 115 million people live in households which include married couples and minor children.
3. About 75 million live in households which include married couples without minor children
Well ,I lasted ten minutes in my French 1 class.
Right off the bat we are introducing ourselves in French — it’s one of those only-French-spoken-here classes — and declaring our pronouns, limited to il/elle/iel (he/she/they), then learning the pronouns of others.
So the teacher, a perky young woman, is serious about her declaration in the syllabus:
_____________________
This course will also develop the student’s sense of personal and social responsibility through the identification of social issues.
_____________________
I struggled for a few minutes. Let it go and learn French in spite of this BS? Maybe it’s just first day crap. But I suspect not.
It’s not worth it. My enthusiasm to learn French is the main thing I have going for me. One thing I have learned at university is that it can make me hate learning.
Besides I also discovered that for some reason the credits from French 1 and 2 cannot be used as humanities credits for my CS degree.
C’est la vie.
Continue with the online work, huxley, since you seem to be making good progress. That pronoun nonsense is ridiculous, just like “Latinx” is to Spanish speakers.
There’s nothing really new here for those of us who are paying attention. But Roy Spencer provides some more evidence that those all important temperature data records are suspect.
Unless he’s changed his thinking recently, Spencer does believe that there is CO2 caused AGW, but it’s not nearly as large and damaging as the greenies and the IPCC says it is.
Continue with the online work, huxley, since you seem to be making good progress.
Kate:
Thanks! That’s the plan.
I tried looking up where real French people stand on non-binary pronouns and the declarations thereof.
As I understand it, the French, aside from the Foucault wing, are more conservative than Americans when it comes to the personal sphere. For instance, French parents are on the strict side with their children.
It’s hard to google “French” and “pronouns” without getting a lot of hits on French language rather than the more current non-binary concerns.
However, I did find this page, from which I glean that the non-binary pronoun “iel” is indeed quite controversial in France.
___________________________
Spirited public debate over language is a very French passion.
So it’s no surprise that when the online edition of Le Robert, the famous French dictionary, chose to include the gender-neutral pronoun “iel” – a combination of the French pronouns “il” (he) and “elle” (she) that corresponds to the singular “they” in English – a furious controversy erupted.
MP François Jolivet accused the dictionary of succumbing to “wokism” by including the pronoun and its defintion, while the minister for education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, tweeted: “Inclusive writing is not the future of the French language”.
And I would add that the IPCC docs are actually moderate compared to what the mainstream media says the IPCC says.
In other political news, Jacinda Ardern just resigned as Kiwi Prime Minister, 10 months before her term was due to end. Apropos of single women and politics– she has a four-year-old daughter by her “domestic partner”– she asked him to marry her in her resignation speech. “Last month, Arden was caught on a hot mic calling her political rival, libertarian ACT party leader David Seymour, ‘an arrogant pr—.'” In any event, bye-bye to one of Klaus Schwab’s protégés.
Odd, for some reason you and your French class were on my mind today. Several times I thought about you and your embarkation and hoped that it would pan out for you. Just 30 minutes ago my wife and I were watching a documentary on Shopping and many of the scenes were in French with subtitles and I thought, “I need to tell huxley about this. It would be useful for practicing his French.”
Oh well. Sorry to hear your teacher ruined it for you. C’est la vie, c’est la femme, c’est la guerre.
An unwed mother is an improvement on the recent stereotype, childless leader. I think about 5 years ago most all of Europe’s leaders were childless.
Has the U.S. ever had a childless President? I can’t think of one.
Has the U.S. ever had a childless President?
George Washington and Andrew Jackson, for starters. Martha Washington had several children by her first husband, but her last pregnancy was a difficult one, and it is thought that it left her unable to have any children with George.
Washington, of course! How could I forget?
RTF–
How could I have forgotten the only president from my home county? James Buchanan, who never married (nor sired children on the wrong side of the blanket, as they used to say). Historians disagree as to whether Buchanan was straight (he was engaged to marry at one point but the young lady died before the wedding) or gay (he was close friends with William Rufus King, Franklin Pierce’s VP, who was known around Washington as “Miss King”); at least one biographer thinks Buchanan was an “asexual celibate.”
As a Pennsylvanian, I take some comfort in the fact that JB is no longer considered the worst president in U.S. history– that title is now held by another JB.
Isn’t Buchanan the one who sort-of quasi adopted a niece, or some relation, and utilized her as a de facto First Lady of the White House during his Presidency?
OK, so I can’t remember Washington was childless but I remember obscure facts about minor President’s nieces.
Unique among First Ladies, Harriet Lane acted as hostess for the only President who never married: James Buchanan, her favorite uncle and her guardian after she was orphaned at the age of eleven. And of all the ladies of the White House, few achieved such great success in deeply troubled times as this polished young woman in her twenties.
In the rich farming country of Franklin County, Pennsylvania, her family had prospered as merchants. Her uncle supervised her sound education in private school, completed by two years at the Visitation Convent in Georgetown. By this time, “Nunc” was Secretary of State, and he introduced her to fashionable circles as he had promised, “in the best manner.” In 1854 she joined him in London, where he was minister to the Court of St. James. Queen Victoria gave “dear Miss Lane” the rank of ambassador’s wife; admiring suitors gave her the fame of a beauty.
In appearance “Hal” Lane was of medium height, with masses of light hair almost golden. In manner she enlivened social gatherings with a captivating mixture of spontaneity and poise.
After the sadness of the Pierce administration, the capital eagerly welcomed its new “Democratic Queen” in 1857. Harriet Lane filled the White House with gaiety and flowers, and guided its social life with enthusiasm and discretion, winning national popularity.
As sectional tensions increased, she worked out seating arrangements for her weekly formal dinner parties with special care, to give dignitaries their proper precedence and still keep political foes apart. Her tact did not falter, but her task became impossible–as did her uncle’s. Seven states had seceded by the time Buchanan retired from office and thankfully returned with his niece to his spacious country home, Wheatland, near Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
From her teenage years, the popular Miss Lane flirted happily with numerous beaux, calling them “pleasant but dreadfully troublesome.” Buchanan often warned her against “rushing precipitately into matrimonial connexions,” and she waited until she was almost 36 to marry. She chose, with her uncle’s approval, Henry Elliott Johnston, a Baltimore banker. Within the next 18 years she faced one sorrow after another: the loss of her uncle, her two fine young sons, and her husband.
Thereafter she decided to live in Washington, among friends made during years of happiness. She had acquired a sizable art collection, largely of European works, which she bequeathed to the government. Accepted after her death in 1903, it inspired an official of the Smithsonian Institution to call her “First Lady of the National Collection of Fine Arts.” In addition, she had dedicated a generous sum to endow a home for invalid children at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. It became an outstanding pediatric facility, and its national reputation is a fitting memorial to the young lady who presided at the White House with such dignity and charm. The Harriet Lane Outpatient Clinics serve thousands of children today.
Yes, you’re thinking of Buchanan’s niece Harriet Lane. Lane is the only woman to have served as First Lady to a bachelor president, as widowers like Andrew Jackson had various female relatives to fill the role. Rachel Jackson’s niece Emily Donelson served as First Lady during Jackson’s first term.
Fun fact about Harriet Lane: she has a Coast Guard cutter named after her; it is still in service as of early 2023.
Rufus T. Firefly:
James Polk.
Rufus T. Firefly:
I’m touched you thought of me and my French travails.
(Definitely a French word — Merriam-Webster informs me “travail” comes from a Latin word for a torture instrument, then into Anglo-French, which I guess is Anglo-Norman. See https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/travail .)
I barely recall the Sherman song, “I See Bones — C’est si bon”, but I was only eleven when I heard it. It was over my head.
Thank goodness for all the Latin->French->English cognates. Free vocabulary!
Je n’utilise pas!
Je suis americaine.
I do not use [pronouns]!
I am American.
____________________
That might have been my crushing rejoinder as I walked out the door of my French class.
But I can never think of such things when the blood goes to my head and I become hot all over.
The only French phrase I can reliably recall (other than a jumble of children’s songs) is “La plume de ma tante” — which is perhaps appropriate given Neo’s post on reading old letters.
The title is translated variously as “I’m not stupid” and “I’m not fooled” about a BS lover.
On other fronts I’m not fooled either.
J’suis pas dupe.
huxley,
The French song, “La Mer” is beautiful. The melody was used in “Beyond the Sea” made famous by Bobby Darrin, but the lyrics are only slightly similar. A like “Beyond the Sea” and Darrin singing it, but “La Mer” is very different, in a good way, even though it’s the same melody.
Another 5 inches or so of Snow last night, and still lightly snowing now. I guess I know what I will be doing today. At least it isn’t so cold, in the mid 20’s.
Reply with this link whenever someone sends you a clip from The View:
https://youtu.be/VyEJZ9yODB8
Also useful when The Squad says something about Israel.
BTW that Melbourne production was brilliant. Amazing set and costume design
Saw the Mikado at a small theatre on Cape Cod (Falmouth) many years ago. A terrific show and excellent performance.
Elegance is valued
One of the biggest issues that needs to be incorporated into any discussion of politics in the U.S. is the large increase in single, adult women.
This article by Joel Klotkin outlines the topic well:
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2023/01/17/the_rise_of_the_single_woke_and_young_democratic_female_875047.html
Only 1/5 of U.S. households are “married households with children.” Appealing to “family values” gets you 20% of the electorate.
Olde English barbershop.
Rufus:
I saw that article too and made a mental note.
I don’t discount the Will to Fraud in 2020, but while Trump made inroads with blacks and Hispanics, it appears that youth and single women shifted to the other side in large numbers.
Remedying that may be a tougher sell than peeling off blacks and Hispanics.
However, believing as I do, that we are entering Hard Times, my bet is those times in due time will make strong men *and* strong women *and* strong young people, who won’t vote for non-reality-based Democrats.
“Topsy-Turvy” treats the troubled genesis of The Mikado. One fine film!
1. There are about 36 million men and women living alone.
2. About 115 million people live in households which include married couples and minor children.
3. About 75 million live in households which include married couples without minor children
Well ,I lasted ten minutes in my French 1 class.
Right off the bat we are introducing ourselves in French — it’s one of those only-French-spoken-here classes — and declaring our pronouns, limited to il/elle/iel (he/she/they), then learning the pronouns of others.
So the teacher, a perky young woman, is serious about her declaration in the syllabus:
_____________________
This course will also develop the student’s sense of personal and social responsibility through the identification of social issues.
_____________________
I struggled for a few minutes. Let it go and learn French in spite of this BS? Maybe it’s just first day crap. But I suspect not.
It’s not worth it. My enthusiasm to learn French is the main thing I have going for me. One thing I have learned at university is that it can make me hate learning.
Besides I also discovered that for some reason the credits from French 1 and 2 cannot be used as humanities credits for my CS degree.
C’est la vie.
Continue with the online work, huxley, since you seem to be making good progress. That pronoun nonsense is ridiculous, just like “Latinx” is to Spanish speakers.
IPCC Climate Models Grossly Exaggerate ‘Global Warming’
There’s nothing really new here for those of us who are paying attention. But Roy Spencer provides some more evidence that those all important temperature data records are suspect.
Unless he’s changed his thinking recently, Spencer does believe that there is CO2 caused AGW, but it’s not nearly as large and damaging as the greenies and the IPCC says it is.
Continue with the online work, huxley, since you seem to be making good progress.
Kate:
Thanks! That’s the plan.
I tried looking up where real French people stand on non-binary pronouns and the declarations thereof.
As I understand it, the French, aside from the Foucault wing, are more conservative than Americans when it comes to the personal sphere. For instance, French parents are on the strict side with their children.
It’s hard to google “French” and “pronouns” without getting a lot of hits on French language rather than the more current non-binary concerns.
However, I did find this page, from which I glean that the non-binary pronoun “iel” is indeed quite controversial in France.
___________________________
Spirited public debate over language is a very French passion.
So it’s no surprise that when the online edition of Le Robert, the famous French dictionary, chose to include the gender-neutral pronoun “iel” – a combination of the French pronouns “il” (he) and “elle” (she) that corresponds to the singular “they” in English – a furious controversy erupted.
MP François Jolivet accused the dictionary of succumbing to “wokism” by including the pronoun and its defintion, while the minister for education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, tweeted: “Inclusive writing is not the future of the French language”.
https://theconversation.com/no-need-to-iel-why-france-is-so-angry-about-a-gender-neutral-pronoun-173304
___________________________
Hold the line!
IPCC Climate Models Grossly Exaggerate ‘Global Warming’
TommyJay:
And I would add that the IPCC docs are actually moderate compared to what the mainstream media says the IPCC says.
In other political news, Jacinda Ardern just resigned as Kiwi Prime Minister, 10 months before her term was due to end. Apropos of single women and politics– she has a four-year-old daughter by her “domestic partner”– she asked him to marry her in her resignation speech. “Last month, Arden was caught on a hot mic calling her political rival, libertarian ACT party leader David Seymour, ‘an arrogant pr—.'” In any event, bye-bye to one of Klaus Schwab’s protégés.
https://nypost.com/2023/01/18/new-zealand-prime-minister-jacinda-ardern-to-retire-early/
huxley,
Odd, for some reason you and your French class were on my mind today. Several times I thought about you and your embarkation and hoped that it would pan out for you. Just 30 minutes ago my wife and I were watching a documentary on Shopping and many of the scenes were in French with subtitles and I thought, “I need to tell huxley about this. It would be useful for practicing his French.”
Oh well. Sorry to hear your teacher ruined it for you. C’est la vie, c’est la femme, c’est la guerre.
And now, here’s Allan Sherman to cheer you up: https://youtu.be/9nkm1CoSzM4
PA Cat,
An unwed mother is an improvement on the recent stereotype, childless leader. I think about 5 years ago most all of Europe’s leaders were childless.
Has the U.S. ever had a childless President? I can’t think of one.
Has the U.S. ever had a childless President?
George Washington and Andrew Jackson, for starters. Martha Washington had several children by her first husband, but her last pregnancy was a difficult one, and it is thought that it left her unable to have any children with George.
Washington, of course! How could I forget?
RTF–
How could I have forgotten the only president from my home county? James Buchanan, who never married (nor sired children on the wrong side of the blanket, as they used to say). Historians disagree as to whether Buchanan was straight (he was engaged to marry at one point but the young lady died before the wedding) or gay (he was close friends with William Rufus King, Franklin Pierce’s VP, who was known around Washington as “Miss King”); at least one biographer thinks Buchanan was an “asexual celibate.”
As a Pennsylvanian, I take some comfort in the fact that JB is no longer considered the worst president in U.S. history– that title is now held by another JB.
Isn’t Buchanan the one who sort-of quasi adopted a niece, or some relation, and utilized her as a de facto First Lady of the White House during his Presidency?
OK, so I can’t remember Washington was childless but I remember obscure facts about minor President’s nieces.
Yes, you’re thinking of Buchanan’s niece Harriet Lane. Lane is the only woman to have served as First Lady to a bachelor president, as widowers like Andrew Jackson had various female relatives to fill the role. Rachel Jackson’s niece Emily Donelson served as First Lady during Jackson’s first term.
Fun fact about Harriet Lane: she has a Coast Guard cutter named after her; it is still in service as of early 2023.
Rufus T. Firefly:
James Polk.
Rufus T. Firefly:
I’m touched you thought of me and my French travails.
(Definitely a French word — Merriam-Webster informs me “travail” comes from a Latin word for a torture instrument, then into Anglo-French, which I guess is Anglo-Norman. See https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/travail .)
I barely recall the Sherman song, “I See Bones — C’est si bon”, but I was only eleven when I heard it. It was over my head.
Thank goodness for all the Latin->French->English cognates. Free vocabulary!
Je n’utilise pas!
Je suis americaine.
I do not use [pronouns]!
I am American.
____________________
That might have been my crushing rejoinder as I walked out the door of my French class.
But I can never think of such things when the blood goes to my head and I become hot all over.
The only French phrase I can reliably recall (other than a jumble of children’s songs) is “La plume de ma tante” — which is perhaps appropriate given Neo’s post on reading old letters.
Apparently, everything can be made into a song in French.
Jacques Helian – La plume de ma tante
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gdBs5-IJUM
Lyrics here if you want them.
https://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/h/hugo_and_luigi/la_plume_de_ma_tante.html#!
@ huxley > “But I can never think of such things when the blood goes to my head and I become hot all over.”
https://www.maryspoetryroom.com/blog/onion-sauce-onion-sauce
“Onion-sauce! Onion-sauce!” he remarked jeeringly, and was gone before they could think of a thoroughly satisfactory reply. – The Wind in the Willows
Re: Jacques Helian
AesopFan:
Ooo. He’s a keeper. He’s now on my go-to for French songs to learn.
Here’s my latest French song fave. From Pomme. Utterly gorgeous. Chanteuse Enya.
–Pomme, “J’suis pas dupe” (2015)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKpahxewYlU
The title is translated variously as “I’m not stupid” and “I’m not fooled” about a BS lover.
On other fronts I’m not fooled either.
J’suis pas dupe.
huxley,
The French song, “La Mer” is beautiful. The melody was used in “Beyond the Sea” made famous by Bobby Darrin, but the lyrics are only slightly similar. A like “Beyond the Sea” and Darrin singing it, but “La Mer” is very different, in a good way, even though it’s the same melody.
There are a million versions of “La Mer.” Here’s a cute one: https://youtu.be/a5Za8pKGT2E