I had to prune out a bunch of root sprouts or “suckers” from a blooming ornamental crab apple the other day and it wasn’t pleasent. Basically they’re these vegitative shoots that grow up from the root system of the tree that really stand out when the tree blooms since they don’t bloom themselves. Not only are they unpleasent to look at but they divert resources (light and nutrients) away from the main tree. I had to crawl under the skirt of the tree with an electric chainsaw, cut them and pull them out. I very got cut up by all the pointy branches.
We were in CT and Long Island over the weekend for a wedding. I remarked to my wife I had forgotten how beautiful CT is in the spring with all the flowering trees. She said what about the fall? I said it just reminded me of how winter is coming very soon.
BTW, on the flights back and forth with about 100 people on the flight generally about 12 were wearing masks. I’m not talking about frail 85 year olds, but people in the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. They covidiots are still among us. Nationally, new cases for the past 2 weeks are trending very close to zero.
“They gave him money, part of it–they say it wasn’t part of it–but we’re learning that Tucker getting fired was part of that,” Langille said.
“He did things that cost [the company] a lot of money,” Languille said. Among them were Carlson’s attempts to expose Ray Epps over the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021, as well as there being a substantial number of advertisers that would not advertise in the 8 o’clock hour.
So supposedly Tucker cost Fox News money with advertisers who were upset about Tucker? Of course it’s now very likely that now Fox News is going to lose far more money due to losing audience leading to weakening positions for carriage fee negotiations which are coming up soon.
The photo reminds me that it is actually summery elsewhere in the nation. It will creep up to 61F here today, then return to highs of 58F the rest of the week. A friend from the Seattle area, a thousand miles north, is experiencing 85F weather. Sigh. I guess I need to hop in the car and drive inland for a while.
My latest post: Educational Credentialism Strikes Again–in China This Time
“He did things that cost [the company] a lot of money…”.
Hmm. I wonder how exposing the Ray Epps farce cost them anything? And it’s unlikely to have been his comments on Dominion, because it sounds like he qualified most of the guest’s claims with challenges for actual evidence, unlike other, more sharply-expressed opinions on Fox.
As for the advertisers: I wonder how Carlson is responsible for Woke activists hounding corporations for buying advertising space on Carlson’s show, driving them away? He had the most popular news program on television, with the largest viewing audience – but a handful of loudmouths that could intimidate executive cowards into sacrificing their product’s visibility – that’s Carlson’s fault too, for being too popular and effective? The mind boggles at such sloppy thinking.
I watched a little over half of the James O’Keefe video that Nonapod linked. It’s rather shocking. It is stated by the Fox producer, that a guy, Michael LaRosa, went directly from working for the Biden admin. (a Jill Biden operative I believe) to crafting the PR messaging for Dominion Voting Systems.
Plus, the whole Ray Epps episode is so disturbing, if the obvious suppositions are true; and for some reason we’re not allowed to learn about it?
This is why “Biden” NEEDS a Disinformation Czar or Department, or Department within a Department (all the better to conceal it).
What it means is that EVERYTHING we see, read, hear that emanates from a news source or from an “official” source or from a Democratic Party operative must be disbelieved right off the bat.
It might be true, but that mustn’t be assumed.
The question that must always be asked first is: What do THEY WANT US to believe? In what direction do they want us to lean? And why do they want this?
The average Soviet citizen was far better at this than we could ever expect to be at this point, at least, with all their decades of experience…unless we also will end up living for decades having to learn to read between the lines, discovering meaning in what is absent, bizarre or non-sensical.
More good news from Florida. Today, governor Ron DeSantis, signed a law removing funding for DEI, which the governor said stood for discrimination, exclusion, and indoctrination, from Florida state colleges. He signed the law at the New College, which the trustees he appointed are re-making into a real educational institution. As expected, the leftist media are having a conniption fit. Here’s a more balanced article.
Not satisfied with their increasing sales due to AB’s marketing disaster, Now Miller Lite apologizes for it’s ads in past featuring mud wrestling. Going woke is now a trend.
So maybe someone can answer: is this ESG scoring THAT powerful such that a company abandons its customers in order to satisfy woke investors? How does that work out in the long term with no one to sell to?
Biden and the dishonest Democrats have a really bizarre obsession with non-existent white supremacy. Of course, we all know that this is just battlefield prep for more of what they did in Charlottesville and on Jan 6.
That Reichstag fire strategy is still paying dividends for fascists. Our own American Kristallnacht will come before the next election. The MSM propaganda wing of the fascists will cheer.
Now there’s a beer controversy with Miller Lite’s advertising. It’s a dumb ad from an ad team that does not understand their customers, but what really annoys me is the lazy feminism it employs.
What is it about men that drives some women (and men) to insist that all women do all things better than all men? It’s so ignorant and immature.
The ad all but says women invented beer and beer brewing and were the brewers of beer until men stole brewing from them. Or something like that? My IQ actually dropped trying to even posit a logical arc to its plot.
So many people are trapped in a 1950s, upper-middle class American view of gender, race relations and ethnicity. And even that view is not historically accurate.
The vast majority of men and women didn’t have “jobs” or gender roles when beer was “invented.” The vast majority of humans lived hard scrabble lives where most waking hours were devoted to finding enough food to survive and, if time allotted, some shelter. When agriculture and animal husbandry led some people to settle an area, division of labor became somewhat common so some people had “occupations,” but if a man was a blacksmith he didn’t hop in his Fred Flinstone pedal car with his lunchpail where he punched a timeclock. He and his family lived next to the forge and everyone in the family did whatever was needed. All day long until everyone fell asleep from exhaustion.
Look at something like “Little House on the Prairie.” (Not that long ago, historically.) What was the mother’s “job?” The father’s? Everything was a job and any able-bodied person was tasked with doing it.
Beer was invented a thousand times in human history, by many, many people of both genders observing what happens in some situations when yeast and rotting fruit and other plants combine in certain conditions. I’ve been a man my whole life and I’ve hung out with a bunch of men, and sometimes it involved drinking beer. Occasionally the subject of females came up and I don’t recall any man ever insisting men invented beer, or women were incapable of brewing beer, or even correlating gender with beer brewing. But the women who wrote this ad seem convinced the world is full of women obsessed with brewing beer and consuming it and men who believe women are incapable of that. Who thinks like that? How shallow must one be to think anyone else is thinking that way?
I just deleted a bunch more words.
We live in such an idiotic culture. That oft played image of the woman in the wool cap kneeling and screaming as Donald Trump is sworn in as President captures the zeitgeist perfectly. https://youtu.be/wDYNVH0U3cs
Narcissists with the temperament of pubescent children howling at the moon.
I just realized what it is at the core of these ads that is so annoying. Some people, apparently many, many people, believe everything must be about them.
I see a lot of ads that I think are dumb, or silly but 99% of the time I am not a consumer of the product, so I don’t give it another thought. I’m not the target. It’s not about me.
But there are a lot of people who see things they have no interest in and want to eliminate them, or prevent others from possessing them, or enjoying them. Why?
I don’t like rap music or modern country music. I’m not bothered in the least that others do. When I see an ad for a Chris Stapleton or Carrie Underwood* concert or album I don’t get mad that the people in the ad don’t look like me, or talk like me, or dress like me. Why would they? I’m not the target demo.
It’s misogyny and racism, straight up. If someone looks at a commercial during an NFL game, where 75% or more of the viewership is male, and they get mad a beer company is targeting males they have way too much free time on their hands. It’s like me getting upset there are make-up companies advertising on The View. Or me getting mad the cast of The View are female.
Frat boys like to drink Bud Light. They must be stopped.
Men who like to look at the female form drink Miller Lite. They must be stopped.
*I had to DuckDuckGo top country artists for those two names. That’s how little I know of country music. I apologize if they are not appropriate to my analogy.
Where are They Now? “Clock Boy”
Not that anyone here is wondering, but today I had a wild hair to check what happened to Clock Boy, Ahmed Mohamed, the Muslim kid who in 2015 brought a partially disassembled digital clock that looked a lot like a bomb to a Texas school, then it started beeping…
The school called the police, the police put the kid in handcuffs, and all hell broke loose. The media, Obama and Mark Zuckerberg leapt in to call “Islamophobia” and to congratulate the kid on his tech chops.
There were no tech chops. The kid (or someone) obtained a digital clock, took it somewhat apart and put it into a briefcase so it looked like a bomb.
The school authorities and police had no choice but to take the threat seriously and react as they did.
The Muslim family took the opportunity, which I’m sure was the point all along, to sue everyone in sight for millions of dollars.
Happily, Texas is still (mostly) Texas. The suits went nowhere and the Muslim family was obliged to pay court costs.
The family had already moved to Qatar. Clock Boy had some sort of scholarship to a Qatar school.
There the trail goes cold. Best wishes to the Mohammed family as long as they never return to the US.
I’ll bet they never paid any court costs.
I just realized what it is at the core of these ads that is so annoying.
==
I’m a more pedestrian thinker, so I got annoyed at the gratuitous use of scatalogical expletives over and over by the broads in the commercial. The ad agency they hired fancies people will be amused by the image of something you imbibe juxtaposed to intestinal waste.
==
There’s a (perhaps apocryphal) story that a company president told an interview that half his ad budget was wasted; he just didn’t know which half. These dames and the Ivy League bint at Bud Light are screaming “This half”.
My IQ actually dropped trying to even posit a logical arc to its plot. — Rufus T. Firefly
Best laugh of my day. And I tend to laugh quite a bit.
I had read somewhere that going way back in history, it was generallly the case that wine that was the alcoholic beverage of choice. Then probably more than once, there was a summer or series of summers with bad weather (explosive volcano?), and the grape crops were poor. Then the incentive to convert grains into beverages like beers or whiskey is high.
Re: Carrie Underwood (In Praise of)
Rufus T. Firefly:
You conceded your lack of knowledge upfront and of course I agree with your point.
I just have to say that Carrie Underwood is a real talent in New Country (or whatever they’re calling it these days).
Recent country musicians grew up with a foot each in two worlds — Old Country and Classic Rock. As far as I’m concerned, if you want to hear Classic Rock today, you listen to New Country.
Carrie Underwood is the New Country version of Stevie Nicks and more. She’s probably not an Old Country fan’s glass of beer, but Underwood is damn good at it.
Here’s the first Underwood video which floored me:
________________________
Right now, he’s probably slow dancing
With a bleached-blonde tramp
And she’s probably getting frisky
Right now, he’s probably buying her some fruity little drink
‘Cause she can’t shoot a whiskey
Right now, he’s probably up behind her with a pool-stick
Showing her how to shoot a combo
Nonapod,
Those ” suckers” may be from a different type of apple tree. Many trees you buy today are grafts with the roots of one tree and the top of another.
The problem isn’t gender or racial or ethnic diversity. Beer companies could find plenty of women of any race or ethnicity who completely understand beer consumers and how to market to them. Someone like Olivia Munn would be perfect (check out YouTube compilations of her work on G4 , the Game Show network talkshow). I know a lot of women like her; glad to be women, not trying to be men, aware that men are different from women and possessing great senses of humor.
Why hire someone who is not interested in your product and does not appreciate your products’ consumers to market your product? The recent Bud Light fiasco and this Miller Lite ad aren’t massive failures because they are led by women. They are massive failures because they are led by the wrong kind of women.
huxley,
Thanks for the information on clock boy. That sure smelled of a scam at the time. I hope the young man was able to escape from his parents’ control and is thriving.
I recently wondered about Elián González and what became of him. I figured no sense in DuckDuckGo’ing as Cuba likely is keeping information about him under wraps. Your post just prodded me to search…
It appears U.S. media has kept tabs on him. He’s got a fairly long wikipedia page. He earned a degree in Industrial Engineering and, in 2020 was reported to be expecting his first child with his fiance. “González was nominated by the municipal assembly of Cárdenas to run as its candidate for the National Assembly of People’s Power in the 2023 Cuban parliamentary election. He was elected unopposed along with the CPC’s slate of 470 candidates… In an interview with CNN en Español he blamed his mother’s death on economic impact of the United States embargo against Cuba, which he held to be responsible for the economic underdevelopment of the country. González also claimed to be happy that he did not stay in the United States, arguing that he would have been manipulated into becoming a ‘performer’ for the Cuban dissident movement and the American media. He also claimed ‘I don’t profess to have any religion, but if I did my God would be Fidel Castro.'”
nonapod,
I had a tree at one of my homes that grew tall, thick shoots from the root system. Sounds like what you are describing. I had to take a chain saw to them every few years, but they always came back. It was a gorgeous, very healthy tree otherwise.
Stumbled upon this very interesting animated chart, showing the numbers of immigrants to the U.S. by country of origin, and their changing position vis-a-vis other immigrant groups from 1820 to 2023.
The Quillette article is behind a paywall. I’m curious to know where it went. My wife and I would not have allowed our children to film themselves and friends at a sleepover and post the videos online. I’m hoping the author’s judgement gets wiser in the paragraphs behind the paywall.
Snow on Pine,
That was interesting. I think. I kind of assumed Mexico would take off towards the end, but it really was astounding to watch from 1970 onward.
I’m not sure what it’s saying, though. My guess is it’s cumulative immigrants, year on year? Not national heritage. i.e., only actual immigrants count, not their offspring or offsprings’ offspring and once you are counted you stay counted? In other words; each year’s total combines all preeeding years’ totals?
huxley,
Yep, Carrie Underwood is great, and that one song of hers one of the best. I’m not sure what is New Country anymore. I’m a bit out of the loop. While still working I would listen to the local country station (WCTY) driving in which had a wonderful pair of DJs who were entertaining and I got a sampling of the latest music. I occasionally listen now to SXM “Prime Country” which features artists from the late 80’s to about 2010. I think Underwood falls into that category
Rufus T Firefly…the Quillette article is very long, but here are a couple of excerpts:
“Contemporary feminist thought is correct to identify the male gaze as the default way of seeing, but has largely overlooked the fact that the gaze places power squarely in the hands of women, not men. The young teenage girls in my basement, along with most of the other teen girls on TikTok, are expert in controlling how others will see them because they first see themselves in this way, as desirable, sexy, sweet, cute, hot, innocent, seductive, or alternately, as unsexy, serious, asexual. Men are subjected to how a woman sees herself: how can they not see a woman as a sexual object when she first creates herself as such? Berger is wrong to state simply that men act, for sight is something that acts upon them. To prevent his eye from alighting on a young woman who nurtures her own desirability with the craft of the average young teen, how can a man act but as he does: gazing, desiring, sexualizing? There is something ruthless in the girls’ looks, a hardness which accompanies their sense of growing power. Sometimes this is in conflict with their youthful innocence, and at other moments it adds a sharper flavor to their beauty.”
The author references and shows an 1844 painting by Felix Trutrat and continues:
“The growing awareness of the erotic power represented in Trutat’s painting is on display in my house as the teenage girls dance and sway and giggle. They are not in the least bit interested in the boys or men who might be watching them. They are interested in their own beauty and sexiness. “The beauty of the female is the root of joy to the female as well as to the male,” wrote CS Lewis. “To desire the desiring of her own beauty is the vanity of Lilith.” This quote, from Lewis’s science fiction novel That Hideous Strength, distills the Instagram/TikTok phenomena, much derided among progressives and conservatives alike, that sees girls and women catering to the male gaze (progressives hate this) by sexualizing themselves (conservatives hate this). “
you can imagine how I feel how they turned elian into a pliant state tool, thanks to janet reno, and gregg craig, and eric holder, the last two should be cancelled
David Foster,
Yikes!
I don’t disagree with the author’s premises, but that she is knowingly allowing her daughter to market herself to billions of male eyeballs? What is the end goal?
Along with teaching her daughter the reality of how men’s brains are wired she also needs to teach her daughter to be responsible with the power she wields. Posing and dancing sexually for the voyeurism of millions is not responsible. It’s not only dangerous, it’s training her daughter that it is OK to use her sexuality as a commodity.
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I had to prune out a bunch of root sprouts or “suckers” from a blooming ornamental crab apple the other day and it wasn’t pleasent. Basically they’re these vegitative shoots that grow up from the root system of the tree that really stand out when the tree blooms since they don’t bloom themselves. Not only are they unpleasent to look at but they divert resources (light and nutrients) away from the main tree. I had to crawl under the skirt of the tree with an electric chainsaw, cut them and pull them out. I very got cut up by all the pointy branches.
We were in CT and Long Island over the weekend for a wedding. I remarked to my wife I had forgotten how beautiful CT is in the spring with all the flowering trees. She said what about the fall? I said it just reminded me of how winter is coming very soon.
BTW, on the flights back and forth with about 100 people on the flight generally about 12 were wearing masks. I’m not talking about frail 85 year olds, but people in the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. They covidiots are still among us. Nationally, new cases for the past 2 weeks are trending very close to zero.
Jame’s O’Keefe’s new group released a video of a Fox News producer admitting that Tucker was fired as part of the Dominion settlement.
So supposedly Tucker cost Fox News money with advertisers who were upset about Tucker? Of course it’s now very likely that now Fox News is going to lose far more money due to losing audience leading to weakening positions for carriage fee negotiations which are coming up soon.
The photo reminds me that it is actually summery elsewhere in the nation. It will creep up to 61F here today, then return to highs of 58F the rest of the week. A friend from the Seattle area, a thousand miles north, is experiencing 85F weather. Sigh. I guess I need to hop in the car and drive inland for a while.
My latest post: Educational Credentialism Strikes Again–in China This Time
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/69444.html
“He did things that cost [the company] a lot of money…”.
Hmm. I wonder how exposing the Ray Epps farce cost them anything? And it’s unlikely to have been his comments on Dominion, because it sounds like he qualified most of the guest’s claims with challenges for actual evidence, unlike other, more sharply-expressed opinions on Fox.
As for the advertisers: I wonder how Carlson is responsible for Woke activists hounding corporations for buying advertising space on Carlson’s show, driving them away? He had the most popular news program on television, with the largest viewing audience – but a handful of loudmouths that could intimidate executive cowards into sacrificing their product’s visibility – that’s Carlson’s fault too, for being too popular and effective? The mind boggles at such sloppy thinking.
I watched a little over half of the James O’Keefe video that Nonapod linked. It’s rather shocking. It is stated by the Fox producer, that a guy, Michael LaRosa, went directly from working for the Biden admin. (a Jill Biden operative I believe) to crafting the PR messaging for Dominion Voting Systems.
Plus, the whole Ray Epps episode is so disturbing, if the obvious suppositions are true; and for some reason we’re not allowed to learn about it?
“…and for some reason we’re not allowed to learn about it?”
That’s right.
There are some things that we are NOT SUPPOSED TO KNOW.
Like the origin of Covid…
https://twitter.com/HansMahncke/status/1658318692222992387?cxt=HHwWhoC85Y-ExIMuAAAA
This is why “Biden” NEEDS a Disinformation Czar or Department, or Department within a Department (all the better to conceal it).
What it means is that EVERYTHING we see, read, hear that emanates from a news source or from an “official” source or from a Democratic Party operative must be disbelieved right off the bat.
It might be true, but that mustn’t be assumed.
The question that must always be asked first is: What do THEY WANT US to believe? In what direction do they want us to lean? And why do they want this?
The average Soviet citizen was far better at this than we could ever expect to be at this point, at least, with all their decades of experience…unless we also will end up living for decades having to learn to read between the lines, discovering meaning in what is absent, bizarre or non-sensical.
More good news from Florida. Today, governor Ron DeSantis, signed a law removing funding for DEI, which the governor said stood for discrimination, exclusion, and indoctrination, from Florida state colleges. He signed the law at the New College, which the trustees he appointed are re-making into a real educational institution. As expected, the leftist media are having a conniption fit. Here’s a more balanced article.
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/desantis-signs-law-defunding-dei-programs-at-state-colleges/
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/404452.php
==
Erma Bombeck: “My God, lady, you’re not going to make it better tonight. You can’t make it better, you laugh at it”.
==
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMCh9gLZofo
Not satisfied with their increasing sales due to AB’s marketing disaster, Now Miller Lite apologizes for it’s ads in past featuring mud wrestling. Going woke is now a trend.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/miller-lite-feminist-ad-march-goes-viral-amid-bud-light-backlash-companies-broken
So maybe someone can answer: is this ESG scoring THAT powerful such that a company abandons its customers in order to satisfy woke investors? How does that work out in the long term with no one to sell to?
Biden and the dishonest Democrats have a really bizarre obsession with non-existent white supremacy. Of course, we all know that this is just battlefield prep for more of what they did in Charlottesville and on Jan 6.
That Reichstag fire strategy is still paying dividends for fascists. Our own American Kristallnacht will come before the next election. The MSM propaganda wing of the fascists will cheer.
Now there’s a beer controversy with Miller Lite’s advertising. It’s a dumb ad from an ad team that does not understand their customers, but what really annoys me is the lazy feminism it employs.
What is it about men that drives some women (and men) to insist that all women do all things better than all men? It’s so ignorant and immature.
The ad all but says women invented beer and beer brewing and were the brewers of beer until men stole brewing from them. Or something like that? My IQ actually dropped trying to even posit a logical arc to its plot.
So many people are trapped in a 1950s, upper-middle class American view of gender, race relations and ethnicity. And even that view is not historically accurate.
The vast majority of men and women didn’t have “jobs” or gender roles when beer was “invented.” The vast majority of humans lived hard scrabble lives where most waking hours were devoted to finding enough food to survive and, if time allotted, some shelter. When agriculture and animal husbandry led some people to settle an area, division of labor became somewhat common so some people had “occupations,” but if a man was a blacksmith he didn’t hop in his Fred Flinstone pedal car with his lunchpail where he punched a timeclock. He and his family lived next to the forge and everyone in the family did whatever was needed. All day long until everyone fell asleep from exhaustion.
Look at something like “Little House on the Prairie.” (Not that long ago, historically.) What was the mother’s “job?” The father’s? Everything was a job and any able-bodied person was tasked with doing it.
Beer was invented a thousand times in human history, by many, many people of both genders observing what happens in some situations when yeast and rotting fruit and other plants combine in certain conditions. I’ve been a man my whole life and I’ve hung out with a bunch of men, and sometimes it involved drinking beer. Occasionally the subject of females came up and I don’t recall any man ever insisting men invented beer, or women were incapable of brewing beer, or even correlating gender with beer brewing. But the women who wrote this ad seem convinced the world is full of women obsessed with brewing beer and consuming it and men who believe women are incapable of that. Who thinks like that? How shallow must one be to think anyone else is thinking that way?
I just deleted a bunch more words.
We live in such an idiotic culture. That oft played image of the woman in the wool cap kneeling and screaming as Donald Trump is sworn in as President captures the zeitgeist perfectly. https://youtu.be/wDYNVH0U3cs
Narcissists with the temperament of pubescent children howling at the moon.
I just realized what it is at the core of these ads that is so annoying. Some people, apparently many, many people, believe everything must be about them.
I see a lot of ads that I think are dumb, or silly but 99% of the time I am not a consumer of the product, so I don’t give it another thought. I’m not the target. It’s not about me.
But there are a lot of people who see things they have no interest in and want to eliminate them, or prevent others from possessing them, or enjoying them. Why?
I don’t like rap music or modern country music. I’m not bothered in the least that others do. When I see an ad for a Chris Stapleton or Carrie Underwood* concert or album I don’t get mad that the people in the ad don’t look like me, or talk like me, or dress like me. Why would they? I’m not the target demo.
It’s misogyny and racism, straight up. If someone looks at a commercial during an NFL game, where 75% or more of the viewership is male, and they get mad a beer company is targeting males they have way too much free time on their hands. It’s like me getting upset there are make-up companies advertising on The View. Or me getting mad the cast of The View are female.
Frat boys like to drink Bud Light. They must be stopped.
Men who like to look at the female form drink Miller Lite. They must be stopped.
*I had to DuckDuckGo top country artists for those two names. That’s how little I know of country music. I apologize if they are not appropriate to my analogy.
Where are They Now? “Clock Boy”
Not that anyone here is wondering, but today I had a wild hair to check what happened to Clock Boy, Ahmed Mohamed, the Muslim kid who in 2015 brought a partially disassembled digital clock that looked a lot like a bomb to a Texas school, then it started beeping…
The school called the police, the police put the kid in handcuffs, and all hell broke loose. The media, Obama and Mark Zuckerberg leapt in to call “Islamophobia” and to congratulate the kid on his tech chops.
There were no tech chops. The kid (or someone) obtained a digital clock, took it somewhat apart and put it into a briefcase so it looked like a bomb.
The school authorities and police had no choice but to take the threat seriously and react as they did.
The Muslim family took the opportunity, which I’m sure was the point all along, to sue everyone in sight for millions of dollars.
Happily, Texas is still (mostly) Texas. The suits went nowhere and the Muslim family was obliged to pay court costs.
The family had already moved to Qatar. Clock Boy had some sort of scholarship to a Qatar school.
There the trail goes cold. Best wishes to the Mohammed family as long as they never return to the US.
I’ll bet they never paid any court costs.
I just realized what it is at the core of these ads that is so annoying.
==
I’m a more pedestrian thinker, so I got annoyed at the gratuitous use of scatalogical expletives over and over by the broads in the commercial. The ad agency they hired fancies people will be amused by the image of something you imbibe juxtaposed to intestinal waste.
==
There’s a (perhaps apocryphal) story that a company president told an interview that half his ad budget was wasted; he just didn’t know which half. These dames and the Ivy League bint at Bud Light are screaming “This half”.
My IQ actually dropped trying to even posit a logical arc to its plot. — Rufus T. Firefly
Best laugh of my day. And I tend to laugh quite a bit.
I had read somewhere that going way back in history, it was generallly the case that wine that was the alcoholic beverage of choice. Then probably more than once, there was a summer or series of summers with bad weather (explosive volcano?), and the grape crops were poor. Then the incentive to convert grains into beverages like beers or whiskey is high.
Re: Carrie Underwood (In Praise of)
Rufus T. Firefly:
You conceded your lack of knowledge upfront and of course I agree with your point.
I just have to say that Carrie Underwood is a real talent in New Country (or whatever they’re calling it these days).
Recent country musicians grew up with a foot each in two worlds — Old Country and Classic Rock. As far as I’m concerned, if you want to hear Classic Rock today, you listen to New Country.
Carrie Underwood is the New Country version of Stevie Nicks and more. She’s probably not an Old Country fan’s glass of beer, but Underwood is damn good at it.
Here’s the first Underwood video which floored me:
________________________
Right now, he’s probably slow dancing
With a bleached-blonde tramp
And she’s probably getting frisky
Right now, he’s probably buying her some fruity little drink
‘Cause she can’t shoot a whiskey
Right now, he’s probably up behind her with a pool-stick
Showing her how to shoot a combo
–Carrie Underwood, “Before He Cheats (Official Video)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaSy8yy-mr8
________________________
Followed by a Stephen King “Carrie” finale. Brilliant stuff.
Yet Carrie still does gospel:
–Carrie Underwood, “The Old Rugged Cross”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPiuDBlaF9k
From the Miller Lite ad: “Centuries later, how did the industry pay homage to the founding mothers of beer? They put us in bikinis,”
THEY (men, of course) put us in bikinis.
Because no woman ever chose to proactively display her attractiveness, for any reason whatsoever.
See this interesting post and discussion: Little Liliths
https://quillette.com/2023/05/12/little-liliths/
Nonapod,
Those ” suckers” may be from a different type of apple tree. Many trees you buy today are grafts with the roots of one tree and the top of another.
The problem isn’t gender or racial or ethnic diversity. Beer companies could find plenty of women of any race or ethnicity who completely understand beer consumers and how to market to them. Someone like Olivia Munn would be perfect (check out YouTube compilations of her work on G4 , the Game Show network talkshow). I know a lot of women like her; glad to be women, not trying to be men, aware that men are different from women and possessing great senses of humor.
Why hire someone who is not interested in your product and does not appreciate your products’ consumers to market your product? The recent Bud Light fiasco and this Miller Lite ad aren’t massive failures because they are led by women. They are massive failures because they are led by the wrong kind of women.
huxley,
Thanks for the information on clock boy. That sure smelled of a scam at the time. I hope the young man was able to escape from his parents’ control and is thriving.
I recently wondered about Elián González and what became of him. I figured no sense in DuckDuckGo’ing as Cuba likely is keeping information about him under wraps. Your post just prodded me to search…
It appears U.S. media has kept tabs on him. He’s got a fairly long wikipedia page. He earned a degree in Industrial Engineering and, in 2020 was reported to be expecting his first child with his fiance. “González was nominated by the municipal assembly of Cárdenas to run as its candidate for the National Assembly of People’s Power in the 2023 Cuban parliamentary election. He was elected unopposed along with the CPC’s slate of 470 candidates… In an interview with CNN en Español he blamed his mother’s death on economic impact of the United States embargo against Cuba, which he held to be responsible for the economic underdevelopment of the country. González also claimed to be happy that he did not stay in the United States, arguing that he would have been manipulated into becoming a ‘performer’ for the Cuban dissident movement and the American media. He also claimed ‘I don’t profess to have any religion, but if I did my God would be Fidel Castro.'”
nonapod,
I had a tree at one of my homes that grew tall, thick shoots from the root system. Sounds like what you are describing. I had to take a chain saw to them every few years, but they always came back. It was a gorgeous, very healthy tree otherwise.
Stumbled upon this very interesting animated chart, showing the numbers of immigrants to the U.S. by country of origin, and their changing position vis-a-vis other immigrant groups from 1820 to 2023.
See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDcln5ZDnOA
David Foster,
The Quillette article is behind a paywall. I’m curious to know where it went. My wife and I would not have allowed our children to film themselves and friends at a sleepover and post the videos online. I’m hoping the author’s judgement gets wiser in the paragraphs behind the paywall.
Snow on Pine,
That was interesting. I think. I kind of assumed Mexico would take off towards the end, but it really was astounding to watch from 1970 onward.
I’m not sure what it’s saying, though. My guess is it’s cumulative immigrants, year on year? Not national heritage. i.e., only actual immigrants count, not their offspring or offsprings’ offspring and once you are counted you stay counted? In other words; each year’s total combines all preeeding years’ totals?
huxley,
Yep, Carrie Underwood is great, and that one song of hers one of the best. I’m not sure what is New Country anymore. I’m a bit out of the loop. While still working I would listen to the local country station (WCTY) driving in which had a wonderful pair of DJs who were entertaining and I got a sampling of the latest music. I occasionally listen now to SXM “Prime Country” which features artists from the late 80’s to about 2010. I think Underwood falls into that category
Rufus T Firefly…the Quillette article is very long, but here are a couple of excerpts:
“Contemporary feminist thought is correct to identify the male gaze as the default way of seeing, but has largely overlooked the fact that the gaze places power squarely in the hands of women, not men. The young teenage girls in my basement, along with most of the other teen girls on TikTok, are expert in controlling how others will see them because they first see themselves in this way, as desirable, sexy, sweet, cute, hot, innocent, seductive, or alternately, as unsexy, serious, asexual. Men are subjected to how a woman sees herself: how can they not see a woman as a sexual object when she first creates herself as such? Berger is wrong to state simply that men act, for sight is something that acts upon them. To prevent his eye from alighting on a young woman who nurtures her own desirability with the craft of the average young teen, how can a man act but as he does: gazing, desiring, sexualizing? There is something ruthless in the girls’ looks, a hardness which accompanies their sense of growing power. Sometimes this is in conflict with their youthful innocence, and at other moments it adds a sharper flavor to their beauty.”
The author references and shows an 1844 painting by Felix Trutrat and continues:
“The growing awareness of the erotic power represented in Trutat’s painting is on display in my house as the teenage girls dance and sway and giggle. They are not in the least bit interested in the boys or men who might be watching them. They are interested in their own beauty and sexiness. “The beauty of the female is the root of joy to the female as well as to the male,” wrote CS Lewis. “To desire the desiring of her own beauty is the vanity of Lilith.” This quote, from Lewis’s science fiction novel That Hideous Strength, distills the Instagram/TikTok phenomena, much derided among progressives and conservatives alike, that sees girls and women catering to the male gaze (progressives hate this) by sexualizing themselves (conservatives hate this). “
you can imagine how I feel how they turned elian into a pliant state tool, thanks to janet reno, and gregg craig, and eric holder, the last two should be cancelled
David Foster,
Yikes!
I don’t disagree with the author’s premises, but that she is knowingly allowing her daughter to market herself to billions of male eyeballs? What is the end goal?
Along with teaching her daughter the reality of how men’s brains are wired she also needs to teach her daughter to be responsible with the power she wields. Posing and dancing sexually for the voyeurism of millions is not responsible. It’s not only dangerous, it’s training her daughter that it is OK to use her sexuality as a commodity.