Valentine’s Day: Feminists’ Shame

If I did not believe he is a man-child, I would think Pres. Obama was cynical in his declaration of a couple of days ago. He stated that the Egyptian people were an “inspiration” to Americans. Inspirations to what, a military take-over of a country? Fortunately there is no chance of this here. (See why in my posting: http://factsmatter.wordpress.com/2010/04/09/a-blueprint-for-a-communist-take-over/ )

I am basically a frivolous man so I am tired of dealing with weighty matters above my pay-grade. Today is Valentine’s Day, fortunately. So, back to reality!

I get much of my understanding of popular culture in the gym where the television is always on, often according to channel choices made by the skanks who spend half their lives there (often with good results I must say; bless their little hearts!) While I was on the elliptical today I watched an episode of some chick-series or other. I had an epiphany right there and then. (An epiphany is what St Paul experienced on his way to Damascus to sell tents. “Hot damn,” he said to himself, “Got to stop persecuting those Christians. That guy Jesus had got it right!” I hope his colleague St Peter will forgive me for this unholy comparison.)

Here is goes: Chick screen products are full of guys who endlessly send bouquets of flowers and boxes of candy to apologize for bad behavior that wasn’t really that bad. If it were really bad they would not have to apologize. Cuddling afterward would be more than enough. There is more: The guys overflow with childish emotions they express in childish ways. And the flowers and the candy are wrapped in gauzy, fabric, often pink, or of another soft color. Hello! Do the guys keep a store of such diaphanous fabric in the closet behind their suits just in case they screw up again ? How come they even know where to get it? I sure don’t. Wouldn’t know where to start. Those allegedly male cry-babies would have some explaining to do if the women were not such perfect air-heads.

Here is some useful advice, lady: If your man screws up and tries to make up with a present, that may be OK (may be). If the present is not wrapped in cellophane (no ribbon) or better, in newspapers, you may not want him back. This may be your chance to find out why “this relationship is not going anywhere.”

Next observation. The dancing in restaurants with lots of cut crystal glasses and the tearful chance encounters in preternaturally quiet cozy coffee shops occasionally seems to lead to real action. What action there is almost never takes place in a (night) bed. Sometimes it’s on a sofa. Sometimes it’s on a “day-bed,” an item of furniture I have never seen in a real house. The action is never crude. For one thing, the women never even take off their bras. That makes some sense. Virginia’s Secret push-up bras have made all breasts more or less equal and why take a chance with reality? The men usually have good pecs but they never, never take off their pants. I hate to point out the obvious but that’s exactly the kind of restraint you would expect from men with tiny penises.

If any 70s feminists are watching what I am watching, they must be crying with shame. Or perhaps, they are enjoying all this knowing full well that they were in bad faith back then.

The Fat Women and Bill O’Reilly

I was going to leave behind that storm in the tea-cup but it won’t go away. It’s there, on the TV, in front of me every time I go to the gym. Besides, it may have a cultural meaning, or several meanings, after all. So, here it goes:

Last week, the television host Bill O’Reilly got into a tangle on “The View.” It’s a morning show for women. (More below.) What happened is that two of the three fat women show hosts walked out on him because of something he said. They walked off their own show, like that!

First, O’Reilly. He has an evening television program that’s very popular, one of the most popular in the nation, and his simple-minded books are bestsellers. He is a blow-hard, not very well-informed, a little obtuse, and stubborn. His English is uncertain although he obviously spends his morning coffee time reading the dictionary. He is also clearly an Irish-Catholic prude of the worst kind. With all this, O’Reilly is very effective when he decides to right a scandalous situation nation-wide. Several times, he has put the fear of God in lazy, or malevolent, or dishonest state legislatures and forced them to do the obvious or the obviously needed. He used forthright terror in each case and named names.

Now, “The View.” As I said, it’s a women’s show. It comes on a ten on the Pacific Coast. (That’s why I catch it a the gym and only there and then.) It’s designed by women for women. The hostesses are five women. One is Barbara Walter, an old journalist who has been over-rated all her life. Yet, she is a reasonable women although lacking in general culture. She has had the immense good sense to invest her large media earnings into her continued good appearance. She looks nearly as good as she did twenty years ago. I respect that. Barbara is a classical moderate DC liberal. The second hostess is a fairly foxy blonde who plays the token conservative very well although her lack of bulk is probably a handicap. The three other hostesses, one white, two black, are fat. They are not “somewhat overweight” like most of us, they are frankly fat. None of the three could buy her clothes in a department story if she had to. One is a brassy New-York-sounding woman whose name escapes me, and it does not matter. She wears maternity clothes year-around. The other is a black woman with a pretty and sweet face and a sweet disposition most of the time. She often displays common sense. The last member is Whoopi Goldberg, a very large black woman who used to be a good actress. She became a media person years ago by making shocking statements no one expected from a black person. She learned to be an African-American white upper-middle-class oral radical with little ghetto on her.

The show consists of these five women giving their opinions and discussing them among themselves, mostly about events on the front page of USA Today and in the evening news. There is a formula to the show, I think: Four parts of “same young actress arrested for DUI, and male celebrity beating up live-in girl-friend for the nth time;” one part political happening. They are not well-informed on anything they discuss; their opinions are without interest; their conversations are superficial to the point where it’s painful. The show is quite successful as I said. It’s Lifetime Channel masquerading as information.

I realize this all sounds bitchy. It’s bitchy, fairly so, but not especially condescending to those who watch The View, or O’Reilly for that matter. I too watch trash, almost every day in fact.

O’Reilly, known to be a fairly abrupt guy, was discussing the planned “Islamic Center” near Ground Zero with the women, who had invited him. At some point, he said, “Muslims killed us on 9/11.” That’s what caused two of the three fat women to walk off their own show for a few minutes. Here is a logically parallel statement:

“A dog bit me.”

Apparently, we are not supposed to make this kind of simple declarative utterance anymore. Instead, we are expected to say something like this, “A mean dog- that is not representative of dogs in general – bit me.”

See the ridiculousness. Of course, we should let not such bullshit pass, ever. Rational people must not submit. They must piss on political correctness wherever they encounter it in daily life. I do my bit every morning, right downtown of the People’s Socialist Republic of Santa Cruz. The girls at the coffee shop ask me discreetly, “The usual?” “Yes – I confirm- give me an Americano in a non-recyclable paper cup. Make sure it’s not fair-trade coffee. I like my coffee beans grown by scrawny, sickly little indigenous farmers.” I feel that, with this bit of satisfying childishness, I contribute to collective sanity.

The View is so successful because it performs an important social function many smell but no one talks about. The bulk of its attraction is its bulky women. Let me explain.

Most American women have trouble with the Green Dragon. Who would not? The media they watch, their movies, the women’s magazine they have to look at at the hairdresser ( or at the “spa”) overflow with young women, and with other not so young, displaying impossible body geometries. Many actresses are so improbably designed, they would not fly if they were airplanes. Things were not always like this: Take a good look at pictures of Marylin Monroe in her glory days and you will see a woman of modest proportions whose flesh hinted slightly at flab. There was no trace of muscle on that woman. Had she not died so unfortunately, she would have entered shortly into her physical decline. She was very attractive, I think but she was an attractive flash in the pan by today’s standards. Why,today, the epidemic of female pulchritude on our screens is ever spreading! Even television journalists with a law degree and a former career would have won the bikini part of the beauty contest in 1960. It does not seem fair!

The main thing to remember is that feminism has failed utterly in its overt message: Women want to be sex objects, not less so, more so than before because of the progress of leisure time. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at any Virgina’s Secret product and ask yourself if the company is successful.

So, if you want to have a morning program, and therefore, one squarely aimed at women, you face a severe dilemma. On the one hand, you have to provide many stories about the usually loopy behavior of highly sculptured media and movie female stars. In addition, you must talk about the villainous conduct of even more finely sculptured male stars. The first one procures a chance to say, ” tsu, tsu, tsu.” The second gives women opportunities to enjoy the sensuous pleasure of indignation: “What an absolute pig!” That’s a sure recipe. It’s been followed forever by (morning) soaps, the Life Time Channel, and all American general women’s magazines but one (Vanity Fair.)

On the other hand, the constant exhibit of supernatural beauty leaves ordinary women high and dry and it puts a bad taste in their mouths. As we know, women in America are often harried by too many different tasks and most are overweight, and increasingly so. And those I would not consider overweight in my limited, silly male vision consider themselves overweight anyway. So, what to do: You administer a drug that is habit-forming but that makes the users unhappy in the long run?

The answer given by The View is original. It stages fat women doing the right thing during the short segments of the show that deal with serious issues. You chose fat women who will invariably disapprove of what’s wrong, who support what’s right, who are always on the side of common liberal decency. You chose loud women, like Whoopi Goldberg (who is also articulate). You chose them mostly black as a mute but strong demonstration of the inherent open-mindedness of the show. It’s not that their corpulence is tolerated or ignored. Rather, your spokeswomen for all that is right and against all that is wrong have to be fat.

The View gives fat women everywhere gravitas in lieu of the stunning, ravishing, man-annihilating fantasies they would probably prefer.

Scattered Thoughts: A Bribe; Rush Limbaugh caught; Women’s Continued Inferiority; Global Warming Consensus at Last.

I am getting back, one month at a time, a little of the money the federal government confiscated from me throughout my working life. I am talking about Social Security, of course. This year, like last year, there will be no SS cost of living raise. Frankly, I don’t see why there should be. Nevertheless, the President and the senior Democrat leadership want to send me $250 as a compensation for not giving me a raise.

The decision to “adjust” or not is made yearly based on a specific way to to measure inflation, in place for many years. You don’t throw away the tape measure because you don’t like the measurement. It’s this kind of self-indulgent thinking that put us in the trou de caca ( French) we are in. Second, who else gets automatic income inflation adjustment except for a few union members who need to get a life anyway? Third, if you think about it, it’s hard to find an economic category less affected by the current crisis than “seniors.” Most of them are out of mortgage trouble. They don’t have children in school to suffer reductions (if any) in educational expenditures, except for a handful of Hollywood actors on speed. A handful of seniors get laid, as I said, but most seniors can’t get laid off since they are already retired.

President Obama and the Democrat losers want to give me a $250 bribe to buy my November vote. Pathetic! If it passes, I vow to spend the money entirely on tea-party Republican candidates. If the money comes to late for that, I will just send it to Sarah (Palin).

The other day, around 10/10/10, I caught Rush Limbaugh making a big geopolitical mistake on air. It’s a rare event; Limbaugh is usually very well informed. He confused South Sudan, which is about to split from Sudan after a referendum, with Darfur in the west of the country. The slow genocide continues in Darfur. Here is the summary: The Islamist National Congress, in power in the capital, believes it can enslave the southerners because they are not Muslims. It thinks it can enslave the people of the west because they are not Arabs (though Muslim).

Men have more upper body strength than women, almost everyone agrees and they run faster. Often, when you make comparisons between well-defined categories, it’s more useful to look at extremes than at averages. For one thing, there are always real people at the extremes while the “average woman,” for example may not exist; she is just an arithmetic calculation.

The Wall Street Journal has a feature on 10/14/1 about women who run marathons. As a rule, they are given 30 minute handicap over men. This means that the first woman who arrives 30mn after he (invariably male) winner is considered an equal. It also means, in theory, that if a woman arrives 25 minutes after the first man, she should logically be declared the winner. The piece in the WSJ points out that in many recent marathons, the fastest woman was only 15 minutes or so behind the fastest man. And the gap is closing

This, to my mind, is a better measure how much faster than women men are. For one thing, the fastest woman and the fastest man are comparable on other, tacit but nevertheless important, dimensions such as dedication to the sport. Female marathon runners who are in the middle of their pack might be less devoted, or more devoted than men who are in the middle of their pack. Fast women are like fast men: They want to get there first. (I am only referring here to women who run fast, not to the other kind of fast women, another topic altogether.)

All this brings me back to a question I have raised before: Why are there very few female bridge Grand Masters when it is likely that more women play bridge, world-wide, than men? The feminists among you, if any, might get cheap thrills at my expense by showing me either that there are many female Grand Masters or that fewer women than men play bridge. Rough figures will be fine.

And, of course, I have to ask why women and men still play professional chess in different categories. Is it possible that the best women have less than the best men of whatever it takes to succeed at bridge or at chess? One thing I am certain of is that it’s not upper-body strength.

Some questions have become forbidden, many in academia, for sure. Rationalists must hit political correctness in its disdainful and pious mouth wherever and whenever the occasion presents itself. It clouds judgment in every way.

Global warming upon us: the consensus. Below, a formulation I plagiarize from the current issue of Skeptic magazine (vol 16-1. Irwin Silverman, PhD). I hate myself for not having thought about it first.

Hardly anyone had used the term “climatologist” before the current controversy. And the term covers a variety of realities, in terms of training. Those who give themselves the title are linked mostly by ideology, an apocalyptic ideology. To say that 99% of climatologists agree that there is dangerous, man-made global warming is analogous to stating that 99% of Christian ministers believe in God. No shit!

Why Young Women Are Stupid (If They Are): A Scientific Inquiry.

The Victoria’s Secret catalog mailing list is several tens of thousand times longer than the mailing list of the National Organization For Women. The feminist wheel has turned enough for brave male social scientists like me finally to consider from a scientific viewpoint an issue that has been with us forever.

Here is the issue: Anyone who has ever tried to win an argument with a reasonably well-informed eleven-year old girl and lost knows that something pretty bad must happen – on the mental front – to the females of our species shortly after they reach that age. (A lexicographic irony is that “front” is the French word for “forehead.” )

I won’t affirm that young women tend to be stupid, for two reasons. First, it would offend my young Indian niece, back in Calcutta. (The parenthetical part of the title is in deference to her feelings.) Second, as my super-intelligent wife often states in a an accusatory tone of voice, I am still a kind of closet liberal. This is the same wife who suspects Attila the Hun was kind of a big softie with his silly cut-off heads of his enemies hanging from his saddle. Incidentally, I owe my wife many of my late-life insights about womanhood.

As so often happens in a the Verstehen school of sociological philosophy, my first grasp of the problem came to me during a moment of idleness. I was contemplating my twelve-year old son watching television with his index finger in his nose up to the elbow. The incongruous thought hit me: “In two or three years at most, some pretty young woman is going to think him irresistible!” I started chuckling when the double thought crossed my mind that I was facing a veritable scientific quandary and possibly the seeds of its solution.

Now, to get a handle on the problem, we need to go back a few thousand years, a few hundreds of thousands of years actually. Let’s remember that we, humans, have only known agriculture and animal husbandry for about 10,000 years. Both were discovered or invented in the Middle-East, widely defined, or in India. (An Indian friend of mine keeps telling me that India already had advanced agriculture when my European ancestors were still trying to figure out how to come down from the trees. That is pure slander; my ancestors walked from East Africa; they did not brachiate.) Before that, for as long as there have been humans, and proto-humans, they led a precarious existence.

At the center of this precariousness lied the cave bear. Imagine a carnivorous creature with ten inch-canines standing ten feet tall when irritated and weighing in at one thousands pounds. (That would be the smaller ones.) Our ancestors hanged out near cave bears much of the time for two reasons. First, they used the same caves as the bears to protect themselves from the elements. Second, they soon discovered in themselves a predilection for the carrion cave bears left lying around, like all predators.

With this propinquity, meals where our ancestors were themselves the main course, and close-calls, unavoidably occurred frequently. That we survived as a species nevertheless calls for an explanation. Here it is below. Although it’s somewhat speculative, it’s in full accordance with what we know of the more general forms of human behavior and with evolutionary theory both.

Grandpa and Grandma Caveperson most likely lived in small extended family groups of fifteen and to fifty people. There are good technical reasons for this explanation centered around what semi-nomadic humans can carry and, especially, the number of babies and small children. In close encounters with cave bears, you can be sure there were young males, teen-age boys, who stayed behind to throw stones at the monsters. Probably no one could lob rocks heavy enough, or with enough force, to do serious damage to any bear. Yet, an avalanche of rocks could delay the bear long enough to allow many, or some, women with small children, and pregnant women to scamper away.

This survival strategy poses one problem though: The young rock throwers must have suffered a high rate of mortality. Thus, the very traits of brashness, courage, and accuracy that saved the group at Time 1 were in constant danger of disappearing with those who bore those traits and thus to be unavailable at Time 2.

Something had to compensate for the high mortality among the young rock throwers. That something is obvious: They had to be able to reproduce disproportionately. Do the arithmetic: If one in ten of the wimpy youths dies before siring offspring but one in two of the tough ones, after a short while, the propensity to stay behind and taunt the bears will disappear in the population. That is, unless the surviving rock artists manage somehow to have more than twice more children that their timid brothers and cousins. It turns out that the best solution to this quandary, widely observed in many species, including humans, is female mating choice.

If young human females actively wanted to mate with rock throwers, the right traits could be transmitted down the generations forever. But of course, intelligent young women wanted to have nothing to do with the morons. Accordingly, they reproduced, and their children survived, at an inferior rate. Thus, the traits supporting simple good judgment had a tendency to thin out in the relevant populations.

Female air-heads, who were hot for the delinquents, passed on their genes in large numbers to both their female and their male children. And so on, to this day where we encounter few cave bears. These things are hard-wired. It takes a while for a trait that was useful previously to vanish from a population because it has lost its usefulness. The trait may never disappears if it does not become dysfunctional in the current situation. And this, my friends is why young women would be stupid (if they were stupid).

Scientific note: One condition that would hasten the demise of female stupidity would be if intelligent women had more children surviving to reproductive age than stupid women. There is no reason to believe that they do, overall. By the way, that’s what the phrase “survival of the fittest” means: Having children who themselves have children.

If you are of the female persuasion, Dear Reader, and if my sage observations make you livid, or red with anger, as the case may be, stop and ask yourselves: How many of your girlfriends actively demonstrate their erotic attraction to bad boys?

PS  THE PRESIDENT GAVE A SPEECH TO A JOINT SESSION OF CONGRESS LAST NIGHT. IT WAS ABOUT HEALTH CARE. LIBERAL PUNDITS, AND MY LIBERAL ACQUAINTANCES, INSIST IT WAS A WONDERFUL SPEECH. I HAVE NO IDEA WHY THEY SAY THIS. I HEARD THE SAME OLD STUFF, INCLUDING CORRECTIONS OF INTERNET CONSERVATIVE URBAN RUMORS I NEVER BELIEVED ANYWAY. THE ONLY NEW ELEMENT WAS IN HIS TONE RATHER THAN IN SUBSTANCE. FOR THE FIRST TIME,  THE PRESIDENT MADE A REAL IF BRIEF EFFORT TO PERSUADE CONSERVATIVES THAT HE UNDERSTANDS HOW MARKETS WORK. GOOD TO KNOW BUT NOT MUCH IN THE BIG PICTURE. I STILL THINK HE IS AN ACTOR ONLY.