Archive for the ‘culture’ Category

Vets, Asheed, Cleese, Idle and Cellphones Under the Fedora

Posted: November 11, 2019 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, culture, under the fedora
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It’s Veterans Day a holiday everywhere (except where I work of course). On on this day we take a few minutes to remember the folks to whom being “triggered” meant someone trying to kill them rather than someone saying something they don’t like on social media.

It never ceases to amaze me how so many Americans squander the freedom these men and women bequeathed them but in a society so narcissistic it’s to be expected. I wonder how many of our long dead vets if they saw what the society they had fought for had become, might have had 2nd thoughts about defending it?

Is light dawning on marble head?

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

If the Democrats aren’t scared of stuff like this they should be, but then again as long as their paid machine cronies are counting the votes in black area they will be able to disenfranchise black republican votes as they did in the days of Jim Crow.

Don’t think for a minute they won’t try.

I note the daily beast interviewed Eric Idle and John Cleese for the 50th anniversary of Monty Python and they of course had plenty to say against those of us who support Trump

“It’s been quite clear to me from the very beginning that he is not mentally balanced,” Cleese says of Trump. “He is an extraordinary caricature of an asshole; a person who has no interest in anyone else except himself. Every time he makes a decision, no matter how impulsive it is, it’s the one that makes him feel best about himself for the next 20 minutes.

Contrast that statement with the one above it and your irony meter will explode.

That doesn’t make him and them any brilliant when it comes to comedy.

One more Python quote from Eric Idle on Trump that made me laugh

Idle admits that, during a break from his busy schedule, he recently became addicted to MSNBC.
“The problem is, the way they cover everything, you constantly think, ‘They’ve got him!’” he says of the coverage of Trump’s travails. “Like they’re coming for him with the handcuffs. The golden handcuffs, of course.”

reminds me of a song…

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Funny how Trump the supposedly Nazi/Racist dictator isn’t censoring them?

Finally This whole conversation is a pet peeve of mine:

Ms. Zideyah said that she and many of the women who attended the Ignite training were aware that they had to be careful about their social media posts, but worrying about what was stored on their phones was new.
“As an online human, you don’t think that those kinds of things are going to be used against you or leaked, especially from people that are closest to you,” Ms. Zideyah said. “But I do think that now that sort of training has to be implemented, because what you should keep on a phone is becoming a serious issue.”

via hot air headlines.

I’ve been saying this for decades but let’s try one more time.

Don’t put any image or thoughts on a phone or an email or a computer or any device that a computer is linked to that you would be ashamed to show to your grandmother.

I used to say “from your mother” but where you do think this generation got that idicoy from?

Fall of Berlin Wall anniversary offers lessons for misguided millennials

Posted: November 10, 2019 by John Ruberry in culture, education, entertainment, News/opinion, politics
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Blogger next to Berlin Wall slab at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in 2018

By John Ruberry

Saturday was the thirtieth anniversary of one of the most profound events of the 20th century, the fall of the Berlin Wall. What began as a bureaucratic slip became a people power moment as oppressed East Germans stormed the wall checkpoints and with the help of West Berliners, literally began hacking away on what Winston Churchill called “the wall of shame.”

It was also a wall of failure. The smartest and most gifted people of communist East Germany were more likely to seek freedom and prosperity in the West. The brain drain threatened the stability of East Germany, so after receiving permission from his fellow dictator, the USSR’s Nikita Krushchev, Walter Ulbricht ordered construction of the wall in the summer of 1961.

Just a few days ago Dennis Prager explained on his show that there is a difference between a dictatorship and a totalitarian state. Augosto Pinochet’s Chile was a brutal nation in the 1970s, but if you didn’t like it, you could leave Chile. Not so in the USSR, until its final days, where my wife was born, or in the absurdly-named German Democratic Republic. East Germans who tried to escape to West Berlin would have to conquer not just the wall, but also beds of nails, attack dogs, and barbed wire, as well as avoid sharpshooters in watch towers. The number of people killed attempting to escape in the 28-year existence of the wall is disputed–about 200 is a common estimate.

Of growing up in the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, Mrs. Marathon Pundit told me this morning when I was discussing this post, “We were slaves, really.”

Meanwhile, a YouGov poll released last week shows that over one-third of millennials approve of communism, which betrays the failure of our schools and universities that seem much more interested promoting the 56 genders and waving their fingers at guys like me over “white privilege.” Oh, the founders of the communist movement, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were white dudes. As were the earliest communists in power, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and Leon Trotsky. All five of them came from middle class or wealthy backgrounds. They had white privilege.

OK, millennials!

The lessons of the rise of Adolf Hitler and the evils of Nazism obviously should never be forgotten. But what is overlooked by schools and society are the murderous regimes of Stalin (20 million killed, maybe more), Mao Zedong (65 million killed, maybe more). and Cambodia’s Pol Pot (1.5 million killed and perhaps more, roughly 20 percent of that nation’s population).

Another 30th anniversary involving a repressive communist regime passed this summer–the Tianammen Square protests in China that ended in the slaughter of pro-democracy activists. For 24 straight weeks there have been pro-Democracy protests in Hong Kong. The more things change…

Ulbricht and his successors’ East Germany didn’t have the high death count, but it excelled in mental torture. Its KGB was the Ministry of State Security, commonly known as the Stasi, whose goal was to “know everything about everyone.” Two movies are essential viewing for millennials–actually for everyone–to learn more about East Germany. Both of them are available on Netflix, Karl Marx City, a documentary, and The Lives of Others, an Academy Award winner for Best International Feature Film. Fittingly, The Lives of Others is set in the year 1984.

Apologists for communism regularly point out that the reason these Marxist regimes failed is that the wrong people were in charge and “real communism” has never been tried. It is they who are wrong. People in power, for the most part, have one thing in common. They want even more power.

There are exceptions of course. King George III asked an American what George Washington would do now that he had defeated the British Empire. When told that the general would return to his farm, the king replied, “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”

Is that lesson being taught in many American schools? I doubt it.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

30 Tips to Stay Married 30 (31) Years: #29 Expect Change

Posted: November 8, 2019 by datechguy in culture
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Alex Jensen: …You’re cute. You’re funny. Maybe you’re getting hit on and you don’t even know it.
Leonard Hofstadter: Really?
Alex Jensen: Yep, pretty sure.

The Big Bang Theory The 43 Peculiarity 2012

If there is one thing that constant in the world it’s change.

Everything changes, styles, people, things. Yet some people have the idea that marriage will somehow be different?

Let me give an example: There is an old joke that if a couple puts a nickel in a jar every time they have sex during the 1st two years of marriage and then starts taking one out every time after that 2nd year that jar won’t be empty for many many years.

People’s desires their needs and their sexual drives. While there are no hard and fast rules about this, this is something you need to be prepared for as a couple and make allowances, particularly in situations like tip # 17 Make sure your “escape plan” for a fight doesn’t include going somewhere where you will find yourself anywhere that a person might be expected to be picked up, particularly if said location involves drinking.

Likewise you might have friends of the opposite sex at work but if the sexual situation has changed at home you might want to be a tad more careful how you carry yourself.

And that’s only one type of change, financial situations change, health changes, where you live changes, responsibilities change, where and how you live changes. Some changes might just affect you, others just your spouse, but ALL of these changes, even positive ones are going to affect your relationship and many of them will not be under your control, they just will be.

Being ready willing and able to deal with change will have a huge impact if your marriage is going to last 3 years let alone 30.

30 Tips to Stay Married 30 (31) Years: #28 Togetherness The Default but not Mandatory

Posted: November 7, 2019 by datechguy in culture
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My mother always told us that a person gets married to be with someone and she’s was very right. When you are married you are together, through think and through thin, though the tough times and the easy ones.

So it is with various social and other events. In such situations the default position should be to be beside your wife or your husband.

But note this is the DEFAULT position. There are going to be some rare events and occasions, from concerts to visits where one of you might be absolutely delighted to be while the other may be at best indifferent and at worst absolutely disgusted to be there.

As the old saying goes, one bad apple can spoil a whole bunch and one person unhappy and unwilling can ruin the pleasure of a thing that one may have looked forward to for weeks or even months.

If your wife or husband is set on something that you really don’t want to do, or somewhere you really don’t want to go, let them go with friends or other family and enjoy themselves and above all don’t force yourself someplace where you will be a killjoy out of a misplaced sense of duty. Don’t get in the way of a happy day. Do something you like instead. You can hear all about things when they get home.

Contrariwise if you are set on something that you know your spouse doesn’t like or has no interest in, let them stay home or do something else. No amount of you wanting someone to enjoy or be excited by something will make it so. Dragging an unwilling participant with you is a recipe for disappointment. You can share that joy when you get home.

Now again this should be the exception from the default position not the rule but the wise use of this exception will make a lot of difference in the long run.

The rules to date:

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