Language Follies 30 (If Only)

The World Cup is over. Here is a last observation (or maybe not).

On the advertising hoardings around the fields there would pop up:

“The Final Half Time Show” — to which I reacted, “If only.”

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Perhaps the way to get started is with an eye-opener:

But it doesn’t help if the suds get into your eyes.

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Some other questionable products and/or their names:

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(OK, I give up. What the hell is that?)

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On the tortilla front:

The Dutch have more to answer for:

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Let’s stop being negative. Here’s the latest look in men’s pants:(1)

The Next Big Thing in Men’s Pants? It’s Stolen From the Ladies

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Or maybe let’s take a gander at women’s fashion:

Just perfect for a run down to Costco.

Why are we at this point in fashion that the most bizarro designs turn up every season at couture houses' shows? Perhaps this helps to explain it:

Decades ago, the world of fashion was smaller and feistier, dominated by eccentric, visionary designers trying to express themselves. . . .

In those pre-social-media days, designers’ fiery personalities would spill into their collections, for better or for worse. In 2000, John Galliano showed his infamous “homeless chic” couture collection. Alexander McQueen’s “Highland Rape” show of torn dresses shocked the industry in 1995. Rei Kawakubo’s spring 1997 line, known as “lumps and bumps,” remains one of the most significant collections of the century because it rejected traditional sex appeal, distorting and reimagining a woman’s form.(2)

There it is: “designers trying to express themselves.”

(I wrote about the foolish notion of having people “express themselves.”)(3)

Somehow the idea that the purpose of designing clothes was to make the wearer look good and feel comfortable has been usurped by the notion that the designer's wet dreams should be displayed for the world to see. (By the way, I'd be interested in philosophical designers' attempts to define “the self.”)  

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Odds and Ends

“Uh Huh” Headline of the Month:

Indicted Tycoon Says $10 Billion Offer Did Not Spur U.S. to Drop Charges

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Spaced-out discussion of the Month:

Two hours in [to their podcast], [JD] Vance and [Joe] Rogan began to talk about whether there’s “a meaningful difference between an angel or a demon and a space alien with super technology.”(4)  

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From Gulliver's Travels, Book Two (Brobdingnag, the land of the giants):

They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death; for they allege, that care and vigilance, with a very common understanding, may preserve a man’s goods from thieves, but honesty has no defence against superior cunning; and, since it is necessary that there should be a perpetual intercourse of buying and selling, and dealing upon credit, where fraud is permitted and connived at, or has no law to punish it, the honest dealer is always undone, and the knave gets the advantage. I remember, when I was once interceding with the emperor for a criminal who had wronged his master of a great sum of money, which he had received by order and ran away with; and happening to tell his majesty, by way of extenuation, that it was only a breach of trust, the emperor thought it monstrous in me to offer as a defence the greatest aggravation of the crime; and truly I had little to say in return, farther than the common answer, that different nations had different customs; for, I confess, I was heartily ashamed.

Of no relevance to the present day, of course.

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A couple of questions:

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What would you do with $37.5 billion? Spend it on healthcare? schools? infrastructure? scientific/medical research? 

Nah! Bombs to drop on Iran. 

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A native New Yorker reacts:

The New York Times published an article this week entitled, “How to Wait in Line (and Keep Your Cool).” I immediately scrolled down to the comments link and fired off the following: 

Hey! The NY Times is a New York paper. It's “wait on line.”

The Times did not print my response. 

They stink!

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But let's end on an upnote or two.

They now make chocolate fortune cookies.

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Here's a picture of a model t-shirt wearer at Amazon:

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(1)  https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/21/style/pants-paper-bag-menswear.html

(2)  https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/21/opinion/fashion-slop-boring.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20260721&instance_id=179078&nl=the-morning®i_id=92908560&segment_id=223438&user_id=4610757384ecaf1ad328813857abb8ad 

(3)  https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2012/04/whisper-of-muse.html

(4)  https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/07/jd-vance-rogan-epstein/687944/

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OK, one more thing from the World Cup:

When Norway beat Brazil on July 5, the team celebrated its famous victory with a delivery order: 20 pizzas from Bagels by Jarrett in West Orange. 

(And they probably forgot the cream cheese.)

 

World Enough--For Some

So the 2026 World Cup is down to the last four. But before the tournament disappears, here are a few things on our mind about it.

Was there anything worse than having the boiled-egg countenance of Gianni Infantino flashed onto the screen ten minutes into each half of a game? 

Speaking of images on the screen, I hate seeing “celebrities” who haven’t paid for their ticket imposed upon me. 

What was a pleasure to see were the costumes and other get-up that the paying supporters displayed. For me, the best sign was held by a supporter of Jordan’s hapless squad. Wittily playing off a stereotype, his sign read: “I sold my camels to be here.” However, the nasty, racist policies of the Trump regime kept some of the most colorfully-attired, singing and dancing Africans (especially the Senegalese) who were at World Cup 2022 out of the United States. The scenes were drabber for their omission.

No matter the outcome of any game, cries of conspiracy rang out. Nobody, however, informed us if it was a Chinese thermostat or a Rothschild space laser that was involved.

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My grandson Benjamin (on the right) traveled with friends to the Argentina/Cabo Verde game in Miami to root for Argentina. After the game they celebrated with Cabo Verde supporters and exchanged national flags. 

Benja’s verdict: "we all celebrated together very nice respectful moment.” Which brings up the following observation: the supporters of competing national sides sat together and mingled together, while in club matches, half the local constabulary has to be employed to keep rival fans apart.

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Did the World Cup lead other countries to reconsider their stance on immigration?

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Then again, lawyers for the Trump regime see no obstacle to destroying our country’s greatest symbol of openness to immigration:

“If the government decides very quickly to bulldoze the Statue of Liberty, the people whose ancestors—that was the first thing they saw coming to this country, but the government moved too fast—nothing can be done? Judge Patricia Millett asked, according to Politico’s Kyle Cheney.

“I think that’s right, yes,” the government responded.*

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A very important article in The Atlantic** tells the story of Izidor, who was rescued from a Romanian orphanage and adopted by an American couple. The article also discusses the findings about infants’ needs for adult attachments. 

When Izidor was brought to the United States,

[a] 17-year-old from the orphanage, Izabela, was part of the airport welcoming committee. Born with hydrocephalus and unable to walk after being left all her life in a crib, she was in a wheelchair, dressed up and looking pretty. Rescued . . . on an earlier trip, she’d been admitted to the U.S. on a humanitarian medical basis . . ."

Would the Trump regime allow such a person into our country now?

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* https://newrepublic.com/post/211422/department-justice-donald-trump-right-bulldoze-statue-liberty?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the_ticker_rss

** https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/07/can-an-unloved-child-learn-to-love/612253/

Will Wonders Never Cease?

Deep into my ninth decade, I still have a sense of wonder. Today’s post is about some of the recent wonders I have come across.

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Watching the World Cup, I have discovered that there appears to be a new geographical location on the East Coast: “NewYork/New Jersey.” 

Of course it has the same reality as the politicians’ favorite sop to the Hebrews: “Judeo-Christian tradition.”(1)

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Did you know that your buying and selling stocks can be “finger-licking good”? (With apology to KFC) 

Well, what would you expect from a website named “tastytrade.com"?

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I have learned recently that there’s such a thing as “distressed cashmere.” Any fabric psychiatrists in the house?

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I wonder if all the cranks who are against DEI realize that in Latin “dei” means “of god”?

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Tommy Tuberville (Republican Senator, Alabama): If we don’t do something with the filibuster and we don’t get things passed, it’ll be the last time we’ll have a Republican president or Republican Senate or a House. That’s how fast this country’s going down to communism.(2) 

I’m still wondering where the Republicans find all those communists.(3) 

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Michael Gove, a Conservative politician in the UK (he’s been made a baron, of all things!), was in the forefront of the push ten years ago for the disastrous Brexit. 

He argued Britain would be "freer, fairer and better off" for leaving, and that "[t]he day after we vote to leave, we hold all the cards and we can choose the path we want.”(4) (Notice the mixed metaphor. Also consider that Trump claimed to "hold all the cards" in his Iran debacle.) 

An even better line to wonder at is Gove's 2004 statement in The Spectator that “Rudi Giuliani is a conservative, and a hero to conservatives like me.(5)

While we’re wondering at conservative heroes, here’s J.D. Vance: “Young senator, vice president, writes some bestselling books, is hated by the media” . . . “It kind of sounds like JD Vance. I’ve always liked Richard Nixon.”(6)

Ah, there’s nothing like the disgraceful gushing over the disgraced.

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On the food front there’s always something to wonder at. Here’s the haute cuisine at the Great American State Fair in Washington, DC: “The Original Liberty Sandwich” (peanut butter and marshmallow creme for $13).(7)

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I turned my back and, by some sort of wonder, my cleaners has morphed into something else:

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And to end this litany of wonders, here is something that is not a wonder—something that we all knew:

The Trump regime has granted permission to White South Africans to immigrate to the United States. At the same time the regime will stop funding for an H.I.V. program in South Africa, which has “the highest H.I.V. prevalence globally, with approximately eight million people living with the virus, according to World Health Organization data."(8)

In other words, if you’re White you live; if you’re Black you die.

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(1) https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2021/05/no-cohens-on-mayflower.html

(2) https://newrepublic.com/article/212326/transcript-trump-blurts-plot-rig-midterms-vile-jolts-gop

(3) https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2021/06/reds-under-beds.html

(4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Gove

(5) https://newrepublic.com/article/212131/brexit-ten-year-anniversary-predictions-came-true?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the_ticker_rss

(6) https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/j-d-vance-identifies-with-nixon-which-says-a-lot.html

(7) https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2026/06/26/great-american-state-fair-has-bumpy-beginning-its-opening-day/

(8) https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/19/world/africa/southafrica-aids-pepfar.html