Dragged--Kicking and Screaming

Forty-nine years ago Ted Giannoulas donned a chicken costume:

The rest is history. Giannoulas became the San Diego Chicken, performing at San Diego Padres ball games. And, incidentally, initiating the wave of fuzzy sports team mascots across this continent and afar. 

What is especially worth noting today is that while conservative crazies (a tautology if there’s ever been one) are rushing to inflict punishment on men who dress as other human beings (i.e., women), Giannoulas’ dressing as a fowl (and those of his ilk who dress as wolves or bears or dinosaurs; isn’t there a whiff of sodomy about that?) passes without comment or legislation. 

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Men dressing as women—how horrible; it must be stopped. But where to begin? How about with Shakespeare?

In the Elizabethan theater there were no actresses. Female roles, therefore, had to be played by males—at least young males, boys. But how strange it was that some women characters that these males were playing (for example, Portia in The Merchant of Venice, Rosalind in As You Like it, and Viola in Twelfth Night) disguise themselves as men in the course of the action. Males-->Females-->Males-->Females. 

Tennessee Republicans—do you want to ban Shakespeare?

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There are numerous examples of actors in drag in films and in plays much more modern than Shakespeare’s. Here’s (of all people) Jack Benny in Charlie’s Aunt:

And of course there’s the comedy classic film (it’s now also a Broadway musical) Some Like it Hot, which starred Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon:

The hit play La Cage aux Folles had George Hearn in drag:

In the movies, we had Robin Williams as Mrs. Doubtfire and Dustin Hoffman in the title role of Tootsie:

Robbie Coltrane and Eric Idle in 1990 were the Nuns on the Run:

Oklahoma GOP—should we abolish the theater and films?

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And then there’s television. In its heyday who did we see? Milton Berle, Flip Wilson, Jonathan Winters:

Texas Conservatives—axe TV?

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So what’s left to do in the drive to keep the world pure for little children? I’m afraid we haven’t dealt with the most insidious of artistic dragginess: the performances actually aimed at children.

The Circus. Look at the clown (a grown man) playing “Grandma”:

The Pantomime. Ok, this is British, but this holiday entertainment is renowned for males playing the leading comic role. And many times it’s a famous actor doing it. Here are Ian McKellen and John Inman:

The Ballet:

En Travesti: As in a male dancer playing Widow Simone in La Fille Mal Gardée:

Comes Christmas—ah, The Nutcracker. But all across the North American continent thousands of children are subjected to male members of the corps playing the drag role of Mother Ginger:

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I guess, kiddies, it’s goodbye to all the fun entertainment.

Is that all right with you, North Dakota wingnuts?

The Writing on the Wall

“The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls.”

Simon and Garfunkel

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Since I have not ridden the New York City subway system since the start of the coronavirus epidemic, I can’t comment on what wisdom is on offer there these days. I have had to resort to long-distance televisual viewing to satisfy my wallreading desires.

I previously reported on some rather zen-like scrawls on the walls of the stadia during the recent Qatar-based World Cup.* Today I offer some more reporting on sporting arena walls.

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When I see an advertisement for a company I never encountered before, I always Google them. Who are they? What product or service do they offer? Here are several that I found on the side boards of hockey rinks that I have had to search out:

Loffler

Brandt

Govcio

Jabil

Leidos

TCL

The on-line statements of these companies fall into clichéd categories. 

(1) There is the Loffler/Brandt/Govcio “solutions” claim:

“Loffler listens, learns, creates and implements a solution to help your business.”

“For more than 70 years BRANDT has provided trusted advice, innovative solutions and unparalleled service for growers, producers and farmers around the world.”

Govcio: “We look at your products and services holistically to shape a clear path forward and deliver feasible solutions that generate sustained value.”

(2) Jabil and Leidos claim their technical “breadth and depth” (Jabil) and “technical core capabilities” (Leidos) will help other companies achieve “success” (Jabil) for their “important missions” (Leidos).

(3) Then there’s TCL, who “delivers meaningful experiences through thoughtful design and the latest technology, helping you enjoy more of the things you love.”

Now I admit that I spent my entire working life in an ivory tower and have never met a payroll, but somehow I can’t imagine big business suit types sitting around saying, “Let’s hire a company that will deliver us meaningful experiences or one that will holistically shape a clear path for us.”

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The advertising on the walls of English football fields offers multiple delightfully upbeat slogans that float free of anything specific about a particular product:

“Designed to Evolve. Built to Empower”

“Designed for Connection”

“Creating a World that Works Better”

Not all of the wall writings are available to a native English speaker, being in Chinese, Japanese, and other (not readily-identifiable by me) Asian languages. In English, though, we learn that a certain doctor is the best hair transplanter in Turkey. 

My favorite advertisement, seen at Wembley Stadium during the Carabao Cup final, proclaimed that the sponsoring energy drink was now “Available in Yemen.” 

That information stopped me in my tracks. There’s a nasty civil war going on in that Middle Eastern country. Were the participants defying the bullets and bombs in order to watch a foreign football match on TV? And would they be so persuaded by the message of the company that they would seek out bottles of the drink in order to gain more energy to pursue their military goals?   

One can only wonder. 

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* https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2023/01/language-follies-2.html 

Masks and Faces

I first saw Dr. T in January of last year. Last Thursday I had my latest appointment with him. When I entered his office I was quite surprised at how old he suddenly looked. Had he contracted some disease in the few months since I had seen him last?

It wasn’t until I was in my car on my way home that I realized the truth: that was the first time I had ever seen him without a face mask, and, therefore, I had never before seen more of his face than his forehead and his eyes. The drawn flesh around the cheek bones and the lines around the mouth were not signs of a recent deterioration of his health, but were his normal aged appearance. 

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This episode made me remember that my surprise at an unmasking was something that had happened to me before—several times before. Throughout the Covid period, seeing less than half a face of someone I had never met before the pandemic, I automatically conjured up in my mind’s eye a completion of the other person’s visage. There was Courtni, for example, a receptionist at my physical therapy facility. I filled in what I imagined was south of her forehead and eyeglasses: the rest of a very pretty face, which the glasses accented. 

When I did see her without a mask, it was a nice enough face—if not as pretty as I had pictured. 

A surprise then, but it shouldn't be a surprise now. Thinking back, I realize that throughout the Covid period I was imagining all masked women—at the supermarket, for example—as being good looking under the face covering. Now with the mask requirement lifted, I find that there are fewer good looking women in the aisles than I believed before.

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I am, it has just occurred to me, an idealist. My mind’s eye beautifies the unknown. Underneath the rock is not a snake. Behind the mask beauty is hidden. 

And I am a fool who is doomed to be disappointed by reality. I must accept that at face value.

  

The Lord of Misrule

I have produced below an edited and revised version of a book review by Andrew Rawnsley. The book in question is an analysis of the term in office of a modern politician. Can you guess whose reign is being discussed?

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If the reign looked dreadful from the outside, it was even more diabolical viewed from the inside. We did not really have a government during his trashy reign. It was an anarchy presided over by a fervently frivolous, frantically floundering and deeply decadent lord of misrule.

Never in modern times has the office been occupied by someone so fundamentally unfit to hold the office. He was an utterly incapable leader. 

“I am meant to be in control. I am the führer. I’m the king who takes the decisions.” The would-be great dictator was never in control because he was incapable of performing even some of the most basic functions of a leader.

He had no clue how to be an effective leader and no idea what he wanted to do with the role other than satisfy his lust for its status and perks. One of his cabinet members said: “He loved the prestige and the trappings. He reveled in it… His philosophy on the way up had been to do, pledge, say anything to get over the line because I’m the best, I deserve it. Now I’m here without any core beliefs, I can do and say whatever I need to remain here.”

He was as woeful at applying himself to official papers as he was hopeless at assembling a stable and productive team. He was almost pathologically incapable of making and sticking to decisions, especially when confronted with choices that were in any way difficult. Most of the time, he was just making stuff up as he went along. “Wow, where the hell did that come from?” was the reaction from his staff when he suddenly announced that he had a plan to fix social care. No such plan existed. “Put down in 3,000 words what you think my foreign policy should be,” he told startled officials. He did not form a serious relationship with any of his international peer group. 

He deliberately stuffed his cabinets with mediocrities who knew they were expected to be “nodding dogs” and whom he disdained as “the stooges.”

The authors explore whether he believed in anything except the satisfaction of his own appetites and come back from their search for a philosophy as empty-handed as all the other people who have pursued this vain quest. This mirthless farce had tragic real-world consequences. Utterly unsuited to handling a crisis as grave as the pandemic, his endless prevarications and about-turns cost lives. “He wildly oscillated in what he thought,” observes one official. “In one day he would have three meetings in which he would say three completely different things depending on who was present, and then deny that he had changed his position.” His personal brush with Covid encouraged some to think it might prompt a reform of his behavior. They were disappointed. Even coming near to death couldn’t remedy character flaws that were so deeply ingrained.

Everyone he dealt with sooner or later found him dissembling, because he was only ever willing to commit to a position if he thought there was some immediate personal advantage or because his hand had been forced. One of his officials says he lied “morning, noon and night.” He lied not just to the public, but also and often to his closest associates.

Battles for the ear of this shallow and capricious monarch turned his court into the scene of constant internecine struggle between the ever-shifting factions within the building. We hear him whingeing about his inability to find the personnel or the structures to make his government functional, but several inside accounts suggest that he relished being at the centre of the tornado of chaos.

Rather than take any responsibility upon himself, he would deflect blame for decisions he feared might be unpopular – and did not hesitate to use even his wife for that pathetic purpose. In the words of one courtier: “He would tell us that she was impossible to deal with and he couldn’t control her and she would do whatever she wanted. Then he’d go upstairs and tell her that we were impossible and he couldn’t control us. He liked to pour gasoline on both sides and see what happened to the fire.”

To the bitter end, he blamed everyone but himself for the implosion of his reign. He was dethroned because he was and always had been utterly unfit to wear the crown.

Guess now, before the reveal.

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The book review was published in The Observer. The book is Johnson at 10 by Anthony Seldon and Raymond Newell, the subject being Boris Johnson, who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2019 to 2022.

Did you think it was Donald Trump? Everything said about Johnson could equally serve as a summation of Trump’s disastrous reign (which is what led me to produce this blog post).

It is amazing that at the same time two of the countries that should be beacons of light for the world were ruled by similar disturbed personages. Let us hope that it never happens again.

Original review at:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/apr/30/johnson-at-10-anthony-seldon-raymond-newell-review-ducking-and-diving-with-the-pm-who-would-be-king-boris-johnson

Learning Experiences

Two Kids

This is about Cedar the goat (kid #1)

 and an unnamed nine-year-old girl out in California (kid #2).

Last spring, the nine-year-old decided to raise a goat and then put it up for auction at a county fair. But as things turned out, the girl bonded with the animal and, regarding it as a pet, no longer wanted to part with the goat. The girl’s family tried to back out of the agreement to auction Cedar, but the auction went ahead anyway. The family then took the goat and absconded with it, eventually placing the animal with a farm that leases out goats for vegetation control. 

The family offered to cover all expenses, and the buyer of the goat at the auction (let’s say something nice about a Republican state senator) agreed to the new plan, letting Cedar live. But they did not reckon with the hardasses of the Shasta District Fair. No way! they exclaimed. The child must be taught a lesson:

“Making an exception for you will only teach (our) youth that they do not have to abide by the rules that are set up for all participants.”

And in order to enforce their rules, the Fair authorities got the Sheriff’s Office to send two deputies 500 miles to seize the animal. Taxpayers money wasted, anybody?

Henrik Ibsen demonstrated in his plays that the claims of the Ideal (abstractions, rules, laws) can be antithetical to life. In this case, the life that was lost was that of Cedar the goat, who probably ended up as someone’s picnic dinner.

And what was the lesson learned by the young girl? Probably, that the world of adult authority is rotten, without love or compassion.

(Story at https://www.sanluisobispo.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/article273909885.html#storylink=cpy)

One Kid

Having tipped my hat above to a Republican politician, I must, unfortunately, return to the cesspool of the GOP.

Kristi Noem is the governor of South Dakota. Perhaps her most noteworthy action (or stunt) as head of that state was to send “up to 50” South Dakota National Guard troops to Texas to “help secure our border.” As if that handful could do the trick!

Last week, Noem moseyed on over to a National Rifle Association event (otherwise known as the gathering of the goofballs) and proceeded to outdo all the other quacks. She joyfully announced that her grandchild Addie had a shotgun and a rifle. The child, it should be noted, is almost two-years-old. Noem put it this way:

"Now Addie, who you know, soon will need them, I want to reassure you, she already has a shotgun and she already has a rifle, and she's got a little pony named Sparkles too. So the girl is set up.” 

Well, what is she set up for?

The Second Amendment to the Constitution (which the gun nuts keep under their pillows at night) begins (this is the part that is conveniently ignored by the nuts):

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State . . .

That’s what she is being set up for: she is going to take her weaponry and endeavor to protect the security of our country in the same way that the two score and ten South Dakota guardsmen were going to protect the southern border. 

I am left with just one question:  

When Addie is on guard duty aboard Sparkles, who will change her diaper?

(Story at https://www.businessinsider.com/republican-governor-2-year-old-granddaughter-already-several-guns-2023-40)

The Curse of Education

To understand exactly what is wrong with American education, look no further than Catlett, Va. A recent story in The New York Times* reported on a ten-year-old fifth grader who challenged an entry about rocks in one of his text books—and was celebrated for doing so. 

Authority coming under attack—is that what public education is supposed to lead to?

The distinguished Tennessee legislator Scott Cepicky, R-Culleoka said the other day,

"You’ve got to do what’s right — even if you think it might be wrong — you’ve got to do what’s right."**

That is, you must defer to authority (“what’s right”) no matter what—a variation on the old phrase “Are you going to believe us or your lying eyes?

But we see from the kudos that have been showered on the fifth grader (who shall remain nameless here to avoid further stigmatization in later life) how public education—by praising his whistleblowing—is attempting to undermine the rightful order of American life.

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This celebration of whistleblowers is just one underhanded way that public education is a threat to Americanism. Consider how even in the early years of pre-school, children are encouraged to share: 

“Now, Billy, let Kevin play with the choo-choo a while.” 

What is it that sharing leads to? I ask. Communism. Toddlers of three and four are unwittingly being groomed to become Reds. Are we to stand by and do nothing?

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There are manifold other tactics that are being used in the effort to undermine our country, but I will point out just one more. In how many classrooms are children separated into groups to work together to achieve a common result? The educators call that “cooperation”; I call it a concerted project to eliminate individualism from the USA. This “cooperation” is an undermining of the Ayn-Randism that espouses the strong, stand-on-his-own super-individual. It is a step backward from the High-Noonism of the “good guy with a gun” who will stop evil in its tracks. 

If this insidious “cooperation” expands further, we will be defenseless against the bad guys. And where would our country be then? Probably in the hands of communists who have been groomed almost from the time they left the cradle.

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What to do ? What is the answer?

I think there is only one big step that must be taken to eliminate the threat: 

Defund education!

You have been warned!

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*  https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/12/us/student-textbook-mistake.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20230413&instance_id=90088&nl=the-morning&regi_id=84409848&segment_id=130299&te=1&user_id=5604655212f4529172fd380b16fc901d

**  https://sports.yahoo.com/leaked-audio-shows-tennessee-gop-195911489.html

  

 

Sticks and Stones

Consider the happy state of the caveman. There he is chipping away at a flint with a rock in order to achieve a sharp edge; or he is squatting in his cave scratching in the dirt with a stick. 

Envy him.

If his stick breaks, he goes to the nearest tree, breaks off a branch, and is ready to continue his attempt at quadratic equations or the image of a mastodon. Is the second stick thicker than the first? No problem. There is no hardware issue here—no compatibility hassle. His simple equipment, we might say, works straight out of the box. 

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I offer these thoughts based on insight gleaned from purchasing a new computer. There was actually no need for me to whip out my credit card, but I had been grousing about the seeming slowing of speed of my previous MacBook Air, and, so when I discovered that I could get a new one for 20% off, I jumped. 

Thanks to Amazon’s one-day delivery, there it was: spanking new in a dark gray slim silhouette. To demonstrate my adult restraint, I actually waited several hours before opening the box and started to call it into action.

The first thing I discovered was that the power cord of the old Mac did not work with the new one; the new Mac has completely different inputs. Not only the power input was incompatible with the new machine, but also, with the elimination of the USB slots, everything that plugged into the old Mac was useless on the new. Goodbye, wireless mouse; goodbye, external hard drive; goodbye, external disc drives; goodbye, scanner.

Hello, Amazon, send me a Bluetooth mouse.

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It is not just with computers that the modern world has deemed it necessary to make upgrades the bane of one’s existence. 

I have been leasing the same make and model automobile through several iterations. It used to be that the music system had a six CD player. How wonderful! You could drive for hours and have new sounds accompanying you all the way. But the two most recent models have scrapped the six CD player and now offer a single measly slot to fill. This is bad for two reasons:

First: Have you ever gone on a trip with one music source on hand? In Argentina once, we borrowed the car of my son-in-law’s brother for a journey to the countryside. The car had a cassette player, but unfortunately there was only one cassette on hand to listen to. Have you ever tried listening to Rod Stewart in a car for two hours straight? The definition of Hell on Wheels.

Second: You’re driving on the Turnpike at sixty miles an hour. The CD in the single slot comes to an end. You would like to listen to something new, so what do you have to do? At sixty miles an hour (and assuming that you prefer to keep your eyes on the road) you fumble for the tiny ejector button, and, with any success, you remove the disc and place it on the passenger’s seat. Then you attempt to maneuver the center console open and extract a new disc. With one hand on the wheel, you lever open the disc’s case, remove the disc, and attempt to place it right side up into the narrow CD slot. If the next sounds that accompany you on your journey are not from Chopin’s Funeral March Sonata, you are still alive. 

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Then there’s my dishwasher. (I will not dwell on the arduous adventure of getting the previous super to install it. Actually, he never did.) I cannot figure out how to load it. The spaces seem all wrong. And although the capacity looks greater than the old dishwasher’s, somehow there’s always less of a load when filled.

But that’s not my real complaint. The old dishwasher (by the same manufacturer, incidentally) had its controls on the outside of the machine. The new one has the controls (electronic, not mechanical) inside on the top of the front lid. Which means that when you open the lid, there’s a good chance that you will accidentally land a finger on the start button—and the machine sputters to life, spraying water all over the interior. It happened to me twice this week.

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In conclusion, can we really say that the modern world—with the agita of dealing with modern technology—is an upgrade from the simple world of the caveman?

(And in case you need more proof: as I was going to transfer the text from Pages to my blog, the internet connection went down.)