Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Item: Daphne is digging into the root cause of what’s really wrong in Haiti. Besides/before the quake. Because nobody, anywhere, is saying before the quake hit, Haiti was some kind of Garden of Eden. They can’t say that because you’d immediately know they’re full of it. So howkumthatiz?
I pulled up a headline a little while ago that began “The scarcest commodity in Haiti…” and fully expected the answer to be fathers. Serendipity has been flashing her soft skirts at me today, pressing an incessant peak of firm, high thigh well before the sun rose and the flirt hasn’t let up yet. An incessant weave mentioning good fathers, or the clear lack of them, has been a steady theme turning up in every corner of my world today.
My ridiculous expectation wasn’t nearly as absurd as the reporter’s answer…
:
Communities that function with reasonable success under normal circumstances are full of solid men shouldering broad responsibilities for their children’s welfare. These widespread corners of low crime, good schools and dynamic business revenue thrive on the responsible backs of hardworking men who willingly respond to meet the everyday needs of their personal responsibilities and community infrastructure. When their neighborhoods are afflicted by catastrophic events, natural or man-made, they react with decisiveness and ingenuity to save lives, alleviate suffering and quickly rebuild. They’ve made plans for future contingencies because they have their children’s long-term welfare in mind. It’s really that simple.
And now for another item, brought to our attention by John Hawkins, something completely, or mostly, unrelated. Daphne has explored what we fellas are doing right, now let’s take a look at what the chickees are doing wrong.
15 Annoying Things Girlfriends Do (That You Have to Put Up With)
1. Random Item Relocation
2. Unwanted “Organization” of Your Stuff
3. Constant Overdressing
4. She’s Late for Everything
:
15. Deeming All Things Technical to be Unimportant
And what have these two things in common with each other? One points out that men do things right — or, let us be more precise, that it is important that the men do things right. The other points out that women do things wrong. One has to do with keeping a civilization going…a matter of life and death. The other has to do with the minor irritant of not being able to find your Super-Suit, and when you unleash a plaintive wail about where the damn thing might be, you’re asked why you need it.
What’ve they got in common with each other?
They are disallowed. Men important…women flawed. Neither one of those can get a fair hearing in our culture. We’ve blocked them both out. No one will ever say “women are perfect” and very few people will say “men don’t matter.” But with the black magic of the pliable, Gumby-like code of unwritten taboos, we can say those things without saying them — by stigmatizing their opposites. So you aren’t allowed to mention that men might play a pivotal role, or that some women do some tiresome, tedious things.
Check out the comments under the “15 Annoying Things” article. It really is astonishing. They pretty much fall into two categories: “You’re a pussy for even taking the time to notice/jot down this stuff,” and “If you’re dating any women at all, which I doubt, they’re not the right kind.” Read that last one as the “Yeah But All Women Aren’t Like That” stanza.
That’s the same as saying no woman ever does this? Huh. How do you explain that live-in of mine from a few years ago…during which time I had my “survival kit” packed in the trunk of my car, of the vital items she couldn’t “Randomly Relocate”? The batteries, the bandages, the tampons, the cat food. Why was that necessary if this isn’t a real problem?
Criticizing women is a funny thing. “Not All Women Are Like That” — is the same, somehow, as — “There Are No Women Like That,” which logically is a completely different thing to say. Read those comments again. What you’re seeing here is Thing I Know #58:
To insult a man says nothing about other men, but for some reason, anything said against one woman is perceived to be said against everything female who ever lived.
What we have condemned with such severity — without having the balls to out-and-out condemn it — is inter-generational transfer of knowledge. Bar Mitzvahs, taming the wild mare, the institution of marriage itself, Ten Commandments, Pan Far…these are traditions that got started for a reason. And the reason is that some requirements, some customs, some prohibitions that are needed for a society to continue to thrive, are absolutely essential. Among those are essential, even if you’re a real smart ticket it’ll take you a long time to figure out they’re helpful. Like, to age fifty or so. Well, we don’t have time for everyone to reach age fifty and figure it out. And so traditions are handed down from mother to daughter and from father to son. Rules are recorded in books, and then they’re followed. Old people are going to have to tell young people what to do, and then the young people are going to have to do it without asking questions about everything.
Our new taboos have torn these to shreds as well. Men don’t count, and nobody should ever demand anything out of them (except money); women never annoy anybody, or else it’s the other person’s fault for being annoyed.
The eventual result? Men in their twenties who don’t do a damn thing that’s constructive, fun as they may be to watch. Old men who are alone and purposeless, wishing like the dickens that they did something constructive when they were young. Women leapfrogging from one marriage to the next, annoying the shit out of every single husband they get, wondering why it’s taking them so long to find “love.” Children who can’t pay attention to a goddamn thing besides the latest text message that popped up on their “Hello Kitty” flipfone.
It isn’t our lack of ability to do things well, or to fix things when we aren’t doing well. It’s our lack of ability to figure out what we’re not doing well — and that’s a lack of willingness, not ability, when you get down to it. We’ve identified just a few occasional flaws that we are not ever, ever, ever willing to acknowledge should we ever run across them.
Which, in reality, actually do happen from time to time. And that is where we start to slip off the rails and become all dysfunctional. Things go gunnybags.
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[…] Diamond on HaitiPosted on | January 23, 2010 | No Commentsby SmittyThis post is prompted by Freeberg.In my pre-blogging days, when I still had time to read stuff, one object of fascination was […]
- Jared Diamond on Haiti : The Other McCain | 01/23/2010 @ 17:12Linked you here.
- smitty1e | 01/23/2010 @ 17:16I’ve been looking for a good way to put this for a very long time. And now you’ve gone and done it. Nicely done.
Dammit. 😉
- philmon | 01/25/2010 @ 15:52