This trailing post series sometimes makes it up to the top post for the past week, but the last one did in less than six hours. Here it is:
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgist Part 14. The Industrial Revolution and Child Care and other musings.
I wonder what shot it up so fast? The title issue was the Biden economic infrastructure proposal and its items on child care, but way down in the text Billie Eilish being on the cover of British Vogue was discussed.
It had to be one or the other, the two being oddly related in a way.
Eilish commentary
One thing I didn't note in depth is that Eilish apparently made the following comments:
One message she is sending is that there's a lot of "sexual misconduct" in the entertainment industry. This isn't news, but at least she's saying something. Her comment to British Vogue basically read as an entitlement of sexual immorality, which would actually be a species of real progress coming from that quarter. Perhaps its not entirely surprising, however, given that her generation has pretty much had it with things Boomer, of which the Sexual Revolution is part.
She noted it that this problem include the abuse of boys. Something rarely noted.
"Romeo and Juliet"
A post that predictably shot right up was the recent one on the 2022 Wyoming Congressional election. In that series I track what's going on, but a post regarding what occurred in Florida in 1983 is what shot it to the top, where it remains.
People who are interested in the story can read it there, but what it entails is far right, pro Trump, anti Cheney, very loud Laramie County state Senator Anthony Bouchard having been in a sexual relationship with a 14 year old when he was an 18 year old. As the story involves sex, and a scandal, and sex scandal, and tragedy, it predicable went right to the top.
There are a lot of peculiar angles to this, to say the least. Anyhow, I got around to finally watching the video that Bouchard released on this and I have to say that I'm singularly unimpressed. Indeed, the opposite is true.
For starters, Bouchard captions the video as "taking on" the "fake news media". There's nothing fake about this story, however. He did exactly what he's accused of. He doesn't really even come out acknowledging that there's something wrong about an 18 year old screwing a 14 year old, at least not in the four minutes of it I watched. I didn't watch the rest. He does give himself, and his late wife, credit for not aborting the baby, and I'd give them credit for that too, however.
Anyhow, somehow we've gone from a situation in which people generally acknowledge their faults fairly seriously, even if only when caught, to sort of bypassing them and blaming them on the media. The media isn't prefect and I think its biased, but Bouchard, in getting ahead of this story, didn't really get ahead of it.
Quite a few people are making comparison to the news stories about Matt Gaetz who came out with the absurd line that he always treated his trysts well. I don't know if the allegations about him and minors are true, but it used to be the case that, as the conservative party, the Republicans stood for morality. Clearly that's a mixed bag now, which I suppose is proof we've sunk so low in the Sexual Revolution that there isn't any.
Or maybe it tells us something about current populist politics.
Screen Free Week
This just happened recently.
I had to learn about it from a cartoon, which I had to learn on line, as my local newspaper doesn't publish a Monday print edition, only an electronic one.
Of course, I didn't observe it, but then I really couldn't. So much of what I do is on line anymore, even though I really wish it wasn't.
Bill and Melinda Gates
They announced their divorce on Twitter.
I don't know anything about them, but it's a real surprise. She's a Catholic. He's not, I believe, but had supported her and participated in their parish.
No details were provided at first, and of course we aren't entitled to any. It's disappointing no matter what you view on them is really. Indeed, given their vast wealth and respective ages, I thought at first that it really doesn't make any sense at all. If they weren't getting along, was my thought, they probably should just have separated.
Well it turns out that Gates too has a bit of a roving eye. Sheesh.
Statuesque
The statuesque Kim Kardashian, the most famous member of the most famous Armenian American family, famous for being famous, is in a bit of hot water for importing a Roman statute.
It may be just me, but I think there's something deep inside the half Armenian members of this family that's harkening them back to the old country and old ways of life.
False Positive
Demographers are noting that the US birth rate is below replacement level, a good thing, but the US is hardly at the point where its population is falling, which would also be a good thing, due to a massive unsustainable immigration rate.
Reporting on this topic is always bizarre. There's only so much room before a population negatively impacts the environment and itself. And the concept of a "demographic winter" in which there aren't enough youngsters to support a benighted retired population is completely false, being based on a completely static technological situation which in reality has never existed. Indeed, it's pretty clear that our technology has advanced to the point its putting people out of work.
Riding the elephant to death
Donald Trump has launched a website entitled From the Desk of Donald J. Trump.
Nobody seems to be paying that much attention to it, however. Frankly, the fact that it doesn't burst out onto Twitter, where he's banned, means you have to take the effort to subscribe to it, which only the really convinced are going to to.
Belgium Advances
A Belgian farmer found a border marker between his country and France annoying so he moved it.
He's been asked to move it back.
Bathing less often
The New York Times reports that people bathed less during the Coronavirus lockdowns and quite a few of them do not plan to return to more frequent bathing.
Folks actually probably don't need to bathe as often as they do, which has been known for a long time. But we've already crossed the bar on slovenliness in the US so this probably isn't a good thing.
The Eyes Of Texas
At some point, people are getting upset as its fun to have righteous anger over something, as long as it isn't something that doesn't really matter. The Eyes of Texas flap is just one such example.
Tensions boil at UT-Austin over "The Eyes of Texas", where students are refusing to work and a man with a gun crashed a virtual eventA student group was hosting an event with a UT-Austin professor about the song when a man entered the online Zoom call with his face covered, holding what appeared to be a large gun.
Meanwhile, real problems go unaddressed. . .
Temporary Relief
Reopening of the Rest Stops
Governor Gordon Authorizes Funding to Temporarily Reopen 9 Rest Areas for the Summer Travel Season
CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Governor Mark Gordon has directed the Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT) and Wyoming Office of Tourism (WOT) to partner to temporarily reopen and operate nine previously closed rest areas for at least the duration of the 2021 tourist season.
“With the summer season just around the corner, I’m glad we will be able to reopen these facilities to travelers,” Governor Gordon said. “We are glad to have this chance to find a temporary solution.”
WYDOT and WOT along with the Governor's office will work together to secure a temporary federal funding source to allow the nine rest areas throughout the state to reopen.
"WYDOT is extremely grateful to Governor Gordon and Director Shober for identifying new federal funds to temporarily reopen our rest areas for the tourist season," said WYDOT Director K. Luke Reiner.
Officials closed the rest areas in June 2020 as a cost-savings measure due to budgetary shortfalls.
The nine rest areas include:
- Lusk on US 18
- Guernsey on US 26
- Greybull on US 16
- Moorcroft on I-90
- Star Valley on US 89
- Sundance on I-25
- Upton on US 16
- Orin Jct on I-25
- Chugwater on I-25
“Each of these nine rest areas are a valuable tourism tool, said Diane Shober, executive director of the Wyoming Office of Tourism. “Certainly, a clean facility is important to the visitor experience, but it is also a powerful marketing platform to distribute travel guides and other trip-planning resources. As travelers are stretching their legs, they are also gathering information on local events, attractions, restaurants, campgrounds and lodging, which all can lead to extended stays and increase visitor spending.”
The rest areas should reopen ahead of Memorial Day weekend.
-END-
Oh think goodness.
"It takes a big cat to eat a ton of tuna"
So went an old answer to the question "what do you know". It doesn't seem to be around any more, but there was news about a really big cat.
Newly Identified Species of Saber-Toothed Cat Was So Big It Hunted Rhinos in America
On big cats, a tiger being kept by a felon escaped its house in Houston. The large cat was captured and is safe, but this is the second tiger in Houston story in recent years.
What the heck? Is Petco just out of cats in Texas?
Virtue Signaling
NBC has cancelled broadcasting of the Golden Globes for lack of diversity.
Nobody really pays any attention to these awards anymore, but this entire flap is really virtue signaling in the extreme. An industry which closed a blind eye to sexual misconduct for years is now missed at the Hollywood foreign press, which gives the Golden Globes. M'eh.
What might be noted, in terms of diversity, is that India has the largest film industry in the world, not the US. And our neighbor to the south, Mexico, has had an excellent and vibrant film industry for decades.
I'm sure the Screen Actors Guild will be pointing all this out really soon, of course, even if that diminishes its perceived importance.
Bouncing
Ocasio-Cortez on Taylor Greene: 'These are the kinds of people that I threw out of bars all the time'
Greene ought to be bounced from Congress, but that's not going to happen.
I'll be clear that she's not the only detestable Congressman by any means, and neither party has a lock hold on detestable political figures. But its pretty clear at this point that Greene is a type of live action troll. Like Internet trolls, she runs around saying stupid stuff and doing stupid things as it gets her attention.
Don't feed the trolls.
Speaking of stupidity, here's another Greene headline:
Marjorie Taylor Green compares mask mandate to the holocaust.
Congress has the ability to refuse to seat somebody, or to boot them out if they're really over the top. Greene should be sent packing.
Yikes
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