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Showing posts with label Women. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Women. Show all posts
Friday, May 15, 2026
Sunday, May 10, 2026
Thursday, May 7, 2026
Friday, May 7, 1976. Jacelyne Khoueiry at Martyrs' Square.
Maronite Catholic Jacelyne Khoueiry and six other Lebanese Christian women defended a building in Martyrs' Square in Beirut from an attack by 300 Palestine Liberation Organization fighter.
Khouneiry would go on to command a female Christian unit of 1,500 members before laying down her arms in 1986. She'd go on to found charitable and prolife organizations and participated in a 2012 synod on the Middle East and the 2014 Third Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops. She was appointed to the Pontifical Council for the Laity.
Last edition:
Friday, April 30, 1976. The end of the Greek Language Question.
Labels: 1970s, 1976, 2000s, 2006, boxing, Cod Wars, fishing, Greece, Greek, Health, Iceland, Icelandic Coast Guard, languages, Mental Health, Third Cod War
Wednesday, May 6, 2026
Saturday, May 6, 1911. One Colorado Senator.
Colorado's Senate adjourned after having failed to appoint a replacement for the late Senator Charles J. Hughes. There would be only one Senator from Colorado until January 20, 1913.
It was a Saturday.
Last edition:
Friday, May 5, 1911. La Cruz Blanca Neutral.
Thursday, April 30, 2026
Friday, April 30, 1926. Bessie Coleman killed.
Famous African American aviator Bessie Coleman was killed along with passenger, her mechanic and promoter, William D. Willis when her Curtiss JN-4 crashed. A post accident investigation found a wrench jammed in the controls which jammed them.
The airplane was newly purchased and in poor mechanical condition. Her friends had urged her not to fly due to the condition.
Last edition:
Monday, April 26, 1926. Caroline Lockhart sued.
Sunday, April 26, 2026
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 128th Edition. Attempted assassination at a pointless event.
The 127th edition of this was teed up to go before last night's White House Correspondence Dinner, or this would be that edition. Having the other one ready to go, I went ahead and ran it.
I didn't realize anything had happened right away until I went upstairs and my wife was watching a little of the news feed. It was fairly typical with the press doing the usual "oh gosh, who could the target have been" routine. We all know who the target was, Donald Trump.
This is a tragedy, even though nobody was hurt, thankfully, for a variety of reasons, one being that while there are now questions about how the assailant "got so close" (in a country armed to the hilt, Trump probably comes surprisingly close to armed people every single day), what this accomplishes once again will be to help rally people around Trump. I know that's not supposed to be the first observation, but it's quite true.
Trump has been sinking like a rock in popularity but people rally around somebody who is attacked. And in the MAGA camp, where quite a few people believe that Trump is on some sort of Devine mission, it'll be seen as proof of that.
That this occurred is not a surprise at all. Trump is an illegitimate President who vomits hatred on a nearly daily basis. He inspires hatred of him and is likely the most hated American President since Abraham Lincoln. He is a horrible human being.
None of that justifies an attempt at murder, but it's not surprising the attempt was made. What's additionally interesting, fwiw, is the far right of this country effectively adopted the concept of tyrannicide during both Biden's and Obama's terms in office, so in a way, that set the table for something like this to occur in a way that didn't exist when there were attempts on prior Presidents.
With this attempt, depending on how you look at it, Trump holds the record for the most attempts on a Presidents life. Having said that, if you limit that to while a figure is in office, he's tied with Ford if you regard him as being presently in office.
I probably would have skipped mentioning the dinner as its shameful that it even occurs anymore.
Some outside commentary on it:
Inside the Ballroom: Chaos and Confusion
That article by a reporter who was there.
Surreal? Maybe, but by this point in Trump's illegitimate reign I suspect a lot of people are like me. We know that this was a horrible event but it hardly even registered on the attention meter. Trump so dominates the news with his horrible behavior that even when its directed at him, it's hard to really get too worked up about it.
Again, I don't condone this, and the effect will aid Trump, who needs to be removed via the 25th Amendment.
About the dinner itself, a lot of people, myself included, flatly feel that it should have been cancelled, or at least Trump should not have been invited. He treats the Press horribly, and yet there they are, worshipping him.
Aid and Comfort to the Enemy
The recklessness of the White House Correspondents’ Association’s self-own
A cartoon:
The WH Correspondents' Dinner
Unethical and tone deaf
Apparently J.D. Vance and sycophantic today Mike "Toady" Johnson were at the event. Of interest, the Secret Service rushed Vance off first.
That's interesting.
If that comes up again, I'm sure there will be some solid explanation, but I wonder if its just not a combination of fatigue on the part of security as well. Vance and Trump probably have separate security details and Trump's is probably numb from having to be around such a horrible person constantly.
On clearing the room, the excessive number of iPhone cameras anymore means everything is photographed to the hilt and then over analyzed. That's already happening, but as horrible as something like this is, it can lead to some semi assuming photographs, none of which would be the slightest bit amusing if you were there.
One is that Kennedy Jr. appeared to leave his wife behind as he was escorted out to safety. His wife, actress Cheryl Hines, later explained that her formal dress hindered her ability to get out and she had to be carried.
Stephen Miller basically shoved his wife out, which is understandable, but photographically unfortunate too, as he was leading her while behind her and his hand was unfortunately placed for control on her upper torso, um, well anyhow.
On the post scene photographs, one security figure is clearly carrying a SIG M17 in the same photograph as a female security officer carrying a Glock 19. The M17 is way larger. It had the conventional iron sights.
The man carrying it was way larger than the female officers as well. I know that in 2025 a person isn't supposed to feel these things but in at least two of the Trump attempts a female secret service officer has been present and just the photographs don't inspire confident in me. That's probably just me. Anyhow, well. . .
Well, a slight addition.
Since the decline in sartorial standards, Secret Service officers are absurdly easy to pick out. They're always wearing dark suits. I have a photograph of Theodore Roosevelt from 1903 or so in which a Secret Service officer is wearing tweed and a newsboy cap. Much harder to pick out. The women are even easier to pick out as women don't normally wear dark business suits.
Glocks leave me unimpressed as well. M'eh.
Trump promised to reschedule the event, which of course, wasn't his to schedule in the first place.
Trump offered some comments from the White House. Included in those were that the military is demanding the ballroom.
The military probably doesn't normally provide any sort of security to the President at all, although the man with the M17 is interesting as he was clearly in some security role, and was not in the Secret Service, and probably in the military. That aside, the military probably doesn't give a rats ass about the ballroom in this context. Trump just makes crap up.
What does seem to be the case is that there's a giant bunker being built under where the ballroom is supposed to go, but won't. We only know the details of that which we know as Trump can't stop his verbal diarrhea.
It is an interesting aspect of this however is how much of the White House destruction was motivated by a military request, and then taken advantage of by the White House, if it was.
I'll add that building giant bunkers leads to an inflated sense of self worth on the part of everyone involved. That part of this project ought to be halted as well.
One final note. Most people who attempt to assassinate Presidents are nuts. This is notable as by an large, their efforts are incredibly poorly done. This is true of nearly every historical assassination attempt. Of all of them, Lee Harvey Oswald's was by far the most competent attempt, which is probably why people insist it must have been a conspiracy.
Not that this isn't already happening here. I've already read claims that this attempt, and all the prior ones, on Trump's life were staged. They weren't, but something remarkable here is that Trump, Vance and Johnson were all present, which is stupid. The argument would be that you know they were staged, as the government would never be so dim as to put the first three people in line for power in the same public room.
Oh yes it would.
Rubio was there too.
Given the line of succession, if a competent attacker was president, Chuck Grassley might now be President. That would assume a lot of skill that most attempted assassins really lack, which is a good thing for everyone. Indeed, even well trained assassins tend not to pull regime change off, as the repeated German Army failures on Hitler demonstrate.
It does demonstrated a lot of hubris, however. We are presently at war with a country whose entire leadership was assassinated early on. Murdering the leadership of opposing combatants is generally regarded as beyond the Pale in war. We did not do it in World War Two, and our opponents didn't attempt it either. The targeting of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in Operation Vengeance during World War Two is still controversial. It was well known that Trump would be at this event and it was likely known that members of his cabinet would be too. That Iran did not regard the event as a target of opportunity says a lot about their restraint, and frankly, their intelligence. They could literally have decapitated the administration and left a person so old in charge that he would have had to resign. I don't know how many members of Trump's cabinet were in fact there. Maybe all of them.
Last edition:
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 127th Edition. The Dipshit Edition. The Wyoming Freedom Caucus decides the a General officer of the U.S. Army is too "woke" to be the President of UW.
Tuesday, April 21, 2026
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 126th Edition. The “Go to church. Find Jesus. Why is everyone so horny around here?”
April 21, 2026
It might be hard to find a moral person in a den of inequity
“Go to church. Find Jesus. Why is everyone so horny around here?”
Boebert following the resignations of Democrat Eric Swalwell and Republican Congressman Tony Gonzales. Apparently Swalwell's sexual misconduct was extremely well known in Congress. Gonzales' staffer whom he had an affair with committed suicide by self immolation.
These are icky people.
Of course Boebert had her own moment in the dimly lit theatre when she was caught on video getting felt up by a date after her divorce.
None of which causes me to post this thread. Rather, it's the resignation of Lori Chavez-DeRemer who was accused of abusing her power. She's also accused of having an affair with one of the members of her security detail, and her husband, Shawn DeRemer, an anesthesiologist, was barred from the department’s headquarters after allegations by at least two female staff members that he had sexually assaulted them.
This, of course, follows the resignation of Kristi Noem who was allegedly having an affair with Corey Lewandowski, although she denies it. Indeed, everything listed here in regard to Noem and DeRemer is denied. Noem, we'll recall, suffered the revelation that her husband was posting photographs of himself with huge fake boobs.
So, in answer to Bobo's question, maybe it isn't that everyone in D.C. is inordinately horny, but rather that when you elect a man to lead them all who has publicly been sexually immoral you can't really expect everyone else to be.
Have any of these people behaved any worse than Donald Trump? Well, maybe, but it's not like they're all in the clean living club had a minor trip.
And how about those Epstein files?
Dimmitude.
There is apparently an HBO series called Euphoria. I had never heard of it until this week when it hit the news as Sydney Sweeney appears topless in it, and apparently appears in dicey scenes in general as an OnlyFans, um, model?
Sweeney is an actress who must be famous for something acting related, but I don't know what it is. I've never seen her in a movie, and I'm not going to watch Euphoria because 1) it doesn't sound interesting and 2) it sounds like it's outright pornography.
I've never labeled the phenomenon, I probably should and maybe I will with this thread, but the appearance in the nude of one good looking woman undoes the work of a thousand hard working talented women. I.e., you can have 1,000 Marie Curie's and 1 Sydney Sweeney is all it takes to set the progress of women back fifty years.* It's probably has its roots in human genetics, but it's a real phenomenon. Brilliant women can make all sorts of progress in sciences, art, literature, and along comes one topless tart and the meter is set back decades.
Sweeney was quoted as saying something like when she does this stuff, and the most recent topless scenes are apparently not the only sexually explicit ones in the show, she doesn't see it as herself, but has an out of body type experience. One quote also says the most recent one, which is supposed to be an OnlyFans topless ice cream photo, isn't erotic. Well, horseshit. Playing a pornographic model in the nude is pornographic.
I feel bad for Sweeney as I suspect she has some actual talent, but I don't know that. She's not an actress on my radar obviously. She really came to public attention most recently for her jeans ads, in which she's used as cheesecake. I guess she appeared as a female boxer (a sport I really don't think women should be in, given my archaic views) and got high marks on Rotten Potatoes. She changed her appearance enormously, based on the trailer, for that role, which takes some guts. It didn't seem to be widely watched, however, which is too bad as maybe it could have broken her out of the "let's watch Sweeney's boobs" roles that she seems to be taking to get by now.
The relationship between men and women, and children.
I saw a couple of items on Twitter that dimly sort of related to topics here, one being a quote, and another a reply to the quote.
Footnotes:
*We will call it the Sydney Sweeney Effect and put it in our rules of human behavior when we get a chance. We probably ought to name another one the Playboy Effect, which is obviously related to it, to what we earlier noted:
Last edition:
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 125th Edition. Monumental Stupidity
Saturday, April 4, 2026
Thursday, April 4, 1946. Hirohito lucks out.
The Far Eastern Commission exempted Emperor Hirohito from war crime prosecution.
Richard C. Miller took a series of swimsuit photographs of Marilyn Monroe. In them, which because of copyright we will not post here, she appears of much more normal proportions than she would later, which is interesting for a variety of reasons we've already covered.
Last edition:
Tuesday, April 2, 1946. MacArthur bans fraternization, Murray tries for national health insurance.
Monday, March 23, 2026
Saturday, March 23, 1946. Marilyn Monroe and the Wedding Industrial Complex. Truman warns Stalin, and holds up testing the bomb. No public necking in Japan.
A really interesting Richard C. Miller photograph of Marilyn Monroe was taken, which we learned of due to Reddit's 80 Years Ago Sub, and which we repost here via fair use.
Miller had "discovered" Monroe, who was already modeling following her photo spread in World War Two's Yank. Miller, typical for the era, photographed her in swimsuits, including bikinis (very modest ones by today's standards), but also had a an entire series of other topics, including the subject shooting firearms. Here he depicted her in a wedding dress.
The real life model had already been married and divorced by this time, having married at age 16 and then filing for divorce while her husband was deployed in the Navy during the Second World War. This photograph is actually commonly claimed to be a wedding photo from her first marriage, which it is not, although the veil is remarkably similar to the one she actually wore in her wedding.
Actual photograph of Monroe at her first wedding, when she was 16 years old.
In the studio photograph she's holding some sort of book with a Christian cross on it, with that style of cross depiction very common for the era. This is what causes us to note this photograph in a way, as it brings up the topic addressed here:
The Wedding Industrial Complex
Notes from the Spesia Underground
A really interesting episode.
This really fascinating look at modern weddings brings up a whole host of things we routinely discuss here, including agrarianism and subsidiarity. The episode from Catholic Stuff You Should Know points out the extent that weddings were, at at the time the photo of Norma Jean was taken above still remained, community affairs and not big bride focused shows.
We've lost a lot here.
And we really need to recapture it.
While indelicate, this also shows the portrayal of a really beautiful woman before Playboy perverted all of that.
Monroe was, as is well known, Playboy's first, and unwilling, centerfold. But what's interesting here is that prior to Playboy arriving on the scene, this was not an uncommon depiction of a really beautiful woman. There were, of course, already some women who were focused on for being really busty, Jane Russell giving an example, but the theme did not absolutely dominate. To look at the 19 year old Monroe here, you would not have thought of her in that fashion. A decade later, you would, and even after Life intervened to push her nude photograph first as an art item. We've dealt with that before here as well, although frankly we need to modify our entry. That post is here:
Appearance. Shape and being in shape and women (men will come next).
Also posted via fair use, Colliers had an article on keeping everyone employed year around, showing how times were in fact changing.
We've looked at that here too.
Women in the Workplace: It was Maytag that took Rosie the Riveter out of the domestic arena, not World War Two
Truman presented an ultimatum to Stalin demanding the Soviets comply with the agreement to pull their troops from Iran.
The Rocky Mountain News was a morning paper, so they didn't catch that, but they did catch something else that Truman had ordered the day prior.
The Army issued an order prohibiting soldiers from engaging in public displays of affection with Japanese women.
Out Our Way's gag was based on cleaning out the ash bin of a stove, something that's likely completely lost on modern readers.
Argentina extended its claims over Antarctica.
Mad King Donny must not be aware of this or we'd be staking a claim.
Indonesia Tentara Republik Indonesia (Armed Forces of the Republic of Indonesia) evacuated Indonesian citizens from the city of Bandung, West Java, Indonesia, after which the area was burned to avoid its use by the Dutch.
Commemorated as the Bandung Sea of Fire and a great patriotic act, poor people really don't have much of a say in things like this.
Last edition:
Friday, March 22, 1946. First U.S. rocket to escape the atmosphere.
Saturday, March 14, 2026
Have some of you seen any daylight recently?
This is amusing. Chloe Winters is not unattractive, but the married Galwegian dresses like what she is, a market gardener. It's a dirty job. Her only adornment, normally, is a cross denoting her Christianity.
The fact that she's getting hit on for gardening videos. . . well it's just sad.
Tuesday, March 3, 2026
Wednesday, March 3, 1926. National Forest Week.
The Moody Bible Institute made the first radio broadcast of an evangelical radio program.
Odd to think they didn't exist at one time.
Germany and Afghanistan entered into a treat of friendship.
Coolidge proclaimed National Forest Week.
Proclamation, March 3, 1926
Nassau Street, New York City, March 3, 1926.
Today In Wyoming's History: March 3: 1916 A spinsters convention is held in Gillette. Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.
Last edition:
Saturday, February 20, 1926.
Monday, March 2, 2026
The Aerodrome: Kuwaiti speaks to shot down U.S. pilot.
The Aerodrome: Kuwaiti speaks to shot down U.S. pilot.: There's footage of this F-15 being shot down over Kuwait, which was a friendly fire incident. I actually didn't know the F-15 was ...
Kuwaiti speaks to shot down U.S. pilot.
There's footage of this F-15 being shot down over Kuwait, which was a friendly fire incident.
I actually didn't know the F-15 was still in use by the US, but this very late model has only been in service since 2021.
Wednesday, February 18, 2026
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 119th Edition. Comments on Culture. A Galwaywoman's comment on men and women, Rubio's comments on Western Civilization, and Hegseth hosts a Christian Nationalist.
A series of posts on viewpoints that aren't related. . . well maybe there are.
The first one is from Chloe Winter's vlog, which is one of the agricultural ones that we link in here. Ms. Winter is a married Galway greenhouse farmer (that's how I'd put it) in her very early 20s (maybe actually 20) who took up greenhouse farming when a close friend of hers died. Galway is very rural Ireland and Galwegians are very rural Irish. I've actually heard them referred to as "Bog Irish" by other Irish. The county is one of the few areas of Ireland where there are bonafide Irish Gaelic speakers and it has its own accent, which Ms. Winter very thickly has.
This entry was surprising, in a way in that its very anti first wave feminist, but in a really genuine way. It may actually be fourth wave feminist. If released in the US (I believe most of Ms. Winter's followers are Irish), it'd create some sort of firestorm in some social medial communities.
Having said that, she isn't wrong.
And her vocabulary and manner of speech is delightfully Irish.
This flat out puts Rubio in the National Conservative movement and is their thesis to the core. It doesn't say anything, you'll note, about religion at all, it's all about culture. You can perhaps read more into that if you want, any many would, but this is pretty much the Dinneen/Dreher/Reno thesis.
Two different right wing cultural views emerged from Trump servants so far this week. What's interesting in part about them is that many commentators aren't able to realize that they actually express radically different world views, which shows how poorly people are informed and educated in some things.
The State Department, which still calls itself the Department of State, posted a photo of Marco Rubio with this entry, summing up his recent deliveries to European figures:
You can pretty much rest assured that its not the Trump thesis. Trump just isn't smart enough or interested enough to grasp something like this at all.
Rubio has endorsed Vance for 2028, but it's probably an endorsement of convenience. By doing this, Rubio has raised his flag in the National Conservative camp. This, moreover, may actually be what Rubio believes.
Rubio is drawing a lot of attention, and getting a lot of excitement, in Reaganite and other genuinely conservative camps. He's not a populist. The big question is whether he can overcome the stench of having been associated with Trump. A secondary question is whether contemporary American culture, less than half of which is all that conservative, sees itself in this fashion very deeply.
In contrast is Pete Hegseth, who will never overcome the stench of Trump.
The Department of Defense posted this item about its activities this past week:
We have gathered at the Pentagon for our monthly worship service.
We are One Nation Under God.
First of all, the Department of Defense has no business whatsoever having monthly prayer meetings. The United States may be One Nation, Under God, but this basically is a forced acknowledgement of a certain type of Christianity, that being a minority branch of it by far, over every other religion. Yes, I'm a Christian, and a member of the original Christian faith, but not every soldier is, and no doubt there are soldiers who have no religion at all.
Moreover, this is Doug Wilson, who appeared here in an earlier discussion. He's a Calvinist who holds really extreme views. You can be rest assured that considerably less than half of the American population wants a Puritan Calvinist regime in the U.S. Indeed, a couple of people responded to this Twitter post with:
Christopher Hale@ChristopherHale 13hDoug Wilson routinely mocks the pope and the Catholic Church.It’s beyond shameful that @PeteHegseth allowed him to lead taxpayer-funded anti-Catholic worship services.
Hale a Democratic Catholic blogger who has a pretty good blog dedicated to Pope Leo that you can also find on our blog lists. He served in a prior Democratic administration and I'm still waiting for him to explain how an insider Democrat reconciled that with the Democratic Party's support of abortion. That's an side, but that issue is one of the ones that keeps people like me from being Democrats, even though we aren't voting for very many Republicans any more.
Jim Stewartson, Decelerationist 🇨🇦🇺🇦🇺🇸@jimstewartson 13hListen. Doug Wilson is one of the most disgusting revanchist monsters on Earth. He doesn’t think women should vote, wants slavery back, and believes the U.S. should be a theonomy—Government by God. He runs a cult in Moscow, ID.This is wildly unconstitutional & deeply immoral.
I don't know who Stewartson is, but describing Wilson as a revanchist is correct. Monster might be a bit much, but he doesn't think women should vote and does think that the U.S. should be a Calvinist theocracy. I don't know what he thinks about slavery and I'm not going to look it up, but Wilson is articulate and extreme.
And that's why Hegseth's actions here are really disturbing. Rubio is trying to stake a claim for Western Civilization as special, something the National Conservatives hold and which a lot of people disagree with. Hegseth is here advancing Christian Nationalism of a type that holds a very peculiar view on the United States' place in the world.
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