Death's Head

 

Imperial German Totenkopf.

This election has been a reminder about being careful about getting tattoos.

Maine Democratic Senatorial candidate Graham Platner, in addition to other skeletons (no pun intended) in his closet, has, or at least had, a large Death's Head tattoo on one of his breasts.  Not one like the one above, but one more or less like this:

Shown here:

Well, I say, had, now its this:

We're informed that's a Celtic knot and a dog.

Well, anyhow, this has caused quite a flap, as the design he had is pretty clearly the same one used by the SS during World War Two.

He says he didn't know that.  Frankly, while people are incredulous about that, he may very well not have known that.

Indeed, one of the things that's interesting about this, as an (amateur) historian is that suddenly everyone is an expert on World War Two German insignia.  I doubt that many people, anymore, were before the last couple of weeks.  Indeed, I can recall Walmart getting in trouble some years ago has had a t-shirt it was selling with some Nazi symbology on it, if I recall correctly SS ruins.

Anyhow, the Totenkopf has an interesting and weird  history.  It's been around for a very long time, and is famously associated with pirates from the 18th Century, who flew various variants of death's head flags, nicknamed the "Jolly Roger", to warn a ship they were approaching that that's what they were.  Death's head on a flag threatened death, and the hope was accordingly that the opponent would give up without a fight.  Because of the pirate association, legitimate navies coopted the symbol and you can still find it in use to some degree in navies.

The crew of the HMS Utmost showing off their Jolly Roger in February 1942.

The Prussians started using it as a military symbol under Frederick the Great, when it was introduced to hussars. That use was distinct enough that one US state militia unit, formed as hussars, was still using it with a distinctly Prussian style uniform at the start of the Civil War.  It also spread to other units in the various German states prior to German unification, and to some other European nations.  One Spanish unit, for example used it.

Field Marshall August von Mackensen in 1914 in his full dress hussars uniform.

Infante Fernando wearing the uniform of Spain's 8th Light Armoured Cavalry Regiment "Lusitania" in 1915

After German unification following the Franco Prussian War the pre unification units that used it continued to, with some German units and even individuals adopting it informally.  After the German defeat in the Great War, some Freikorps units used it and it carried on in use in German cavalry units.

After Hitler's rise to power, the SS co-opted it almost immediately at the time of their formation, but that didn't actually cause the German Army or the Luftwaffe from using it as well.  German panzer troops wore a black uniform with the Totenkopf early on, with the design aat first being identical to the SS in that regard. The SS later changed its design, which Heer panzer units never did.

German panzer soldier, wearing a 1939 black flat cap, with a feldgrau shirt, black tie and black jacket with Totenkopf lapel badge. The first version of the panzer uniform featured a very large black beret.

This actually created some confusion at the time and still does, although the confusion was more of a problem to German troops during the war.  By 1944 the Totenkopf was associated with the SS as was the color black, which actually was not worn by most Waffen SS troops.  Tanker POWs were easily mistaken for members of the SS and risked being shot out of hand to some degree.  By 44, however, black was being phased out for tankers, both in the Heer and SS, in favor of feldgrau.  They retained the Totenkopf, however.

As sort of a rough rule of thumb, every member of the SS wore a uniform with a Totenkopf device, including auxiliary units.  Armored units of the Heer wore it also, as did the one oddball Luftwaffe armored unit.  One Luftwaffe bomber unit used it as a symbol as well.  Black uniforms were worn by tankers of all branches early on, and as regular SS dress uniforms, but not as Waffen SS dress uniforms.

This doesn't get into the concentration camp system uniforms, which I don't know anything about, and which were often staffed by auxiliaries. They all wore the deaths head, however.

One Nazi organization that didn't wear the Totenkopf or a black uniform was the Gestapo.  Movies and television shows constantly show them doing that, but they didn't.  For example, an SS dress uniform is shown being worn by a Gestapo member in both Where Eagles Dare and Hogan's Heroes.  In reality, the Gestapo didn't have any uniform at all.  The depiction given in Von Ryan's Express is the correct one. They favored civilian dress clothes and trench coats, often leather ones.  They were, after all, secret police and were dressed like civilians.

Marine Corps Raiders' insignia.

One US ground unit used it too, the Marine Corps Raiders, which took it from Naval use.

By the war's end the death's head, except in naval use, was hopelessly associated with the SS, although amazingly some use continues on.  The South Korean 3rd Infantry Division, the British Army’s Royal Lancers and Brazilian Military Police use it officially.  Some Ukrainian units controversially use it which seems to be an intentional effort to associate themselves with the World War Two era Ukrainian National Army which fought both the USSR and the Germans, but the Germans rather late.

Various navies keep using it, but the Nazis didn't taint the pirate association it had on the seas.

One place it oddly saw use was in civilian groups that wanted to cultivate an edge look after the war.  All sort of Nazi paraphernalia became associated with motorcycle gangs.  And heavy metal bands affected the look as well.

Ian Fraser Kilmister, "Lemmy" of Motörhead who notoriously sported German military and German SS paraphernalia constantly, and who did know what it meant.  He claimed to have no Nazi sympathies.  His father had been a chaplain in the RAF.

The interesting thing there, I suppose, is that the predecessor to the SS was the SA.  The SA didn't use the Totenkopf, but it was comprised of thugs, so in a way the Nazi paraphernalia returned to a demographic that had first used it.

So, what of Platner? 

Darned if I know.  He says he didn't know what it meant, and I suspect a lot of Americans under 70 years of age don't know what it means.  World War Two is simply too long ago for a uniform detail to have much in the cultural memory.  Those younger people who do know what it was used for are likely students of history, members of prison gangs, or white supremacists.  History students don't get tattooed with the Totenkopf.  The other two groups likely do.  That doesn't mean that Platner was a white supremacist, however.

It does require some sort of explanation, however.

While on the topic of the tattoos, let's discuss Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense.

Pete Hegseth is festooned with tattoos.

Pete has a variety of them, which seem to be the following:

• Jerusalem Cross, a type4 of Christian cross associated with the Crusades, rightly or wrongly.
• "Deus Vult", Latin for "God wills it", a phrase claimed to be associated with the Crusaders.
• Kafir, the Arabic for infidel, but also Afrikaans slang for blacks.
• Cross & Sword, apparently referencing Matthew 10:34
• Yahweh, the Hebrew lettering for the name of God, added near his cross and sword tattoo.
• "We the People", The opening phrase of the U.S. Constitution.
• American Flag & AR-15. 
• Roman numerals (1775) & Stars: The year the U.S. Army and the Revolutionary War began.
• "Join, or Die" Snake, the Benjamin Franklin cartoon depicting a severed snake, symbolizing colonial unity during the American Revolution.
• Infantry Patch.

It's really a bit much.  Hegseth is an example of how people become addicted to getting tattoos and won't stop.

So what of it?

Well, the top two tattoos are offensive to some Catholics, myself included.  Hegseth is a member of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, he has stated., which is a collection of Evangelical Churches.  The Crusades are a Catholic thing, grossly misunderstood, and for which Catholics have taken heat from Protestants for five hundred years.  Moreover, the Crusaders would have regarded the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches as heretical.

"Kafir" is a flat out weird thing to tattoo on yourself, and for Sub-Saharan Africans its highly offensive, being the Afrikaans equivalent of the n word.  I suppose its supposed to be a taunt at Muslims.

Tattooing Yahweh on yourself is just weird, and potentially offensive to Jews, as well as others.  Leviticus 19:28 prohibits tattoos themselves, although this is not regarded by most Christians as applicable to Christians and many modern day Jews do not follow that as well.

The point here is this.  Tattooing the Totenkopf on your chest is bound to be offensive to the historically aware.  Tattooing Crusader phrases on your body is no doubt offensive to Muslims, although I'm not particularly concerned about that, but it's a cultural appropriation that is offensive to some historically aware Catholics.  Kafir, as a tattoo, is outright calculated to be offensive to Muslims, and it's highly offensive to Sub Saharan Africans.  And the Yahweh tattoo is disturbing.

I suppose the lesson is to be careful about tattoos.  Hegseth is so tatted up its frankly absurd, but he comes across as disturbed.  Platner comes across as just sort of messed up.

Of course, you don't get to vote for or against Hegseth, no matter where you live.  Your view of him has to weigh into your view of the administration.  If you live in Maine, you can weigh the tattoo in your opinion on whether to vote for him or the ancient Susan Collins.

Showing the spirit our age, I suppose, Donald Trump called Platner a pig.  Pigs have a highly hierarchal pecking order, so I suppose that's the big pig reacting to a younger one in the pen, if you accept the analogy.  

Donald might look to have a Porky tattoo. . . 

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday Morning Scene. Religion in the military. A resolution?

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday Morning Scene. Religion in the military.: The Department of Defense scaled back its list of recognized religions.   There were 211, now there are 31.  Here is the full list: Agnostic...

And a happy ending, or at least an ending, occurred to this story when the Pentagon redid its classifications to read as follows:

It's actually not a bad reclassification, although a person does hae to wonder why, in order to make a non Christian religion happy, the Christian identification was taken away from actual Christian religions.

One of the major newspapers ran statistics for the various religions in terms of the what percentage of the military is comprised of them. While there are Mormons in the military, the percentage is infanticidally small.  As noted earlier, however, there would be units in the military that would be heavily made up of Mormons, principally Guard and Reserve units in Utah.  Their spiritual needs would be different than those of Christian religions, however, which would gain importance in a large scale war.

According to exit polls form the last general election, 64% of Mormons voted for Trump in the last election.  20% voted for Harris.  56% of Catholics did, with 41% voting for Harris.  Catholics are a much larger demographic than Mormons and Trump has interestingly shown little concern about enormously offending them.  68% of Southern Baptists, the largest Protestant religion in the country, went for Trump.  Southern Baptist, I suspect, are probably the largest Christian denomination to be upset by the reclassification, if they are.

I don't know that I have a strong opinion on the list being reworked to address Mormon concerns, but I would note a couple of oddities about it.  One is that that the U.S. Government didn't define them as Christian, although they seem happy with the result.  The second is that what Trump may say aside, he doesn't love Mormons anymore than he loves anyone else.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday Morning Scene. Religion in the military. Paring the list, much ado about nothing?

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday Morning Scene. Religion in the military.: The Department of Defense scaled back its list of recognized religions.   There were 211, now there are 31.  Here is the full list: Agnostic...

The big flap over the Pentagon's new list of religions, mostly focused on the LDS insisting it be recognized as a Christian religions which at least conventional Christianity holds that it is not, is obscuring the fact that frankly the list may not matter all that much.

All the list does is to provide some guidelines on anticipating the patrol needs of troops.   T/he prior list was so large there was no way that it was useful.  The original list, Protestant, Catholic and Hebrew, was probably too narrow, in the modern world, to be useful.

Arguably the current list is too big.  It'd make more sense, actually, to have Mainline Protestant, Evangelical Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Judaism, Islam and Other.  Every one of those categories, it might be noted, has various groups within it.  Probably only Catholic expresses a singular religious group, but even there, there are a lot of Catholic rites.  The Orthodox are a collection of Orthodox churches and have a major division between Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox.  

Anyhow, that's probably more useful.

Of note, listing religions isn't an endorsement of them.  

About 70% of all service members are some sort of Protestant.  20% are Catholic.  I've given the figures already, but the number of LDS troops is very small, although in National Guard units from Utah the opposite would be true.  At least one religion on the list discourages its members from joining the military and last had any presence in the military when there was conscription in place.  

Goldberg on "book bans". (Handmaid's Tale)

 I'm so sick of hearing about this book it isn't even funny.

Jonah Goldberg

@JonahDispatch

·

1h

They are! None of her books have been banned — as in made illegal to sell. 99.9% of the “banned book” b.s. is about a book being removed from a some local school library — because of parental objections, new acquisitions, age restrictions, etc. People *want* there to be censorship so they can demonstrate their transgression and courage in protesting a straw man problem. The fact that book store chains market “banned books” gives the game away. It’s all marketing. A century ago, one of the best things that could happen to your book was for it to be banned in Boston (they really banned books there) because it made the book cool and subversive everywhere else. This all a con.

Frankly, what Goldberg notes on The Handmaid's Tale is true of a lot of "banned books".  They aren't banned, it's what Goldberg describes. Some of the "bans" are simply books being moved from one section of the library to another.

Erika Kirk, and J.D. and Usha Vance.

I'm not going to link it in, as I think it's shallow on the solution, but pundit Ezra Klein has a current segment of his vlog in which he discusses how the Democratic Party is in such a mess, in spite of people really not being all that keen on Donald Trump's Fascist Roadshow, because they're really lost touch with average people at the street level.  I've been saying the same thing now for what's approaching a decade.

Well, actually more like two, or more.

Anyhow, yesterday I ran this item which was sparked by liberal/center left blather about J. D. Vance hoping that his wife Usha become a Christian:

Lex Anteinternet: Religion, J.D. and Usha Vance.: Because this blog is steadfastly horrified by Donald Trump and his administration, it'd be easy to assume that it's run by a rampagi...

One of the things this event shows, quite frankly, is the degree to which the left holds religion in contempt.  The fact that they so obviously hold religion in contempt is part of the reason that people who are serious about their faiths, and that isn't limited by any means to  Christians, do not trust the Democratic Party and, as long as it continues, aren't going to trust the Democratic Party.  As I warned would occur, this is leading to a massive exodus from the Party by Hispanics, who are largely Catholic.  If you demonstrate contempt for people's existential beliefs, they're not going to vote for you even if you promise all kinds of nifty social programs.

They also are not going to vote for you if you show childish glee over a made up sense of morality over an event that doesn't mean anything.

As people who stop in here know, I really don't particularly know what to make of the late Charlie Kirk.  I've expressed my views on that elsewhere and I'm not going to back into them here.  As little as I know about Charlie Kirk, and that's not much, I know even less about Erika Kirk.

The widowed Erika Kirk has been in the news a lot recently, as she's sort of taken up the mantle of her late husband's organization, Turning Point USA.  In that role, she's been very public and is making public appearances.  She's drawn criticism for that alone, as apparently those generally on the left feel, even if they don't, that she should be dressed in widow's weeds and moping around the house or something.  Quite frankly, if she was a figure on the left, the same people would be praising her for her bravery.

And now comes the embrace with J. D. Vance.

Vance was speaking at some Turning Point USA event.  He's probably a good choice for that, as Donald Trump is 750 years old and most Turning Point members aren't.  The populist right has to keep in Turning Point's good graces, moreover, as it's part and parcel of the Evangelical embrace of Trump, albeit one that wasn't initially certain about Trump.

Anyhow, Kirk made some comment about Vance and her late husband being similar.  I don't see that at all, quite frankly.  And then she went on to hug him after introducing him.

This is a big non event.

Indeed, if you see the whole video, the entire thing lasted just second from beginning to end.  You can only really make it a big deal, if you desire to, by screenshotting the whole thing as if it was an endless romantic embrace.*

Nonetheless, the left has reached out in shock and horror, certain after Vance's recent comments about hoping his wife converts, that he's about to ditch her as Kirk and Vance are now a couple.

Oh horseshit.  

This shows once again the degree of contempt for conservative views that people on the left hold. There's no evidence at all that Erika Kirk is happy that her late husband was murdered and has now moved on to Vance. There's no evidence at all that Vance would betray his wife.  Indeed, as he is a Catholic, and is expressing a Catholic view on his desire that she also convert, the better evidence is that he'd never do that.

This is, again, the very sort of thing that causes people on the right to regard the left and contemptuous and mean.  And that doesn't win votes.

Footnotes:

*FWIW, as an Irish American (and genetically, I'm more Irish than many Irish), with some Westphalian heritage, I'm in that category of people who abhor hugs from people I'm not extremely close to.  By that I mean I'll accept hugs from my wife and children, and I'm uncomfortable with them from anyone else.

This is a real northern European thing.  We aren't a touchy people, and any kind of physical contact of this type is an unwanted intimacy unless its a wanted intimacy, in which case, you're contemplating marriage.  Out in society, however, this just ain't so.

I've known people, almost invariably women, who are very touchy and it means nothing at all.  And for some reason, in recent years, it's become increasingly common.  I used to work with somebody, for example, that would do this routinely, particularly if you were at any sort of a function and she's had a drink.  She's latch on to an arm and not let go.  I took up using my wife as sort of a shield to avoid that.  Another female lawyer I know invariably will make physical contact.  There I am sitting at a hearing when all of a sudden there's hands on my shoulders so that I'll say "hi".  Couldn't you have just said hi?

To make matters worse, I'm 5'6" tall and that puts me way down torso wise on any woman who is inclined to hug me for some reason.  If they're short too it's okay, but if they're not, it's really awkward.

Anyhow, a flap like this reinforces my desire to avoid that sort of thing.  The irony is, the people complaining about this probably aren't bugged by hugs at all, and a lot of them probably aren't all that concerned about personal or sexual morality either.

Wyoming lawmakers to pursue criminal charges against Weston County clerk for allegedly defying subpoena

Wyoming lawmakers to pursue criminal charges against Weston County clerk for allegedly defying subpoena: Clerk Becky Hadlock did not appear Monday at a legislative committee meeting after being subpoenaed to do so.

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: The SIG M17/M18 Controversy. After Fatal Wyoming Incident, Sig Sauer M18 Pistol Back In Use At Air Force Bases

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: The SIG M17/M18 Controversy.: Lex Anteinternet: The SIG M17/M18 Controversy. : A Soldier fires an M17 handgun at targets during the Victory Week Pistol Competition, or Re...

And now this:

After Fatal Wyoming Incident, Sig Sauer M18 Pistol Back In Use At Air Force Bases

Still, M18 detractors are not going to be convinced, I'm quite sure.

I have a thread on the M18 story, but I've been waiting for this:

Airman arrested for death that prompted Air Force-wide safety review of Sig M18

Something about the entire "it discharged all on its owned from its holster" story sounded like a fable.

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 99th Edition appendix. Sydney Sweeney has great jeans, and genes. So does Beyonce Knowles. And stuff.

The Sydney Sweeney jeans ad praising her genes is genius: How nice to have the Sydney Sweeney “great genes” controversy. It is happily of no consequence, which is . . . 

Froma Harrop.

The massive overreaction to Sweeney being in an American Eagle ad while being white continues on, and is nicely addressed by Froma Harrop above.  Harrop's article reminds us of a few other pretty women, which likely means that it's a good thing the article was written by a woman.

Coincidentally, Beyoncé Knowles ad campaign for Levis continues on as well.  It predates Sweeney's ad for American Eagle.  I don't know anything about American Eagle jeans at all, but I do about Levis as I wear them a lot.

Knowles is also hot.

From Knowles Levis commercial

Knowles, of course, is an African American.

Of interest in this, both Knowles and Sweeney manage to be hot while fully clothed, a good trend.

Sweeney from her American Eagle ad.

Also of note, they're both actually really curvy and not sticks.  In other words, they look like actual women, which is of course what they are.  Knowles is particularly notable as she's been regarded as hot all along, even though she doesn't fit into the traditional stick figure model category that modeling agencies have tended to use for years.  She's big.  

Of course, all this brought out the political clowns.  Robot from Texas, Sen. Ted Cruz (why hasn't ICE deported this foreign born interloper yet?) felt compelled to state that due to the Democrats  “beautiful women are no longer acceptable in our society.”  That's really absurd.  One of the things that Sen. Krysten Sinema, now an independent but up until recently a Democrat, basically took criticism for was being hot while in office.  Sinema, whose politics are eclectic, is clearly highly intelligent. She's also a fallen away Mormon who is "unaffiliated" in terms of religion, and a lesbian, all of which puts her in the infamia category for Republicans.

Republicans, it might be noted, really lashed on to Sweeney when they found out she's a registered Republican, which means almost nothing.  Most of the MAGA politicos would have been regarded as fringe Republicans at best up until King Donny.  Real Republicans, as Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray likes to point out, are now regarded as Democratic infiltrators by the current GOP, which is lead by a lifelong former Democrat, Trump.  We really don't know about her actual political views at all.

She registers in Florida, and of course she might register Republican for the same reason that horrifies Chuck Gray in Wyoming, it might for the most part be the only place to register. The Unconstitutional Primary Election in Wyoming tends to be the real election, so that's where people register.  Maybe that's why Sweeney registers that way in Florida. Who knows?

Republicans, starting with Trump, have really latched on to her already, which is a metaphor that should make Sweeney uncomfortable.  Some real boofador from Fox News even went so far as to suggest that seeing Sweeney in jeans might remind American men of their demographic obligation to procreate, whic his extremely weird, and referenced Dylan Mulvaney as an example of what might be deterring them. While Mulvaney is genuinely bizarre, and transgenderism not a real thing, that's probably not what's keeping the WASPs home alone in their basements rather than going out and meeting someone.

Somebody in this category, who is going out, as in out of the state, is Artemis Langford, who, having graduated from university, is packing up and leaving, claiming the state doesn't want people like him here.  Langford, who deserves real pity, demonstrated self pity in the interview, as he had to have known that being a big overweight man in a sorority would draw attention, although he no doubt didn't expect all the litigation that ensued.  The basic gist of his complaint is that he doesn't like it that there have been laws passed to protect actual women from being displaced in women's sports and the like, and he doesn't like it that society has moved towards recognizing "transgenderism" for what it is, a mental illness, so he's leaving.  At least as of two years ago, his intended career path was law school.  Being a man presenting as a woman wouldn' t stop a person from practicing law here, although it probably would be limiting, so pursuing that career elsewhere probably would be a good idea, if that's his actual intent.

All of this gets into the topic of conservatism, cultural conservatism, culture, and populism, but we'll try to take that up somewhere else.  Maybe in our 100th Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist edition.

Anyhow, one denim glad guy saw an opportunity here, and took it:

Wyoming Outdoorsman Spoofs Controversial Sydney Sweeney Jeans Ads

He does like the Sweeney ad.  I'll bet he likes the Knowles one too.

And all this comes up, sort of, due to denim, something that women didn't often appear in, and for that matter decently dressed men, until after World War Two.  While women wearing jeans had taken off well before that, Levis didn't introduce 501s for women until 1981.

Related threads:

Levis

Labels: 1870s, 1873, 1890, 1890s, 1940s, 1947, 1950s, 1960s, Agriculture, Clothing, Growing up in the 1970s, It was because of World War Two, Standards, technology, trends, World War Two

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Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 99th edition. Sydney Sweeney has great jeans, and genes.

Labels: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2020s, Advertising, Clothing, Conservatism, Culture, Ethnicities, Evolutionary Biology, flap de jour, Liberalism, nature, Patrick Dineen, Pronatalism, Sydney Sweeney, Women, Zeitgeist

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 99th edition. Sydney Sweeney has great jeans, and genes.

Sydney Sweeney in American Eagle denim, part of the ad campaign causing all the furor.  The outfit itself is very 1970s retro, which is more than a little ironic in context.  Given the commentary, this is posted with the fair use exception.

Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My jeans are blue.

Sydney Sweeney in American Eagle ad.

Sydney Sweeney's American Eagle ad shows a cultural shift toward whiteness.

CNBC headline.

Q: Your administration has been very open about the fact that American women are not having enough babies. There was an ad this week. Sydney Sweeney, an actress, was in an ad for Blue Jeans. Does America need to see more ads like that? And maybe fewer ads with people like Dylan Mulvaney on the cover?

Rob Finnerty in an interview of Donald Trump.

First, let us state something plainly.

Sydney Sweeney is hot.

Way hot.

And she looks good in the American Eagle Jeans, which are sort of retro 1970s denim really.  

Really good.

So why are people having a fit?

Well, it's a really interesting tour through the culture, really.

Using attractive women to sell clothing is nothing new.  Shoot, using attractive women to sell anything, is in fact not new.  

So what's the big deal.

Basically, when you get right down to it, the big deal is two things.  First of all, Sweeney is white.  Secondly, this is a return to an obvious sex sells approach to selling that we haven't seen since the early 1990s.

The peak of the sex sells approach was really the 1970s.  Coincident with the rise of feminism was the absolute exploitation of women in advertising.  Calvin Klein really went to town with Brooke Shields, who was sexualized so young in her career that her image, in the movie industry, was basically a near example of child pornography.  But in advertising, he wasn't the only one.  There were in fact advertisements that would outright shock most Americans now as they used young teenage girls in sexualized poses.  It was repulsive. 

That seemed to have run its course by the mid 1980s, but even then, in the 1990s, Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith modeled jeans, in her case Guess jeans.  

The 90s, however, also saw the really fruity elements of the American come into cultural power, and a lot of that gave us, unfortunately, what we have today in terms of a massive right wing populist reaction.  In modeling, left wing media masters insisted that models not be, if possible, smoking hot young women and that instead they should be culturally diverse, and in some cases, fat.

Now comes this, in the midst of a real swing to cultural conservatism, but not culturalism of the Patrick Dineen type, but of the Dukes of Hazzard fan type.

What Sweeney said, quite frankly, is actually completely true. Genes are passed down from parents to offspring.  Genes in fact determine external traits like hair color and eye color.  That is a fact.

And, more than we like to admit, they determine a massive amount of our personality traits.  If you hang around a family gathering and don't find people who have the same deep interests as you do, the same sense of humor, etc., you might wish to check to see if you are in the right place. Sure, some of that might be due to environment, you are all from the same family, but some not.  It's well known that many of the traits that impact our personalities are in fact genetic.

So what's up with the upset.

Well she's white, as are 60.5% of the American population.  That is who you are trying to sell to much of the time. The liberal left just can't have that.

If the same clothing promotion was being done by Anok Yai, the left wouldn't be having a fit, the right would be, and for the exact same reason.

Which is exactly why, if I ran American Eagle, I'd have Anok Yai join in the campaign.

Of course, that isn't the only reason people are enjoying being upset.  They're also upset as the ads openly focus on Sweeney's assets, including having the camera in the jean jacket ad focus on her boobs until she intervenes to instruct the viewer to look at her face.

Well, gentle reader, that portrays reality.  All the feminist reactions in the world are never going to stop men from observing cleavage when its right there.  We're wired that way, and for a reason.

Which brings us to the next point.  In the right wing defense, Trump, in a friendly Fox interview, was asked the bizarre question "Does America need to see more ads like that? And maybe fewer ads with people like Dylan Mulvaney on the cover?" after the pronatalist views of the far right were referenced.

That was weird.  

The US, and for that matter the entire Western World, does not have a demographic crisis like the far right pronatalist like to imagine.  But the suggestion that men are going to look at Sydney Sweeney and suddenly feel aroused and go out and procreate is truly odd.

But even this does give us a glimpse into how modern Western society has really gone off the rails  No man who wants to "transition" is ever going to look like Sydney Sweeney.  Nor will any of them suffer from the Girl Flu every month.  That's reality.

Anyhow.  Givc the woman a break.

Last edition:

The Madness of King Donald. The 25th Amendment Watch List, Third Edition and Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 98th edition. The Perverts and Fellow Travelers Issue.