A dying man contemplates his untouched bookshelf: https://t.co/P3mSadnziX pic.twitter.com/YNy2mB7Ssq— Terry Teachout (@terryteachout) November 25, 2017
Among her 27 actors, more than 20 are minors, some as young as 15.... With themes of incest, sexual abuse, suicide and abortion... [t]ypically the show is cast with college-age performers...I'd like to see a copy of the release form. You're using children who are too young to have sex and they are on stage dancing about sex, amid "graphic sexual imagery"? And you need their parents to sign the release. That put me in mind of Roy Moore's approach to dating teenagers:
“We’re pushing the envelope,” Carol said. “We are not cutting anything — the songs, the content in script is still going to be presented....”
Carol said she asked auditionees’ parents to sign a release form.... And she’s decided not to stage the nudity. Further, she’s placing dancers between the main characters and the audience during the most graphic sexual imagery.
“I don’t see it necessary to flash a boob for shock value,” Carol said. “The scene between Wendla and Melchior is extremely well-choreographed. The audience will know what is happening.... We are not trying to do things just for shock value,” Carol said, “but I am trying to create something specifically for teens and young adults to perform relevant shows, something that makes you think...."
HANNITY: You mentioned you'd never go out with any young girl I assume you meant like when you were 32 at that time of your life, would you always ask the permission of the parent before you would take a girl out?ADDED: "I am trying to create something specifically for teens and young adults to perform relevant shows..." She's using the word "relevant" in a way that was the vogue in the 1960s. You might ask now (as people asked then) relevant to what? In the 60s, the answer might be: Relevant to what's happening.
MOORE: Well I mean I'm saying that in their statements that they made these two young girls said their mother actually encouraged them to be friends with me. And you know that's what they said. I don't remember....
Either we can commit ourselves to changing the institutions of our society that need to be changed, to make them—to use a term which I hate—‘relevant’..or we can sit back and try to defend them.College students of the time used to criticize course material that was not "relevant." At the time, I myself was a college student, and I attended a college — the Residential College at the University of Michigan — that was so intent on meeting the younger generation's idea of relevance, that we laughed at them. I remember the Western Civilization chapter-unit titles all beginning with the word "Revolution." It's funny when kids make demands and the grown-ups just cave. Then we feel embarrassed for them.
A little more intense. Pushing the envelope.Speaking of pushing, let's dance...
That requires children now, doing adult things.
We've already seen the intense adults pushing envelopes; no longer a big deal.
We're bored, they think.
Time Magazine called to say that I was PROBABLY going to be named “Man (Person) of the Year,” like last year, but I would have to agree to an interview and a major photo shoot. I said probably is no good and took a pass. Thanks anyway!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 24, 2017
The President is incorrect about how we choose Person of the Year. TIME does not comment on our choice until publication, which is December 6.— TIME (@TIME) November 25, 2017
— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) November 25, 2017
Film-maker Michael Moore claims that director Mel Gibson cost him the opportunity to be Person of the Year alongside Gibson in 2004. Moore's controversial political documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 became the highest-grossing documentary of all time the same year Gibson's The Passion of the Christ became a box-office success and also caused significant controversy. Moore said in an interview "I got a call right after the '04 election from an editor from Time Magazine. He said,' Time Magazine has picked you and Mel Gibson to be Time's Person of the Year to put on the cover, Right and Left, Mel and Mike. The only thing you have to do is pose for a picture with each other. And do an interview together.' I said 'OK.' They call Mel up, he agrees. They set the date and time in LA. I'm to fly there. He's flying from Australia. Something happens when he gets home... Next thing, Mel calls up and says, 'I'm not doing it. I've thought it over and it is not the right thing to do.' So they put Bush on the cover."ALSO: Would Time ever give the honor to the same person 2 years in a row? While a good number of men have been Man of the Year more than once, the only person who won 2 years in a row was Richard Nixon, and in the second year, he was a co-winner with Henry Kissinger. I think Trump — if indeed he was in serious consideration for the honor — was at serious risk of being paired with someone else. While Nixon getting paired with his National Security Adviser was not disrespectful to Nixon, if you look at the last time a President got paired with someone else, it was Bill Clinton, in 1998, paired with his nemesis, Ken Starr. So I think if Trump was under consideration, it was in some way where he wasn't the sole honoree, but put alongside #MeToo or The Women Who Spoke Out or Rose McGowan and Ronan Farrow or something that Trump wouldn't want anyway.
U.S. slang. (chiefly joc.).The oldest published use is in a slang dictionary in 1967, looking back to WWII:
A pseudo-term for something useless, unnecessary, annoying, etc.; hence, = thingamajig n.
1967 H. Wentworth & S. B. Flexner Dict. Amer. Slang Suppl. 673/2 Blivit, n., anything unnecessary, confused, or annoying. Lit. defined as ‘10 pounds of shit in a 5-pound bag’. Orig. W.W. II Army use. The word is seldom heard except when the speaker uses it in order to define it; hence the word is actually a joke.So Urban Dictionary is more right than Wikipedia, but Wikipedia seems to know it's getting it wrong, since it also has an article for "Worm Runner's Digest," which is identified as (partly) satire:
The W.R.D. published both satirical articles, such as "A Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown", and scientific papers, the most famous of which, "Memory transfer through cannibalism in planaria", was a result of McConnell's RNA memory transfer experiments with planarian worms and was later published in the Journal of Neuropsychiatry.It's pure poetry that Kim Kardashian's body shapers led us to "A Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown":
Consider now an elemental strip of cloth isolated as a free body in the area of plane B of figure 1. The two tangible forces F1 and F2 are equal and opposite as before, but the force W(weight of dress) is not balanced by an upward force V because there is no cloth above plane B to supply this force. Thus, the algebraic summation of horizontal forces is zero, but the sum of the vertical forces is not zero. Therefore, this elemental strip is not in equilibrium; but it is imperative, for social reason, that this elemental strip be in equilibrium.....
On life with Blake Shelton – recently named People’s Sexiest Man Alive – and how they spend their time on Shelton’s ranch in Oklahoma: “It’s very tribal. Blake has a sister, she comes with her kids. We cook and get muddy and dirty. There are ATV’s. Being a mother of three boys, it’s kind of the perfect place. Everything is real now, whereas before, things didn’t seem so real.”So the subject is: What is reality and can you picture it? It's possible that her claim of getting to what is real is a con. But certainly all that wiggery and makeup is a con, except that it's real in the context of the cover of a fashion magazine. It's frankly fake.* It's the cover of a magazine, exactly what it is, and not some pretense of the "natural look" (achieved with subtle makeup and hair styled into "windblown" strands or faux "bedhead").
I want a wife to make sure my children eat properly and are kept clean. I want a wife who will wash the children’s clothes and keep them mended. I want a wife who is a good nurturant attendant to my children, who arranges for their schooling, makes sure that they have an adequate social life with their peers, takes them to the park, the zoo, etc....There is only one comment up over there:
I want a wife who will keep my house clean. A wife who will pick up after me. I want a wife who will keep my clothes clean, ironed, mended, replaced when need be, and who will see to it that my personal things are kept in their proper place so that I can find what I need the minute I need it. I want a wife who cooks the meals, a wife who is a good cook. I want a wife who will plan the menus, do the necessary grocery shopping, prepare the meals, serve them pleasantly, and then do the cleaning up.... I want a wife who will care for me when I am sick....
I want a wife who will take care of the details of my social life....
I want a wife who is sensitive to my sexual needs, a wife who makes love passionately and eagerly when I feel like it, a wife who makes sure that I am satisfied. And, of course, I want a wife who will not demand sexual attention when I am not in the mood for it....
... I want my wife to quit working and remain at home so that my wife can more fully and completely take care of a wife’s duties.
I asked a man once if he wanted someone who would do all of these things. He replied with an emphatic 'yes', eyes practically glazed over imagining it. Then I said to him, 'me too.'Since flipping sex roles is the point of the essay, why didn't the commenter think of flipping her question? The famous old essay is a woman's experimenting with the idea that the man's role in a traditional single-earner household is preferable. I say ask the man: Would you like to do all of these things for a woman you love if that woman did all the outside-of-the-household work and brought home an ample income?
“We are continuing with this phase of search and rescue. We are in the critical part, it has reached the seventh day in terms of oxygen, supposing that for seven days it has not had the capacity to go the surface and renew the oxygen. But we are not dismissing the other options, that it could be on the surface.”
More than 4,000 personnel from 12 countries are now scouring the South Atlantic search zone, braving stormy conditions with high winds and waves up to seven metres high....
The British contingent has drawn insults from far-Left figures in the country where the dispute over the Falklands remains contentious. Leaders of the Workers’ Party and of radical Left wing group Quebracho branded British forces “pirates” and occupiers on Twitter, but were widely condemned by Argentine users.
I love when doing nothing — especially when it avoids a lot of effort — amounts to the higher path. Virtue in not acting. That applies to a lot more than Thanksgiving. As for Thanksgiving, I always appreciated it when my sons' father wanted them over. Thanksgiving is the last weekend of the semester, and there follows a lovely, long winter break. Thanksgiving is precisely the weekend when I am not looking for more of a workload. So I was glad to step back and let the ex-husband have the boys over. If I got extra points — kindness credit — for letting go, that was nice, but I was always openly grateful for the relief. I was glad to do nothing. It's Thanksgiving, and as they say — and I truly mean it: Thanks for nothing!The second Thanksgiving on this blog introduced a character, the Thanksgiving squirrel: "Find some critter to eat." He was back the following year — "Oh, my! There he is! It's the Thanksgiving Squirrel! Keep safe everyone. Boil your meat well" — but then I forgot about him... until just now. Ah! Just think of all the things we've forgotten. No, you can't. You've forgotten. Unless you've got notes somewhere, like the archive of a 13-year-old blog, replete with tags. But if you're like me and you love the negative space of life and you see the joyful meaning of "Thanks for nothing!," then you can be thankful for all the things you've forgotten.
Sebelius extended her criticism to Hillary Clinton, and the Clinton White House for what she called a strategy of dismissing and besmirching the women who stepped forward—a pattern she said is being repeated today by alleged perpetrators of sexual assault—saying that the criticism of the former first lady and Secretary of State was "absolutely" fair. Sebelius noted that the Clinton Administration's response was being imitated, adding that "you can watch that same pattern repeat, It needs to end. It needs to be over."It's still too little, too late. Too easy to say this now when it's convenient. Nevertheless, good to hear.
U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ennis, released a statement on Wednesday apologizing for a graphic nude photo of him that circulated on social media earlier this week.
"While separated from my second wife, prior to the divorce, I had sexual relationships with other mature adult women," he said. "Each was consensual. Those relationships have ended. I am sorry I did not use better judgment during those days. I am sorry that I let my constituents down."
It is still unclear how the photo got onto social media, who put it there, or whether its posting would constitute revenge porn, which is illegal under Texas law.
A typical chapter skims the metaphysical and the dialectical, with the umbrella described variously as creating a “portable room,” as a “private sky” and “a hat with a handle.” Its combination of replaceability and contingency even “reads like a textbook symptom of late capitalism.” An early-19th-century article by J.S. Duncan classified umbrella wielders into familiar types such as the Sky-Striker and the Shield-Bearer, both of which species remain alas all too common to this day. And Rankine does not neglect such memorably sinister instances as the mysterious Umbrella Man present at Kennedy’s assassination and the 1978 murder of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov by way of a poisoned ferrule.Here, you can buy it at Amazon. It would make a nice Christmas present especially alongside a stylish umbrella.
— Tennessee Sooner (@TN_Sooner) November 22, 2017
Baker Mayfield didn't feel like taking the high road today pic.twitter.com/30Q5UFk264— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) November 18, 2017
"These girls are lowering themselves to the level of backstreet floozies. It angers me because I fought a bitter fight to get feminism back on track and be pro-sex at the same time. This is degrading the entire pro-sex wing of feminism.... [T]hey are cheapening their own image and obliterating all sexual mystery and glamour, which are the heart of the star system... These are women who are clearly out of control because the old studio era is over. The studio system... guided and shaped the careers of the young women who it signed up. It maximized their sexual allure by dealing it out in small doses and making sure you don’t have -- what has become here -- a situation of anarchy."So the women are bringing the anarchy of too much uncontrolled sex?! That's not how it looks today, after the Weinstein revelations. But, of course, Weinstein and the men like him were active back in 2006, exercising control, trying to wrest "small doses" of "sexual allure" out the actresses for their own gratification. But, as Paglia put it then, the "girls" were "lowering themselves." And Paglia expressed anger, because it interfered with her "wing" of feminism: "pro-sex feminism."
"Judge Roy Moore graduated from West Point and then went on into the service, served in Vietnam and then came back and was in law school. All of the ladies, or many of the ladies that he possibly could have married were not available then, they were already married, maybe, somewhere. So he looked in a different direction and always with the [permission of the] parents of younger ladies. By the way, the lady he’s married to now, Ms. Kayla, is a younger woman. He did that because there is something about a purity of a young woman, there is something that is good, that’s true, that’s straight and he looked for that.”Audio at the link. The discussion continues, with Benham, under questioning from the show hosts, saying that it is acceptable for a man to "court" a 14-year-old girl if he has her parent's permission.
The Sanctity/degradation foundation evolved initially in response to the adaptive challenge of the omnivore’s dilemma, and then to the broader challenge of living in a world of pathogens and parasites. It includes the behavioral immune system, which can make us wary of a diverse array of symbolic objects and threats. It makes it possible for people to invest objects with irrational and extreme values—both positive and negative—which are important for binding groups together.Of course, to the liberal mind, the idea that there's "something about a purity of a young woman, there is something that is good, that’s true, that’s straight" just sounds horribly sexist. And I find it hard to believe that liberals don't think about purity too. They just aim their thoughts at the impurity of the older man — the creep — who's going after young girls. His interest in their purity is impure.
President Donald J. Trump and @FLOTUS Melania Participate in the Pardoning of the National Thanksgiving Turkey at the White House. https://t.co/Zauqz4jfWv
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 21, 2017
So who actually does pay estate tax?... A few dozen farmers, and even fewer minority business owners. About 80 family farmers or small-business people would be subject to the estate tax this year, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center — a far cry from the “millions” Mr. Trump wrongly claims. The biggest winners in an estate tax repeal wouldn’t be struggling ranchers, minority contractors or mom-and-pop grocers. They’d be people like Mr. Trump’s kids, unless they’re …First, how would "people like Mr. Trump's kids" be the "biggest winners in an estate tax repeal... unless they're morons"? Shouldn't it be the biggest winners will be people like Mr. Trump's kids only if they're morons? If they're not morons, they're already using the "loopholes." They have good tax planning. They don't need the repeal. The repeal is only needed by those who are too moronic to get tax planning. (Actually, it's not the heirs who do the tax planning. The question isn't whether Trump's kids are morons, but whether Trump is a moron.)
Morons. “Only morons pay the estate tax,” Gary Cohn, Mr. Trump’s chief economic adviser, told Senate Democrats, meaning, it was later explained, “rich people with really bad tax planning.” Many of the very wealthy use loopholes, like trusts, to avoid paying inheritance tax. We don’t know where Mr. Trump’s kids would stand because Mr. Trump has never fulfilled his promise to publicly release his tax information.
“I was basically blackballed. There was nowhere I could go,” she said in a phone interview. BuzzFeed News is withholding the woman’s name at her request because she said she fears retribution....The procedure also requires the complainant to continue working during 90 days of this counseling and mediation, so not only are you forbidden to talk to anyone about your troubles, but you have to keep working under the conditions you're saying are abusive.
Congress has no human resources department. Instead, congressional employees have 180 days to report a sexual harassment incident to the Office of Compliance, which then leads to a lengthy process that involves counseling and mediation, and requires the signing of a confidentiality agreement before a complaint can go forward.
On one occasion, she alleges that Conyers asked her to work out of his room for the evening, but when she arrived the congressman started talking about his sexual desires. She alleged he then told her she needed to “touch it,” in reference to his penis, or find him a woman who would meet his sexual demands. She alleged Conyers made her work nights, evenings, and holidays to keep him company.There was also evidence of a pattern of behavior, with affidavits from 3 other staff members. One can only wonder what other evidence was not seen because of past settlements with obligations to keep silent — not seen by the complainant. Conyers knows what's in his own history, and that's another element of the power differential. He knows how much he's got to hide. She's just a young person who needs to get a footing in her career and probably worries that her word against his won't be believed, which is probably part of why she was selected for the special workplace treatment that is sexual harassment.
In another incident, the former employee alleged the congressman insisted she stay in his room while they traveled together for a fundraising event. When she told him that she would not stay with him, she alleged he told her to “just cuddle up with me and caress me before you go.”
“Rep. Conyers strongly postulated that the performing of personal service or favors would be looked upon favorably and lead to salary increases or promotions,” the former employee said in the documents.
One affidavit from a former female employee states that she was tasked with flying in women for the congressman. “One of my duties while working for Rep. Conyers was to keep a list of women that I assumed he was having affairs with and call them at his request and, if necessary, have them flown in using Congressional resources,” said her affidavit. (A second staffer alleged in an interview that Conyers used taxpayer resources to fly women to him.)
“Welcome to the club. This is our pervy handshake.” pic.twitter.com/0VqYEypcXq— Quinn Sutherland (@ReelQuinn) November 20, 2017
Maybe he’s patient zero? pic.twitter.com/hmiDeP6VTX— Jesse McLaren (@McJesse) November 21, 2017
The move came after the website Vox published a report containing allegations from four female journalists that Mr. Thrush, who was hired by The Times in January to cover the Trump administration, had acted inappropriately toward them. Mr. Thrush was a star reporter at Politico before joining The Times....ADDED: Excerpt from the Vox piece (by Laura McGann):
The women cited in the Vox article described Mr. Thrush’s behavior as including unwanted kissing and touching. Three of the women were not identified by name. The fourth, Laura McGann, wrote the article, which was presented in the first person.....
I started to think maybe I shouldn’t be in journalism if I couldn’t hang in a tough newsroom. I found myself on edge, nervous and anxious all the time. I started to believe I had brought this all on myself.
In the course of reporting this story, I was told by a male reporter who’d worked at Politico at the time that my instinct was right. He said that the day after that night at the bar, Thrush told him about the incident, except with the roles reversed. I had come onto him, the reporter said Thrush told him, and he had gently shut it down....
The source said that Thrush frequently told versions of this story with different young women as the subject. He would talk up a night out drinking with a young attractive woman, usually a journalist. Then he’d claim that she came onto him. In his version of these stories, Thrush was the responsible grown-up who made sure nothing happened....
Multiple women said they had at first been reassured by the presence of Vega, Rose’s executive producer, who has worked with him for decades. Two women who spoke to The Post said they repeatedly reported Rose’s inappropriate sexual behavior to Vega.But:
“I explained how he inappropriately spoke to me during those times,” Godfrey-Ryan said. “She would just shrug and just say, ‘That’s just Charlie being Charlie.’"...It's a very long article, and I won't undertake to describe Rose's alleged modus operandi, using his small (15-person) operation to bring vulnerable women into his orbit and to isolate them in his remote beach house where Rose (we're told) used the mating technique of walking around naked.
“I should have stood up for them,” said Vega, 52, who has worked with Rose since the show was created in 1991. “I failed. It is crushing. I deeply regret not helping them.”...
Sen. Jeff Flake(y), who is unelectable in the Great State of Arizona (quit race, anemic polls) was caught (purposely) on “mike” saying bad things about your favorite President. He’ll be a NO on tax cuts because his political career anyway is “toast.”The funniest thing about it to me is Trump calling himself "your favorite President." It's absolutely accurate, because he is our only President. I mean, you might try to write a screwball comedy — in the manner of "My Favorite Wife" — where some strange occurrence causes there to be 2 Presidents, but even if you think Hillary was cheated out of the presidency, there's no way she is the President. And if you try to say, but my favorite President is Abraham Lincoln or Franklin Roosevelt, I'm going to say it depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is.
Do you know what I'm talking about? Are you not up on Mr. Natural comics?
Mr. Natural has strange, magical powers and possesses cosmic insight; but he is also moody, cynical, self-pitying, and suffers from various strange sexual obsessions. He is endlessly being accosted by would-be disciples seeking the truth (among them such long-running Crumb characters as Flakey Foont and Shuman the Human). He typically regards them with amused condescension and a certain grudging affection, although his patience often wears thin and he takes sadistic pleasure in making them feel like idiots. While he is typically very cool and in control, he sometimes ends up in humiliating predicaments like languishing for years in a mental institution.The really weird thing is thinking of Trump as Mr. Natural!
Now that the three basketball players are out of China and saved from years in jail, LaVar Ball, the father of LiAngelo, is unaccepting of what I did for his son and that shoplifting is no big deal. I should have left them in jail!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2017
Shoplifting is a very big deal in China, as it should be (5-10 years in jail), but not to father LaVar. Should have gotten his son out during my next trip to China instead. China told them why they were released. Very ungrateful!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2017
In Washington, President Clinton expressed disappointment with Singapore's decision, saying, "I think it was a mistake, as I said before, not only because of the nature of the punishment related to the crime but because of the questions that were raised about whether the young man was in fact guilty and involuntarily confessed."To be fair, Singapore reduced the number of lashes from 6 to 4 as "a gesture of good will" to the American President.
According to Oregon law, anyone under 18 years old cannot legally give consent, meaning all sexual activity between minors is considered sexual abuse. This policy, [Salem-Keizer school] district officials say, stems from Oregon’s mandatory reporting and child abuse laws....Then abuse is common (abuse as defined in the state's criminal law). And why are you instructing students on how to be safe during abuse? Time to get back to abstinence only as the safe-sex training?
The subject came up at a training session for teachers and staff in the school district because “we felt like we hadn’t made it clear enough,” as Superintendent Christy Perry told the Statesman Journal....
Some pointed out that this leaves high school students without anyone to speak with about sex.
“You can’t have a conversation about safe sex without talking about sex,” Deborah Carnaghi, a program coordinator for Child Protective Services in Oregon’s Department of Human Services, told the Statesman Journal. Others pointed out that sexual activity among high school students is common....
In the midst of a storm of allegations against powerful men in the world of politics and entertainment, we should see Moore not as an outlier but as another man who allegedly used his position to focus on those who he believed were the most vulnerable.There are a lot of comments on this op-ed, and many of the most-liked ones don't get the point, and seem to insist on saying "pedophile" because they hate what Moore allegedly did and want to use a strong word to express that and they're not interested in sparing Moore on a technicality. There are also many other commenters telling these people they didn't understand the article or just read the headline — "Roy Moore is not a pedophile" — and jumped into the comments section.
The Al Frankenstien picture is really bad, speaks a thousand words. Where do his hands go in pictures 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 while she sleeps? .....— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 17, 2017
Was it an accident that Trump had to override autocorrect to come up with the one distinctively Jewish spelling? Freud would say it was at least subconsciously antisemitic. I’m inclined to agree. https://t.co/hMhUr24EiT— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) November 18, 2017
... but it's lodged in our head now. And Trump successfully raised an issue that I hadn't thought of, that the photographer would have taken bursts of images and the one we are seeing is the one Franken himself chose to give to Leeann Tweeden to inform her of the prank, so he must have thought he looked rather impishly cute. What about the other pictures?
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