Althouse: "What's worse — talking about CRT or talking about the dog. It's the Scylla and Charybdis of conversation."

November 26, 2021

"What's worse — talking about CRT or talking about the dog. It's the Scylla and Charybdis of conversation."

That's my response when Meade texts me these 2 items:

42 comments:

gilbar said...: My dad passed away Wed at 3pm (two days ago). That made for a different thanksgiving
I would have LOVED listening to him talk about CRT (or mosfet transistors (or Anything))
Love your family while you can; even if they're irritating; 11/26/21, 10:53 AM
Mark said...: What's worse is talking about "CRT" -- that is, spouting off ignorance about what people think it is, rather than what it really is.; 11/26/21, 10:54 AM
Achilles said...: O'brien makes a funny joke about the new wokeists.

Not sure if he meant to or not.

And the best way to make fun of them is to act and say something that is supportive of the woke cause but makes them look like assholes.

They don't get jokes with any amount of subtlety.

Biden supporters are kinda dumb.; 11/26/21, 11:13 AM
Mike of Snoqualmie said...: The dog wins every time. Dogs are unconditional love. Supporting CRT is just promoting racism and hate.; 11/26/21, 11:32 AM
mikee said...: Things the dog does (or dogs do, for those of us lucky to have plural) can be a wonderful conversation, for certain values of things and dog, or dogs.

CRT is always a bad thing to discuss. Always. Rather than discuss it, simply tell those who wish to do so that there is a phone call for them in the garage, and then lock the door behind them.; 11/26/21, 11:40 AM
JK Brown said...: I found that Lincoln long ago offered the perfect opposition to CRT

"Teach hope to all, despair to none" -Abraham Lincoln

No one walks away from a CRT lesson feeling hopeful, but they do despair; 11/26/21, 11:43 AM
Narayanan said...: as long as we can discuss the race of parts of the turkey - white or dark - all is good; 11/26/21, 11:51 AM
Skippy Tisdale said...: CRT is a deliberate distraction. When you force folks to keep thinking about the slavery that occurred more than 150 years ago, you're less likely to notice it's STILL GOING ON RIGHT NOW. Enjoy those Nikes.; 11/26/21, 12:09 PM
Sebastian said...: "It's the Scylla and Charybdis of conversation."

Not really. Only one is seductive at all. I mean CRT, of course.; 11/26/21, 12:19 PM
robother said...: Personally, my family steered the middle way, commenting contemptuously on the Detroit game until lapsing into catatonia by the second quarter.; 11/26/21, 12:54 PM
Quaestor said...: Just off the top of my head (not looking this up, I swear), Odysseus chooses to sail near Scylla's rock. (People who are paid to speculate about these things believe this part of the Odyssey refers to the Straits of Messina.) Scylla can only grab and devour a limited number of his crew (six?) whereas Charybdis will suck down and utterly destroy the Ithycan fleet (which maybe be down to one ship by this point in the epic).

The crux of the tale is the choice between the regretable and the disastrous. Odysseus can't avoid them both if he ever hopes to return to his beloved wife. (I'd go back to Circe and forget about it. She had an odd hobby, but she was hot!) Thus he chooses the regrettable fate of seeing six comrades eating alive.

So, which Thanksgiving table talk is Scylla and which Charybdis? Which one wrecks the whole thing beyond redemption and which just reveals the one (hopefully one
only) utterly irredeemable asshole in your circle of friends and relations?

PS
Scylla may be unique among mythical multi-headed monsters in having an even number of them, unlike this one.; 11/26/21, 1:12 PM
wild chicken said...: I guess I should be grateful that my in-laws never talk about anything remotely interesting. I can't ask them about work, kids off limits because Problems. They certainly have no interest in me, a piece of furniture in our house.

At least we don't argue about politics. Or anything.

Praying the 529 variant heads off Christmas dinner.; 11/26/21, 1:54 PM
Meade said...: So true, gilbar. And condolences.; 11/26/21, 2:43 PM
Quaestor said...: "Not really. Only one is seductive at all."

Huh? Methinks Sebastian has confused Scylla with the sirens, or maybe the nymph Calypso (Whose name, BTW, derives from the Attic meaning "having a beautiful ass".); 11/26/21, 2:50 PM
Quaestor said...: Mark writes, "What's worse is talking about "CRT" -- that is, spouting off ignorance about what people think it is, rather than what it really is."

Telling us what it "really is" is at least a step up from denying its existence entirely.; 11/26/21, 2:54 PM
exhelodrvr1 said...: Quaestor,
He could have just stayed with Calypso. Although she was in the danger zone on the hot/crazy matrix.; 11/26/21, 2:58 PM
exhelodrvr1 said...: Gilbar,
Sorry to hear that!; 11/26/21, 2:59 PM
Quaestor said...: Calypso; 11/26/21, 3:05 PM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: Mark, perhaps you could explain "what it really is"? I, for one, would appreciate it.; 11/26/21, 3:06 PM
DLH said...: Gilbar,
So sorry for your loss and I’d like to think he was witty and humorous like you.; 11/26/21, 3:08 PM
Quaestor said...: @exhelodriver

Well, no. His encounter with Calypso is the last episode before being washed ashore on Scheria, the island of the Phaeaians. From there he goes to Ithica to confront the Suitors.

You're thinking of sorceress Circe.; 11/26/21, 3:12 PM
Mikey NTH said...: I was invited over to my neighbor's for Thanksgiving and amazingly the conversation was not about politcs or what the dog was currently doing.

Even the satirical media can't miss the opportunity to make things worse.; 11/26/21, 3:25 PM
readering said...: For me the talk was of the National Dog Show, with same animal winning two years in a row! (Would have expected Conan's lawyer mom to lead the CRT discussion, not his doctor dad.); 11/26/21, 3:26 PM
gilbar said...: my dad was going downhill, for a while; We were figuring that t-Day would be his last holiday
But, he didn't make it.
WHO am i supposed to talk to now; about important things like
...steerable unified S-band high-gain antennas for moon probes?
...the number of charge bags in a 105mm howitzer round?
...maple syrup production procedures?
...why it was, that the left side of mopar wheels had left hand threads?
it won't be the same.; 11/26/21, 3:42 PM
effinayright said...: Gilbar, you did a great job conveying what your dad was like, and your sadness at his passing.

A lotta love in there as well.; 11/26/21, 4:40 PM
effinayright said...: Quaestor said...
"Not really. Only one is seductive at all."

Huh? Methinks Sebastian has confused Scylla with the sirens, or maybe the nymph Calypso (Whose name, BTW, derives from the Attic meaning "having a beautiful ass".)
*************

I think the word you're alluding to is "callipygian", which has entirely different roots.

"Relating to or having buttocks that are considered beautifully proportioned."

[From Greek kallipugos : kalli-, beautiful (from kallos, beauty) + pugē, buttocks.]

Compare:

"In Greek mythology, Calypso (/kəˈlɪpsoʊ/; Greek: Καλυψώ, "she who conceals")[1] was a nymph who lived on the island of Ogygia, where, according to Homer's Odyssey, she detained Odysseus for seven years. She promised Odysseus immortality if he would stay with her, but Odysseus preferred to return home." wikipedia; 11/26/21, 4:50 PM
Quaestor said...: For me the talk was of the National Dog Show...

Mais bien sûr, Scottish Deerhounds ought to win Best in Show in every show in every year being infinitely superior to all other canines simply by right of being real as well as being ideal. What's unusual is it's the same Scottish Deerhound.; 11/26/21, 5:06 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "Not really. Only one is seductive at all."

Scylla and Charybdis are not seductive. Both are obviously bad. You've got to avoid both.; 11/26/21, 5:27 PM
Ann Althouse said...: My sympathy, gilbar.

"I would have LOVED listening to him talk about CRT (or mosfet transistors (or Anything))"

I know the feeling. Hope that works as a reminder to all of us to listen to the ones we still have.; 11/26/21, 5:28 PM
tim in vermont said...: " that is, spouting off ignorance about what people think it is, rather than what it really is."

Which is apparently a secret more tightly held even than the Manhattan Project.; 11/26/21, 6:15 PM
BG said...: So sorry for your loss, gilbar. You will always miss him. Things will never be the same but you have memories to cherish. Take it in your own time.; 11/26/21, 6:32 PM
Skippy Tisdale said...: "WHO am i supposed to talk to now; about important things like
...steerable unified S-band high-gain antennas for moon probes?
...the number of charge bags in a 105mm howitzer round?
...maple syrup production procedures?
...why it was, that the left side of mopar wheels had left hand threads?
it won't be the same."

May I respectfully suggest glibertarians dot com? They cover all of that. And so much more.; 11/26/21, 7:39 PM
Skippy Tisdale said...: "Which is apparently a secret more tightly held even than the Manhattan Project."

It's really straight forward and simple: That guy who robbed you at gunpoint, stole your car, raped your wife and murdered your kids is all your fault and not even Jesus himself can redeem you, you fucking racist. And if you weren't so inherently, racistly blind you would see that he's in the process of turning his life around.; 11/26/21, 7:50 PM
Bunkypotatohead said...: The CAT is always more interesting than those two other things.; 11/26/21, 8:07 PM
gilbar said...: thanx people, i appreciate the thoughts.; 11/26/21, 8:12 PM
tommyesq said...: Conan O'Brien = Titania McGrath!; 11/26/21, 8:47 PM
tommyesq said...: Gilbar,

My dad passed away this June, first real traditional holiday without him at my sisters. I spent all day yesterday going from room to room expecting him to be around the corner to talk to. My deepest sympathies.

tommyesq; 11/26/21, 8:50 PM
Narr said...: Condolences gilbar.

Yes, callipygian is the word sought.

Politics didn't come up at our little gathering, but the dog made up for it--he leapt into whatever dining chair was unoccupied at the time, and had to be watched for higher ambitions.; 11/26/21, 8:51 PM
Sebastian said...: "Methinks Sebastian has confused Scylla with the sirens"

Ouch. I did! Which is horrible, considering that Odysseus was my first real literary hero. Which was too long ago.; 11/26/21, 9:26 PM
gpm said...: I have a very modest-sized immediate family: a hundred or so (actually, much, much more than so) living descendants (and their partners) of my parents, mostly still around (though I don’t think any these days in) Chicago.

Have only been there once for Thanksgiving in the last fifty years, more or less by accident about forty years ago. Couldn’t afford to go from Boston to Chicago twice in one month when I was in school for seven years (um, “near Boston”), after which not showing up became a tradition. However, except for the unending gift opening and perhaps a greater turnout, Christmas, which I’ve mostly attended, has always been much the same as Thanksgiving. All in the confines of my sister’s not-that-big house in a Chicago suburb in the depths of a Chicago winter (after 45 years, I think they’re changing that approach this year, but I haven’t figured it all out at this point).

Starting when everyone arrives in the afternoon, it’s complete chaos, with the kids doing God knows what in the bedrooms upstairs, a bunch of the (mostly youngish) guys (not me!) playing poker over in the corner (in my youth, when it was at my parents’ house on the South Side, it was the great-uncles playing pinochle on the back parch), and various other goings on. After a blessing by “Father Brother Bob” (because my brother the priest is Bob, but there are also other Bobs), the dinner is similarly chaotic.

Coming back to the theme of the post, i.e., what’s being talked about, the interesting part comes down to the end of the night. At that point, it’s usually just three of my sisters, maybe one or two nieces and nephews, and a few other stragglers. Then the knives come out: Anybody who’s not there is apt to be ripped to shreds, for nothing having anything to do with (non-family) politics.

Fortunately, I’m usually there, so protected, and, even if I’m not, I live a thousand miles away, so they don’t really have anything on me to rake over and, even if they are, I don't know how they're ripping me.

And that's what families are for!

--gpm; 11/26/21, 9:55 PM
gilbar said...: Skippy Tisdale said...
May I respectfully suggest glibertarians dot com

I realize that you are a moronic Fuck; and too stupid to be able to breath...
my Dad worked on all of those, and He NEVER placed His observations on the web

Have you Ever considered using your head to Think?; 11/27/21, 7:33 AM
gilbar said...: re: Sirens... Today's xkcd
Circe was actually just telling Odysseus to ignore his GPS.; 11/27/21, 7:40 AM