July 18, 2024

George Orwell said, "There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them."

I'm thinking about that today, watching this:

You have to go to college to think that up.
He went on a long sort of paragraph at least about this plot in Eastern Kentucky where his seven or six generations of his family are are buried, and his hope is that his wife and he are eventually laid to rest there, and their kids follow them, and I sort of understand the idea of sharing the the burial plot, but it also is it reveals someone who believes that the history that the family should inherit and indeed the history that should be determinative in the story of the Vance family is the history of the Eastern Kentucky Vances and not the Vances from San Diego which is where his wife is from and where her Indian parents are from. But in America doesn't always have to be the white male lineage that trumps that defines the family history. That branch of the tree supersedes all else. And I just think the construction of this notion reveals a lot about someone who fundamentally believes in the supremacy of whiteness and masculinity, and it's couched in a sort of halcyon revisitation of his roots, but it is actually really revealing about what he thinks matters and who America is. And that America is a place for people with [chuckles] a shared Western background and that is the idea of America that is the nation of America that he wants to resurrect....

It's not as though his wife's family has a family plot in San Diego! There aren't rival family plots with one given supremacy over the other. I would think that she would feel honored to have a final resting place with substantial meaning. And is it even correct to say "her Indian parents" are "from San Diego"? They're from India! 

But I did enjoy the unexpected appearance of "halcyon." Did you know that the original meaning of that word is "In classical mythology: a bird, usually identified as a kingfisher, which brooded around the time of the winter solstice in a nest floating on the sea, charming the wind and waves into calm" (OED)? It has come to mean "characterized by peace, happiness, prosperity, or success; (of a situation, condition, state, etc.) calm, tranquil; carefree."

Read J.D. Vance's "Hillbilly Elegy" to see how "halcyon" his roots were. The MSNBC commentator sees him as an exemplar of privilege.

89 comments:

Jamie said...

Ah, the solemn nods of the execrable Joy Reid...

Leland said...

Heh

narciso said...

Many concussions to the head

Joe Smith said...

You must score below 90 on multiple IQ tests in order to work at MSNBC.

Swede said...

Folks like this seem to never be happy. Or perhaps are not capable of happiness.

Good.

Rory said...

She couldn't use the verb, "trumps."

Ann Althouse said...

"Ah, the solemn nods of the execrable Joy Reid..."

Yeah, I imagined her thinking: Even I wouldn't say that.

Mason G said...

Race. Race. Race. Race. Race. Race. Race. Race. Race. Race. Race. Race. Race. Race. Race. Race. Race. Race. Race. Race. Race. Race. Race. Race. Race. Race. Race. Race. Race. Race.

Are we clear?

Enlighten-NewJersey said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Narr said...

Housian? WTF.

Shouting Thomas said...

He puts his family first.

What a terrible man!

Ralph L said...

She just wanted to say white and whiteness.

In the South, a husband is traditionally buried with the wife's family. I'm not sure how that worked with multiple wives--quartering?

Christopher B said...

SomeWheres vs AnyWheres.

Well, more likely a NoWhere.

Yancey Ward said...

Deep Thoughts with MSNBC. And it isn't the "Vances of San Diego" for fuck's sake. And it isn't like Vance's wife and children won't be able to make their own choices anyway- he was only envisioning a possible future. I plan on being cremated but I will do the same thing my father did- have my ashes spread on the family graveyard in Pike County, Kentucky, too.

traditionalguy said...

It’s the Scots Irish family burial ground tradition that probably goes back a thousand years. And in that tradition the family history is kept . Family burial sites are found all over, usually on high ground marked by red cedars growing there.

Anyone interested can watch the epic movie “ How the West Was Won”.

John henry said...

Joy Reid is a first generation American.

Her white/indigenous mother is an immigrant from Guyana (south America) a legal immigrant?

Father is an immigrant (legal?) from Congo.

Just FYI

John Henry

Enlighten-NewJersey said...

So, the media is trying to stir up a burial plot controversy. Usha Vance is a Hindu. Those practicing that faith are typically cremated and ashes scattered on a body of water. Very unlikely her parents have a plot in any location. Assuming the Catholic Vance wishes to be buried, his family plat seems a logical choice.

Jamie said...

And it isn't the "Vances of San Diego" for fuck's sake.

My very thought! Did she not even bother to learn Usha's name?

And John Henry, Joy Reid's ancestors could have met the Jamestown colonists - they could have met the first homo sapiens across the land bridge. She's still execrable in my book.

narciso said...

Thats why i pondered why she would say suc stupid things

MikeD said...

"Yeah, I imagined her thinking: Even I wouldn't say that." Factually, if she could even "think" she'd likely be thinking "why didn't I say that?".

Anita said...

As I watched Vance's speech I imagined how the left would find fault with it. I thought they would take issue with Mamaw threatening to run over a teenager or storing 19 loaded guns. But the family graveyard? I never imagined they'd find a way to be offended by that.

John henry said...

Does ms vance's family have a burial plot in San Diego? I'm guessing not since I suspect all members of the SD branch are still alive.

Kind of narrows the choice of plot location.

Don't Indians typically cremate?

If so her family has no plot anywhere.

So ms v's choices seem to be

1 ky plot
2 she can buy a plot somewhere
3 cremation

I hope joy will counsel her on the proper selection.

John Henry

rhhardin said...

White male supremacy is wrong anyway. East Asians (Japan, China, Korea) are smarter, in fact seem to the the ones sustaining Western culture today, anyway in classical music.

Korean guy

Skeptical Voter said...

Well aside from chuckling at the bafflegab, the thing I enjoyed most was looking at Larry O'Donnell nodding solemnly and trying to look intelligent. He just couldn't quite make it.

rehajm said...

They slam us with it because they believe it works…

Sebastian said...

"There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them."

But, to paraphrase a certain former law prof, do these prog critics believe the "ideas" they profess to believe?

Or is the "idea" simply that Republican = bad, regardless?

wendybar said...

WHAT isn't racist to these race baiters?? They need to put out a book or a series of books since anything any white person says or does is RACIST to these assholes. Thanks Obama.

Paul Zrimsek said...

He went on a long sort of paragraph at least about this plot in Eastern Kentucky where his seven or six generations of his family are are buried, and his hope is that his wife and he are eventually laid to rest there

The Secret Service is working on it.

JaimeRoberto said...

Where does MSNBC find these people?

Narr said...

I listened again, and she says "Howsian" or "Housean."

What in the world is that?

JK Brown said...

I like how "trump" got caught in her throat. A second of panic before she reworded her thought.

Narr said...

Ralph L. says that in the South men are traditionally buried with their wives' families.

I've lived my threescore and eleven in the Southland, and have never encountered such a practice or tradition, or even any talk about such.

JaimeRoberto said...

Backstage at MSNBC must be like the scene in Animal House where they are smoking pot with the professor and coming up with stupid ideas.

MadTownGuy said...

traditionalguy said...

"It’s the Scots Irish family burial ground tradition that probably goes back a thousand years. And in that tradition the family history is kept . Family burial sites are found all over, usually on high ground marked by red cedars growing there."

Our Scots-Irish family was characterized by mobility. First settled in Chester County PA, then Berkeley County VA (now WV), Fayette County OH, Clinton County IN, Buena Vista County IA, Hughes County SD, and Southern California.

I caught the bug and my immediate family has lived in NM, WI, WV and now PA.

Family burial plots are in all the counties where my forebears lived.

John said...

The beauty of the woke mindset is that they can just make up the first thing that pops into their mind, but then demand that everyone accept this as the most profound wisdom, and call everyone who fails to fall in line a troglodyte, an out of touch old fogey, a likely homophobic, racist, sexist, etc., etc. It is genius because everyone now has a new cudgel with which to pound on their lessors. It is extremely tiresome, and all rational people prefer not to play such games. But not playing is losing status, so it is important that people like Gad Saad call out this BS.

Dave Begley said...

One thing America should have learned over the last 8 years is that the MSNBC people are all unhinged leftists. But they perfectly represent today’s Dems. Normal people should run from them.

narciso said...

They have to stop mainlining that lds

retail lawyer said...

White Supremacist! Racist! Sexist! Got it real fast, could not stomach watching the whole thing. Ann is tougher than me!

retail lawyer said...

Who cares what George Clooney says?

todd galle said...

narciso - I've had at least 3 concussions (and did undergo a cognitive test), but they only affected my balance. My brain works as well as ever did.

Josephbleau said...

“In the South, a husband is traditionally buried with the wife's family.”

If so then an ambitious man has to select a mate with the best graveyard.

“Howsian”. Either Wodehousian or Althousian. Probably an indication that the speaker does not know the word halcyon but has heard about it to some degree.

Now, in my old and aching age, I think to the sun dappled halcyon days of youth, and ponder the wisdom of the old songs, “ when I have died and my spirit has flown, my body will blacken and turn into coal, I’ll sit at the door of my heavenly home, and pity the miner a diggin my bones.

Mr. D said...

Usually it takes about 3 bong hits in the sophomore year dorm lounge to get that level of insight.

Michael K said...

Has anyone ever been as misnamed as "Joy ?"

Narr said...

Halcyon--that would fit. Thanks Josephbleau.

In "Born Fighting" James Webb says that the Scots-Irish weren't the first explorers and pioneers staking out the best lands for themselves, they were stragglers who took what nobody else wanted.

narciso said...

Fidel and diosdado faithful and god given

John henry said...

I don't recall anything about graveyards in particular but the excrable former senator from Virginia wrote a terrific book about the Scots-Irish.

He is a shit person and shit tier Marine but one helluva writer

Born Fighting by James webb

John Henry

John henry said...

Oops I see Narr beat me to it. Gmta.

John Henry

RCOCEAN II said...

Her parents live in San Diego but come from India, and might go back to India. She presumably will stay in the USA. And the whole thing is silly. If she gets divorced, she doesn't have to worry about the Vance plot burial. And if he dies first, she can bury herself anywhere she wants. I don't he'll object at that point.

Just go through the screed and substitute the word Jew for White. And see how it sounds. Is Kamala Harris going to be buried with her husband?

JAORE said...

Can you imagine her on Christmas morning as a child?

Mom: What did Sana bring you?
DAFJ (Dumb Ass Future Journalist): Oh mom! It's evidence of racism. The white police brut has his boot on the neck of the poor person of color.
Mom: Santa knows my little girl so well. What's next?
DAFJ: Squeeee! It's a glass ceiling and a tiny hammer.
Mom: One more, dear.
DAFJ: OMG, OMG, OMG. It's a real Trans care doctor's kit. Look a breast removal saw. And a dick nipper! I may faint. This is the best Christmas ever. I'm off to write Ms. Claus, because I know an old, fat, white guys could never do all this.

RCOCEAN II said...

I say the obvious boring thing. If you spoke about any group like that EXCEPT White people you'd get cancelled from MSNBC and every other network. I wonder how much longer this sort of thing is going to laughed at, and when people will get angry.

Hassayamper said...

Ralph L. says that in the South men are traditionally buried with their wives' families.

I've lived my threescore and eleven in the Southland, and have never encountered such a practice or tradition, or even any talk about such.


I had a great-uncle by marriage from McDonough, Georgia, a red-dirt town some 30 miles outside Atlanta. It's a bedroom-community suburb on the fringe of the Atlanta metropolitan area now, but in his day it was as traditionally Southern as a small Southern town could ever hope to be.

He was buried in his family's plot there, dating to before the Civil War, and when my great-aunt shuffled off the mortal coil some years later, she was buried beside him. My folks and I went to her funeral and spent a couple of days getting to know his family, and no one ever suggested that this arrangement was in any way peculiar or unexpected.

Just an old country lawyer said...

I read that JD's lovely wife, Usha, remains a practicing Hindu. In the traditional Sutee practice of her forebears in India, before the nasty colonizing British put a stop to it, the widow of a great man would be immolated alive on her deceased husband's funeral pyre.

Don't know about Usha, but frankly I'd rather be planted in the Kentucky hills after I had died a natural death.

Achilles said...

Ann Althouse said...

"Ah, the solemn nods of the execrable Joy Reid..."

Yeah, I imagined her thinking: Even I wouldn't say that.

You are sure giving Joy some credit there.

Joy Reid may not have gone where that woman went but she is telling everyone she doesn't think Trump got hit with a bullet and that we don't know if this was actually an assassination attempt.

Greg the Class Traitor said...

Read J.D. Vance's "Hillbilly Elegy" to see how "halcyon" his roots were. The MSNBC commentator sees him as an exemplar of privilege.

It's so nice of them to prove his acceptance speech correct

Sally327 said...

I read something today that these MSNBC commentators are not actually at the GOP convention, it's a fake backdrop they're sitting in front of in their Manhattan studio.

Hopefully JD Vance and his wife have many decades left to live so this concern about where he and/or she are to be interred can be deferred until well into the future.

Bob Boyd said...

At least he didn't say he hopes his widow will be burned alive on his pyre when he dies.

Jamie said...

I hope joy will counsel her on the proper selection.

I feel certain that Joy the Execrable has an opinion, and given the opportunity, it will be forcefully expressed!

(Passive voice on purpose, for deniability.)

Also Michael K re: was there anyone less aptly named than "Joy":

Thanks for the laughs, gentlemen!

As to the speaker herself - doing Rowling one better, I have NO fucks to give - I have no idea who she is and absolutely no respect for her intelligence based on these comments. If I encounter her again, maybe she can make a run for the Execrable title.

Big Mike said...

What does the domestic arsenal of an aging relative have to do with the glories of our Republic?

In the United States we believe that the natural right of self-defense is unalienable. Moreover we believe that the 2nd Amendment makes it no one’s business but our own what we may require to support that natural right.

Mutaman said...

"You have to go to college to think that up."

Without college, how would Althouse have ever earned a living?

Lilly, a dog said...

If you find yourself watching Alex Wagner, always turn the sound off. You won't miss anything important or interesting, and her hand gestures are really funny.

EdwdLny said...

Once again a demonstrably turd creature self identifies itself. Bugger off you ignorant shit.

clint said...

What a weird thing to freak out about.

I wonder if the real triggering issue isn't just a white man claiming a deep connection to a piece of land. It's an article of faith on the left that white Americans, like Israelis, are imperialist-colonizer-settlers with no real claim to a homeland anywhere ever. Six generations buried in one plot and Vance imagining his own family and his children's families tied to the same plot -- that's a visceral claim to a piece of land. For some that will be touching, for others triggering.

gilbar said...

did JD Vance flaunt his WHITE MALE SUPREMACY by forcing his wife to become a beef eater?
or.. did JD Vance become a vegetarian for his wife?
kinda just asking (although, i already KNOW the answers)

wildswan said...

An oblique point. Usha Vance was at Yale Law School when she met JD Vance. She went on to clerk for Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts. She may have chosen not to step on her husband's moment last night by talking about herself but she has abilities and a story. I'm sure we'll get to know her and her story better when she's Second Lady. Likewise her abilities. If she gets a difficult assignment she won't spend her time laughing like a hyena, making money and leaving some ugly mess the way she found it which has been the Veep tradition since 2008.

pacwest said...

Backstage at MSNBC must be like the scene in Animal House where they are smoking pot with the professor and coming up with stupid ideas.

Exactamundo! Just like Cook these people never matured out of the sophomore year of college. We did the same thing as sophomores. The difference was we all knew we were just bullshitting for the fun of it. Pure sophistry. And we quit playing the game as jrs and srs when we saw real life coming down the pike. "Unicorn liberals" never got over sophomore year. (Hat tip to doctrev)

In a lot of instances higher education simply stunted their growth.

Susan in Seattle said...

Orwell sums it nicely, succinctly.

Amadeus 48 said...

Another dispatch from the MSNBC insane asylum.

Ampersand said...

What can white male viewers of MSNBC possibly be getting in return for their endurance of the relentless messaging that they are evil inferior beings? That's a real question. I'd like to see someone explain it.

Mutaman said...

Susan in Seattle said...

"Orwell sums it nicely, succinctly."

Wait until Althouse and her readers discover where Orwell was at politically.

Jamie said...

Wait until Althouse and her readers discover where Orwell was at politically.

Oh honey, we know.

John henry said...

Mutaman,

I read 1984 and animal farm in hs in the mid 60s

I didn't know he'd written anything else. In the mid 70s I found he'd written quite a bit more. I've read all his books and essays as well as 4 volumes @3000 pages of letters, journalism and more.

Most more than once. Some, like "Coming up for Air" dozens of times.

He called himself a Socialist. Had he been an American in the 50s, we would have called him a liberal or maybe progressive.

Calling him a sociist really stretches the meaning of the word.

John Henry

The rule of Lemnity said...

An obsession with race doesn’t only turn a person into a racist it also makes that person ignorant. To turn the good in people into bad is an evil in my opinion.

The Genius Savant said...

Not only that but his wife's family are not "Vances"

tolkein said...

She's insane.

Steve said...

Say what you will but "Execrable Joy" is a well turned phrase.

rehajm said...

Backstage at MSNBC must be like the scene in Animal House where they are smoking pot with the professor and coming up with stupid ideas

It isn’t that scholarly.

Tina Trent said...

These people aren't even with the revolution enough to understand that the only war is the class war, per Class War, a class war zine in Britian.

How gauche of them. Not enough otherwise unemployable comp lit majors in the writing room.

J.D. Vance was making a very specific reference to class. He said that when he proposed to his wife, he told her he had $120K in student loan debt from Yale and a family plot with generations of his family in it, and, he hoped someday, the two of them and their children.

He was saying: I'm dirt poor, but I have a priceless family treasure. He was offering her the wealth of family and tradition. And that is a bond between their different cultures, and also many other cultures.

It was pitch-perfect. He was offering her his fortune. America isn't just an idea, he said: it's our home. The WW II veteran said the same thing.

I guess the WWII veteran didn't use the G.I. Bill to major in comp lit either. And people used to think sociology was bad.

Enigma said...

Reid reveals that (1) she is stupid. Truly stupid. There is no covering for stupid. (2) She is profoundly awed and intimidated by "white males" even as she cannot understand that many people beyond white males do things she'll never understand. See every Asian culture on the planet, see many Middle Eastern cultures, and see the pre-Columbian Americas too.

Per Arthur C. Clark's 3rd Law:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws

Simply maintaining a family tradition and stability across generations is...magic...to her...when this is mere child's play all across Europe, Asia, and the European/Asian diaspora. Adapted from The Princess Bride: "White supremacy? I do not think that means what you think it means."

Marcus Carman said...

To attempt to call these jerks intellectuals is a crime against all of humanity.

bob said...

Demonstrates just how stupid and useless (and racist) Identity Politics is in understanding the world.

Left Bank of the Charles said...

“But in America doesn't always have to be the white male lineage that trumps that defines the family history.“

Not only absurd but wrong. Vance is J.D.‘s mother’s maiden name, not his father’s last name, so the Vance family plot is in his female lineage.

Hannio said...

"Not only absurd but wrong. Vance is J.D.‘s mother’s maiden name, not his father’s last name, so the Vance family plot is in his female lineage."

Where did JD's mother get her name from?

Curious George said...

Can Joy Reid?

mikee said...

I, for one, enjoy when the preplanned, damning narrative is presented with utter conviction and sincerity by a member of the press, despite the utterly contradictory reality that everyone else just witnessed with their own eyes and ears. Could be worse, they might have damned him as a colonialist for appropriating the culture and marrying a POC with family origins in the Indian subcontinent. The guy even eats vegetarian meals because that's what his wife likes and cooks.

There is just no pleasing some people. Next they'll insist he shave the beard because it harkens back to the era before women had the vote and lynchings were the standard behavior of real racists, adn that's violence!

Jersey Fled said...

I rearranged my eye doctor appointments so I didn’t have to watch The View in his waiting room.

stlcdr said...

I watched 'Hillbilly Elegy' last night. Not a movie I'd ordinarily watch but it certainly makes a positive impact regarding our potential Vice President JD Vance.

I'm sure there were some liberties taken with the movie, but people who try to demonize him are simply hateful people; the exact opposite of what they claim to be.

Biff said...

No doubt the speaker is an authority on the culture of Andhra Pradesh, including its views on family, gender, and funeral practices.

MadisonMan said...

My Dad is buried in the plot with his parents, his (maternal) grandmother (her husband is over in Waukesha, for reasons I won't bore you with) and grandmother's parents. I'll probably be buried there too. I mean, there's room, so why not?

Zev said...

Beyond the stupidity of the speaker, what about the grave nodding of her interlocutors?
No one with the gumption to say, "This is idiocy."