The stunning ignorance of Matt Gaetz — smugly palming off completely sexist bad comedy. Does he think he's Andrew Dice Clay... in the 80s?

Gaetz: "Why is it that the women with the least likelihood of getting pregnant are the ones most worried about having abortions? Nobody wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb." pic.twitter.com/0qqvun3Pf8

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 23, 2022

At least "look like a thumb" is an original image. But he's using a very old idea about feminists: They're the women who are so unattractive that they can't succeed in the traditional feminine way, which is by partnering with a man. And it's creepy to use the words "Nobody wants to impregnate you" when the format of your humor suggests that you're trying to say "Nobody wants to fuck you."

"Stop joking about your lockdown weight gain – it reeks of fatphobia."

Writes Adwoa Darko (in Metro).

The policing of "fatphobia" has reached the point where joking about your own struggle with weight gain is becoming unacceptable.

ADDED: Reader JPS emails, "I think Adwoa Darko would spontaneously combust if she saw KD French’s 'She’s At The Fridge Again,' from last August. I think it’s hilarious, and beautifully done" and links to this:

"Who’s Afraid of the Female Nude? Paintings of naked women, usually by clothed men, are suddenly sitting very uncomfortably on gallery walls."

By Michael Slenske and Molly Langmuir (New York Magazine)(interesting artwork at the link — warning: nudes!!):

While feminist art critics have for decades pointed out the shortcomings of the “male gaze,” the post-#MeToo reckoning with the art world’s systemic sexism, its finger-on-the-scale preference for male genius, has given that critique a newly powerful force. And the question of the moment has become: Is it still an artistically justifiable pursuit for a man to paint a naked woman?...

For emerging artists, there is the fear of a possibly career-derailing gestalt fail. “I’ve been in conversations with other [male artists], and they were just like, ‘I quit working with the figure. I’m only doing abstract work, because I don’t want to touch it,’ ” says Marty Schnapf while walking me through his recent solo show “Fissures in the Fold” at Wilding Cran Gallery in Los Angeles. He thinks we could be living through “a new Victorian age”....

IN THE COMMENTS: JPS said: "Who knew John Ashcroft was so woke?"

"The flesh of your mother sticks between my teeth."

That's an example of an insult from cannibalism days on Easter Island, brought to us by NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof, who flew all the way to Easter Island to be there to recount the history of Easter Island, which anyone can read without actually going there. Big statues of heads, long-ago deforestation wrecking its capacity to support the people who were advanced enough to make those big-head statues... you know the story. It's not news. Indeed, Kristof serves up readymade quotes from Jared Diamond pop-science book "Collapse' (2005). He does offer 2 sentences of on-the-scene reportage:

Easter Islanders themselves aren’t thrilled about being reduced to a metaphor. They rightly feel great pride in their earlier history and see the collapse as more complex and uncertain.

And yet he fully intends to step on that pride and offer up Easter Island as "A Parable of Self-Destruction." Why go there if you only want the metaphor/parable version of the place anyway? I'm asking a question that encapsulates the message of "How to Talk About Places You've Never Been: On the Importance of Armchair Travel," by Pierre Bayard.

But Kristof did go there:

I came to Easter Island while leading a tour for The New York Times Company, and those of us in the group were staggered by the statues — but also by the reminder of the risks when a people damages the environment that sustains it.

That brings us to climate change, to the chemical processes we are now triggering whose outcomes we can’t fully predict. The consequences may be a transformed planet with rising waters and hotter weather, dying coral reefs and more acidic oceans. We fear for the ocean food chain and worry about feedback loops that will irreversibly accelerate this process, yet still we act like Easter Islanders hacking down their trees....

How on earth — a place we've all been — did Nicholas Kristof think he could get away with that sanctimony?! DO NOT LECTURE US! Let your example come first, and then you can talk. You flew to Easter Island — you led a tour, enticing others to fly to Easter Island — so obviously, you think nothing of your carbon footprint or the carbon footprint of all those other people who jetted out there with you. When your actions are so radically different from your words, I don't believe your words. The depredations of global warming may be coming, but I don't believe that you believe it.

Yes, I know I have alternatives. It's possible that Kristof is an idiot, incapable of noticing or understanding the radical disconnect between his words and his actions. And it's possible that Kristof is a raging elitist, who thinks that he and his close associates needn't stoop to the hard work of self-limitation that he feels fully empowered to impose on others and who thinks that all the people whose opinion matters will share this despicable elitism.

IN THE COMMENTS: JPS said...

"so obviously, you think nothing of your carbon footprint....When your actions are so radically different from your words, I don't believe your words."

It's like this:

Trump, Bjorn Lomberg or other AGW semi-skeptics: "Why should we limit our use of energy? It won't make the slightest bit of difference as long as India, China and everyone else go on burning all the fossil fuels they want!

Concerned AGW believer: "This is the problem! You are the reason we're not making any progress toward averting this obvious disaster!"
______

AGW semi-skeptic: "Wow, look at you, lecturing us all about our carbon footprints while you jet all over the world."

Concerned AGW believer: "Look, come on. If I cut out everything I do, it wouldn't make any difference as long as you're all free to go on burning fossil fuels like it doesn't matter."

"Anderson Cooper of CNN says he probably won’t vote in the coming election."

"He says voting would bias him when he covers political news. I agree," says Scott Adams.

I call it the joiner problem. The minute you take a side, you start acquiring confirmation bias to bolster your sense of rightness. Objectivity is nearly impossible once you commit to a team....

Wait. You can vote without ever taking a side or joining the team. That's what I do. For me, voting is a ritual, something I always do and have done for a long time. I'm not very committed to the candidates I vote for. No one ever embodies everything I want. I'm just picking the one that seems best when election day rolls around.

But if I thought it would make my writing on the blog better, I would give up voting. I notice that comments on my post often include statements like: Oh, we all know you'll vote for X in the end. If I didn't vote, you couldn't say that.

You know, I also don't like having opinions on legal questions that I teach about. I like opening up the discussion from all sides, taking them all seriously. Sometimes people think when I'm explaining a judge's opinion, I'm agreeing with it. For example, the other day we had a panel at the law school about the late Justice Scalia, and I spoke about his opinions on substantive due process. I explained his position and never said one word about whether I agreed or disagreed with any of it, and I was treated as if I were defending him and advocating for him. I found that very annoying, especially since there are a few Scalia-haters in the vicinity and I did not intend to offer myself as a proxy punching bag.

IN THE COMMENTS: JPS said: "The originator of the quip 'It's hard to talk when you're tea bagging' is concerned about maintaining his objectivity? That's nice."