Your Looks, Your Call

Susan Walsh of hookingupsmart.com dispenses the kind of crisp, common-sense matronly advice about dating and relationships that I wish I'd had access to when I was a young woman (instead of letting Helen Gurley Brown so seriously fuck with my head).  Today in a post titled "Your Looks, Your Call," she points out that women shape their own appearances to appeal to the specific men they wish to attract.

Pretty obvious, no?  Yet it's a great response to the readership of sites like Return of Kings that rail about the "unfeminine" look of many American girls: the tattoos, the short haircuts, the refusal to wear high heels or any of the other trappings of conventional "femininity."  These choices baffle and enrage young men who feel entitled to fantasy "cookie-cutter" ideals of feminine beauty they see in advertising and porn.

Walsh characterizes the deliberate tweaking of one's appearance as appealing to a "niche market."  Since my background is in anthropology, not economics, I am more inclined to see the way people adorn themselves and the artifacts they surround themselves with as tribal markings.  They signal that the bearers are only available for mating within their own tribes.  That girl with the full sleeve of tattoos and assorted facial piercings is no more aroused by a random dude's six-pack abs or Axe body spray than an African grey parrot is sexually stimulated by the flash of a blue-crowned conure's tail feathers.  SMV (sexual marketplace value) is a meaningless concept unless one recognizes that there many different markets.

This phenomenon applies to all genders, BTW.  Jezebel yesterday reported a story about a teenage boy whose drivers license picture was rejected because he was wearing eye makeup.  The women who commented on the story mostly remarked how attractive they found him.  Yes, there is a small but significant "niche market" for men who transgress conventional gendered norms too, as many young male cross-dressers bold enough to sally forth into a Capitol Hill nightclub are apt to discover. (Of course, that gender variant individual has to screw up the courage to present himself/herself in public in order to be identified by members of his/her "tribe" as a potential mate.)

The well-spring of the New Misogynists' fury stems from the fact that, on some level, they cannot fail to see that these choices in attire and body modification are deliberately made not only to attract members of the same subculture, but to explicitly repel "outsiders" (which is to say them).  It's evident that Matt Forney, for example, wants nothing more than to be recognized as an "intellectual," and part of the cool music crowd, and his obsessive hatred of "hipsters" and mainstream writers, and the girls who are part of those scenes, is a direct measure of how wretched he is to be excluded.  (The problem is, contrary to what a guy like Forney believes, it is not the deficits in his own physical appearance that are shutting him out of that specific market: it's the anger and self-loathing he wears on his own sleeve.) 

Walsh concludes by reminding her female readers, "You’re not trying to lock down all the boys on the boy tree. You only need one."  This is the best advice ever for both men and women looking for love, friendship, or even a vocation.  Figure out who you are, what you want, and tailor your image accordingly.

Of course, the challenge of adolescence and emerging adulthood is just that: to figure out, as individuals, who we are and what we want.  Indeed, some of us spend the best part of our lives endlessly experimenting in an effort to nail that critical element down!  

It Always Rains On My Birthday

But more terrible to love nothing.

That's not strictly true.  Sometimes it's just overcast and gloomy.  And sometimes, as it did this year, my birthday falls on Father's Day.  Since I lost my father over twenty years ago, Father's Day is a rather melancholy occasion, and since I am now within spitting distance of sixty, my birthdays are becoming less welcome events.

This birthday was one of the sadder days of my life, unfortunately.  In fact, I have been bawling so hard and so continuously the past twenty four hours that my teeth ache and my eyes are nearly swollen shut.

Today, after weeks of dithering, I finally put down both of my dogs.  Tux, a Black Lab mix, was eighteen.  Cosmo, the little white bichon, had recently passed his sixteenth birthday.  Both had been suffering from the various, inevitable ailments of old age: blind, deaf, incontinent, arthritic.  The writing had been on the wall for a while, and yet I resisted, because I sensed that both of them still had strong wills to live, and still had some "quality of life" (if such a thing can be measured by robust appetites, naps in the sun, the pleasure and comfort they took in greeting me at the door every evening).

There seemed no pressing reason to take the fatal step until last week, when the vet discovered a sarcoma on Cosmo's side.  At sixteen, and in fragile overall health, Cosmo was not a candidate for surgery and radiation.  The tumor wasn't painful, but she warned me it would eventually rupture; the result would be a bloody open wound that would necessitate immediate euthanasia.  And yet still I resisted...  

I have, over the course of my life, put down four dogs previous to these, so you might think I would have an easier time deciding when to take action.  Truth be told, I wanted someone else to make the decision for me -- my girlfriend, my vet -- but all they would tell me is, "You'll know when the time is right."  So for days (well, months really)  I've been much preoccupied with the matter of when.

This morning, I awoke and roused them to go outside, initiating the first step in our longstanding daily routine.  However, this morning neither dog could be persuaded to get up off the bed where they always slept next to my own, nestled belly-to-back, "ebony and ivory, together in perfect harmony."  And that's when I decided that, birthday or no, this was the day that I would have them put down. 

I called the vet and made the appointment.  Then I defrosted a package of ground beef for their last meal.  The smell of warm greasy raw meat was enough of an inducement to bring them shakily to their feet.  They staggered to their bowls.  Ah, food!  That most elementary, dependable pleasure!  I watched them devour the rare treat with gusto, their tails wagging stiffly in unison, like metronomes.  We had a couple of quiet hours together (that is, they dozed while I sobbed) before I bundled them into the car for their final trip to the vet.

I was grateful that my favorite doctor was attending today.  She and her tech inserted the catheters and, per my request, administered preliminary sedatives.  (When I asked her for a sedative for myself, she kindly explained it was outside her scope of practice.)  "Do you need more time?" she asked.  I didn't want more time.  I was doing my best to stay calm, so as not to distress the dogs unduly.  I was determined not to give full rein to my grief until they were gone.

The injection took effect almost immediately.  Little Cosmo's heart stopped beating first, stalwart Tux's a moment later.  The entire procedure, from start to finish, took less than five minutes, and was entirely peaceful.  It's shocking how easily and quickly life can be extinguished, little more than pinching out the flame of a candle.

I was surprised to see that the vet and the tech -- for whom this is a routine part of their jobs -- were weeping.  "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," they repeated.  "Thank you," I said. "But this is part of the game, isn't it?"  We know this going in, when we enter a relationship with another -- whether human or animal -- the day will come when we must part. And it's going to hurt like hell. 

There's no escape from death.  What we cannot escape, we must endure.  There's no way to tunnel around the pain of loss.  Love will, sooner or later, exact its toll in tears.  Not for the first time I am reminded that grief is just plain hard work.

I made arrangements for their individual cremations.  I'm amassing quite a collection of little urns.  I have given instructions that they will some day be tucked into the foot of my own casket.  (Please don't tell the cemetery, which officially frowns on interring animal remains with human.)  Silly, isn't it?  I don't believe in an after-life, and yet take comfort in imagining myself lying for eternity, surrounded by my menagerie who will guard me in my endless sleep as they guarded me in life.

I paid my last hefty vet bill, and drove home with the windows open, the chilly rain pelting my cheek, slowly and carefully as a drunk.

I returned home, the dogs' leashes in hand, my house as cold, dark, and silent as a tomb.  I dragged the dogs' beds outside so that I wouldn't see them empty tomorrow morning.  A friend called, but I couldn't talk for fear of triggering a fresh volley of tears, and my headache was already ferocious.  My girlfriend called to check in.  She assured me that I had done the right thing at the right time, which was really all I wanted to hear.  I found a stray vicodin, leftover from a previous surgery, washed it down with a shot of bourbon, and fell asleep for several hours, listening to the gentle rain thrumming on the eaves. 

For the first time in more than twenty years, I am dog-less.  It's going to take some time to adjust.

Roosh Calls For "Retrenchment"

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

("For What It's Worth" -- Buffalo Springfield)

Acknowledging that Return of Kings (and similar Red Pill sites) have suffered "quite a beating in the wake of the Elliot Roger's [shooting]," Roosh is calling on his troops to lay low, "burrow within society," and "attack only when we have a clear advantage." In other words, quit publishing click-bait that only gives young women something to furiously re-tweet, and which gives the "megaphone of the cultural elite" more ways to paint the fine young men who make up his readership as "cannibals." 

"We must only attack when victory is assured -- when we can isolate a liberal blogger or reporter and hurt their credibility in the eyes of Google."

Ah yes, that fail-safe strategy favored by the manosphereans: publish smear posts that will mess up the online names of obscure bloggers (teachers, students, beginning journalists).  I suppose it's futile for me to point out to Roosh and his followers how very ineffective that strategy has proven to be?  Or to suggest that most people recognize how ephemeral -- and notoriously untrustworthy -- Google-able information is?  There is a reason that college students are discouraged from relying on Google for their research papers!

And while being the victim of such a campaign is unpleasant, it certainly doesn't shut critics up.  If anything, it suggests the "target" was "on to" something, and the perpetrator(s) look like unscrupulous crackpots.  The professional journalists he has targeted appear to be carrying on doing their professional journalist thing, utterly indifferent and unfazed -- this sort of attention goes with their territory, doesn't it?  Getting epic hate mail from the New Misogynists is, if anything, a pretty fair litmus test that a writer is on the side of the angels (or at least on the side of common sense and decency).

As for a big nobody like me, the fallout of having my name smeared online has been... well, zero.  Apparently nobody Googles me!  Even my friends and colleagues, when I informed them of this terrible blight to my reputation, couldn't be bothered.  Certainly no one has come to my little blog by searching my legal name yet; the only unfriendly visitors appear to have been linked directly via Matt Forney himself.  Since the "attack" on my "credibility," I have managed to get a promotion at work and pre-qualified for a mortgage and no one has looked at me askance. The real world -- or at least the world I live in -- doesn't give a shit what Google says any more than it cares who Roosh is or the cranky online cult he seems intent on creating.

Rather than face the overwhelming evidence that the world at large is pretty much repulsed by, or indifferent to, his philosophy, Roosh continues to frame its rejection in terms of an epic underground ideological war in which he (and his followers) must bide their time, harness their resources, and patiently await the day when they will ultimately rise up to vanquish their enemies (the girls?), be crowned with laurels and awarded scores of houris (the perpetual virgins of an Islamic paradise).

Meanwhile, Roosh concedes that not only is Red Pill victory impossible in the short term, but survival itself is not a given, and is therefore recommending that like-minded neo-reactionaries ally themselves with "traditional conservatives" while vigilantly (but discreetly) seeking opportunities to recruit "masculine men" to their fantasy Fight Club.

Maybe that's what he's doing in Siberia?  

The End of the Manosphere?

I think Bodycrimes called it last week when she announced that "the manosphere is cooked."  Certainly, the manosphere is becoming a sadder and much more self-pitying place based on my random forays into it recently.  It's been one calamity after another.

First, Dean Esmay used a rare opportunity for mainstream media exposure of Men's Rights issues to complain about his missing tooth.  Then A Voice for Men announced that the First Annual (International) Conference on Men's Issues had been moved from the downtown Detroit Doubletree Inn to a suburban VFW Hall where they will be less "threatened" by feminist protestors, but will now have to fight the bingo crowd for tables.  Matt Forney is off to the Philippines next month.  Ever the hustler, he also announced he will be available for online "consultations" (at $60/hour) while he basks on the beach.  (Nice work if you can get it.)  Naughty Nomad was doxed by a "vindictive stalker" who had taken a leaf out of the Matt Forney playbook by using facial recognition software and Facebook to reveal the Nomad's identity (like anyone cares).  And poor old Roosh (has everyone forgotten about him?) is languishing in a cheap furnished flat in Siberia, where he assures us in a Youtube dispatch there are girls in Siberia, too -- but then pretty much convinces us that he couldn't care less.  And so it seems to be ending: not with a bang, but a hundred whimpers.  

Meanwhile, men who are credible masculine role models are stepping forth and publicly denouncing misogyny, not only because it's bad for women, but because it's so damaging to the angry young guys who get caught up in it. Comedians are starting to have their way with "dude bro culture." And the New Misogynists themselves are quickly going from total obscurity to being a joke that even your Fox-watching grandma can laugh at.

Roosh ‏@rooshv

Since when did @collegehumor start hiring faggots like @caldy? http://www.collegehumor.com/post/6973833/7-things-only-guys-will-get … Feminist bullshit everywhere you turn!

Guys and Dolls. And Booze.

Washington State privatized the sale of alcohol two years ago. Other states are following suit. "Getting the state out of the liquor business" was a popular notion, partly because backers of deregulation (like Costco) promised more competition and hence, lower prices passed on to consumers. Ironically, the cost of spirits has gone up ten percent although, on the upside (I suppose) tax revenue has increased proportionately.  

I voted against closing the state liquor stores. I thought the old system was working just fine. The stores were impeccably clean and orderly, the clerks were helpful, and there was something about the ritualized formality of buying alcohol through the state that always reminded one that alcohol purchase and consumption was meant to be the privilege of serious, responsible adults. I was troubled at the possibility of making liquor even more available to drivers and minors. But I was in the minority -- even my partner voted against me -- so here we are...

And now you cannot go into any retail outfit without seeing booze: rows and rows and stacks of booze. My neighborhood Rite-Aid, a drugstore chain, has devoted more than a third of its floor space to wine, spirits, and snacks. We have our own brewery in town, and there is talk of licensing neighborhood distilleries soon.

My local convenience store has jumped on the bandwagon and is doing a brisk business selling "growlers"  -- but clearly the owner is greedy for even more custom.  As I was passing the store today, I was startled to see a young woman standing in the bushes on the corner, energetically waving a sign that read "Growlers Here!" She was wearing sunglasses, tiny denim shorts, and her long mane of glossy strawberry blonde hair streamed in the breeze.

Something didn't look quite right, though. For one thing, she looked too small to be legally advertising beer. At first glance, she appeared to be about twelve years old.  I pulled into the parking lot and quickly ascertained she wasn't a woman at all: she was a rather crude animatronic figure. I approached the shop owner, a Korean immigrant, while he was busy adjusting her base so she wouldn't topple over in the wind. I remarked that this new addition to his store was rather "weird."  

"Guys like it," he replied. 

"But she's not a real person," I persisted, feeling faintly ridiculous.

The shop keeper shrugged. "Don't matter. They stop."

Why did it bother me more that they were stopping for an animated doll than if they had been stopping for a real, live girl? Did the men who pulled over resent this cynical exploitation of their reptilian brains? Did they even recognize how they were being manipulated?

It was one thing to see this sort of ploy on billboards or in the pages of magazines; it was another to see it on the street of my quiet, family-friendly residential neighborhood.

A few years ago, neighborhoods like mine had outlawed "bikini baristas" at drive-through expresso stands. I was kind of relieved when they disappeared; I would have been humiliated to have found myself accidentally pulling into one for my morning latte.  For some reason, this mannequin seemed equally objectionable, and I wondered how long it would take for the Cavalry Temple families to set up a squall.

If the figure had been a cute animal -- say a dog or a tiger or a squirrel -- it wouldn't have bothered me so much. Is it possible I've become one of those rabid, hypersensitive, humorless feminists?

James Fell Rocks

I can't believe I've added a men's fitness guru to my reading list, but James Fell defies the muscle-bound, testosterone-addled stereotype: a skeptic in the fitness and dietary industry AND an outspoken critic of the Men's Rights Movement.  You can tell by the photo on his blog that this is a guy who doesn't take himself as seriously as he does his commitment to science and education.  Read his take-down of the Paleolithic Diet which he humorously dubs "the Scientology of Diets." 

In my fitful way, I'm back to swimming laps three times a week and plan to gradually increase my walking.  Huffing five blocks up a downtown hill the other night to see PZ Myer's talk at Town Hall convinced me I had to start doing something to regain my stamina.  Perhaps some sensible weight loss / exercise advice will bolster my resolve.

Close to Home

The instant that Aaron Ybarra's face flashed across the television screen, I recognized him.  I'd seen this young man dozens of time, passing him in the corridor at the college where I teach and he studied.  His family live in the same suburban neighborhood that I do. He always looked like a nice enough kid, perhaps a bit more unkempt than average.  I never spoke with him, but we exchanged friendly smiles at least once.

Apparently he'd had a history with the local police for minor, non-violent offenses and been taken to the local hospital for "evaluation," but there seemed no reason to believe he was a potential danger to himself or others.

Chatting about the case in the elevator with another teacher, I remarked (not for the first time) that maybe we needed to think about locking our classrooms while teaching.  An instructor from another department jumped in, told me to "chill out" and said something to the effect that I was fear-mongering.  Then she flounced off, her sandals slapping the floor as she strode down the hall.  I was a bit stung by her response.  

I'll admit I can be something of a "nervous nellie."  Perhaps I do suffer from a degree of PTSD, having, years ago in Teheran, experienced shots being aimed in my direction and seen slogans painted in blood on my garden wall.  Blithely turning a corner to find oneself facing the business end of a row of firing rifles leaves a person with a certain degree of hyper-vigilance, and an enduring awareness that awful things can happen most randomly.

Of course the possibility of being caught in an event like the shootings yesterday is scary, however remote the statistical probability.  Some people like me respond by anxiously pre-calculating how to reduce the odds; some people respond with angry denial. Meanwhile, the official administrative recommendations (to run away if possible, hide if escape is not possible, and fight if cornered) are so obvious that they hardly justify communicating.  

Not to mention that they seem to ignore the fact that the only reason that the shooter's tally wasn't greater was because at least one person on the scene did not follow the "official guidelines," but instead risked his own life by overpowering Ybarra, wrestling him to the ground, and subduing him with pepper spray until police arrived.

Judgy Bitch Needs You!

Since Sunshine Mary has been run off the internet -- at least for the moment -- Janet Bloomfield AKA Judgy Bitch is the clear runner up for the title of First Lady of the Manosphere.  She is the MRA version of Ann Coulter: blonde, outrageous, racist, and as dumb as a box of rocks (but a whole lot louder).

Here she is, in her position of Social Media Director (!) of AVfM's upcoming conference in Detroit, raising funds for the additional security she claims Doubletree Inn has demanded as a result of "feminist threats." The jury is still out as to whether the letter from Doubletree that she produces is genuine, but many are inclined to believe it is a fraud designed to extract more money from deluded MRM supporters to line the pockets of Paul Elam and his curious cabinet.

I haven't seen any credible evidence of "death threats" although obviously if there were any I would want the authorities to investigate them seriously. Trust me, the last thing I want is for some MRA to enjoy martyrdom at the hands of a non-MRA.

But do "feminists" want to "silence" the MRM? 

On one hand, I'll admit I DO silence Janet Bloomfield in the sense that after about fifteen seconds of her snarky, grating, affected delivery I have to turn the audio off. I can't watch Typhonblue for a different reason, one which I will not disclose for fear of being accused of being an "ableist" (sorry, I'm a very imperfect feminist).

I don't want to silence the MRM. I want to criticize them, mock them, and expose them for the assholes and aberrations they generally are. 

And speaking strictly for myself, I welcome all the attention MRM is getting from the mainstream media. For over a year I've been running around like Chicken Little warning people about these loonies, but I'm afraid they thought I was just a bit demented myself for paying them any mind. The bigger the platform these people get, the better: the more their cracked ideology is exposed to the general public, the more quickly and decisively their "human rights movement" is revealed for what it is. It won't be radical feminists who bring down the MRM. Exposed to the strong sunlight of mainstream attention, they will melt down on their own.

Another Day, Another Life Ruined

It's that time of the year again, when students stir from their somnolent states, look up from their smart phones for a moment, squint into the sun streaming through the classroom windows, and realize, Crap! In two weeks I'm gonna get a grade in this class!  Then they converge en masse to demand I accept two month old homework assignments, administer make up quizzes in my office (strictly at their convenience), and understand once and for all that I am all that is standing between them and a first class ticket to the pharmacology (or MBA) program of their (parents') choice.

It's the storm before the calm, you might say.

Every day I pass similarly beleaguered instructors in the hall, and we mouth to one another, It's almost over. Yet the two weeks (or is it just ten days?) before finals week stretches endlessly before us, filled as it is with tedious end-of-academic year meetings and protocols and six inch stacks of papers to be marked, the grinding monotony punctuated only by the pleas of frenzied or despairing students whose brilliant future careers we have dedicated our own to ruining.

Today a student worked himself (and me) into near hysteria because he had checked his scores (conveniently posted online throughout the quarter just to avoid such last minute "surprises") and was shocked, shocked to find he was averaging 77% on all his classwork.

"Don't fret," I assured him. "Remember, I will drop your lowest quiz and your lowest writing assignment before I calculate your final grades. I expect you'll wind up with a B- in the class."

A B-? He almost erupted into tears. Didn't I see that was not nearly good enough? He had to have a 4.0 in all his classes.

Don't be ridiculous, I responded. Where was he planning to apply, Harvard?

Well, as a matter of fact...

Listen, I argued. I myself was an entirely mediocre student as an undergrad. Despite my underwhelming 3.3 GPA, I had managed to get into not one, but two, very well-regarded graduate programs. He was clearly unimpressed with my experience, and who could blame him? I mean, look where I had ended up.

At this point, I felt compelled to remind the student that not only had he failed to participate in class (being, like many of his back-row peers, hopelessly addicted to his smart phone), he hadn't done a lick of homework outside class either, which, although it counted little toward his grade, helped explain his consistently poor performance on the quizzes.

"Yeah, and now I guess I'll have to do the homework," the student conceded resentfully. "I'll need every point I can get."

Guess again, buddy. "I'm not taking late homework the last two weeks of class," I said firmly. Fifteen years of teaching community college had taught me to draw the line somewhere.

I did agree to let him revise one of his assignments and re-take one of the quizzes, mentally calculating the benefits of feeling magnanimous against the cost of the extra time it would take.

You're an engineering major, I said: They only care about your grades in math. I wasn't entirely sure that was true, but I did know a large number of engineers and high-tech professionals who couldn't (and still can't) write their way out of a paper bag.  If society required STEM majors to excel at English composition, advances in technology would grind to a stand-still.  Then where would we be?

Without smart phones, for sure.

Howdy Neighbor!

I don't know why it surprises me, but somehow it does: Seattle has its own burgeoning Men's Rights Movement chapter! Apparently this blogger has taken a leaf from the activism book of A Voice For Men by plastering Capitol Hill (a hip downtown area favored by the young and gender variant) with crappy photocopied posters. Several posters were promptly torn down by a lurking feminist, prompting our hero to solicit suggestions for better glue. All in all, it was a glorious and well-documented adventure as the intrepid lads braved the "lion's den" of tattoo/piercing studios, sex toy boutiques, gay bars and music clubs.

I can't help but suspect this MRA must feel as lonesome and alienated from his surroundings as Matt Forney did when he spent a couple of months in Portland last year.  

I don't know why it surprises me, really.  After all, I only live a few miles from Bill Price of The Spearhead.  

Emma Howland-Bolton Slandered

Courtesy of mancheez, I learn of a young teacher named Emma Howland-Bolton who has been targeted for harassment and slander by Paul Elam and his goon squad at A Voice for Men.  Her "crime?" Encouraging others to protest the "First Annual Conference on Men's Issues" at the Doubletree Inn in Emma's home city of Detroit. 

I don't know Emma personally, but from what I can glean she is an elementary school teacher who is locally recognized for passion and excellence in the classroom, and who has hitherto spoken out against the closing of public libraries in her area.  She apparently does not want to see her city host a hate group featuring such "Red Pill" luminaries as Stefan Molyneux, and has lightly mocked them on Facebook.  Yes, folks, that's all it takes: make a few innocuous remarks criticizing the notoriously misogynistic "Men's Rights Movement" on Facebook and you too can expect a campaign immediately mounted to smear your name online and harass your employer with phone calls from anonymous loonies.  Note that Men's Rights Activists can only plant their slimy posts on the first page of Google results if their victim's "presence" online is limited (which is to say, she is an ordinary, private citizen).

New Speakers

For some reason, I have been living without decent computer speakers. I have good headphones for my IPod, but I only use them when I'm out in public and don't mind appearing anti-social.  It seems silly to put them on when I'm in my own house, not to mention I dislike being tethered to my computer.

I've just been listening to the most godawful tinny quality of sound for years without realizing how much I was missing.  The other day my girlfriend insisted I buy a pair of nice little Bose speakers.  I plugged them in and it was like listening to all my favorite artists for the first time.

I've been on a binge re-familiarizing myself with my own ITunes Library, especially the songs of Gillian Welch.  

The Mask You Live In

Has anyone seen "The Mask You Live In?"  It's not available on Netflix yet, but I'm definitely looking forward to watching it when I get the chance.  (Christina Hoff Sommers didn't like it much, BTW; here's a link to her Time review although without even seeing the documentary, it's pretty clear she deliberately missed its point.)  It's made by the same directors as Miss Representation (which I highly recommend if you haven't already seen it).  Speaking of Ms. Sommers, I also recommend mancheeze's post on her relationship with AVfM.

A Few Words About Homophobia

Retweeted by Matt Forney

Sploosh @JeremySploosh  ·  22h

IF WE HATED WOMEN WE WOULD ALL BE FUCKING FAGGOTS.

Dude, chill out!

Mr. Sploosh has no clue how much he reveals about himself in this excited little tweet.  People who are confident about their own sexuality do not scream about it in public (or share explicit details of their marital hijinks in their blogs). Most of the straight guys I'm friends with are downright circumspect about their own sex lives, and appear to be fairly indifferent to the sex lives of others (I concede they may just be putting a lid on it when I'm around).*

As followers of the "manosphere" are well aware, misogyny goes hand in hand with bigotry of every stripe, including homophobia.  The New Misogynists loathe any behavior that violates traditional (heteronormative) gender roles.  Their reaction goes well beyond "disapproval" or mild distaste.  Gender variance in any form seems to incite their hatred.  Furthermore, they return to this subject again and again, the leit-motif that runs throughout the 'sphere. Why are they obsessed with tez gayz?

There have been several studies that suggest that men who are "homophobic" are more likely to be sexually aroused by gay porn. I'm not surprised. All my life, whenever I have run across a man who was vociferously homophobic or transphobic, I always suspected he was compensating for a sense of inadequacy, or telegraphing ambivalence regarding his own sexual orientation.  And it's always been a huge turn off, on a visceral level, because those men usually revealed themselves to be complete ass-holes with women as well. 

*Although I wish I had a nickel for every woman I know married to a cross-dresser who feels compelled to assure me, "I'm not a lesbian!"

A Blonde Moment

I thought I'd seen it all when the manosphereans started spinning Elliot Rodger as a feminist.

Now Steve Sailer at VDare wants to persuade us that Elliot Rodger's intention to murder sorority girls was really a "race crime" against white folks, specifically against blonde white folks.

"UCSB is less than 40% white among undergrads, but that still makes it The Blond School by UC standards. For example, UC Irvine down in the Beach Boys’ Orange County is only 17.5% white. So, targeting for slaughter this sorority is an extremely intentional racial hate crime. But how much do you think we’re going to hear about that? As Sapir and Whorf might have said, if a term doesn't exist in our vocabulary, it’s hard to think about the concept."

Or, as Sapir and Whorf "might have said," Just because you invent "a concept" doesn't mean it has any bearing in objective reality, you moron.  (And also, fuck you for using that Beach Boys song, which up until now has only conjured in my head cheerful images of sun, surfing, sand, and bikinis.) 

I have to admit, while I don't necessarily believe "Blondes have more fun," neither have I worried about being targeted for violence because of my hair color.  And when it comes to Being Blonde in America, I speak with the authority of experience.  I am a natural blue eyed blonde, have been all my life, and my partner is a natural blue eyed blonde as well. (Well, at least we were until age stripped the melanin from our crowning glories, along with the last vestiges of our youthful beauty.)

Now we regret that our paths did not converge earlier in our life journeys, when we were still at our reproductive peaks, so that we could have fulfilled our duties to the Aryan race by creating more blondes, that precious subset of human diversity who are so perilously close to extinction!  (Although to be candid, it's me who's the race traitor; she has, in fact, produced a small army militia of tow-headed grandbabies.)

Apparently, saving the blonde gene demands organized political action, and we know what that means: $$$. Fortunately, it's not too late to make a tax-deductible contribution. Peter Bigelow (and his infant daughter) are in immediate need of $30,000 or else:

"Our advisers insist that the only way websites get donations is to block access to readers completely."

Now, while you're considering how generous you want to be, here's a fun fact: Did you know that all blue eyed people share a common ancestor?  The mutation occurred relatively recently in human history.  Maybe that is why my partner and I have always felt such a strong sense of, uhm, sorority. 

A Brilliant Piece by Caitlin Dewey

Matt Forney tries to smear another female journalist, and not only does hilarity fail to ensue*, only his fan boys are apt to notice.

I am heartened to see mainstream media is picking up on the story of how online misogyny not only reflects, but also generates, the toxic undercurrents of misogyny that persist in our culture.

Caitlin Dewey of The Washington Post has written an excellent report "inside the manosphere," with particular attention to some of its most odious and notorious players.  Their response has been to resurrect their favorite form of retaliation, a Google-able character assassination in which Forney has the gall to accuse Dewey of "libel" because she identifies Forney as a "professional Internet troll" and compares Roosh and Forney to Fred Phelps. (Actually, the WBC arguably had more integrity than the New Misogynists since they were at least willing to challenge their opponents face-to-face.  Forney or Roosh, on the other hand, would probably wet their pants if they ran into me in a hotel lobby.)

"This is despite the fact that neither Roosh nor I engage in illegal activity, encourage others to break the law, or write about anything other than masculine self-improvement."

Actually, I am pretty sure that soliciting speed on twitter or teaching men how to get away with rape might fall into the category of "illegal activity."  Oops, am I being libelous?  See you in court, baby! 

Anyway, trying to destroy a woman's reputation online only "works" if the woman you are attacking has no online presence or professional reputation to speak of... and even then, it doesn't really work, does it?  (After all, I'm still here, and the only thing it succeeded in doing was to triple my readership and (gasp!) increase my self-esteem.)

Meanwhile, I'm feeling in very good company...  Thanks, Caitlin! 

* Forney just loves this tagline, which he shamelessly stole from Tucker Max -- whom he then rags on about for being a "plagiarist."  

Students Weigh In On Elliot Rodger

I teach remedial English to students in a community college who are not native speakers.  They are mostly international students from Asia or Saudi Arabia, with a scattering of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Ethiopia/Eritrea, or Mexico.

Today, when I overheard some of the "residents" chatting about the Elliot Rodger's case before class began, I was inspired to throw out my lesson plan du jour and focus on the sad story that has been so much in the news.  I am always looking for those "teaching moments," always cognizant that people remember best that which is emotionally arousing, and... I was honestly interested in their opinions. 

Had they watched Elliot Rodger's "retribution" video?  A Russian woman confessed she had not, but her mother in Ukraine had e-mailed her about the story.  She squirmed uncomfortably at the prospect of watching the video.  (She is a young widow with an adolescent son.)

Ad hoc, I hastily scrawled three questions for students to discuss in groups after they'd watched the video:

1.  Why was Elliot Rodger angry?

2.  Was Elliot Rodger "sane" or "insane" (according to the legal definition of being responsible for his own actions)?

3.  What could have prevented this tragedy?

Then, courtesy of Youtube, I played the video.  The students watched with apparent interest.  Rodger spoke slowly and dramatically, so he wasn't hard to understand, although I quickly realized that "slaughter" and "slay" were probably not within my students' lexicon and had to stop the video to define these verbs.

When Rodger spoke about how his virginity at age 22 was "a crime," many of my Chinese male students began to giggle uncontrollably.  The notion that their own (probable) virginities constituted "crimes" that merited punishment of the female sex was thoroughly risible to them.  What was Rodger's problem?  He was good-looking, he was rich, his dad worked in Hollywood...  In short, his complaints were ludicrous.  Elliot Roger was living exactly the "student lifestyle" they could only dream of. 

The middle eastern students put the blame on Rodger's family.  Clearly, his parents had not exerted sufficient control over, or provided adequate nurturing of, this wayward son.  They also speculated that Rodger had been exploited by girls who were only after his money.  One Saudi student astutely pointed out that it wasn't "sex" Rodger yearned for; it was love. 

The North African refugees viewed the issue mostly in terms of gun control.  Why had Rodger been permitted to own a gun?  Would their own children ever be safe in a country that allowed anyone to obtain firearms?  

Some of the students thought Rodger was both "crazy" and "sane."  In other words, while only a mentally disturbed person would do what he had done, he should have been held accountable for his actions in a court of law (had he lived).  I let this slide because I myself cannot reconcile the inherent contradiction between the "intuitive" and "legal" definitions of "sanity." 

The student from Cameroon was very skeptical that Rodger had killed himself; he was certain that the police must have shot him on the spot.

Only one lone Korean girl ventured that Rodger had been motivated by a sense of masculine entitlement.  She didn't use that exact language, but her message was clear:  "He kill because he think all girl must love him."

Doubletree, MRAs, and Bedbugs

I have such a small readership (I like to think of it as very select of course) that when I get even a modest uptick in hits, I'm curious.  I noticed a couple of days ago that I was getting referrals from a blog called "Just4Guys," which I had until now never read (although I have to say, How cute is that name, "Just4Guys"?)  Of course I popped over for a look-see.

The referral was from a comment regarding the Elliot Rodger story; someone had posted a link to my own initial response two days ago.  Nothing scary or dramatic in the comment, just one of several "feminist" links that had brought a couple dozen viewers my way.

Today I note that Obsidian, the webmaster of "Just4Guys," was pretty unhappy about a change.org petition that has been started to protest A Voice For Men's plan to hold its First International Conference at the downtown Detroit Doubletree Inn in June.  

How did this event escape my notice?  I briefly considered registering on the spot. This would be, after all, a rare chance to get up close and personal with the MRM Grand Pooh-bah (and MC of My Nightmares) Paul Elam himself.  Imagine the thrill of accidentally-on-purpose brushing bellies with Dean Esmay in the bar after a stirring workshop on grass-roots activism.  Would Karen be there? Cuz I'd love to buy Girl Writes What a drink!  What about John the Otter -- what would he look like after a couple of dry martinis, or three?  And don't these sorts of affairs always hold a Disco Night?  What fun that would be, boogying down into the wee hours with Atilla Vinczer and the young studs of CAFE!

I can't say that a weekend in Detroit is on my bucket list, but the price of admission certainly accommodates my modest budget.

The event is only a month away. Here's a link to the petition, which has of this moment gotten over 1000 signatures.  Here's the link to Doubletree / Hilton's contact page.

My partner and I often stay at Doubletree Inn when we're traveling because they're convenient and offer nice weekend packages.  I don't think I'd feel the same about Doubletree after it had hosted AVfM though, despite the paper band across the toilet seats reassuring me "has been sanitized for your protection."

Forney Hits the Big Time

There's a certain irony that Taki's Magazine has elected Matt Forney to write a piece castigating liberal media reactions to the Santa Barbara shooting.  After all, this is a guy who feeds, literally and figuratively, on the outrage of normal decent people "liberals" and "feminists" by writing the same kind of vile, misogynistic and racist screeds that apparently helped warp Elliot Rodger's worldview. 

Forney predictably attempts to distance himself (and his manospherean cronies) from the site Rodger's is reported to have commented on:  It isn't us, it's them!  He even manages to insinuate that anti-misogynist sites such as David Futrelle's We Hunted the Mammoth and the Southern Poverty Law Center were somehow culpable for failing to warn the public of the real danger of PUAHate.  

I mean, just look how spiteful and scurrilous the PUAHate boys were, trying to dox and intimidate Matt's pals (never mind that is precisely what Matt has been doing for the past few months).

Of course, PUAHate may have been at odds with pickup artists, but they were very much part of the "manosphere" at large, that loose confederation of malcontents that are united in their shared hatred of women and minorities.  The distinctions between these factions and these individuals are virtually insignificant to anyone outside their 'sphere.  Whatever their purported aims, whether a return to patriarchy, or a pussy in every pot, the blame for the disappointing ways of the world is always to be placed squarely at one source: the autonomy of women. And they are willing to employ the most violent language and imagery to achieve dominance over those uppity western females (who really haven't understood their rightful place since either 1920 or 1420, depending on who's fantasizing talking).

How dare the SPLC name Matt Forney and his friend Roosh's blogs as "hate groups."  Didn't they see that PUAHate was just as bad?  (Waah, waah, it's so unfair!)

"Could it be that feminists ignored PUA Hate out of a fatuous “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” logic? If so, their negligence just cost at least six people their lives."

Not bloody likely.  Even for a paranoid manipulator of facts like Forney, this is a bit of a stretch.  If PUAHate was overlooked before the shootings, it is because it was a relatively unknown site that did little to grub for attention from the mainstream, unlike Forney himself -- an indefatigable and shameless self-promoter who basically lives and breathes on twitter, re-tweeting his admirers and his critics with equal relish -- or other, more organized or widely read hate sites like A Voice for Men, Vox Day, Heartiste, etc. ad nauseum.  PUAHate was just one of literally hundreds of misogynistic blogs, with the sole distinction that it hated the "game gurus" who had failed to deliver them the promised sex-on-demand they'd paid good cash money for, almost as much as it did the women whose favors they furiously insisted they were entitled to. 

Show me a comment left by Rodger on PUAHate that suggests he was ready to commit mass murder, and I can show you scores more on Return of Kings or The Spearhead that are even more ominous.  

All of these sites are the same, and they're all horrible.

Even a dedicated follower of the manosphere like Futrelle cannot possibly monitor them all.  (And it's hardly necessary to do so, since they are all croaking in unison in the same fetid bog.)

Roosh Helps Me Keep Up

Typically, I rely on the manosphere's tweets to keep me abreast of what feminists are saying.  Seriously, they do a phenomenal job of keeping track of the feminists, not only the big up-and-coming voices, but also the most obscure.  Back before they doxed me, I don't think I'd ever had more than twenty readers at a time -- but one of them was Mattie, who apparently read everything.

Suffice to say, they take their enemies opponents verrry seriously, which is a measure of both their thirst for recognition and their paradoxical fear of being exposed.  They're always "collecting names" and compiling dossiers in the form of accusatory tweets.  But the upside of their paranoia is that they are always a good place to start whenever you want to know who's-new-in-the-zoo of young female media presences.

I'd never even heard of Elizabeth Plank, for example, until Roosh twittered, "I would not have shed a single tear had misandrist & anti-white racist @feministabulous been one of Rodger's victims." 

It's hard for me to imagine even lachrymose Roosh shedding a genuine tear for anyone except Roosh (in which case, I expect he can shed a bucket).  But my imagination was piqued -- who was this radical feminist that had Roosh's blood up? -- so I moseyed over and took a look.

Nothing very inflammatory about her post, unless you think it is "misandry" or "racism" to point out -- and support statistically -- that mass murderers are overwhelmingly white males with huge reservoirs of entitlement.  (In other words, the very same demographic group that composes the "manosphere.")  And that we, as a society, need to start addressing misogyny as a systemic disorder.

Manosphere Back Pedals Furiously

This evening, in response to the Santa Barbara shootings, the sages of the manosphere are offering up their little turds of "wisdom" and "insight":

A♠ ‏@whiskeyandashes 30m

It would appear that men aren't entitled to sex; women aren't entitled to safety. One might be led to believe that fact brought us together.

No one, regardless of gender, is "entitled" to sex however much we may desire it; yet all people have the right to safety.  Now go back to nursing your whisky and mourning your childless, uncoupled state, sir...
 
If one positive thing comes of the unfolding tragedy in Santa Barbara, it may be that the manosphere is subjected to more public scrutiny and widespread social condemnation.  In the wake of the news that UCSB student Elliot Roger participated in the forum puahate, other New Misogynists have scurried to deflect negative attention onto that site.  One blogger has even pondered if puahate and manboobz are somehow in cahoots with one another to bring the manosphere down.  Or with the Southern Poverty Law Center. As if. 

He talks of keeping the "haters" out, as if their network of angry blogs were some sort of gated community.  In fact, while the accessibility and anonymity of the internet has allowed the "manosphere" to blossom, it also works against it, by effectively rendering the "movement" it claims to represent transparent and its "leaders" accountable for the ideas they promulgate. 

From my point of view, there is little difference between puahate and any number of other misogynistic watering holes.  All of these sites are social cesspools that are brewing the same poison, whether it is Roosh ("Women are lubricated holes for my pleasure") and Return of Kings, Paul Elam ("I want to fuck their shit up" or "Bash A Bitch Week"), Bill Price or Vox Day ("Rape is our marital right"), or Matt Forney, who famously wrote that women needed to be beaten because "it's the only way to make them behave better than chimps," and who posted a piece about how men could get away with rape by murdering their victims and dismembering their bodies (oops, that was "satire," wasn't it?).

The manosphere is an aggregator of isolated, angry, socially maladjusted and mentally disturbed men -- and the (handful of) women who love them.  It creates an echo chamber that allows these men to delude themselves into blaming women and minorities for their own inability to adapt to a changing world of greater diversity, social inclusion and economic competition.  It breeds real, physical violence by promoting violent language and violent fantasies of retribution. Their impotent dreams of achieving dominance will inevitably end in the deaths of others; the blood will be on their hands.  And the world will keep turning.

Rejected Incel Finally Has His Way

It seems like a parody: A good looking, articulate UCSB student sitting in his glossy black BMW, announcing plans to "slaughter" the popular blondes who have rejected him because they preferred to bestow their favors on the alpha "bad boy" losers instead of "a perfect guy... a supreme gentleman" like himself.  Except, unfortunately, it is real. Anyone who follows almost any part of the manosphere (he was allegedly an active participant on sites such as bodybuilding.com and puahate.com) will recognize the cold rage and the overweening sense of entitlement Elliot Rodgers displays as he justifies the murders he is about to commit. Yes, he will be "a god" and they will die "like animals" through this act of "restorative retribution." Too bad he didn't think of starting his own blog instead of buying a gun.  It would probably have been a big hit and then he could have had all the groupies he wanted.

Facebook Justice?

Facebook has banned Matt Forney's fan page and is preventing posting to his personal account.  It wasn't my doing, BTW.  They must have gotten tired of dealing with the avalanche of complaints from young women still outraged about his "self-esteem" post months ago. 

And he's promising to leave the country (at least temporarily).  Fortunately for those students with more money than brains, the Internet will allow him to plagiarize essays from anywhere in the world.

Bon voyage, Matty!  

Have Trolls Overtaken Return of Kings?

One of my favorite past times has become to identify the trolls on Return of Kings.  The website is riddled with them, and the more blatant they are, the more fervent are the responses they elicit from the ROK's moronic simple-minded fan base.  Return of Kings is basically the equivalent of the World Wrestling Federation.  It doesn't matter if this stuff is real or not; it only has to deliver a predictable form of entertainment.

In his (?) post, "The Moment I Saw Women For What They Really Are," "Fry Koskenin" retreads the ground so familiar to Roosh and the other New Misogynists: the utter perfidy of the female sex.  In this particular story, our hero experiences his epiphany about the truly vile nature of women when a "fiery fit" former girlfriend coerces him into having (anal!) sex with her despite his suffering from a slipped disk: "My back, buttocks, and pelvis felt like they were filled with loose razor blades during every tentative thrust."* 

To top it off, this succubus proceeds to deride his unsatisfactory performance before storming off into the dark night:  "And then it occurred to me that I had brought a stealth predator into my sanctuary, and when I was most vulnerable to boot. She was not my ally and not my friend, and certainly not when my needs diverged from her most frivolous whims." 

Hey, when did the desire for sex become a "frivolous whim?" According to the "game" artists' version of evo-psych, we are all driven by the relentless messages emanating from our loins (because reproduction).

Fortunately, there were positive lessons to be learned:  "Now I laugh about all of this unnecessary strife, and take a certain sick joy in knowing that it’s unwise to ever fully relax in a woman’s presence.. It has liberated me from so many burdensome concerns, and for that I am grateful. You just can never fully trust what women are thinking or might do... And a bit of unease is always prudent when you know that a vampire is watching you sleep."

I would bet a significant amount of money (in my case, say, $100) that not only is "Fry Koskenin" not "a regular guy," but is not a guy at all, despite claims to be "a 41-year-old nuclear-engineer-turned-writer ... fond of intelligence, achievement, danger, and beauty, and not much else... [who] loves his motorcycle and despises communists."  The only part of Fry's post that is probably true is that he/she does have "an exemplary education."

This is not Matt Forney-level trolling.  This is far too carefully crafted.  And this particular troll has even gone to the trouble of creating a fake website. 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Is it possible that she was just trying to play Marilyn Monroe to his Jack Kennedy?  MM was said to have mischievously remarked, "I think I made his back feel better" after one of their trysts in the early sixties.

Academic (Dis)honesty

Although we're only halfway through the quarter, one of my students has already failed another class because she plagiarized an essay, apparently in a very blatant and deliberate way.  She sat in my class last week, tears rolling down her face.  I felt sorry for her.  I was also disappointed.  I address plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty in every class, warning students of the consequences if they are caught.

I tell them the story of the late Edward Kennedy, who was suspended from Harvard for convincing a classmate to take his Spanish exam for him.  Of course, his father quickly bought his way back in, but for the rest of his life, despite a long and distinguished senatorial career, this incident remained a blemish on his character. In fact, in retrospect, it seems to have foreshadowed a personal and public life that was plagued with ethical lapses.

If my non-native speaking students are particularly vulnerable to accusations of plagiarism, it's not because they are more "dishonest"; it's because they don't have enough control over English to "dumb down" the language of their plagiarized sources so that they can be plausibly passed off as their own efforts.  And when they "google" their material, they somehow fail to consider that instructors can also "google" it.  Which is how the hapless student (above) was busted.

Part of the problem, from my angle, is that too many assignments practically "invite" students to plagiarize: the topics are too general, too over worked, and do not require students to do any more than synthesize other writers' ideas.  The failure of instructors' imaginations in designing writing assignments is a big part of the problem.

But here's an example of academic dishonesty that troubles me even more:  There is a tenured writing instructor who habitually teaches 20 credits a quarter.  That's a stunning load in terms of marking.  How does he manage it?

Easy!  He farms out his students' papers to an outfit that, for a modest fee, reads and grades the papers for him.  It's common knowledge that he does this.  Perhaps his dean does not consider his behavior unethical.  (His students complain it takes a long time to get their work back from him, but no wonder; he probably sends the stuff in batches to India.)

I find it infuriating.  I also wonder if I'm a bit of a chump.  What is keeping me from recruiting my own cadre of "assistants?"  Marking grammatical errors isn't difficult, nor does it require any qualifications beyond a command of English sentence structure; it's just tedious.  Being relieved of reading and marking student papers would free me up to focus on the parts of teaching I do enjoy (e.g., story telling, pontificating), allow me to moonlight, and probably double my income.  Furthermore, there are some (bored housewives looking to supplement the income from their monetized blogs, unemployed English majors) who might view this kind of piecework as "an incredible job opportunity."

The Way Girls Compete

First off, is there anything more mind-numbingly boring than listening to women excoriate themselves for their "sinful" and "addictive" behavior around food?

Second, I can't count the number of times I have been "the fat girl" in the group listening to the (relatively) "thin" girls compete for who has the most disordered eating.  I used to believe that these women were merely being insensitive when they nattered on about their shameful food-related confessions.  As I get older, I recognize that this is, in fact, how "mean girls" (of any age) put each other down. 

Twenty years ago, the massage school where I had been newly hired to teach sponsored a buffet brunch at one of Seattle's nicer seafood restaurants.  I loaded up my plate with a little of everything that looked good (and trust me, it all looked good).  I happily plopped myself down at a table with two other young women, both of whom had been my instructors, and for whom I still felt a certain measure of awe. I was thrilled to be acknowledged as their peer.

Neither gave me more than a cursory acknowledgment.  In fact, one immediately turned to the other and said, "Do you want to split a muffin with me?"

I looked down at my plate, heaped with crab, smoked salmon, cheese, eggs. A giant muffin, too large to perch on the plate, sat conspicuously off to the side with a pat of butter.  Taking advantage of the school's singular act of largesse, I hadn't thought I should offer to "share" my booty with anyone.  Not that the two ladies were inviting me to. 

"This food is positively sinful," one of the instructors declared, picking at her salad. 

"I know," the other commiserated.  "It's terrible."

Terrible?  It was delicious!  Plus it was free!  What's not to like here?

It suddenly occurred to me that I probably weighed about as much as the two of them together.  And suddenly I had lost my appetite.

The two instructors clucked on in this vein for the next thirty minutes, studiously avoiding eye contact with me.  I hadn't been snubbed like that since I had tried to crash the popular kids' lunch table in high school.  I tentatively tried to enter the conversation a couple of times, but they weren't having it. It slowly dawned on me that they weren't "overlooking" me; they were engaged in a subtle conspiracy to humiliate me.  Why?  Simply because they could.

Not surprising I lasted only two quarters as a massage school instructor, which was a shame in a way, because I was probably the most knowledgeable (certainly the most academically qualified) teacher there, and was well-liked enough by some students that I was invited to speak at their graduation ceremony. 

Now I'm a mouthy old broad who would call these ladies on their shit (in the nicest possible way, of course).

I'm so sick of women who use food and weight as an opportunity to put other women down.

Maybe if enough women see this Amy Schumer sketch, they will learn not to act like this.  Can women ever stop using food intake and weight as an arena in which to compete with one another?

Students Say The Funniest Things

When I'm not tearing my hair out, my students' papers sometimes make me laugh.  Last week I showed my class the "Blackfish" documentary, which examines the case of Tillikum, a captive orca known to have killed three people so far.  I also gave my students a couple of articles to read, and then asked them to "take a stand" on the question of whether orcas should be held in captivity.

One student, perhaps conflating "Blackfish" with "Moby Dick," concluded, "If we don't start taking whales seriously, they will kill us."  

This film marked Bo Derek's debut, BTW, but what the heck were Richard Harris and Charlotte Rampling doing in this ludicrous farce (besides looking fabulous)?

Another student, carried away by SeaWorld's PR, declared, "Orcas should be kept in captivity, where they are served restaurant-quality meals and much mental stimulation."  Come to think of it, why can't I live at SeaWorld?

And yet another student, also a hardcore SeaWorld fan, mused tenderly that "People and orcas need to be together... because of love."

It Would Be So Nice If You Weren't Here

A close friend, soon to turn 65, reported a kerfuffle he'd had with a neighbor.  The neighbor, a 30-something employee of a local high tech firm, had removed the stakes that marked the lines between their properties.  My friend complained; and furthermore, he complained that the young neighbor had been throwing his yard waste onto my friend's property.

During the course of their heated exchange, the younger neighbor told my friend, "Go home, old man!"

My friend was deeply wounded by this remark.  It was the first time that he had been called "an old man."  

I told him that the answer was to have a survey done, the legal property line re-established, and then to have a privacy fence constructed post-haste to prevent any further conflicts with this ass-hat neighbor.

The next day my friend reported that he'd heeded my advice, but that the local surveyor was already at work establishing the legal property line -- at the young neighbor's bequest.  "Fine!"  I said.  "You're already ahead of the game!  Let him pay to have the property line established!  Then all you need to do is erect a fence along that boundary."

"Good fences make good neighbors," at least according to Robert Frost.  So it would seem that the "problem" was soon to be solved.

I will say that the young neighbor was not only mean, but shockingly short-sighted.  I have always strived (despite provocation) to maintain a cordial relationship with my neighbors, if for no other reason than that we never know when we will need their help.  But he is young, after all, and probably has never lived anywhere for longer than a year or two.  What does he know of the reality of communities?

So today, I was entering the building where I work.  I had to walk around a couple of young people (late teens / early twenties) loitering on the steps, listening to music.  As I passed, I heard the young woman say, "What's with all the old people around here?"  I looked around: there was no one else in sight.  "Are you talking about me?"  I asked.  The girl hung her head in embarrassment and said nothing.  Perhaps she had assumed that I -- at the advanced age of 58 -- was so deaf with age that I wouldn't hear her.  

"I hear you," I sympathized.  "We're everywhere, aren't we?  And more of us, everyday!"  I laughed, and went on.  

But I was roiling with age and boiling with rage by the time I got to my class.  I know this because I immediately told the story to my students ("leaking" my anger, once again).  They responded with little outrage on my behalf, but some sympathy.  Their pity made me angrier yet.

But note to self:  This resentment is bound to grow as Baby Boomers -- arguably the most entitled generation ever -- consume ever more resources, and insist on being kept in the style to which they are accustomed at the expense of the Millennials.

"We need to look look into retiring in Ecuador," I told my friend.

You think I'm kidding?

Self Evident Truths

An Incredible Job Opportunity!

UPDATE:  I had to edit this, since it turned out I'd inflated my normal annual income quite a bit (I had a "temporary" raise this year.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Matt Forney is now in the enviable position of supporting himself entirely through his own writing.  If you too are an aspiring writer, contact Matt immediately.  He'll show you how to throw off the shackles of working for the man nine to five.  If you've got a sample, go to the head of the line! 

300 words will net you up to $10.  That doesn't sound bad at all.  I write at least 300 words per day on my blog, just for fun!

Hmm, let me do the math here...  It will take a few minutes cuz remember, I'm a teacher...  OK, got it!  I currently support myself on $35,000 a year (sad, true, and easily verifiable since I am an employee of the state). To maintain this modest income, I would need to write nearly 3000 words per day -- three or four standard length college essays -- every day of the year, with little time off for holidays, church, or good behavior. 

And, yes, that does put my endless whinging about marking student essays in an entirely different perspective!  In other words, I'm pretty sure my head would explode after about one week.  I'm no Stephen King, that's for sure.  And although it's said that Hemingway dashed off three short stories in one particularly inspired morning + afternoon, he wasn't that productive every damn day.  (He had to squeeze in all that shooting, drinking, and womanizing after all.)

What kind of writing is Matt Forney doing, one wonders.  Could it be this or this? I'm dying to know, but if I send him an e-mail query, he's bound to claim I'm "stalking" him again, and thwarting an enterprising young chap like himself from making an honest living.