Web Log for 12.2.24

Links, a meme, a rant...

Actors 

Weirdness happens to people who make a career of pretending to be other people...

https://pjmedia.com/graysonbakich/2024/11/29/trans-actor-wants-to-play-roles-for-actual-women-n4934721

Y'know what, I'm with the actor on this one. It's acting. There are classic plays where leading roles are traditionally played by actors of the opposite sex from the characters. Why not open auditions to any actor who wants the job enough to memorize the lines. Most of the auditions actors go through are total wastes of time, ways to keep themselves sober and busy when they're not employed as actors. I'd expect that 99% of auditions for cross-gender roles would be total wastes of time. If, however, a woman brings a certain panache to a character formerly played by John Wayne, while a man plays a character formerly played by Maureen O'Hara with flair, why not build a whole new movie around them? It would probably be funny. It would remind people that actors in movies are acting, doing a job, NOT being their real selves, though spending quality time imitating good behavior may be good for actors' real characters.

Animals 

Little late autumn moths from England:

http://eastsussexwanderer.blogspot.com/2024/12/some-moths-during-november.html

We have similar ones, not identical. Very pretty, subtle colors if we look at them; not showy or gaudy enough that most of us ever do.

Election 2024, Can We Please Move Beyond, or Not Until I've Said This I Can't

After reading Sherry Marr's witty anti-Trump poem at 

https://stardreamingwithsherrybluesky.blogspot.com/2024/12/a-legend-in-his-own-mind.html ,

this unconscionably long comment...

"

"The best books"? You struck a political nerve. Books for the ages, from Aquinas and Luther to Louisa May Alcott and Laura Ingalls Wilder, are being censored while people are screaming about the lack of interest the public show in shiny new books about how your four-year-old can grow up just like brand-killer Dylan Mulvaney.

The Left lost this election by failing to recognize how that sort of thing turns people against them. If they'd actively denounced censorship and rallied around Kennedy, the Ds could have swept this election the way the Rs did. Mainstream Ds have said no word about the censorship of people (like the writer of this comment) who called attention to the dangers of profitable products. They've said no word about the censorship of classic books that are not full of sex and violence, but contain independent thought. They've treated parents' saying that books about rape and incest might not be the ideal way for twelve-year-olds to learn about sex as if the adults wanted to burn the books (I've recommended that all adults read "The Handmaid's Tale" for a long time, but I certainly don't recommend it to children). Then they wonder why all the Ds who have popular appeal, Trump as supposedly self-made businessman, Gabbard as ultimate tough chick, Musk as genius of his generation, and Kennedy the eco-warrior, campaigned as Rs.

Many lifelong Rs detest Trump, even if Harris's idea of campaigning made us hold our noses and vote against her anyway. Criticism of the Second Trump Administration should focus on the other party's failure to STOP, LOOK, AND LISTEN.

PK, who wanted to vote for Ds this year, and did, only their names were marked R

"

...poured out of my fingers. Some consider it rude to post comments that fill a whole screen on other people's blogs, although I do see comments that extend through multiple screens at some of the best blogs, so there's that for an excuse. 

Now that I'm here, I'll add this: We don't have a class system in these United States but there is undeniably a tier of society in which making a lot of money, after starting out from a background of reasonable economic comfort, is considered normal, and a tier in which it's considered exceptional. So when the name "Trump" began to be talked about in Washington, the tone was "Eww ick, that horrible pushy young man from New York who's bought those beautiful historic waterfront properties and ruined the look while inflating the prices of them, and now he's filing for bankruptcy for some of his ventures as if he and his other ventures weren't still rich, and divorcing his wife for a younger homewrecker whose only noticeable talent has been growing a top-heavy figure and is it even 'real'?" Elsewhere, people like our late lamented Adayahi were like "From forty thousand a year to forty million! Wow! He's a self-made businessman like me, only he must be 'smarter' since he's become so much richer. I want to watch him and learn." It wasn't even a lack of "background" that allowed them to think/feel this way. It was a lack of that aristocratic disdain for money that is so admirable when people are religious or philosophical enough to stay detached from money if they don't have a lot of it, and so ridiculous when they've never had to consider anything but wealth for themselves. 

This can't be ignored as a factor in Trump-hating. Personally, I really do think, if somebody else made a million dollars while I've only even been cheated out of a few hundred thousand, I have no problem with the person who made a million. I may or may not admire the person who made a million. I think Trump's  being a Bankruptcy Billionaire is tacky, while e.g. Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s strategy of racing cars as a nice guy who always finishes in tenth or twentieth place, never winning the Cup but quietly pocketing a nice chunk of cash after each race, really is smart. Most people can't copy Jr.'s strategy, because most people did not inherit the ability to drive sensibly at 150 miles an hour, but for Jr. it worked and I salute him. If I'm going to feel angry about the money I earned and don't have, and I'm certainly not going to feel pleased about that, my quarrel is with the person who cheated me. But in the sector of our society where starting out well-to-do and becoming super-rich is seen as normal, a lot of people are gnashing their teeth about the fact that Trump did that by a margin so much wider than they did. A lot of Trump-bashing needs to be read as repeating, endlessly, "Why was I not able to do that?"

But another factor that undeniably raised support for the four Ds in the allegedly R party that swept Election 2024 was physical courage. I forget whether it was Scott Adams or some other "conservative" man who first talked about it in a podcast--Trump, Musk, Kennedy, and Gabbard have all survived death threats from the Loony Left and shaming from the mainstream Left, and none of them looks as if they gave a flip. They're not afraid of Hell. The last time some of us saw that quality in the news, we saw it on Ronald Reagan. I will admit I'm pleased to see it among my generation. (It's not appropriate for parents of young children.) People find it attractive. I'm not saying that the Ds need to start shooting each other to show whether some of them have physical courage too. They could always begin with having the moral courage to stop screaming hate at Trump and think about how they got off track and how they could reconnect with their base. 

Gift Guides

Scalzi's gift guide pages run through the week. Big blog, lots of crafty readers. 

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2024/12/02/the-2024-whatever-holiday-gift-guide-day-one-traditionally-published-books/

Helpism 

Early in this travel blog post, above many nice pictures of tourist attractions, is a short reminder of how much harm we can do by rushing in to "help" people without their specific instructions. Wanting to "help" someone move a suitcase, close a door, or some such little thing, have you ever knocked the person right off per feet? 

When we want to help another person, as distinct from inflating our own egos with the fantasy that we know how to help, we must empty our minds and act only on the other person's instructions. If we feel a selfish craving to offer something other than what the person has told us we can do, we must put that selfish thought out of our minds and act only on the other person's instructions.

Very rarely does anyone want any kind of "help" that will inflate our little egos. On a train, nobody is thinking "Will some stranger please pick up my baggage?" If you approach someone to "help" with some baggage, the instructions you get will probably be "You can help by stepping back out of my way." 

https://themarmeladegypsy.blogspot.com/2024/12/this-england-welcome-to-london.html 

Memes

From "House of Trad":