DISPLAYING THE LEVEL OF PROFESSIONALISM WE’VE COME TO EXPECT FROM THEM: TSA Agents Are Blasting Explicit Rap at JFK Because of the Government Shutdown. Everybody hates the TSA. Trump could probably cinch his re-election by abolishing it.
Archive for 2019
January 16, 2019
SHOCKER: Surprise: Genius behind man-hating Gillette ad is a radical feminist.
Carpentered by Grey Advertising for Proctor and Gamble’s razors company, it does not detail product attributes, encourage brand loyalty, instill warm feelings in buyers, or even show basic respect for consumers. Instead, the grimly lecturing spot declares masculinity itself toxic, a peril to decent society.
“Is this the best a man can get? Is it?” asks the painfully serious narrator, as a wrongdoing slideshow passes by. “We can’t hide from it. It’s been going on far too long. We can’t laugh it off, making the same old excuses.”
“I guess the guy at the ad agency missed the lesson about not taking a dump on the people you want to buy your stuff,” cracked comedian Steven Crowder.
“The guy at the ad agency” is actually philosophically unpleasant feminist Kim Gehrig. Hiring her to court the male market is like expecting to accrue impressive rainbow flag sale numbers with spiels from Farrakhan.
Harsh but fair. Plus:
Gehrig’s new Gillette effort states her bias boldly by intercutting allusions to abusive acts with images of romantic heterosexuality.
A black-and-white cartoon scene that flashes past shows men whistling at a woman. In another scant bit, a guy sees a pretty female pedestrian. He steps after her but is restrained by a companion. “Not cool,” the restrainer admonishes.
Expressions of attraction and related pursuits are natural. They lead to humans reproducing – which is how Gehrig got here, though she might be horrified to learn that.
Adweek pronounced Gehrig’s group libel the “Ad of the Week.” Gehrig’s efforts were also recognized by Best Ads on TV.
Therein lies an issue worth note. Fox News host Greg Gutfeld tweeted: “the only ones lauding the Gillette ad work in media/advertising. everyone else sees it for what it is: a smarmy, condescending virtue signal aimed at the hardworking decent men they have been price-gouging for years.”
At this writing, Gillette’s YouTube posting of “We Believe” has received 40,000 “thumbs down” votes and only 4,300 positive ratings.
As I said yesterday, this is another example of how the people running American institutions now tend to perform for an audience of their peers rather than focus on doing their jobs.
WELL, THAT WOULD BE A CHANGE: Jared Kushner making customer service Job 1 in government. “Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner has helped bring home a lot of his father-in-law’s agenda wins, from rewriting the Clinton-era North American Free Trade Agreement to bipartisan criminal justice reform. But far from those headline-grabbing efforts is Kushner’s real focus: introducing customer service to the federal government.”
BEEN VACCINATED FOR SMALLPOX? North Korea’s Less-Known Military Threat: Biological Weapons.
INTERESTING: Republican Women Have Grown Much More Hostile To #MeToo. “They have gone from barely worrying about false accusations of sexual assault, with only 8% agreeing in November 2017 that these were worse than unreported assaults, to 42% saying so, according to two polls conducted for The Economist by YouGov, a pollster. They are now the most likely group to agree that a man who harassed a woman 20 years ago should keep his job, and that a woman who complains about harassment causes more problems than she solves.”
A LOOK AT THE 2020 Toyota Supra.
THIS DOESN’T SURPRISE ME AT ALL: On GMO safety, the fiercest opponents understand the least. And those who know the least are often very confident they know a lot.
DON’T FEED THEM AFTER MIDNIGHT: Scientists Have Discovered A Completely New Method Of ‘Feeding’ Supermassive Black Holes.
FASTER, PLEASE: Stem Cell Transplant May Help Some Aggressive MS.
SPENGLER: Jordan Peterson, the Sacred and the Therapeutic. “A full 80% of Americans think that political correctness is a problem in their country, according to polling data, and a reaction against the excesses of the new Savanarolas has been gathering for some time. But why choose Dr. Peterson as the poster-boy for this reaction? I believe that his enormous and sudden popularity stems from his use of the language of therapy to attack the symptoms of a therapeutic society.”
IT’S NOT JUST C. DIFF: Fecal transplant effective against ulcerative colitis, study says.
BENJAMIN RUNKLE: ‘What a Magnificent Body of Men Never to Take Another Drink’: The U.S. Army and Prohibition.
On July 19, 1919, General John J. Pershing led the American contingent in London’s parade to celebrate the Allied victory in World War I. Behind him rode an officer bearing a large, silk, four-starred flag, followed by his chief of staff, his British liaison, and his three aides, the newest of which was Colonel George C. Marshall. Then, eight abreast at ten-yard intervals, rode thirty American generals, followed by the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) band, “Pershing’s Own,” leading the “Composite Regiment”, a select group of Regular Army officers and men – all six-feet or taller – chosen from the best U.S. troops in Europe. With at least ninety American and regimental flags in their ranks, the blaze of color was breathtaking as they marched across Westminster Bridge, through the Admiralty Arch, and up the Mall past the king and queen waiting at Queen Victoria’s Memorial. They conveyed a strong impression with their precision and sheer physical power, and Pershing called them “the finest body of troops I have ever seen in my life.” Britain’s Secretary of State for War, Winston Churchill, agreed, but ruefully lamented: “What a magnificent body of men never to take another drink.”
Not a legal drink, anyway.
Good history, well worth your time.
MONEY CAN’T BUY EVERYTHING: The National Science Foundation pours money into university programs intended to increase the number of minority STEM majors. But the best advice to minority students interested in STEM continues to be free: “Want to Be a Doctor? A Scientist? An Engineer? An Affirmative Action Leg Up May Hurt Your Chances.”
SPACE: This Steam-Powered Spacecraft Could Travel the Solar System Forever. Gathering space-based reaction mass isn’t a new idea, but it’s a good one.
FREEDOM OF NAVIGATION: US, UK hold rare joint drills in the South China Sea.
ROGER KIMBALL: Trump’s burger fête was a masterpiece: The president not only ate a bunch of burgers, he just ate the Left’s lunch, again.
The president joked that he had thought about having the First and Second Ladies prepare salad, but he knew that the Clemson athletes did not use Gillette products (in about a month no man who is not an interior decorator will) and that they would prefer burgers to tofu and spouts. Note that he was admirably ecumenical in his choice of victuals. Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Burger King; ‘If it’s American’, Trump said, ‘I like it.’ Looking over the the beefcakes for whom he ordered the beef, the President observed that ‘We have some very large people that like eating, so I think we’re going to have a little fun.’
Fun? Fun? Did the President of the United States talk about having fun? I don’t know which offended the guardians of public virtue more, Donald Trump’s invocation of an activity they haven’t indulged in since grade school or his jest that Melania and Mrs Pence might have prepared salads for the athletes. THAT’S NOT FUNNY! One of CNN’s resident harridans called the remark ‘appalling’ and went on to wonder whether the President would not be satisfied until he had alienated every Republican woman voter in the country.
Well, CNN.
Related: I think Trump should totally go along with this: Breaking: Pelosi asks Trump to postpone SOTU until gov’t reopens. Except instead of postponing it, he should just do a televised address from the White House and brag about all the money that saves, while cutting the Dems out of the TV coverage.
FIGHT FOR FIFTEEN: Maduro raises minimum wage in Venezuela to $6 per month.
The minimum wage was raised from 4,500 to 18,000 Bolivares, equivalent to just $6 in the parallel (unofficial) market, El Pais reported Tuesday. Economist believe that with ongoing hyperinflation, it will lose its value within days. The amount would only be enough to buy about three pounds of chicken, the newspaper noted.
Maduro’s announcement, along with others like greater reserve requirements for banks, are likely to worsen inflationary pressures and contract the economy, Venezuelan economist and opposition lawmaker Jose Guerra told El Pais.
But other than that, it’s a brilliant and righteous diktat.
DAMON LINKER ON THE INTELLECTUAL LAZINESS OF OUR RULING CLASS:
For members of a centrist establishment under siege, it’s far more comforting to dismiss as illegitimate the motives of those who support Donald Trump’s presidency, who voted for Brexit, who travel from the French provinces to don yellow vests on the streets of Paris, and who have empowered populist parties in Poland, Italy, Hungary, Austria, and the Czech Republic. They’re racists, xenophobes, rubes, bigots, and entitled whiners who are stomping their feet like spoiled, resentful children, empowering fascists rather than deferring to the experts who actually know how the world works and how to govern the liberal international order.
But of course things look quite different on the other side of the dispute.
Related: To understand events around the world today, one must think in terms of the class struggle. Plus: “Immediately, the protesters were denounced as xenophobes, anti-Semites and homophobes. The elites present themselves as anti-fascist and anti-racist, but this is merely a way of defending their class interests. It is the only argument they can muster to defend their status, but it is not working anymore.”
SANCTIONS: Senate Republicans break with Trump on Russia sanctions. “11 Senate Republicans joined with Democrats to advance a measure Tuesday that would stop the Treasury Department from relaxing sanctions on three Russian companies with ties to oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a Kremlin ally. The Senate voted 57-42 to proceed to a resolution from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer that would reverse the Trump administration’s decision to lift sanctions on the firms, a vote Schumer forced under a provision in a 2017 Russia sanctions law.”
GILLETTE AD FOR MEN: YOU’RE PROBABLY A RAPIST AND YOU NEED TO LISTEN UP. Gillette ad for women: You go, girl, don’t let anyone tell you what to do. James Lileks has both.
Plus, a potentially more promising approach:
