RICHARD FERNANDEZ CRITIQUES MY LAST COLUMN: “The problem with Reynolds’ thesis is that it makes too much sense. It lacks the dramatic appeal of conspiracy.”
He’s right. I need to refine it: People are revolting against our stupid, selfish elites and the Russians made them stupid and selfish! There, how’s that? But follow the link to see what Richard came up with.
TRADITIONAL MASCULINITY: You’re going to miss it when it’s gone.
BLUE ON BLUE: In new video, Ocasio-Cortez joins progressive effort to oust more incumbent Democrats. “Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez toppled a well-established Democratic leader in a stunning primary upset last year — now she’s looking to spur others to do the same. In a promotional video for Justice Democrats, the grassroots group that backed Ocasio-Cortez’s 2018 upstart run against Joe Crowley, a 10-term incumbent, as well as Rep. Ayanna Pressley’s successful challenge to Mike Capuano in Massachusetts, Ocasio-Cortez shares lessons from her campaign to help boost a new recruitment drive for progressive insurgents called #OurTime.”
ERICKA KOMISAR: Masculinity Isn’t A Sickness.
In my practice as a psychotherapist, I’ve seen an increase of depression in young men who feel emasculated in a society that is hostile to masculinity. New guidelines from the American Psychological Association defining “traditional masculinity” as a pathological state are likely only to make matters worse.
True, over the past half-century ideas about femininity and masculinity have evolved, sometimes for the better. But the APA guidelines demonize masculinity rather than embracing its positive aspects. In a press release, the APA asserts flatly that “traditional masculinity—marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression—is, on the whole, harmful.” The APA claims that masculinity is to blame for the oppression and abuse of women.
The report encourages clinicians to evaluate masculinity as an evil to be tamed, rather than a force to be integrated. “Although the majority of young men may not identify with explicit sexist beliefs,” it states, “for some men, sexism may become deeply engrained in their construction of masculinity.” The association urges therapists to help men “identify how they have been harmed by discrimination against those who are gender nonconforming”—an ideological claim transformed into a clinical treatment recommendation.
The truth is that masculine traits such as aggression, competitiveness and protective vigilance not only can be positive, but also have a biological basis. Boys and men produce far more testosterone, which is associated biologically and behaviorally with increased aggression and competitiveness. They also produce more vasopressin, a hormone originating in the brain that makes men aggressively protective of their loved ones.
The same goes for feminine traits such as nurturing and emotional sensitivity. Women produce more oxytocin when they nurture their children than men, and the hormone affects men and women differently. Oxytocin makes women more sensitive and empathic, while men become more playfully, tactually stimulating with their children, encouraging resilience. These differences between men and women complement each other, allowing a couple to nurture and challenge their offspring.
Modern society is also too often derisive toward women who embrace their biological tendencies, labeling them abnormal or unhealthy. Women who choose to stay home with their children can feel harshly judged, contributing to postpartum conflict, anxiety and depression.
What’s unhealthy isn’t masculinity or femininity but the demeaning of masculine men and feminine women. The first of the new APA guidelines urges psychologists “to recognize that masculinities are constructed based on social, cultural, and contextual norms,” as if biology had nothing to do with it. Another guideline explicitly scoffs at “binary notions of gender identity as tied to biology.”
From a mental-health perspective, it can be beneficial for women to embrace masculine traits and for men to express feminine ones. Every person will have some mix of the two. But that doesn’t change the reality that women tend to be feminine and men tend to be masculine. Why can’t the APA acknowledge biology while seeing femininity and masculinity on a spectrum?
Why, indeed? Possibly because the APA is run by people who are working out their own psychological issues at the expense of everyone else. The question is why the rest of us allow that.
GOOD GIRL: Dog Accidentally Runs Half-Marathon After Being Let Out For Pee, Finishes 7th.
(Hat tip, Will Collier.)
NOW OUT FROM GREG BENFORD: Rewrite: Loops in the Timescape. Sounds really good. I bought it.
**BUMPED UP FROM EARLY AM**
THE DESTRUCTION OF POLITICAL JOURNALISM: My column is up at The Daily Caller.
Thousands of pages have been written about our age of political polarization. Public discourse and political reporting have deteriorated into an “either/or” game, and while polarization has been around since the Jefferson-Adams kerfuffle, the level of anger is unprecedented.
Agree with me or I’ll call you terrible names.
** It was interesting to see in the comments on original posting how many people proved my point. They saw critique of Trump’s personality (despite admitting I agree with some of his policies) and went into immediate freakout/insult mode instead of actually, you know, reading the entire column.***
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FAKE NEWS AND FAKE FAKE NEWS IS THAT FAKE FAKE NEWS HAS TO MAKE SENSE: Fake ‘Fake News’ Edition of WaPo Hits DC Streets. “It’s Salvador Dali’s world and we’re just living in it.“
TRUMP TO PELOSI: Sorry, your private-jet junket to Europe and parts east is a casualty of the shutdown. Clever how he mentions “flying commercial” just to make clear that she wasn’t planning to.
THE DIVERS CAVORTING AROUND IT ARE UNDERCUTTING PETER BENCHLEY’S TALE: Deep Blue, perhaps the largest known great white shark, spotted off Hawaii.
AT AMAZON, save on Vitamins and Dietary Supplements.
VIDEO: Rep. Ilhan Omar Claims Trump Is Blackmailing Lindsey Graham. “He is somehow compromised to no longer stand up for the truth.”
Whatever Graham’s orientation may or may not be, and I don’t know or pretend to care, these unsubtle gay smears from Democrats are as revolting as they are unsurprising.
COLLUSION: Top Mueller Officials Coordinated With Fusion GPS Spouse In 2016. “The Department of Justice’s Bruce Ohr claimed he repeatedly said information was not verified, risked bias, and had been obtained under political circumstances.”
A senior Department of Justice official says he repeatedly and specifically told top officials at the FBI and DOJ about dossier author Christopher Steele’s bias and his employer Fusion GPS’ conflicts of interest, information they kept hidden from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. These conversations involved high-level officials, including some who are now senior officials in the special counsel probe. And the conversations began taking place in the earliest days of August 2016, much earlier than previously revealed to congressional investigators seeking to learn the facts about the FBI’s decision to spy on the Trump campaign.
Testimony from Bruce Ohr, the demoted associate attorney general at Justice, informs a years-long partisan debate about the role he played in funneling information to the FBI from the terminated source.
Read the whole thing.
SPACE: How Enhanced Launch Vehicles Are Supporting The Booming Space Economy. “More than 6,000 satellites have been sent into orbit around Earth since the space industry’s inception some 60 years ago, according to NASA. And a report from the Satellite Industry Association claims an average of 144 were deployed every year between 2012 and 2016. That’s an increase of 53 percent over the prior five-year period and part of the booming global space economy, which is now valued at US$339.1 billion. That trend appears to be continuing as new players enter the market. While funding was once dominated by the global superpowers, private investment in the commercial sector has been fuelling the future of space exploration as companies look for market share in the space economy. Morgan Stanley estimates that the revenue generated by the global space industry may increase to $1.1 trillion or more by 2040, with the ‘most significant short- and medium-term opportunities [coming] from satellite broadband Internet access.'”
HEALTH: Flavored E-Cigs Help Smokers Quit Toxic Cigarettes. “Regulating flavors could keep people smoking.”
I don’t vape, but really wish vaping had been around during the three years it took to quit smoking and stay quit.
#PANIC! #DOOM! Third cat tests positive for bubonic plague in Wyoming. They’re probably getting it from plague-infected rodents, which must be fairly widespread.
THEY DON’T WANT TO LOSE REELECTION AFTER ONE TERM LIKE THE DEM FRESHMAN CLASS OF 2008: Pelosi Struggles to Keep Dems United During Government Shutdown. “Moderate, freshman Democrats open to deal.”
Although as we saw in 2009-10, Pelosi isn’t afraid to offer up young Democrats as sacrifices to her cause.
AT AMAZON, Winter Deals on Men’s Shoes.
TONI AIRAKSINEN: APA’s ‘Masculinity’ Guidelines Now Facing Title IX Challenge.
ESPN HOST SAYS DONALD TRUMP GIVING CLEMSON FOOTBALL PLAYERS FAST FOOD WAS RACIST:
Quoth [Molly] Qerim:
“When I saw him giving the football players, a predominantly black sport, and fast food my thought went a very different place.”
Ah, yes. Despite the fact that the VIDEO ESPN AIRED FEATURES WHITE PLAYERS PICKING UP HAMBURGERS TO EAT, that doesn’t disguise the fact that Donald Trump is a huge racist for giving football players Big Macs, Whoppers, and Wendy’s hamburgers. And pizza too!
Because god knows only black people eat fast food.
How dare he?
Donald Trump is an evil racist intent upon inflicting his white supremacy on everyone by giving them free food they choose to eat while voluntarily visiting his residence!
If a president serving fast food to invited guests is racist, then it’s time to overturn pretty much all of the New Deal. And forget #Metoo and the ObamaCare lies; the photos below are proof that these two former presidents have committed serious hateburger crimes.
PRIVACY: Shareholders ask Amazon to halt sales of facial recognition tech. “They want to assess whether it could violate human rights.“
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