MOVE ALONG, NOTHING TO SEE HERE: 60 Minutes Steps Up to Defend Ray Epps, Who Is Absolutely Not a Fed, Oh No.
UPDATE: The Central Absurd Inconsistency of the Ray Epps Conundrum Described in Two Sentences.
Archive for 2023
April 23, 2023
THIS SEEMS UNSURPRISING: Intimate partner problems experienced in 1 in 5 suicides. “One in five people who die by suicide experienced intimate partner problems that included divorce, separation, arguments and violence, new research shows.”
MORE REPARATIONS TALK: “Duke professor calls for $14 trillion in reparations for black Americans.”
LIGHTNING DEAL: Dollar Shave Club – Travel Shaving Kit with Diamond Grip Razor Handle. #CommissionEarned
MORE EXECUTIVE ORDERS: “Biden Marks Earth Day with New Environmental Justice Orders.” (When the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights took on this issue, the results were almost comical.)
THOMAS SOWELL: I was discussing Thomas Sowell with my gentleman friend this afternoon. I was feeling a little sad to think that Sowell is almost 93 years old now and won’t be turning out any more books. But I was wrong! I found this–Social Justice Fallacies–a few minutes ago. The release is scheduled for September 5, 2023. Keep ’em coming, Dr. Sowell.
THOMAS LIFSON: Decoding the Bud Light disaster as marketing VP Alissa Heinerscheid ‘takes leave of absence’.
To be sure, this is not quite the same as being fired and carrying your personal belongings out of the office in a box, but I have a hard time imagining that Ms. Heinerscheid will ever again be entrusted with guiding a major beer to its customers. As the very first female to head marketing for what is claimed to be the world’s biggest beer brand, certain niceties must be observed by Anheuser-Busch in her defenestration.
No visible cruelty — in fact, quite the opposite. When she leaves for another job, perhaps a brand that is marketed predominantly to upscale women (a market segment she obviously understands better than beer-drinkers), I have little doubt that her vision, courage, and fortitude (or similar vague positive qualities) will be mentioned. Nobody gains by piling on a cancer survivor mother of three who made one mistake.
The exact nature of that mistake is what makes this incident so fascinating and meaningful. I believe that the political ramifications are profound.
The first point to make is that nobody at Bud Light or A-B had a clue that many of their customers would take exception to transsexual “influencer” Dylan Mulvaney getting his picture on cans of Bud Light and serving as a marketing agent. . . .
It is not at all clear who signed up Mulvaney. It might have been V.P. Heinerscheid, but given that the company says it has “hundreds” of influencers,” it is possible that one of her staff came up with the concept, in which case she probably signed off on the idea, perhaps without giving much thought to any adverse consequences.
Marketing is a discipline that uses a lot of research, normally, which makes the failure to understand the psychology of large numbers of Bud Light drinkers so curious. I can only assume that, in her daily life, she associates with her peers: highly educated, affluent professionals, many of them from Ivy League schools, none of whom would ever dream of saying anything negative about transsexuality. No blinking red light appeared in her mind to caution that not everyone approves of the trans movement, and that the trans extremists who bully and physically attack campus speakers like Riley Gaines, who insist on males showering with teenage girl athletes, and who have caused mass shootings, might have caused a powerful counter-reaction.
The reality is that the ruling class in the United States are so full of contempt for what they regard as the lower orders of society that they feel no moral imperative to understand them. The proper reaction to “transphobia” is contempt, because, after all, such retrograde views are “on the wrong side of history” and soon will be extinguished, just as resistance to homosexual “marriage” has vanished from the public sphere.
Ivy League marketing gurus are not the only ones carrying this view.
And there’s an active desire to rub the Normals’ noses in it, which is what really accounts for the backlash.
April 22, 2023
OPEN THREAD: Saturday night’s all right for blogging.
SO, SHOPPING AT THE FRESH MARKET TONIGHT, we were among the very few to buy groceries, because their computer network was down and they couldn’t process credit or debit cards. They couldn’t even accept checks because those are run through an ACH payment system rather than deposited in the old way. We, however, were able to pay and get out, something only a couple of other customers could do. (One older guy, and a couple of teenaged girls who said “we rock it old schoool with cash,” which I thought was hilarious.) Most people didn’t carry enough cash for groceries.
Two lessons: (1) The “cashless society” is less robust than cash; and (2) Always carry enough cash to buy groceries, a meal out, and a tank of gas. Just in case.
Flashback: Amy Langfield on the handiness of a stack of small bills in the New York blackout, when nobody could process credit cards. Though with inflation today, “small bills” probably includes twenties, and possibly fifties.
COLOR ME UNSURPRISED: Woman Spent 500 Days Isolated in a Cave And It Completely Messed With Her Sense of Time. “The loss of time was so profound that, when her support team came to retrieve her, she was surprised that her time was up, instead believing she had only been there for 160-170 days.”
NEWS YOU CAN USE: A good sports bra can boost running performance. “The increased breast support affects biomechanics in other parts of the body — and, a new study shows, the right sports bra could actually boost a woman’s running performance by 7%.”
READER FAVORITE: NEENCA 2 Pack Knee Brace. #CommissionEarned
I’VE SEEN THE LOCKDOWNS AND THE DAMAGE DONE: Suicide attempts by overdose among children rose during pandemic.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Hyundai begins work on moon rover for South Korea.