Maybe we are more or less alone

I don't know how long Guffaw has had this up. I just noticed  it -- his blog lead:

"The fact is that the average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth. Liberty is not a thing for the great masses of men. It is the exclusive possession of a small and disreputable minority, like knowledge, courage and honor. It takes a special sort of man to understand and enjoy liberty – and he is usually an outlaw in democratic societies." – H.L. Mencken, Baltimore Evening Sun, Feb. 12, 1923






I'm always happy to discover a Mencken paragraph I either never read or forgot about. Well chosen, Sir. 

Fashion note; why the man travels light

Brigid launched one of those memes -- What's in Your Wallet?  or purse or whatever. Her interesting assortment is deadly with its Taurus and amusing with a Milk Bone and a pitch pipe. Her lab is trained to attack on B-flat and come to heel on C-sharp?

The comments are funny. (I bow most deeply to the only fellow who noted that he routinely carries bail money.  Even if you never do the perp walk, you learn early in life that cash solves all kinds of problems; not plastic, not checks, just cold, hard Federal Reserve Cartoons.)

Still, the whole thing is depressing because she -- in a damned sexist fashion, if you ask me  :) -- short shrifts ages of discrimination against the males of the species. We  are forbidden to carry purses on pain of GLBT suspicions.

Yes, I know of the  "man-purse" style. Screw it. A purse is a purse, and if John Wayne sported one even he would draw snickers.

It is impossible to tote even minimum daily essentials without spoiling the lines of our Wranglers.  To wit:

Hang a pistol,  spare ammo, and Leatherman on your belt. Pocket a knife, billfold, money clip, flashlight, keys, Zippo, notebook, binoculars, whistle, compass, and copy of the Constitution. Your jeans hang low enough to earn a  chest bump  any rappers' convention. Sitting down becomes impossible or at least a pain the ass.

A long time ago some kind designer tried to solve the problem with a "fanny pack."  I have a couple, including one in  camo, but I never wear them in civilization.  And I bear a grudge against  whatever fashion czar officially decreed them the certain Mark of the Dork.

Nice little backpack? C'mon. I ain't no matriculant at Miss Porter's Country Day School.

Oh those crazy Hoosiers

The Hacienda restaurants in South Bend hustle for customers with billboards showing one of those goopy pink slushies containing a little booze, probably their conception of a margarita. That's banal but otherwise unobjectionable.  They should have stopped there, before adding:

WE'RE LIKE A CULT WITH BETTER KOOL-AID

The billboards are coming down after just two weeks.

The execs are jonesing for an ad agency with a better sense of history.
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It may be okay to eat TexMex at Hacienda. I wouldn't know. But do your margarita drinking elsewhere. That honored drink is one part lemon juice, two parts Cointreau, and four parts tequila. ( Cheap, bitter, tongue-dissolving tequila. That's the reason for the salt.)  Capital punishment should be an option for any bartender substituting Rose's Lime Juice.

Defunding the Art Nazis

If today's U.S. House budget votes occur as advertised, I'll be especially attentive to the proposed cuts for the National Endowment for the Arts, a credentialed batch of snooty federal busybodies whose job it is to elevate your sense of beauty.

Whatever else art may be, it is intensely personal to the artist and to his followers. Divergent tastes gave us Grant Wood and Jackson Pollock.  Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali.  Robert Frost and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Less happily,  we also have the guy who took your money to support himself as he slaved to write a poem which, in its entirety, reads: "ligght."

Robert Mapplethorpe found success taking pictures of himself with a bullwhip up his butt and of a Crucifix soaking in urine. The NDEA took your money to support him,  too.

If you wished to personify absolute evil vis-a-vis the arts, you would need two characters. The first is a government thug who refused Mapplethorpe permission to create or display his penetrated butt shot. The second is the government thug who can and does make you pay for them.

cf. Oceania, Minitrue

 

This will not end well

The Headline is: 


"Pepsi Honors Women by Launching Skinny Cans."


The company marketing expert fleshes it out:


"Diet Pepsi has a long history of celebrating women through iconic fashion imagery seen in our infamous and historical campaigns, and we're proud to continue that tradition as an official sponsor of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. Our slim, attractive new can is the perfect complement to today's most stylish looks... ." 


Infamous? (giggle)


If I owned  stock in Pepsico, I would sell it.

Voting AAR

Five Wookies, one Republican of known hairy tendencies,  two Democrats,  and three write-ins in local races. "No" on all judge retentions. "No" on a con-con. "No" on a  very expensive sales-tax hike to hire more bureaucrats to say nice things about "protecting the environment."

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Voting around here is a pleasant experience. The level of cordiality and civility makes the campaign  bullshit seem even slimier by comparison.   Folks smile and say, "How ya doin'?" They come closer to meaning it than any  professional pol I ever met.

The Brent Favre Crisis

Commenting  to  Wyatt Earp on the Favre crotch shot, Mrs.Crankipants earns this week's coveted TMR Citation for Classic Cutlery:

Having seen the pictures of his package, an ATM receipt would have been more impressive.

Skin, Slapstick, even a Seltzer Bottle Assault

Folks, you gotta see this one, from 1968, "The Night They Raided Minsky's."  Britt Ecklund,  beautiful and not the world's worst actress. The under-rated  Jason Robards. A cast of dozens of unknown journeyman players enjoying their revival of vaudeville.

For those whose intellect and  sensibilities are too advanced to embrace mere entertainment, the film can be considered  a libertarian/objectivist  epic. Both Attila and the Witch Doctor are called to action by informers carrying the news that on one night in New York, many citizens  are guilty of open enjoyment.

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Forgetting to turn off the stupid box and waking up to whatever is on Showtime at sunrise isn't always a cause for self-hatred. 

Cute cat pictures

My first formal photojournalism course was taught by St. Donald Wooley, then of the University of Iowa, later a professor at West Virginia U.

He had two rules chipped in stone. (1) If you miss the first day of laboratory procedure instruction you are dropped from the course. (2) Anyone handing in a photograph of a cat or kitten automatically failed the course.

The latter policy was routinely appealed by undergraduates who argued passionately that it stifled their creativity. The deans routinely upheld Professor Wooley for the possibly mythical but still cherished reason that he told them the first time: "If I have to look at one more (effing) saccharine cat picture I'll regurgitate all over the front row of coeds, then I will resign."