On country music

Though I don't listen to country music as much as I used to ---don't listen to music at all as much as I used to-- it can still grab me. And if my choice had to be between country music and the hiphop/rap shit that infects the whole world*, no question. It's the closest thing left in America to a White musical voice.

For all its many virtues, it does have a tendency toward sentimentalism. When does a heartfelt sad love song turn to treacle? Sometimes this gets so bad that it makes even Tim McGraw almost impossible to listen to. Plus, he's a Democrat.

The talented but sappy Mr. McGraw

Like talented and deluded Brad Paisley. Well, not everyone is Toby Keith.

I think it leans that way because it is an industry, a business. It publishes music that its demographic wants. Its other flaw, IMHO, is the overdone narrative of the cheatin' man hurtin' the poor lil woman. This allows the part archetypal and part feminist theme of woman-as-victim to paint men as worthless jackasses. Women can react violently to this without consequence.

I was surprised to discover the actual demographics of country music fans. Only a little more than half female. Are the men of country music out to make women like them so they can get...you know?

Prolly.

From my immune-to-female-sex-appeal POV, this always makes me shake my head.

But for melody and instrumentation, narrative, play with language and love of ordinary humanity, it's still pretty damn good American music.
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*Even contemporary country gets tainted with it now and again, trying to be cool and PC.

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War of the World

Contrarian (but Harvard appointed) historian Niall Ferguson did a three-hour series on the two World Wars and Cold War which dominated the 20th century. He looks for the "root causes" and finds them in ethnic hatreds, decaying empires and economic stress. I think the root cause is pretty simple: human beings on planet Earth, doing what our species always does.

Some interestingly different information and perspectives and some tiresomely quasi-PC attitudes about Eurocentrism and the "moral taint" that accrues when the Western Allies adopted the desperate tactics they did in order to win. Am I supposed to feel bad because Marines on Iwo Jima or Guadalcanal had unflattering racial stereotypes about the Japanese, or killed prisoners or took trophies? Let's put Professor Ferguson there and see how he feels then.

One of the most disingenous moments was his moral astonishment at the Serbian attack on Muslims as the old multicultural and multiethnic Yugoslavia fell apart. "Simple because they were Muslim." Even I, who am not a Harvard history professor, know that the only reason there are Muslim populations in the Balkans is that a chunk of them decided to cast their lot with the invading and conquering Turks who subjugated the native Christian populations for 500 years --with charming institutions like the devshirme. A Serb Christian looking at a Serb Muslim saw one who betrayed his people. Think that might have something to do with it, Professor?

Moral autopsy is one of the major formats of our contemporaries, whereby they dishonestly and cheaply imagine themselves ethically superior to people from the past by critically dissecting their distant deeds from the safe vantage point of the present. Reminds me of hubristic teenagers who look down on the parents who support them because they earn their money in ways that the kiddies find un-cool, not "Earth-friendly", "soulless" or "corporate."  (To my shame, I was guilty of this for a time at that age, too. But I grew out of it.)

Whites are The Most Foolish People On The Planet (c). Why? Because they can be snookered into holding on to untethered and highminded ethical attitudes --always of their own creation-- when their enemies consciously and laughingly use these attitudes to unman them and bring them down, the Reb Saul Alinsky Rule #4.

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Perspective

Panorama view of Castro Street, facing east, late afternoon. iPhone 5.

St. Francis of San Francisco

Evil right wing Ex Cathedra rescued a small dog this morning. Technology was involved. Details at 11.

(The above part of the post I did at the scene, from my iPhone. Still impressed with it.)

Later, on the laptop.

Details at, well, 1.45: on the way to the gym, saw a wandering little white pooch on Market Street and no one around it seemed to belong to. Asked people and no one claimed him. So I sat him down outside the Subway store and found his owner's phone number, which I called. A few minutes later, a man calls from NY. He's away on business and left "Maxx" in the care of a friend who's at his place just around the corner. He calls the friend, who comes over with another dog and hooks them up together. Seems a third party left the garage door open and the little canine escaped.

The uses of the cell phone.

When I told B about this incident, he asked what I figured he'd ask: Did they give you any money?
A practical fella, B.

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A minority voice

Ex Cathedra takes a rather dim view of our obsession with minorities and their issues as our de facto ruling elites.

This fella is a minority within a minority: a  gay man, another victim of Jack Donovan's sharp mind and writing, who doesn't "get" gay marriage. He has "devolved" on the issue. :)

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Quirks

I find myself developing appreciations, attachments, to certain movies. Partly the stories, partly the actors. Even if the films are, objectively, not masterpieces. Two that come to mind have gay men in them whom I sorta like. Mostly because they approach normalcy. Redwoods is one. The other one is Almost Normal.

The story is a gay reversal time-travel fantasy (Peggy Sue Got Married meets Were The World Mine) where love between men is normal and heterosexuality is the rejected oddity. (This is before gay marriage became an article of faith.) But the appeal is the star, an actor who seems to have been a very minor flash in a very minor pan.

Truth is, he reminds me, around the eyes, of my therapist. And more than that, of a young B.

And an older B.

I like lookin' at him.

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Strange adfellows

The algorhythms seem a bit off here...

Another day in Rainbow America

The crime sheet in the SF Examiner described an assault in the Bayview. And, amazingly, it gave the races of the two men involved. Which it never does. Why? Both of them are Black, including the 75-year-old victim of a younger man. So I guess that makes it not raciss and ok to say.

One of Barry Hussein O's appointees, former head of the Congressional Black Caucus, lets us know that he'd disenfranchise a majority of Whites because he thinks their racist honky asses would never vote for a Black man.

The Washington Post pretends not to know this about him, and wants to make sure that we don't either.

See? Mr O does not think that Mr Watt's opinions are a reason to avoid giving his brutha a big Federal job. Does that tell you anything about Barry? And what he thinks of you and your honky white ass? And what your real "White privilege" means? They got themselves a Black president, twice. And only because 40% of the Caucasians helped them. And still these thugs are never satisfied. Never will be, either. Never.

I'd like to see if any of the White House press corps bring this up. Yeah, right.

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Constellation

Gay Culture Lesson

Lest you forget who you really are...
you will be reminded.

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Walking home thru the Castro yesterday afternoon, I passed two tall thin White drag queens. It occurred to me that, if gayness simply means erotic attraction to other males, it is not sufficient to explain gay culture. Some kind of gender dysphoria is involved. Professional gays agree with me, although they would not consider their celebration of effeminacy "dysphoric." So do homosexual men who do not recognize themselves as gay anymore. Homosexuality, at least for some of us, is natural; gayness is learned.

A great deal is encapsulated in the above exchange. The Queen tells the Guy to "get over it" and to accept that like "all of us", he's a Queen, too. In this case, apparently "diversity" is not a value.  But imagine if the Guy criticized the Queen for not acting like a man. Hate crime. Self-loather. As Jack Donovan said, gay/lefty diversity is like the Village People: you can all wear different stupid outfits but you all have to sing the same stupid song.

I think I understand the psychological issues here, but it does not make it any less tellingly wrong.