Author: Kim du Toit

Just In Case Someone May Be Offended

Culture, Pussification Parade

Here we go again:

A leading art gallery is facing a furious backlash after taking down a Pre-Raphaelite masterpiece in a bid to “provoke debate”.
Hylas and the Nymphs, completed in 1896, depicts the ancient Greek warrior Hyalas being lured to his doom by a group of naked water nymphs in the myth Jason and the Argonauts — and has hung in Manchester Art Gallery.
It has been temporarily removed John William Waterhouse’s masterpiece in an attempt to rethink historical artwork that “presents the female body as either a ‘passive decorative form’ or a ‘femme fatale’.”

And it gets worse:

Postcards of the painting will also be removed from sale in the gallery shop.
Clare Gannaway, Manchester Art Gallery’s curator of contemporary art, said the debates around Time’s Up and #MeToo had spurned the decision.

Just so we’re clear on the topic, this is the painting in question:

I’m not a huge fan of Victorian art, but I do like Waterhouse, and this painting in particular.

Here’s what you need to know about Victorian art. Because of the age’s well-known attitude towards nudity and sexuality, artists of the time couldn’t paint or sculpt pieces that were graphic or sexual, with one important exception: if the artwork referred to a classical- or mythic theme (such as Hylas and the Nymphs), such depictions were allowed. Which is why you find so many Greek- and Roman mythical characters and situations in Victorian art which contained nudity. Here’s another example, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s A Favourite Custom:

…in which can be seen nude women, albeit chastely displayed, at a Roman bath house. (For anyone interested, here’s a decent book on the topic: Tell Me, Pretty Maiden).

As this is a weekend, I’m not going to rant about the Manchester Art Gallery’s idiocy because it deserves a Two-Minute Hate post. Next week, however…

 

 

 

Not Quite Unprepared

SHTF, Travels

Quite a few people have written to me about my recent travels in adverse conditions, mostly talking about the SHTF stuff (or lack thereof) that I was carrying in the car. Let me say that I was not wholly unprepared — I generally make at least some preparations when I travel, as you will see — but my unpreparedness was mostly psychological: mostly, I suspect, because I had been used to traveling around the mild climes of Britishland and the Midi.

So let me itemize what I did have in the car; and if anyone has any suggestions for additional items, have at it in Comments.

  • Weapons: as you can imagine, no problems there; Springfield 1911 and S&W 637, Taurus pump-action .22 rifle and an AK, each with the appropriate quantity of ammo.
  • Cold-weather clothing: one heavy coat, one insulated waistcoat, heavy socks, thermals, insulated boots, one wool blanket, one thermal waterproof blanket. What I forgot: gloves (but I seldom leave home without them in winter, even in Texas; this was a one-time omission). Also, even though my heavy coat had a hood, I should have packed a wool cap, but didn’t.
  • Food: Several cans of food — enough to keep me fed for about 3-4 days, five at a stretch — as well as a jar of peanut butter and two large bags of biltong. Fruit, sugar and six 500-ml bottles of water made up the rest of the grocery bag.
  • Tools, etc.: camp shovel, three flashlights and spare batteries, Anza knife and a couple of folders, screwdriver- and socket set, Swiss Army and Leatherman tool-knives, 100′ nylon cord and a small first-aid bag.

It sounds like a lot but it isn’t, really. What was I missing?

Update:  a cigarette lighter.

5 Worst Drinks To Get Drunk On

Friday Feature, The Worst

I’m not interested in stupid drinks like “cognac & gin”, home-brewed or -distilled nastiness, insane mixtures like “tequila & drain cleaner” or similar nonsense. I’m talking about regular bar drinks that, when drunk in very large quantities, make your mouth feel like the inside of Andrea Dworkin’s sneaker when you wake up the next morning. In order of increasing hideousness (and please don’t ask me how I know all this):

Note that so foul are these Terrible Five that tequila doesn’t even come close to making the list, although that Greek Pine-Sol-flavored wine retsina gets an honorable mention.

Your own suggestions in Comments, as usual.

Teething Troubles

The Gun Thing

So the dotmil’s initiative to field a new handgun has encountered a few speed bumps in its introduction thereof:

The MHS [Modular Handgun System — K.] requirement calls for both pistols to use the XM1152 ball cartridge, which uses a 115-grain, full-metal-jacket projectile, and the XM1153 Special Purpose cartridge, which uses a 147-grain jacketed hollow point projectile — a bullet Army officials have labeled as the service’s new “go-to-war” ammunition.
While it’s not in the formal MHS requirement, “gun makers were encouraged to optimize their guns’ performance to the special-purpose round,” according to a source familiar with MHS requirements and testing but not authorized to speak publicly on the subject.
If a pistol is designed specifically for a 147-grain special-purpose round, it can affect its performance with a lighter 115-grain ball round, the source said.

What a load of crap. “You should build your piece so that it performs best with heavier bullets, but it also has to use the BB-sized 115gr FMJ pellet (because we have boatloads of it in our stores).” Typical procurement bollocks. No wonder the SIG piece failed dismally with the 115gr ammo.

The only good news is that it seems as though our kids are — finally! — going to use a cartridge which can actually, you know, stop an enemy (which the 115gr. FMJ bullet can’t, as any fule kno and as I can attest to personally).

I also like the way that a hollowpoint-tipped cartridge has been renamed as a “special-purpose” round — as though killing the enemy is a Special Purpose in today’s Army. But I suppose it’s to placate all the tools who are going to start whining about “dum-dum” bullets and how they’re prohibited by the Geneva Convention (actually, the Hague Convention), neither of which the U.S. ever signed anyway so it’s a moot point.

As I hinted earlier on these here pages, I may consider changing to a 9mm handgun myself sometime in the future [pause to let everyone pick themselves off the floor]; but you may rest assured that if I do, nary a 115gr FMJ will ever find a place in any of my carry magazines.

Stupidity, Part 2

Travels

(For Part 1, see here.)

So I woke up In Socorro NM after the previous night’s harrowing near-miss with an empty fuel tank, and you’d better believe that before leaving Socorro I filled the tank up again (even from 7/8 full), just to be sure. Then I set off, heading west along U.S. 60.

The outside temperature in Socorro was about 25F (-4C for my Furrin Readers); cold, but I was in the southern United States, right? so I figured it would warm up as the day went on.

Wrong. As I crossed the Continental Divide (altitude about 5,000ft), the temperature was 0F (-18C) but the day was clear, with no snow falling or anything.

As I drove on, I was a little worried because with cold that extreme, a car’s parts can easily start to break — and I hadn’t seen another car (in either direction) for about half an hour. So I was a little nervous, even though all the gauges looked fine.

Then, about twenty minutes later… ice on the road.

At this point, the road was no longer the arrow-straight highway in the above picture: it had become twisty and hilly, and the shade thrown by the hills was preventing the ice from melting. I slowed down, gradually of course (I’ve driven on icy roads before), but even at 30mph, I felt the car slip occasionally — all-wheel drive doesn’t help on ice.

Now I was really worried. Had I gone off the road, and crashed into a roadside ditch (or worse, off the road into a valley) and the windshield had shattered, I would have been exposed to the elements — and at 0F, even with blankets and warm clothing, death from exposure can take only minutes — and with the paucity of traffic, there was no telling whether there’d be any chance of timely assistance.

As I’ve said, my phone had “bricked” (gone completely dead) the day before. I was, to all intents and purposes, completely alone and isolated. And the temperature fell still further, to -4F.

It was as nerve-wracking a drive as I’d ever made, and only when I was finally able to head north towards the interstate, along a straight road with lots of traffic, did my stress level start to subside.

And I never thought I’d ever say this, but I was glad when I finally got onto I-40 — ordinarily a terrible road to drive on — but on this occasion, something to be welcomed with open arms.

Two things: under such conditions, I’m never going to take a long road trip along back roads without either a companion or else an accompanying car. And if I do have to take such a trip alone, I’ll stick to the poxy interstate highways.

Dying under such circumstances is tragic. Dying unnecessarily is stupid. And I’m not a stupid man — at least, not in this regard, anymore.