Mondays now exist only as a milestone whereon we mark “x weeks since we began the lockdown”. So today we’re only going to look at the wonders of Nature:
No, we’re not.
Or, more to the point:
And on with Teh Chinkvirus-Related Funny:
And to return to the subject of Nature’s wonders, the hills:
And to end on a musical note:
Yer welcome.
You know, if the filthy hippies had stuck to their communes
…or else just given us cool-looking fashions
…then we’d have been fine. Instead of which, they gave us the pretentiously-named Earth Day, wherein we have to save Mother Gaia RIGHT NOW or else WE’RE ALL GONNA DIIIIIEEEEEEEE!!!!
Of course, as this article suggests, it’s all bullshit. Every single one of their doom-laden prophecies has failed to occur, none are ever likely to occur, and as with all this crap (see: Climate Change OMG), it’s basically cover to end Western civilization and the capitalist system.
Feel free to ignore anything that has “Earth Day” in its title (hence my naming this post “ERF Day”), and you will be the happier for it.
I love reading Davis Thompson’s blog because he is an expert in les affaires de la Fisque, such as in this priceless piece:
After reading the news, it is time to attend to my indoor garden, to do the work of keeping my plants alive: the trimming and the watering and the fertilising. This work is meditation, a way of going on.
Yes, going on. Bravely, heroically, and despite the realisation that your preferred candidate lost an election, four years ago.
And then the defiant phrase,
My houseplant garden is a tiny national park that Donald Trump can never destroy.
By the way, today’s word is fixation.
Read the entire thing to get the full, intensive effect.
There is one small problem, though, with reading Thompson’s stuff, and that is that it exposes one to lunacy of all sorts: Left-wing, feministical, academic and eco-freak, to name but some, and all with massive overlap between them.
Because I don’t read Slate or New Yorker, for example, I’m never exposed to such nonsense — but reading Thompson does do that, in the same way that playing with dogs, while wonderfully pleasurable, does expose one to their bad breath and fleas.
Nevertheless, go on and read such splendid pieces as the above, as well as Please Update Your Files And Lifestyles Accordingly (for extreme wokedom and snowflakery) and Land Of The Before Times (for extreme eco-hypocrisy).
Why should I be the only one exposed?
The only good thing about this self-isolation/lockdown bullshit is that the days seem to blur together, and Monday is little different from any other day. Nevertheless, we are more dependent on home deliveries, which can trip us up occasionally:
And I think I can say without fear of contradiction that we’ve all been if not there, then in the same zip code. So on with Teh Funny:
And to add to the delights of the day, some Random Totty:
And to make us all feel better:
And may your next “essential” trip to the supermarket contain at least one of these:
Because I read voraciously, and always have, I’ve followed an unspoken mantra that I should learn something new every single day of my life. And by “new”, I don’t mean any old shit like the price of pizza at the new Italian restaurant up the road; no, by golly, I mean something at least of historical, literary or cultural interest.
Longtime Readers will know that I am an unabashed Europhile when it comes to history; my degree is in Modern European History (not “Western” history, by the way — my knowledge of U.S. history is at best a tad more than “adequate”), and seldom a day goes past when I don’t set out to learn something new about the period of 1750 – 1950 in Europe.
I think I need to broaden my horizons, however, because only yesterday I was brought up short when reading this article by Jorge Montoyo, where the very first paragraph provided this nugget:
During the Tang dynasty, a golden age for poets, Empress Wu Chao [Zhao] forced every male dignitary who had an audience with her to wash his mouth with rose water and practice cunnilingus on her. Diplomats and courtiers had to do their best so that their requests were met, and even then it was not a guarantee, since Chinese politics have always been cunning and inscrutable, with oscillations between the sun and the shadow of yin and yang.
My first thought, incidentally, was how loud the feministicals’ screams would be had this been a Chinese Emperor who forced women seeking an audience to first give him a blowjob. (My suspicion is that the modern-day Carrie Nations of Patriarchal Sexuality would have 1984’d this historical snippet out of the history books forever.)
My second thought was that Wu Zhao was quite a girl — she made Russia’s fearsome Catherine The Great look like a Victorian governess by comparison — and if she had even half the power she seems to have wielded, her demand for pre-consultation cunnilingus doesn’t seem so far fetched. Of course, she reigned for many years, which in itself is a little problematic, because early in her reign she probably looked something like this:
whereas in the later years of her reign, she looked like this:
In the first case, mandatory cunnilingus might have been no burden, nay even pleasurable. But I have a suspicion that the cunnilingual prerequisite was probably instituted towards the end of her life… and I don’t think I need go any further with that visual.
Still, I think it’s an examplary historical precedent for us to at least consider today, if for no other reason that even among historians who detest Wu Zhao, there is absolute consensus that her reign was, all things considered, hugely successful. To quote but a couple of historians:
“To the horror of traditional Chinese historians, all members of the shih class, the continued success of the T’ang was in large measure due to an ex-concubine who finally usurped the throne itself… Though she was ruthless towards her enemies, the period of her ascendency was a good one for China. Government was sound, no rebellions occurred, abuses in the army and administration were stamped out and Korea was annexed, an achievement no previous Chinese had ever managed.”
— Yong Yap Cotterell and Arthur Cotterell.
Here’s the thing: if you knew, or were guaranteed, that including cunnilingus would result in as successful a reign (or term as head of government) as Wu’s, do you think any politician (male or female) would turn that down?
Of course, there’s no chance that any of today’s crop of European feministical politicos would ever institute such an exotic (erotic?) practice, because unlike Wu, they all seem devoid of a sense of humor. And take a look at a sample of said feministical prime ministers and presidents:
You have to admit, though… oh, wait:
Forget I said anything.