Just when you thought you’d heard everything… how about “Yoga With Lemurs”?
And no, I didn’t make it up: it’s a real thing. This, from the country struggling with Brexit.
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Definitely No Snowflake
Yikes. Try this wilting flower for size:
Virginia Hall was fluent in French, Italian and German when she went to work for the US foreign service before World War II but was invalided out of the service after a hunting accident in Turkey.
Her shotgun slipped from her grasp and as she grabbed it, it fired, blasting away her foot.
By the time she got to a hospital, gangrene had set in. To save her life, the surgeon had to amputate her left leg below the knee.
Always able to see the funny side of things, Miss Hall immediately named her wooden leg Cuthbert.
…
When the Nazis invaded France in 1940, she fled to London, and with her language skills, was soon recruited by the SOE.
After training in the clandestine arts of killing, communications and security, she went to Vichy France to set up resistance networks under the cover of being a reporter for the New York Post.
After the November, 1942, North Africa invasion, German troops flooded into her area and things became too hot even for her.
She hiked on her artificial leg across the Pyrenees in the dead of winter to Spain.
During the journey she radioed London saying she was okay but Cuthbert was giving her trouble.
…and then she got really serious about doing bad things to Nazis. Read the whole thing.
Apes As Political Parties
Take a few moments to read this comparison study. Then decide which group best describes Democrats, and which Republicans.
Then ask yourself which animal you’d rather be.
(Found via Zman’s place)
Define “Dangerous”, Asswipe
Just when I’d got my blood pressure down to healthy levels, this kind of shit (from Britishland) gets published and back we go to 500/400:
Parents who homeschool their children will be forced to sign a register or face possible prosecution, according to government proposals.
The Department for Education plans to hold a register of all children not in mainstream schools in a bid to protect them from ‘dangerous influences’.
The move will help crack down on religious fundamentalists who send youngsters to secret schools where they are at risk of radicalisation.
We all know where this regulation is aimed: at Muslims who want to turn little Abu Buma into Abu Ben-Bomba. The only problem, as always, is that the law won’t be used against Muslims, ever — but it will be used, often, against conservative parents, Christian parents, and anyone, in fact, who dares to raise their children to be intellectual, inquisitive and independent (precisely the qualities that all state education systems seek to eradicate). All that is dangerous to the control freaks and nannies who infest our modern-day bureaucracy, and don’t for a moment think that they’ll hesitate to brand it thus.
What time does the range open?
What’s In A Name?
It’s a good thing that the Bard is no longer with us, or else his question might instead read: “WTF is it with all these stupid names?”
I’m not just talking about nicknames, where anything goes (e.g. Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino from Jersey Shores — note: unless you’re in the Mafia, the word “The” in your name is an infallible indicator of douchebaggery, see below). Mostly, they’re a play on names — “Elizabeth” becomes “Biffy” and “Edward” becomes “Ned” — or else, in the case of men, they’re affectionate insults: Booger, Shitbrain, Nostrils, Hairball etc.
First names, especially in the Afro-American community, seem to be in a tacit competition for grotesquery — Jamarcus, Al’iyaa, D’Ante, Shaniquita etc. — but even amongst the Lily-Whites, things have been getting out of hand. Try to see how many variations you find, just in the ancient and beautiful name “Brittany”, for example; I ran out of inspiration at six, after — I swear — “Bryttenee”. (Rough guess is that neither of her parents are in possession of a PhD.)
The latest seems to be inside the rapper fraternity (not the brightest bulbs in the make-up mirror to begin with) who have names like Offset, The Weeknd [sic], 50 Cent and (my favorite name) 6ix9ine, and more.
In the old days — say, in the 1970s — first names actually meant something. Girls were named after flowers (Rose, Daisy, Alison, Lily etc.), for example, and old names actually had a heritage (“Gwendolyn” means “beloved”). My own name, Kim, was not even a name, but a title (“Chieftain” in early Anglo-Saxon) which is why it can apply to both men and women.
These new naming “conventions” (if one could call them that) drive me scatty — literally, I sometimes feel like flinging poo off the balcony at random passersby — because they seem to be just random groupings of letters out of a Scrabble set; but at the same time, I’m not suggesting some kind of control over name selection. Just remember that it took the French until the 1970s to drop their restriction on first names — you could have any first name you wanted, provided that it was on the State-approved list of first names — and I’m certainly not supporting that silliness.
Know, however, that naming your little precious Tre’esha Taniqua will have an effect on her future career prospects. And if all she knows is Ebonics, the “glass ceiling” will turn to concrete unless she becomes a groupie in 6ix9ine’s retinue. Not that I care. Someone has to do that kind of work.
Well-Earned Reward
This kind of thing makes my head ache.
Father deserts family when kids are young. Then, years later, kids (or one of them) becomes Rich & Famous basically through talent and/or luck. Whereupon Runaway Dad, who did fuck all to help and has since Fallen On Hard Times, suddenly reappears (usually following some media discovery) and bemoans the fact that he’s No Longer Part Of The Family, or similar. Like in this case. Whereupon my reaction:
I remember John Lennon once telling that his father walked out on his mother and emigrated to New Zealand before John was born — and the next time he heard from Daddy Dearest was after the Beatles exploded onto the music world, when his father wrote to him asking for money. Lennon’s response was as expected: caustic and dismissive (think: FOAD).
Now, of course, someone like Adele (whose talent is astonishing and her success justified) is going to get some stick from the Bleeding Hearts Brigade because she somehow owes this asswipe a piece of her vast fortune. I hope that her response is even more extreme than Lennon’s, and should be quite simple: “He wasn’t my father; he was just my sire — and he doesn’t deserve shite from me.” (Her Cockney frankness is one of her more endearing features.)
Stick to yer guns, darlin’. Never mind all those Commiesymps at The Sun.