Tag: Good Guys

Swoopy

Architecture

Following on from last night’s post, I happened on this little photo essay:

Eero Saarinen’s outlandish air terminal for TWA at New York’s JFK International Airport was sculpted as an abstract symbol of flight.

Now most Readers. knowing my abhorrence for Modernist architecture, would be forgiven for thinking that this post will be a diatribe against this building.  But on the contrary, I think it’s beautiful — for one thing, there aren’t any hideous straight lines and corners such as found in Bauhaus monstrosities.  As the writer of the article puts it:

Unlike most air terminals, which seemed intent on depressing passengers, Saarinen’s not only raised the spirits but also showed that concrete structures could be truly delightful.

And it is.  In the time it was built, I would imagine that its space-age, swoopy shape would be very much in keeping with the age of early space travel of the late 1950s and early 60s.  As the designer himself put it:

“…the architecture itself would express the drama and excitement of travel… shapes deliberately chosen in order to emphasize an upward-soaring quality of line.”

The first tragedy is that Saarinen died the year before his creation was finished.

The second tragedy is that the beautiful building has of course been “modernized” to make it “more efficient”.

Ugh.

There’ll be a parallel essay to this topic on Saturday.

Un-P.C. Awards: 2021

Awards

Here we are for the inaugural Un-P.C. Awards ceremony.  Unlike all the other awards ceremonies, this one isn’t fixed (Oscars, F1, coff, coff ) in that all decisions are made by one man, i.e. Yer Humble (and Unbribable) Narrator and chief supervisor of Kim’s Beer & Treason Brigade.

So here are the winners (no podium finishers for reasons of space / patience, but a couple could actually be lifetime award winners).

Best Internet Boobs Photo:   Salma Hayek

Best International Tits:   Carol Vorderman

Best Socialist Tits:   AOC

Best Photoshop of Socialist Tits:

World’s Best Wingman:   Ghislaine Maxwell

Best Prospect For “Suicide” Before Month’s End:  see above.

Best New Word (for me):  Chesticles

Okay, enough boobs.  Other awards:

Most Likely To Have a Train Smash In 2022:   Britney Spears

Best 2022 Train Smash Prospect (Youth Division):   Maisie Smith (19)

Most Unlikely Hero of 2021:  J.K. Rowling

Toughest Old Broad:   Queen Elizabeth II

Most Boring Couple:  The Ginger Whinger and Duchess CaringSlut

Best Obituary:  Battleswarm

“Leaving a trail of slime behind him –”
Start over.
“A repugnant, repulsive reptile –”
Try again.
“What can be said about him that hasn’t already been said about bubonic plague?”
Strike that.
Man, I’m really having trouble staying on the high road for this Harry Reid obit.

Top 10 Songs Of 2021 (apparently;  I’ve never heard any of them)

Best New Song I Did  Listen To In 2021:   Eye of the Storm (Battle Beast)

Congressional Hero:   Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV)

Best New Handgun:   Springfield SA-35

(I know, shuddup, my list)

Best New Rifle:   CZ 600

(link in pic)

Best Headline:

Biggest Anticlimax:  Omicron, Grandson of WuFlu

Best Righteous Shooting:  Kyle Rittenhouse

Best New Car / Truck / SUV etc. (from this list):  None

And finally, with apologies:

Favorite Personal Post of 2021:  Seeking Better Times

Favorite Political Post of 2021 (tie):  Just One  and  Out Of Touch

Brilliant

Good Stuff, Resistance

Oooh, this man is a national treasure.

A Florida man wearing red women’s underwear as a face mask was kicked off an airplane prior to takeoff – followed by other passengers who also got off in support.
…
He added that wearing the underwear as a face mask was intended to show the absurdity of masking on a plane until it reaches cruising altitude, when passengers are then allowed to remove their masks to eat and drink.
‘There’s nothing more absurd than having to wear a mask until I get to cruising altitude so that I can order Tito’s by the double and snack on pretzels, and illustrating that absurdity by wearing women’s underwear on my face sounds perfect,’ said Jenne.

THE REGULATION DOESN’T HAVE TO MAKE SENSE — YOU JUST HAVE TO COMPLY, YOU BLOODY PEASANT.

Victoria’s Secret, here I come.

Ah, Texas

Anti-Gun Nannies, Marketing / Advertising, The Gun Thing

Here’s one guaranteed to make the GFW Brigade have fits:

The owner of a Texas gun store and shooting range is holding a “not guilty sale” after Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges last Friday.

The Saddle River Range in Conroe sent a text message to customers about the “Pre-Black Friday clearance sale” which started Saturday and will last through Thanksgiving.

My favorite part?

“We would like to clear up some confusion, the post states. “We are celebrating the life that Kyle Rittenhouse now gets to live because he was able to defend himself without being penalized for it. This is a big win for the Second Amendment and cause for celebration. For those of you who think we are celebrating “the death of innocent people”, we apologize that you didn’t take the time to gather and evaluate the actual facts from the case.”

Brilliant.  And thankee Reader Mike S who sent it to me.

Apocalyptic Addendum

Resistance

It’s a little late now, but Walter William Jacobson’s excellent anniversary essay is if anything even more timely than it was a month ago, and it simply adds a little support to yesterday’s Eucalyptus summary:

There is a rising tide of absolutism in ideas and enforcement of ideological uniformity that is palpable. I feel it in the air, even at Cornell which is far from the worst…
Even language as a means of communication is corrupted, with terminology manipulated and coerced to achieve political ends. It started on campuses, and it’s moved into the AP stylebook and the mainstream.
The press could stand as a bulwark against this slide, but it too is corrupted.

Please note that Walter wrote that in 2009.  Bringing it more up to date:

We’re in the collapse phase. You can feel it. There are no credible national institutions left. The medical field, the sciences, public health experts, on down the line are being gutted and losing legitimacy.
The military is run at the top by woke clowns.
Higher Ed is gone, K-12 is the last cultural battlefield. That’s why the teachers unions, the education bureaucracy, and leftist billionaire funders are fighting so hard and so dirty. What better wake up call do you need than the fact that you have to worry about your kindergartner being ideologically manipulated at school by teachers and administrators?
Collapse is not irreversible, but it’s happening in real time. You can feel it.

And then:

The backlash is building. You can feel that too. It’s not a natural state of affairs for people to want to live under such tyranny. It can’t continue at this rapid pace. Something has to give.

Still more:

But the backlash to the backlash will be to criminalize dissent and to intensify the cultural purge. We already see that the power of the state and corporations will be brought to bear.

Jacobson goes on to say:

I have so little faith in the people running this country at various levels that stocking up on long shelf-life food and other prepper-lite protections seems to me, for the first time in my adult life, to be one of the least crazy ideas.

I’ve done all that, and a little more besides.  So what’s left?

I’m going to sharpen my bayonet now.  A bayonet on the end of an old WWI-era rifle may be a stupid, old-fashioned and ultimately hopeless thing, but then again:  so am I.