Skip to main content

DANCING AND SEXISM, JANET JACKSON, HILLARY AND DONALD, AND MORE: #16

 DANCING AND SEXISM

Norman and I went to the same high school at the same time, we knew each other, but we had no classes together and weren't really friends. A big, ungainly kid, as a teenager Norman played keyboards for services at a local church. I learned some years after graduation that Norman had gone to a fine arts college and had worked his way up to Resident Organist at a major, big city Protestant congregation. Fast forward to our 25th or 30th high school reunion, I don't remember which. I do remember that when the dancing started, one couple who were obviously into ballroom dancing glided and posed across the floor with serious expressions on their faces. Carefully well rehearsed. Then Norman stepped on the floor, blue suit, white shirt, red tie and all. He stomped. He twirled. His arms and legs flew in every direction. Norman truly danced like no one was watching. I envy Norman's dancing to this day.

Sanna Marin wears leather coats, goes to rock concerts, and is the Prime Minister of Finland. At a recent party, Marin danced like no one was watching. Except someone was watching, watching and recording. The leaked video caused a minor uproar, so intense that Marin felt it necessary to take a drug test to prove that you could dance with abandon without being stoned. How sad is that? And if she were a man, would there have been the same reaction? Probably not. Like my admiration for Norman's skills, Marin as a man would probably have been envied. I hope this unwarranted hubbub doesn't derail a promising political career. It shouldn't. It mustn't. 

Why are people so damned stupid?

 JANET JACKSON KILLS COMPUTERS

Microsoft software guru Raymond Chen has confirmed what we knew all along. The words 'Luck' and 'Janet Jackson' do not belong in the same sentence. Her wardrobe designer knows what I'm talking about. But Chen describes a truly X-Man super power. Chen reports that Janet's song Rhythm Nation has special properties. "It turns out that the song contained one of the natural resonant frequencies for the model 5400 rpm laptop hard drives that they and other manufacturers used," explained Chen when discussing crashed computers. The song didn't even need to be played on the computer in question. It just needed to be played nearby. We live in complicated, magical times. Janet Jackson kills computers.

GEORGE DAWSON AND RACE

George Dawson Middle School in Texas is named after a grandson of slaves who didn't learn to read until he was 98 years old. At 103, Dawson wrote the book Life Is So Good. Recently, the Texas district in which George Dawson Middle School is located decided that portions of the book that George Dawson wrote were not appropriate for George Dawson Middle School's 7th graders. My guess is that they are precisely the portions of the book that it would be important for middle school students to read. But it turns out that Texas conservatives are bigger snowflakes than northern liberals.


HILLARY AND DONALD

She turned over all of her devices. She testified before Congress, under oath, for 11 hours. She answered every question. She never once took the 5th. You may not like her, but you have to admire the sheer will that she possesses. She would have known exactly what she intended to accomplish as President and she would have set about doing it. Instead, we got Trump.

Why are people so damned stupid?

Comments

  1. Nicely done. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Ira Keep them coming-so enjoyable

    ReplyDelete
  3. Love this. As to the dancing, women just can’t win. They seem to be expected to be sexual as performers (consider Jennifer Lopez at the Super Bowl in 2020 - a very gifted singer and performer who, even at her level, felt it was necessary to do a very sexual show) but at the same time, a woman had better not appear to “let herself go” at a party.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for reading. More opinions coming. We may not alays be laughing.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

RESTAURANT TEN, UZES: RESTAURANT REVIEW

Ten sits just off the market square in Uzes, one of the prettiest villages in southern France. The newly renovated space is airy and comfortable with tables of sufficient size and sufficiently spaced to provide for a pleasant dining experience. Service was cheerful, fully bilingual, and attentive without being overbearing. The food presented well to both eye and tongue. And the rate of approximately 30 € per person for a party of five included starters, mains, a dessert or two, two bottles of local wine, and coffees at the finish. Reasonable if not cheap eats.  So why am I hesitant to give an unqualified thumbs up?  It took me a while to figure it out. Uzes is a quintessentially French village in a quintessentially French region of southern France. There are those who will say that the Languedoc is just as beautiful but less crowded and less expensive than its eastern neighbors. I know. I'm one of those people. But the fact remains that for many people, villages like Uzes are t

CONGRATULATIONS, DUNCAN AND FIONA: JUNE 1, 2019

We've known Duncan since he was about 5 and were honored to be invited to all of the festivities surrounding his wedding to Fiona. The wedding was held in a magazine converted to a military museum in Gosport. Duncan's dream...a wedding in a place where they used to blow things up. I've never been around so many uniforms. Live Long and Prosper! A kiss was the price to continue... That's Duncan's sister Clair arriving on the right. Grandparents...headed for 100 and sharp as tacks. Reception in an old magazine/museum. Mom baked the cake and made the ducks to order. Not from the wedding but seemed appropriate.

Kreuz Market vs. Smitty’s Market: Texas Barbecue in Lockhart

I was born and raised in New Jersey. I didn’t taste Texas barbecue until I was twenty-two years old. What the hell do I know about barbecue? And what could I add to the millions of words that have been written on the subject? Well, I know a bit about food. I’ve managed to check out a few of the finer joints in Texas – Sonny Bryan’s Smokehouse in Dallas, Joe Cotton’s in Robstown before the fire, the dear departed Williams Smokehouse in Houston, and the incomparable New Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Huntsville . So I can speak from a reasonably wide experience. This will not be a comprehensive discussion of the relative merits of Texas barbecue as opposed to the fare available in places like Memphis or the Carolinas. It’s simply a take on our recent visits to Lockhart and the relative merits of Smitty’s versus Kreuz from our point of view. I’ll get all over academic in a later post. On our way out to the ranch in Crystal City, we stopped at Smitty’s. You have to look