Another month has passed, so it’s time to list my 5 favorite thing that happened in February:
1.Favorite writer’s name of the month: While listening to Andrew Klavan’s excellent podcast, I learned about a feminist writer who contributes to the unintentionally hilarious Everyday Feminism (I would give the site two thumbs up, except that I’m sure for some reason that I cannot articulate that that would be really offensive in this context). The writer’s name, Klavan said, was “Tori Truscheit.” So I immediately went to the site, and flipped through several stories looking for Ms. Truscheit, hoping and praying that her last name was spelled as it should be. Only to be disappointed by “Truscheit.” Still, the homonym is pretty sweet. (And if there were ever a movie called “Looking for Ms. Truscheit,” I would not see it, even if it were on cable for free.)
By the way, during my brief search for the “Truscheit” (ha!), I learned a lot. For example, I saw an article entitled, “No, trans women are not ‘biologically male’.” (Invoking my invention, on the spot, of Simpson’s First Law of Grammar: if you find it necessary to deploy scare quotes around a phrase like “biologically male,” something has gone horribly wrong in your thinking and writing.)
I also learned that there is a numbered list for every occasion. For example, you probably didn’t know that there are “3 Harmful Ways Ableism Shows up in our Everyday Language.” (I didn’t read the article, but if it doesn’t include Joe Biden telling wheel-chair bound Missouri State Senator Chuck Graham to “Stand up [and] let ‘em see ya,” at a rally, I’d be severely disappointed.) (If you haven’t seen that video, you owe it to yourself to drop everything and watch it right now.)
And there are “9 Things Not to Say to a Non-Binary Person.” (But, I guess maybe those could be 9 things TO say to a binary person, if I remember my double-negatives rule correctly? Ugh, grammar!) And by the way, Everyday Feminism editors, if you’ve got an extra set of scare quotes lying around the office, how about rolling them out when you are discussing “non-binary” folks? I’ve got no idea what that means, but it’s got to be scarier than “biologically male,” doesn’t it?
2. Trump dress upends the charts: Joy Villa – which, though it sounds like a dandy little retirement community, is actually a singer whose latest release was sitting somewhere around 530,000 on Amazon. Then she wore a Trump-themed dress to the Grammys. I am not a fashion critic – I’m just a humble “biological male,” and a “binary” one at that, I think – but I know what I hate. And I hated that dress.
However, I love that after wearing it, her album (or release, or cd, or glip glorp, or whatever the kids these days call what we used to call “records”) went to #1. Beautiful! I almost went online and purchased a copy of her glip glorp myself, before I remembered that I have no idea how to do that. Also, that I haven’t liked anything recorded since Johnny Cash died. (Except for some stuff from Kings of Leon. Those guys are good. And I haven’t heard CO’s band, but I’d make an exception for them, too.)
Where was I? Oh yeah, Joy Villa. From 530,000 to #1 after wearing a Trump dress. Stick it, the rest of you marginally talented doofuses (doofi? Grammar!) who feel compelled to use your award acceptance speeches to virtue signal about politics. I hope you pass Joy Villa on your way down into the 530,000 rankings.
3. Terrorist Creep Dies: Original Twin Towers bombing planner and all-around terrorist scumbag Omar Abdul-Rahman — known primarily for his hate-filled jihadist screeds and for his much-loved imitation of Ray Charles in a Santa Claus hat (see his pic on Wikipedia) – died on 2/18.
I know that we traditionally have a moment of silence to mourn the passing of good and honorable people. So can we have a moment of raucous noise to commemorate the passing of this hateful, milky-eyed weird beard? I suggest that we make a recording of a jet engine, overlaid with the guitar open from the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage,” overlaid with wolf howling, overlaid with one of Yoko Ono’s (“She’s history’s greatest monster!”) hideous vocalizations. (On the other hand, let’s replace Yoko’s sample with a recording of two mountain lions in coitus, just to make sure that Yoko doesn’t somehow get a royalty out of this brilliant idea.)
4. A Day without Immigrants: In what parents throughout the saner precincts of the nation celebrated as the most teachable moment that their kids could ever have, the “Day without Immigrants” (2/16) was followed immediately in many areas (starting 2/17) with “A Future without Employment,” created when many employers decided that they could do without employees who don’t appreciate being employed. I know that many immigrants who participated aren’t here illegally, but many are – I mean, that’s the point, right? To show us how much we need all of the many workers who are living and working here illegally?
So leave it to the reliably thick-headed Atlantic magazine to publish an article on the topic, with the subtitle, “Around 100 workers were reportedly fired for participating in last week’s strike. Whether that’s legal remains to be seen.“ Yep. We’re not sure that it’s legal to fire people who are working here ILLEGALLY. Yikes. You keep doing you, brilliant leftist magazines.
While I don’t usually enjoy seeing people lose their jobs, I certainly used this example to give a little “this is how the world works” life lesson to my two now-teenaged daughters. Not that they needed it, however. When my second daughter was born, my oldest was 4, and I had the talk with her that I’m sure all good dads have with their kids: “Honey, we now have an auxiliary daughter. Should you be unable to carry out the duties of the primary daughter, your mother and I are going to move her up to the gold medal stand. Now get back to your pre-K homework, because those state capitals and days of the week are not going to memorize themselves.”
I can only hope and pray that soon we will see a “Day without Lawyers,” followed by “A Day without Federal Bureaucrats.” I would wish for “A Day without smarmy leftist Air America hosts,” or “A Day without President Hillary Clinton,” but then I remember that EVERY day is a day without those. And I can’t stop giggling.
5. Sweden proves Trump right: After Trump made a mis-statement on the troubles “last night” in Sweden on Saturday, 18 February, a bunch of nice folks in a few Swedish “migrant suburbs” (and yes, I think those scare quotes are justified!) start rioting, burning things and assaulting people. The beauty of that schadenfreude-tastic (word copyrighted by me, right now) turn of events was in the timing. Because the cherubic immigrants didn’t start rampaging for 36 hours, which gave the US leftist media just enough time to work themselves up into a frothing lather of sweet, sweet Trump-hatred, before having the (Persian) rug pulled out from under them. I love the image of a couple of smirking leftist commentators interrupted mid-bloviation:
Leftist Hack 1: “I’m sure that the few adult Republicans in DC are mortified by President Cheetoh’s latest delusional statement about non-existent social tensions in the earthly paradise that is Sweden.”
Leftist Hack 2: “You’re absolutely right. How much longer can we endure the world’s well-justified contempt for our Islamophobe-in-Chief before saner heads prevail, and we get on with the inevitable impeachment proceedings?”
Hack 1: “I know, right? How dare he suggest that uncontrolled immigration from unstable Islamic theocratic states would produce anything other than an Edenic multi-cultural social tapestry of joy and—“
Hack 2: “Our producer is telling me we have a breaking story. Apparently, Malmo is in flames.”
Hack 1: “Oh my God! The red puppet character beloved by children everywhere has been burned?”
Hack 2: “No. That’s Elmo. This is Malmo.”
Hack 1: (pause) “What’s a Malmo?”
Hack 2: (fiddling with his earpiece) “I’m told that it’s a city.” (much more quietly) “In Sweden.”
Hack 1: “Oh s—t!” (slaps the desk in disgust, then composes herself) “Well, it’s probably happening in a hotbed of tall, blond, white, neo-Nazi right wingers, right? All wound up by Trump’s hate speech until they started to—“
Hack 2: (swallowing) “I’m told that the rioting and violence is taking place in a ‘migrant suburb.’”
Hack 1: (shuffling some papers, then coughing) “Migrants from Norway?”
Hack 2: “Migrants from Syria, and several of the other countries mentioned in Trump’s evil and unconstitutional executive order.”
Hack 1: “Son of a– ! Come on!”
And, scene.
Martin Simpson 