Human Flourishing and the Mad Ukrainian Assassin

First off, let me assure my 2.3 readers that I am aware that characters on television are not real. (Someone tried to tell me that that hysterically funny Donald Trump fabrication was an actual, living, breathing businessman/politician !!! Go on, pull the other one!)

But Great Truths may subsist in Little Fictions, and Deep Thought in Shallow Pop Culture.

I know. Paradoxes. (Paradoces?)

Here's another one-  a murderous, voracious Slavic clone raised by religious fanatics who is totally fictional may have a greater soul and a more profound respect for the dignity of human life than....
oh, I dunno... a Catholic "theologian" who works in international philanthropy? who says, "We uphold the sanctity of all human life" but "we're not, like, all fanatic about it, I mean, sure, they're all 'holy' but some of them aren't holy enough that you need to treat them that way, you know, as if they were 'holy.' Which I do profess they are, but not....well, holy-holy." (I think that's a fair presentation of her beliefs.)

Whereas Helena, said mad, Ukrainian assassin, upon whom every kind of dehumanizing indignity has been visited, not just from her conception, but from the moment her conception was imagined and planned for and "designed"; whose very personhood was stolen from her again and again; whose identity as a human being as an individual is denied her over and over, says that,

Human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin. Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being’s right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death. 

Well, more or less, but she used fewer words.
As she solemnly and sadly and respectfully buries the cryo-tank in which the embryos created from eggs wrested from her very body by force, whose genetic twins she carries within her and loves unconditionally, (as all mothers ought their babies,) having been forced to "steal" the tank lest her torturers either kill them or subject them to what she has endured, she places a cross on their secret grave.
And how did she put it?

Little science babies, forgive me. I did not know to feed you liquid nitrogens. But your twins are in my belly. And when they are old, I will tell them all about you and our adventures.

That is how human beings, that is how mothers think about their children.
Well done, Orphan Black.

Let Us Now Chide Famous Men Persons

A number of... oh, for pete's sake, they are all men, a number of men on whom fame and fortune smiled most winsomely have died recently.
Much ink was spilled, many pixels employed first to mourn them, then to say, in at least one case, hold on, wait one mo...

Likewise, there have been a number of protests, and in some cases tantrums, of late, at honors given long ago to men long dead whom many today find not so honorable.
In the US, most of this involves honoring men who fought and died in defense of the right to hold other human beings as chattel slaves, (oh, or who were revered football coaches.)
At Oxford, it involves Cecil Rhodes, who is accused, (I can't find the details,) of "mass murder," by students who have no problem attending university on his dime, it should be noted.

One of the things I've always been drawn to in the stories of the saints is the quirks to overcome and the sins of which to repent most of them, all of them, had.
In the "great men who did bad/awful/bizarre/shady things" stakes there are those like Martin Luther Kin Jr who betrayed their wives and marriage vows, there are "freedom fighters" who are indistinguishable from terrorists like Menachem Begin, there is Wagner who was a self-centered egomaniac, there is St JP II who treated Oscar Romero with less than saintly kindness.
And speaking of saints, there was Augustine of Hippo who delighted in his transgressive nature, Thomas a Becket's whoring and roistering, "Gypsy" Mary...
For that matter, there is Blessed Theresa of Calcutta who suffered agonizingly "dry" periods, the kind of spiritual torture that non-spiritual people seem to think is evidence of some sort of hypocrisy - see! she had DOUBTS!!!!

Oddly, secular society, despite celebrating and lionizing some sins, can't wrap its mind around this. Ooh, she did something evil? he had doubts? not a saint, off with his (statue's) head!!!!
So you get the Guardian, in a piece enumerating the lapses in Mohandas Gandhi's c.v., reminding their readers, "there's no such thing as a saint."

Reading around Those Interwebs about Mahatma, I gather the details of what is claimed as proof of his feet of clay may indeed be accurate but the big picture painted thereby? very likely not.
One "writer" (although I am unsure that one can claim to be a writer and type a phrase such as, "if Hitler would of [sic] heeded Gandhi’s words") believes, like so many today, that anyone who thinks any limits should be put on sexual expression is "sex obsessed," (he betrays his own obsessions, with his gratuitous boot licking of one of the more prominent demi-gods in The Cult of Atheism's little pantheon and even more gratuitous swipe at the Church.

Why are we such seekers after all or nothing? why can't we accept that all good men have their flaws, all bad men have some redeeming characteristic?

Why can't we admire whiteout being hagiographers? criticize without seeking to wipe every previous word of praise from public discourse?
In Anhalt's screenplay from Lucienne Hill's translation of Anouilh's Becket... so i don't know who gets credit for the line.... Becket fondly chides a newly devoted disciple, about being such "a creature of excess."

Aren't we all?

Look, just LOOK at the lunatic words spilled in the wake of David Bowie's death!
I'm not the Grief Police and I'll take people at their word that others have indeed "pissed on" their mourning, telling them how they should or should not express their sorrow, but I did not see any of that.
I did see unctuous and incomprehensible tweets, and overblown encomiums that seemed to betray the principles of what should have been the tweeter's first priorities, and well as ludicrous brushing aside of mentions of the singer's pretty publicly known and acknowledged sins crimes - I had no idea that statutory rape isn't rape if the now grown victim was okay with it at the time, and that it is "condescending" to say that a victim "is entitled to believe" that she was not a victim, or that that is "brushing aside an adult woman’s agency and replacing the narrative of her own life that she knows for herself to be true" with, umm.... facts.

Thanks to a great moralist, I know that great artists don't, or maybe can't, commit "rape rape" but one wonders if, say, one of Jerry Sandusky's victims said their encounter was no big deal, or if the predator being eulogized were a priest, how different the reaction from all the Internet Tribes would be.

That being said, while a great and true point is made by writing, "it can’t be a crime when rubbish entertainers sleep with children, and all fine and dandy when great ones do," saying "one would have had to have a heart of stone not to laugh at the lush smorgasbord of lachrymosity that accompanied his death earlier this week" is a snark too far.

Because while, yeah, some of wailing and gnashing of teeth is from "the chorus of people with nothing to say, but who’ll say it anyway, for a fee," plenty of it is simply authentic expressions of emotion from people who want to share their love for the late singer and his music with the wonderful immediacy that social media now allow.

The Pyramids Are Ancient Granaries?

Dude, I'm one of the "scientists" who ain't embarrassed to tell folks that the pyramids were built by space aliens,

and even  I  think your idea is cray-cray!

The Empress Has No Only Clothes

The Woman of the Year Empress has only clothes, but no lady parts.

 As the world continues hurtling towards a reality composed mostly of a fantasy-based life forms, in which "adult women" who have been adults longer than they have been women are not just normal but exemplary, and Ol' Abe Lincoln's an idiot for not having realized that he actually  COULD have made a sheep's tail a sheep's leg by secular motu proprio,

a once cutting edge individual is being cut for making cutting remarks about what cutting can and cannot accomplish in helping one make the cut.

Germaine Greer’s views on transgender people are based on the kind of quasi-Freudian cod-psychology you’d think  a feminist critic would find embarrassing ....that it’s not possible to change from a man to a woman.

What exactly had the woman one would have thought the éminence dépoli of the feminist movement said?

“I’ve asked my doctor to give me long ears and liver spots and I’m going to wear a brown coat but that doesn’t turn me into a ****ing cocker spaniel....
I do understand that some people are born intersex and they deserve support in coming to terms with their gender but it’s not the same thing.
A man who gets his **** chopped off is actually inflicting an extraordinary act of violence on himself.”

Um, yes. Imagine someone having such an absurdly commonplace view of reality!
Could you EVAH?
The Otherkin among us must be squirming with anticipation, surely their time is next.

Why should Germaine Greer be banned from college campi?
Because academics, (all bow...) teach us that,

Universities should not provide platforms for claims that cannot be tested and improved

Now, I'm not sure if the claim that a man can turn into a woman can be, or when it has been tested and improved, but it must have been.
But this confuses me, since the counter claim would inherently be tested by the testing of the claim, so if...
My head hurts.

But academics tell us what to think, it is pop figures who tell us what to feel.
So remember,

“Most importantly never ever be ashamed of who you are, because who you are is ******** awesome, don’t let anybody make you think differently.”

Except you, Miss Greer, you're not awesome, and you should be ashamed of who you are apparently, you should let us make you think differently. (We don't care how you feel.)

You Know Why Know-Nothing, Nativist, Anti-Immigrant Blather is Wrong?

I thought it was the lack of charity, the denial of the principles on which this country was built, but I had it all wrong.
It's plumbing.
Let one immigrant explain it for you. (Don't worry, she is in no danger of being sent back where she came from, or rather, "from whence she came." I don't want to be called out for, you know, dangling.)

"Fair"?

A young woman of some celebrity says that when she became pregnant, ""My life was just not conducive to raising a happy, healthy child, I just didn't feel it was fair."

Fair to whom? Phrased this way, it seems almost as if the child's being "happy" and "healthy" was  her primary concern.

That is laudable. Or would be, if it were so.

She wouldn't have been able to "raise" a "happy, healthy child."
That is understandable, she was young, sexually active without being in a committed relationship.
So to be "fair" to the child whom she couldn't "raise" she gave him up for adoption she arranged to have him killed, at some cost and pain to herself.

That was fair.
?
Is she, is anyone actually surprised to "see shame and embarrassment around" choosing someone else's death over ones own inconvenience, disruption of college, damper put on plans?

Is the world so ugly that a time could come when there will be no stigma attached to such callousness?

Dear God, I pray not.

"You know you have reached middle age when every new person you meet reminds you of someone you already know"

So said Ogden Nash, (perhaps not in those exact words, but some such...)

And old age?

Apparently, when no "celebrity" cited in the media is anyone of whom you have ever even heard.

Naive

A Department. of Labor economist is apparently so out of touch with popular culture that she doesn't know Godwin's Law, or the codicil that says that the first one to invoke Adolf Hitler or the Nazis, um.... loses,

and, even more strangely for someone in government, appears unfamiliar with the Legend of Anthony Weiner, (subtitled, Yup, the Cover-up Is  STILL Always Worse Than the Crime, You Weenie.)

"I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!"

I'm not a fan of The Pinterest. (I have decided to adopt the ironic retrologisms of my former state and put "the" in front of everything to show what an old coot I am.)
I was somehow hoodwinked into registering for a social networking site I have no intetnion of using while not paying attention chasing down a recipe.
ALL I WANT IS THE RECIPE, I should have shouted to myself when The Google sent em to The Pinterest.
Oh, should that have been ALL YOU WANT IS THE RECIPE?
Anyway, I  hate the fact that there is so much useless content catching your eye, and the thing you want is never there, it is still usually two clicks or so away.
(Yes, I am lazy. I abhor unnecessary clicking.)
Anyway I got the recipe, it was probably worth it, but now silly thing that some algorithm which The Pinterest's evil overlords use to try to spy into my heart and soul has indicated to said overlords that matters which are actually of no interest whatever somehow interest me.
It is even less interesting than the Instagram.

And a lot of it is all about The Self-Affirmation.

Seriously?
First of all, grammar.

And secondly, I am beginning to think my entire life has been spent living among, and reading about, and learning from, and yes, BEING, ginormous egotists -- because not thinking enough of oneself is just not the problem all these Important Words To Make Into Decals To Decorate Your Walls indicate that it is, IME.

It seems to me that most of the problems in the world are caused by a paucity of sympathy and empathy, not of self-love.

Now my view may be skewed by my having had a room-mate once who had allowed her ex-boyfriend to mistreat her in a hundred ways and whose therapist had told her she needed "to be more selfish and start putting [her]self first."
All that this new approach led to was her being obnoxious to her colleagues, friends and yes, roommate - selfish, unhelpful, rude and thoughtless to everyone --  EXCEPT the ex-boyfriend of whom she continued to implore, "How high?" while making cow-eyes at him, every time he breezed back into her life to sneer, "Jump."

I don't doubt that there are some few troubled souls who have let the world walk all over them who need to go all Stuart Smalley, but I think they are a minuscule minority.
And even within that segment of the population, I think it is only a small minority for whom self-effacement is a general predicament, as opposed to being something that obtains in singular problematic relationships, (usually with Significant Others, even Serial Significant Others, only occasionally manifesting in other family or work relationships.)

Maybe I'm projecting.

Maybe most people don't need to be "nicer."

Maybe I need to be kinder/gentler/nicer/more giving.

But I don't think it's just me.

Well, At Least the Pope Beat Out Taylor Swift

What a relief! Otherwise, could one take the list from Forbes seriously?
I guess we need all the "intrepid guides for a messy world" we can get.

(And thankfully, no blaming the Holy Father for telling his flock not to fear making it messier...)

The Pin Has No Point

I know this is partly hagitude on my part, but social media seem to be created to fulfill needs that nobody feels, in fact, THAT NOBODY HAS.

I sign up for everything, register for everything, because a friend wants you to see or read something, and  before one can observe the paucity of content, there one is - signed up.
And then I hardly ever return again.
Okay, Twitter is hella funny because the boneheadedness and/or arrogance of some people is oft spread about to the amusement of others, (cf.: Josh Groban's most significant contribution to modern life).
It offers those with Mobius Personality Disorder*, (not to be confused with Mobius syndrome,) an outlet and those who have it not, mirth.
And it can be an efficient way, pretty much all in one place, to see what's new in the topics and ongoing events one then needs to go elsehwere to actually see.
But Vine?
Stupid stupid, stupid. (Says the person who just linked to a video - do and observe all things whatsoever the Pharisees tell you, but do not follow their example.....)
And Facebook allow you to disseminate or gather family and circle news quickly.
Okay.
But Pinterest?
One does a quick search, how do I cook/where can I buy/what's the best way to? and now the first Gazillion links turn out to be nothing but pictures of what you seek. You'll probably have to follow a half dozen more links to find the actual recipe/merchant/instructions.
(I'm sure my problem with Pinterest is a result of my having misunderstood one simple but crucial thing about the process - but I feel like ranting, nonetheless. It's good for the constitution, and ones circulation, and possibly ones collagen production to rant on a regular basis. In fact, my older sister has thereby become my younger sister.)


*The symptoms of Mobius Peronality Disorder being all surface, one-sided, self-referential, no boundaries, and thinking everything begins and ends with ones self. Again, cf.: Josh Groban's most significant contribution to modern life. I have a friend who likes to quote himself. Literally. "Blah, blah, blah, or as I like to say..." and he then repeats a bon mot mediocre we've already heard from him several times, committing that cardinal sin of witty society, as described by Stendahl in Red and the Black, IIRC, of bringing a ready made epigram into the conversation. 

(I think that asterisk may have introduced the most pretentious thing I have ever written.)

I Can't Share This With My Husband...

... because Himself thinks I have an unhealthy obsession with pop culture, (with pop culture which is current, as opposed to his fixation on entertainment endeavours from two and three decades before he was born....)
But anyway, this:

.... TOTALLY happened to him once, he took a tumble whilst swooping a long cape in which he had become entangled on a staircase while performing onstage.

Really. Same as Ms Ciccone. (Actually, he fell much further, with greater consequence. You see, there had been no goat to break his fall.Thankfully, he was younger, and healed quickly.)

You'd think he'd want to know, but trust me, he doesn't.

Beck Should Be Proud

While it's true that I have a somewhat embarrassing interest in fashion, (though i suppose my interest isn't as embarrassing as my appearance, so that's something,) part of that is as a service I perform for Himself.
Himself is proudly ignorant of any pop culture after Al Jolson, or someone, but he kinda depends on me to try to tease out the meaning of one liners on modern sitcoms, to be able to make a decent stab at guessing to what the pop reference... refer.
Its important that we feel more with-it and connected to RL than, say.... I dunno.
Barbara Walters?
So, you know, I know the names of some actors, I recognize some recent hit songs, I try to stay, not abreast, but maybe only a half mile or so behind slang.

I didn't watch the Grammies... Grammys? I know singular ends in "y", not sure about the plural.
But almost unavoidably, as for anyone with television or internet, I did hear the next day about someone the president has previously called out in public as a "jackass" diving deeper into the gene pool of the genus asinus, by repeating himself in a gauche stunt of interrupting a winner's thank you speech to let the world know that he voted, or would have voted? don't know how the Gramm[?]s work,) differently.

I wouldn't have known who Beck was had I not spent several weeks trying to stop my six-year-old niece walking around crooning to herself, "I'm a loser, baby, so why don't you kill me...."

Anyway, he seems, from the split-second I saw of him on the endlessly played incident at the Gramm[?]s, a pleasant and gracious fellow, so I am glad the Grammy voters rewarded him, and I'm also glad that he can, if he's so inclined, take comfort in the fact that the shade thrown his way, (see what I did there? I'm cool,) was from the asinus responsible for this sort of "fashion" "design." (You need not avert your eyes from modesty, the nudity is feigned,with bodysuits. On the other hand, if you wish to avert your eyes from the, not sheer, but sheer ugliness, no one would blame you.)

 

Himself thinks modern art, modern pop music and modern fashion are all part of an elaborate hoax, the emperor having no taste, as it were....
I am becoming less and less inclined to dispute it.