Our World

When young men drop out of the dating world, everyone loses.

Not long ago, it would have seemed preposterous to run television ads promoting sex to young men. But in the past ten years, more young men have approached the process of learning to interact with women as they approach learning to make pizza from scratch. Seems like a lot of work for only fleeting payoff.

The Star interviews Ross Douthat, NYTimes “Conservative”

“Ross Douthat is a rational man. During his decade and a half at the New York Times — where he writes a weekly column and newsletter and co-hosts the Matter of Opinion podcast — he has become one of America’s most prominent public intellectuals. He’s also a conservative and a Catholic. In his new book, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious (out February 11), he claims that, even in our disenchanted age, arguments for the existence of God are at least as strong as they’ve ever been. In a conversation that has been edited for clarity and length, we spoke about the relationship between science and faith, the future of secular humanism, and why Donald Trump is a man of destiny (although not necessarily in a good way).”

When I was a postgraduate student, my tutor liked to repeat an old saw popular with academic philosophers, to the effect that the discipline “always buried its undertakers”. That is, critics were forever forecasting the death of philosophy, and were forever being proved wrong by its persistence or resurgence.

In 1945, the victorious Allied powers gathered in San Francisco to draft a charter for the United Nations, the foundation of a new global order that would make another world war impossible. The charter proclaimed that all countries had equal rights and would no longer resort to “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” President Harry Truman told the assembled delegates that “the responsibility of the great states is to serve, and not to dominate, the peoples of the world,”

Imagine for a moment that there is nothing of worth in this world, as worth has no intrinsic meaning. Each human, like each worm or bacterium, is simply a product of chemical reactions occurring over millennia – biological mass. Eventually, inevitably, they end up replicating certain patterns, as almost any alternate configuration decays its structure, returning it to a chemical soup. Movement of charged particles between some cells results in contraction of others, or avoidance of nearby objects once in motion, or a state within our neurons that increases potential to preserve the pattern and replicate it. At its complex level in humans, we term this ‘thought’.

As 2024 comes to a close, I’ve thought a lot over the past year about another year: 1984. Yes, 1984.

What had me thinking were two recent political events felt keenly by readers of The American Spectator and any American focused on the political scene this election year.

The movie “The Matrix” gave us the “red pill” and the “blue pill.” The red wakes you up to reality; the blue keeps you indoctrinated.

Internet culture then invented a black pill. Those who take it think the world is doomed.

So, podcaster Michael Malice wrote the book “The White Pill,” calling it a “symbol of hope.”

Arrgh I can still gum ya to death!

Well turns out a gum infection has piggybacked onto the Bell’s Palsy.

I had thought the pain was due to grinding my teeth and inadvertently chewing on my check.

Well the good news I have a lot of feeling on the left side of my mouth.

The bad news is it hurts like heck!

I booked a an appointment with my local emergency dentist and got a script for an anti-biotic.

It can’t work fast enough!

Faithful hands all!

So it’s two weeks since Bell’s Palsy hit and I am grateful to say that it appears my episode has been mild in comparison to others.

I have regained some control of the afflicted left eye, it’s only to perhaps 40% of normal but it is significant.

The eye has ceased watering and now that the eyelid can be closed I have less need for drops.

The left side mouth droop has also lessened but some numbness/paralysis remains on the left side of the face.

New downside? I must have been grinding my teeth in my sleep and began chawing on my numbed cheeks. Hurts yes.

Eating and drinking are much less ugly however so there’s that.

Xavier refused to pose for today’s pic. He is disappointed at having discovered the very mortal wizard who controls the Red Dot.

Thanks and I hope these updates will benefit someone you know who encounters Bell’s.

Your kindness and concern have stood me well.

Aye Aye that face hangs a jib!

Welcome to the 3 am rinse the eye and lubricant application hour.

I made THAT CAT take this pic as payback for the bite before feeding him this AM and he responded with his usual enthusiasm. He wants to shred the bath curtain.

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Avast me Hearties!

Behold the damage done my visage by the scurvy palsy!

Thursday Xavier decided I needed a scar to complete the Pirate look.

So he nipped me under the eye, bled like heck and I felt it even though it is on the paralyzed left side.

Not a great pic I’ll grant but it was taken Friday after the blood loss had been stemmed and the polysporin dollops had worked their magic, you can see the poly glisten if you look closely. That’s the little biter sucking up. As part of our daily routine I am forced to snuggle up to him and praise his fine character while he curls up in his hammock if I don’t want my couch ripped to shreds. I guess I didn’t praise him enough Thursday.

I get small hints of “reconnection” once in awhile, I can close the eyelid slowly now but not squeeze it shut. The face is still drooping of course and yes I need a shave. The eye is runny and needs regular lubrication. Unfortunately even with the lubricant and eye patch it still gets irritated and disrupts my sleep. Xavier has never seen me sleep any later than 8 am so I am surprised he is leaving me to rest until 9. We will survive!

Thank you all for your concern!

So … I went to the hospital yesterday.

On Tuesday the left side of my face decided to go numb and began drooping while the left eye was turned into a very irritated red runny mess.

I decided to ignore it thinking that would make it go away. Come Wednesday morning things had deteriorated enough to merit greater concern. So I phoned my niece who politely advised I was a fool for not calling 911 fearing the symptoms indicated a stroke.

And so I did. And here I am at home.

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Howdy Ya’ All

My building will be without power from 9AM until 2PM today, maybe a bit less, but no worries I have scheduled posts to get us through that shutdown.

I installed a WordPress update yesterday which seems to be causing the Category listing to default to “uncategorized” in some but not all posts, though it may be it affects only posts that include WTF? as a category label. Once it has defaulted it can’t be changed with an edit. At any rate it will likely be fixed in the next update.

If you see any other weirdness happening let me know in the comments.

Thank you for your help.

PS. If you have any news sites or favourite blogs you think I should use as sources let me know in the comments.

Thanks, BCF

Man the Hunter is the name of 1968 book which highlighted the central role of hunting in human evolution. Although ‘Man’ here refers to ‘mankind’ rather than ‘males’, the title embodies the common assumption that hunting is a largely male activity. Indeed, the authors, Richard Lee and Irven DeVore, argued that the sexual division of labour in hunter-gatherer societies is such that men specialise in hunting and women specialise in gathering.

And this makes sense. We know men are both faster and stronger than women – attributes that would obviously give them an advantage in clubbing seals, arrowing wildebeests and spearing woolly mammoths.