Timeless Wisdom

On this website, I have said time and time again that the reason I look so closely at British politics and society is that what happens Over There inevitably follows Over Here.

So I beseech you with all my heart to watch the discussion entitled The Fall Of England, between historian professor David Starkey and comedians (!) Konstantin Kisin  and Francis Foster. 

It is a very long discussion — over an hour and a half — because to be quite frank, it’s a topic that absolutely cannot be encapsulated in bullet points and bumper stickers.

And you should then understand the absolute magnitude of the task that faces us MAGA folks, because in some regards we are worse off than the Brits.  The only thing in our favor right now is the fact that we may have elected our equivalent of Argentina’s Milei — I hope — whereas Britain (England) has no such figure either present or on the horizon.  The Margaret Thatchers of England don’t come along that often to save the day, and to be honest, we don’t get them that often either.

Listen, and learn.

Qu’est-Que C’est “VUCA”?

Paul Collits has written an excellent diagnosis of the so-called modern world.  Here’s how it starts:

Once upon a time, there was a place for everything and everything was in its place. Let’s call this time the 1950s. We had the Tridentine Latin Mass. Eisenhower was in the White House. Churchill made a comeback. Men and women were, well, men and women. The Soviets were the main (only?) bad guys. The enemy was communism. Dress was modest. We had control of our private lives. Our lives were, well, private. Newspapers (perhaps) told the truth.

We had the ‘long boom’. Just about everyone had a job.

There were lots of hideous things that hadn’t even been thought of: the European Union, Bill Gates, wokery, postmodernism, the endlessly revised ‘modern’ Novus Ordo Mass, reality TV, the modern university, human-resources departments, pretend democracy, politicised police, surveillance capitalism, homosexuality-infested British [and American — K.] television drama and lifestyle shows. Make up your own list. Nostalgia has manifold merits.

And then he goes full-bore attack dog on modernism.

The change obsession was born in the 1960s, and there has since been permanent revolution; we have simply found ever new ways of making it worse. This whole farandole neatly covers my lifetime. There is even a word for our current world. Inevitably it is an acronym. And almost inevitably it comes from the US military and has become a business-studies cliché. We now live in VUCA world:

VUCA stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity and is used to help teams and organisations better prepare for, and manage the risks associated with, uncertain situations. VUCA has now been reimagined as leadership with ‘vision, understanding, clarity, agility’. There you go.

Websites like the one linked above, which disputes the military origins of the term, suggest to me the emergence of a VUCA cult in the business world and perhaps beyond that. After all, we are all required to ‘celebrate diversity’ and ‘affirm’ every bizarre sexuality dreamt up, adopt every new version of Windows, get the app, wave our smartphones at machines, kill cash, love antipopes, take lethal injectables, and the rest.

Not only are we told to accept all this as the new way of life; we are enjoined to embrace it. Get with the programme. No room here for William F Buckley Jr’s counterstrategy of standing athwart history and yelling ‘Stop!’

All the things listed here connote ‘disruption’. And, of course, ‘diversity’. For business, this is the new reality, accepted at face value, something to be reckoned with. Nassim Nicholas Taleb (why use just two names when you have three?) of ‘black swans’ fame, has written a book, Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder (2012), on how to profit from the new VUCA order of things. In such a world, the abnormal becomes normal. JD Vance is deemed ‘creepy’ and ‘weird’. Not so Tim Walz (though what’s emerging on ‘Touchdown Tim’ in the alt-media if true, isn’t pretty).

A question for conspiracy researchers should be whether the creation of a VUCA cult and the urging of all of us to just deal with it have been deliberate. Whether the normalisation of the weird and unpredictable is a strategy of confusion that stands alongside censorship, silencing of dissent, memory-holing, doublespeak, ridiculing conservatism, abandonment of both history study and the teaching of critical skills. It is a real question. If it quacks like a deliberate strategy, it probably is a deliberate strategy. See also replacement theory.

Time to turn back the clock, methinks.  Or load up the helicopters, metaphorically speaking of course.

The Glass Tube As Architecture

Here’s one from London that gets me chuckling:

Mansour Namaki wants to link his Grade I-listed Regency villa – which was designed by James Burton in 1828 – to the mews house that also sits on the land.

Fair enough.  He owns both properties and the land between them, and it makes good sense to link them rather than have to walk through the garden (in British Weather) just to get from one to the other.  But then it all went pear-shaped:

He has hired Gherkin tower designer Ken Shuttleworth to design a ‘striking’ glass walkway that will join the two properties in the Regent’s Park Conservation Area.

Ah yes… the Gherkin:

…a.k.a. the Glass Suppository, which all by itself made London look… uglier.

What did he expect would happen?

Well, this is what would happen:

…so needless to say, the Usual Suspects and Busybodies got involved:

According to the council, the walkway’s ‘sculptural form would be a deliberately striking intervention which would over-compete with the architectural forms of the historic building and would demand attention.’

Richard Simpson, chair of Regent’s Park Conservation Area Advisory Committee said: ‘We asked the council to reject it and they did. Now we are waiting for the appeal decision.

‘It’s a very interesting house historically. 

‘This walkway would be a completely inappropriate addition both in terms of its scale, as it is two storeys, and its design. Its exotic curvy glazing which is really quite inappropriate.

‘It’s possible that an application for a walkway could be accepted. We are not saying he can’t as several others have but they should be much more modest. The buildings need to be respected.’

And another:

‘The rules are there for a reason. These houses are Listed and the rest of us have to abide by the restrictions. If Historic England has refused to approve it then they will have valid reasons for doing so.

‘The plans aren’t in keeping with the architecture. If he wants to build something modern he shouldn’t have bought a Listed home – they are very strict in the conservation area about what can and can’t be changed.’

And I agree. This bullshit is all about “Well I bought something so I can do anything I want with it” is typical rich-man’s solipsim and arrogance.

Anyway, that glass tunnel looks like something a pervert would use to insert a rat up someone’s anus.

The only good thing I can say about this silly man is that his wife would look really good in a Regency-era ballgown.

No permit needed for those.

Wokist Of The Year

Speaking of memes:  I don’t know or care exactly what year this happened, but FFS.

The subject was this pic, which must have become one of the most famous (and funniest) ever:

Funny, that is, except to some Swedish asshole:

The image created controversy in 2018 when it was ruled sexist by a Swedish ad watchdog.

Swedish internet service provider Bahnhof used it for a recruitment ad where the girlfriend in the image was “your current workplace” while the other woman was “Bahnhof”.

But the ombudsman concluded: “The advertisement objectifies women. It presents women as interchangeable items and suggests only their appearance is interesting… It also shows degrading stereotypical gender roles of both men and women and gives the impression men can change female partners as they change jobs.”

My take?

No doubt, he’d take exception to that one too, as it turns a wondrous object of desire (a woman’s vagina) into a humorless fuckwit.

Pointless Shit

I’m always ranting about how the auto industry has overloaded basic transportation with evermore-complex technology (3 seat-position memory options? FFS), but of course, they’re not the only ones.

Here’s another example, seen via a link on Insty’s page:

What a load of bullshit.  My old Keurig essentially has two options:  size of cup, regular/strong brew, and that’s it.  (“High Altitude Setting”? FFS #2)

Oh wait… I forgot mine’s warning light for “There’s No More Water In The Reservoir, You Idiot, Can’t You See Through The Clear Plastic?”

Let’s not forget the lie of “Brushed Silver” when it’s just shiny plastic.

And forgive me, but the whole point of a Keurig is that you can make a cuppa quickly without waiting for the water to boil, so the “Auto On/Off” switch is the work of Satan.  (Yeah, “saves electricity” blah blah blah… fuck the whales.)

Needless to say, in the spirit of manufacturers everywhere, my model Keurig is no longer available;  so when it finally quits working, I’ll be forced to buy one of these multi-featured over-complex monstrosities at, of course, a price which is 40% more than I paid for mine.

Don’t even talk to me about the cost of replacing my ageing VW, or my soaring blood pressure will ensure that the Tiguan outlives its owner.

“Modern”

Whenever one is confronted with the random squiggles and daubs that are a feature of “modern” art, there is an irresistible impulse to say dismissively “Looks like something my kid could do”.

Because it’s true.

I defy anyone to argue otherwise when seeing this travesty in what is quite possibly the world’s most cultured city.  (via Insty, thankee Sarah… I think)

Fucking hell.