Archive for February 2018
I’m worried for Trump
Hope Hicks is leaving. Jared Kushner is being forced out. I worry about what happens to Trump when he’s all alone in the White House without anyone he feels close to.
B.O. in Farnham’s Freehold
This chapter (in the novel by Robert Heinlein) is written in the first-person by Barbara, the 25-year-old girl who had sex with the much older Hugh Farnham:
Joe is the first Negro I’ve had a chance to know well-and I think most well of him. He plays better contract than I do; I suppose he’s smarter than I am. He is fastidious and never comes indoors without bathing. Oh, get downwind after he has spent a day digging and he’s pretty whiff. But so is Duke, and Hugh is worse. I don’t believe this story about a distinctive “nigger musk.”
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I am 60% through this book, it’s a much easier read than Stranger in a Strange Land. I hope to finish it this weekend.
Cryptocurrency is dominated by men!
Oh no! Women don’t feel welcome!
And why should nerds welcome women, the same women who rejected them in high school in favor of alpha jocks?
In any event, when this comes crashing down, at least women won’t be the ones who lose all of their money. Not being nerdy sometimes has financial benefits.
Orthodox Jews love the Mooch!
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article202269979.html
“Anthony Scaramucci is not just a friend of Israel and the Jewish People but a Great Friend of Israel and the Jewish People,” emailed Joseph Frager, vice president of public policy at the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce, an organization that focuses on both business and public affairs, especially in the Jewish world.
According to Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, “He’s an Italian guy through and through, but he’s got a Jewish soul.”
Now reading… Farnham’s Freehold
This Robert Heinlein novel is a much easier read than Stranger in a Strange Land. I’m already one-third of the way through it. So far, it’s a much more plot-driven story, although the characters are a little bit weird. There’s Hugh Farnham, the patriarch of the family and a crusty older man who knows everything, much like a lot of other Heinlein characters. Hugh’s wife, Grace, is a fat alcoholic. There’s the daughter Karen, her friend Barbara who has a thing for Hugh (but so far they have not had any sex), Duke, the son. Heinlein loves the name “Duke,” but the name implies that Duke isn’t going to be as bright as the father. When was there ever a brilliant character named Duke? And then there’s Joe, the “negro” “houseboy.”
The family rides out a nuclear attack by the Russians in Hugh’s bomb shelter. Yes, Heinlein endorses prepping! But after the nuclear attack, things get weird and science-fictiony.
Is the book as “racist” as modern SJW types say it is?
Stay tuned!
More gender quality means fewer women STEM grads
http://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-girls-3848156-Feb2018/
This confirms my theory that women find technology, engineering and math BORING. So when young women are in a country where they feel financially secure, they seek majors they find more interesting than STEM. But in poor countries like Algeria, women will major in STEM because they are looking for a career that pays decent money rather than self-actualization.
Stranger in a Strange Land
Said to be Robert Heinlein’s most famous novel, I say that it’s definitely not his best novel.
The idea behind the story is that Michael Valentine Smith was born on Mars and raised by Martians. The Martians raise him as their own and teach him Martian, a language which gives the person who thinks in it magic powers. When he is rescued and brought back to Earth, he knows nothing about being human.
What made the book famous is that Michael Valentine Smith goes on to preach a philosophy of polyamory (people freely having sex with each other rather than pairing off). This defies human nature because men are jealous, but by learning Martian one learns to overcome that jealousy.
The book doesn’t have much of a plot, it’s mostly people talking to each other, with Jubal Harshaw representing the voice of Heinlein himself, allowing Heinlein to tell you what he thinks of the world. Heinlein/Harshaw is a grumpy old man who hates religion, and generally has a libertarian and individualistic outlook on things.
Modern SJW-fied readers accuse the book of misogyny and homophobia. The polyamory in the book is purely heterosexual polyamory, and Jill believes that there’s a “wrongness” about homosexuals. Jill is also infamous for saying that “nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it’s at least partly her own fault.” However Jill is a character who represents the average woman from the late 1950s, she’s not the voice of Heinlein like Jubal Harshaw.
The book from time to time lapses into pure satire (such as most of the scenes involving the Fosterite Church), obscuring the serious science fiction and making the whole novel hard to take seriously.
I think that Time Enough for Love is the better book if you want to read about Heinlein’s theories of non-conventional sex. Lazarus Long travels back in time to have sex with his mother, and that’s way kinkier than anything in Stranger. Not to mention Long’s twin female clones. Plus there’s more science fiction stuff, and more libertarianism.
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The only aspect of the book that’s prescient is the world leader’s wife, who makes all of her decisions based on consulting with an astrologer. Heinlein probably thought that was satirical, but Nancy Reagan did exactly the same thing.
None of Heinlein’s science fiction predictions came true. There are no flying cars, no manned missions to mars. But Heinlein failed to predict digital cameras, ebooks, the internet, smartphones, etc.
The flying cars were self-piloting, and that, at least, may be on the verge of coming true.
Did Robert Heinlein smell BO?
In Stranger in a Strange Land, there’s a Muslim scientist, Dr. Mahmoud, whom everyone calls “Stinky.” Heinlein never tells us the reason for the nickname, but I think I know.
There WAS an armed deputy at the school
But instead of bravely going in and seeking out the gunman, he took cover.
Thus we see that armed guards at schools don’t prevent shootings.
A better way to prevent mass shooting is to ban sales of guns with huge ammunition clips! A loser like Cruz wouldn’t have been able to obtain a black market gun.
If you think that arming teachers is a good idea
Then you’re a prole. And not the smart kind of prole.
Lion of the Blogosphere 