• A man makes new Fone Friends.

• Government agencies pushing each other to be the best they can be.

• I want credit for linking Amy's Quillette piece even before she did.

This will reach Hollywood before the weekend. But who'll care? The 2021 oscars are going to be ignored, because there were no movies in 2020 (except the Nolan one, which is universally despised for inaudible dialog).

One of my favorite image of this year is this woman's face from the much-ridiculed 'I take responsibility' video a few months ago, because—

1. That freeze frame appearing before you press play tells you everything you need to know, so you don't actually have to watch it; to wit…


2. Nobody knows who she is, so it was obviously a project for B- and C-listers.


3. B&W indicates artistic pretension.


4. Makeup and hair and goofy glasses suggest she hopes some producer might be watching, so she's hoping to get a Very Serious Part in a Very Serious Project out of this.


5. …If she's not too old to pay a Hot Bookish Broad under all that makeup, and we can tell that she probably is.

But I miss restaurants, too. And there been a lot more wealth lost to Covid in food service and a dozen other retail industries than's been lost to Hollywood, and we should bear that in mind when they start squealing.

Cheap, dishonest, extortionist, bitch.

I haven't read this piece yet, but here's the thing: There's no rush! Someday, some smart person is GOING to write a brutally incisive & amusing consideration of Prince Harry (which is who he will be whether he likes it or not). The literature of Western Civ is telegraphing this punch. We need only stash a bottle of red wine —something giggly and unserious— into a cool, dark corner and then sit back to savor arrival of the writeup. It's like finding out who Watergate's Deep Throat was… The particulars of the truth were never going to change the meaning of the scandal, but it was great fun to read them anyway.

Harry is a galactically silly little goofball… At just over half his father's age, he's eclipsed even his Dad's generation-tarnishing championship for foolishness in public life; truly, the Boomers are being pushed off the world stage. The Woke make the Hippies seem attuned and generous in comparison.

I wish Hitchens was here to see this. And to mock it.

(Diana who?)

Finally! Miss Manners discusses "mansplaining."

(I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.)

Sad to say, I can't seem to access the comments the way I used to - and that goes for other publications as well. (Why would the Washington Post, for example, indicate zero comments after almost a week?)

https://www.uexpress.com/miss-manners/2020/9/19/0/these-young-men-at-work-keep

Semi-spoiler: it ties in with my vow never to use political slang of any kind, when possible.

And so, just like that, you're reading a British web page and get sucked into a gossip sidebar.

Specifically, it's amazing that this place went for just ten million. Look at it. (I wish we could see the 'recording studio'; the 'library' appears to consist of three sets of bookshelves, so the 'studio' might just be some old stereo equipment.)

I mean, who knows what it's worth now, but I'd have thought it was worth more before the 2020 crash of pandemic and bloody murder.

Lenona- Neat piece. What's an example of 'political slang'?

"Mansplaining," "woke," etc. Anything that generalizes.

MM had another good piece related to that: "Attack ideas, not people."

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/20/opinion/dialogue-speech-on-campus-say-the-right-thing-or-else-attack-ideas-not-people.html

Excerpt:

...The law cannot restrict such speech without violating our constitutional rights. But etiquette, the extra-legal regulative system that seeks to avert conflict before it becomes serious enough to call in the law, can and does. You may have a legal right to call your mother an idiot, or somebody else's mother a slut, but you won't if you know what's good for you.
Nor could you convince many people that the controversy that such remarks are likely to provoke will lead to advances in knowledge...

Btw, Crid, here's something Hollywood-related. The first U.S. journalist to film in China, Robert Carl Cohen, turned 90 this week.

Most of one biographical article:

Robert Carl Cohen has a professional career spanning almost 60 years as a filmmaker, foreign correspondent, public lecturer and author. Born in Philadelphia in 1930, he moved with his parents to Los Angeles in 1939, earning his BA in Art and MA in Motion Pictures at UCLA.

His master’s thesis film, a 10-minute documentary depicting the genetic-environmental basis for human skin color differences, later became the basis for his first book, The Color of Man. Published by Random House in 1971 and Bantam in 1973, it was adopted as a text by the California State Department of Education. It remains the only popular science book on the subject.

As a US Army conscript, Bob served as a cameraman at Ft. Monmouth NJ and at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe near Paris. After military service he studied for a Doctorate in Social Psychology at the Sorbonne. While an observer at the Sixth World Youth Festival in Moscow in 1957, he was hired by NBC-TV to accompany and film a group of young Americans visiting China in defiance of the State Department’s travel ban.

Returning home, he began a series of public film-lectures about China, and then produced Inside Red China, a nationally syndicated TV special for which he received a letter of commendation from the office of Under Secretary of State Chester Bowles in 1961.

In addition to being the first US journalist to film in China, the popularity of his film lectures led to his being the first American permitted by East German authorities to film there in 1959. And in 1963-64 he became the first American to receive both US State Department and Cuban Foreign Ministry authorization to film in Cuba.

Back in Los Angeles in 1967, he produced Mondo Hollywood, a two-hour color documentary, banned by the French Government in 1968 as “a danger to mental health.” Having become a psychedelic cult classic a half-century after it was made, Mondo Hollywood was honored by a special screening as part of the American Film Institute’s 2014 Festival...

http://www.radfilms.com
(links about his films and two books he wrote - for some reason, the IMDb doesn't cover half of these)

(I'm okay with generalizations: Truth is often general.)

(And sometimes it's private. Get it?)

(Or privates. Har!)

https://www.valleybreeze.com/2020-09-23/living/traditional-parenting-smartphone-not-necessity-teens#.X23-a-v3arV

A mother in California seeks her pastor’s opinion on allowing her 15-year-old son to have a smartphone. The boy claims that if he can’t use social media, he will have no friends. Mom is skeptical concerning the claim and afraid of other internet experiences the youngster might be drawn to if he has a smartphone.

The pastor tells Mom that her son needs to learn to navigate the realities of the internet and learn to use a smartphone responsibly before he goes off to college. Three years! The Doomsday Clock is ticking!

“Help me out here,” Mom asks me.

With all due respect for the pastor, here is the short list of “realities” concerning smartphones and teenagers:

• Reality: Smartphone use by teens coincides with a dramatic increase in adolescent mental health problems including depression, anxiety, and suicide.

• Reality: The addictive element of smartphone use has been verified by several researchers and supported by a preponderance of anecdotal evidence.

• Reality: Teenage boys are notorious for using smartphones and other screen-based devices to access pornography.

• Reality: Teens quickly learn to circumvent smartphone controls installed by their parents. Don’t kid yourself.

• Reality: Teen girls often employ social media to construct alternative identities and personal soap operas that are destructive to proper socialization and adjustment.

• Reality: There is no compelling evidence to the effect that teens without smartphones are at some form of risk – socially, emotionally, cognitively. In fact, the term “responsible smartphone use by a teenager” is not an oxymoron only because a small minority of teens do happen to use smartphones in a completely responsible manner. Repeat, a small minority.

Reality: I am personally acquainted with teenagers who do not have smartphones or tablets. Said teens are, without exception, personable, well-adjusted, happy, and have plenty of friends. In short, they are normal. The idea that an otherwise well-adjusted teen is going to have no friends if he doesn’t have a smartphone is propaganda.

• Reality: Many of the teens I have met who have smartphones do not act like normal human beings. They don’t converse, for example. They mumble. They don’t look people in the eye. They have their smartphones in their hands at almost all times like they are part of their bodies. While one attempts to engage them in conversation, they are snatching looks at their devices and even texting.

• Reality: Over the last 10 years, hundreds of parents have shared horror stories of well-adjusted, trustworthy kids who, a year or so after obtaining smartphones, were no longer trustworthy and in many cases had developed significant mental health and behavioral issues.

You think you can throw the dice and roll snake eyes? Best of luck to you.

(end)

A tweet responding to Thomas Chatterton Williams defined the evil effects of cancel-culture perfectly:

This is a terrible way to live---it's as though we are now born with a social-media-created noose around our necks that never goes away and can only get tighter.

On people being fired for a tweet when they were 15: and yet the same people want to forgive a 22 year old for a murder he committed at 15. One of these is not like the other. Plus one could be in line with public opinion at 15 or 20 and out of line at 30 for your tweet back then (gay marriage for example was opposed by both Bill Clinton and Obama).

On the "mansplaining" thing from Miss Manners: given that the women in question can't get interviews and has had a rough time, it is quite possible that she has an exaggerated sense of her own competence. In addition, her story doesn't make sense--if she started a tech venture wouldn't that make her the boss? As to mansplaining, I have found that men enjoy explaining things to each other and we also enjoy learning something new. If someone starts explaining something and they are wrong, we just debate it "no no, that isn't how stock options work". And no one gets their feelings hurt. A guy cried at work? Really? I have never seen that in my life.

Spotify/Rogan is delicious.

Lenona is right about teens and social media.

CC also says things I like.

Rig is right too, but actually I still have a grudge against TCW for a sarcastic and shallow dismissal of modern religious believers a few months ago… And I'm not even religious. But when someone farts out loud like that, other's need not be compelled to pretend it didn't happen. It indicted his clarity as a student of human nature and western culture.

Also, Lenona, I mean, as CC demonstrates, women may be perfectly correct in their annoyance at mansplaining, and men may be righteously confused at that annoyance.

I'm not afraid of the word, and am glad to be conversant with it, even without using it much (or ever).

I was unable to access Patrick's cheap, extortionist, bitch's Twitter feed. But the Daily Caller called her out. Sample:

"
“My husband rented a place in Maine and when we arrived in the evening we saw Trump yard signs and other white nationalist symbols. I immediately was terrified and scared for my life and family safety,” Bueno continued, according to the Twitter posts."

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.dailycaller.com/2020/09/24/brown-university-airbnb-donald-trump-signs

And she's a Phd.

Crid, you may have guessed by now, but I didn't write that column. If I had, I wouldn't have had to provide a URL. (I also tried to indicate that by the word "end." The reason I didn't give the author's name at the beginning was that I wanted the column to speak for itself first.)
_____________________________________

On the "mansplaining" thing from Miss Manners: given that the women in question can't get interviews and has had a rough time, it is quite possible that she has an exaggerated sense of her own competence.
_____________________________________

Oh? Have you not heard that it can be hard for ANY unemployed professional over 50 to get a job that pays half as well as the former job? (It's possible she can't afford to take a low-paying job.) Also, it's not exactly hard for an interviewer to figure out someone's general age - and refuse to do an interview - long before meeting that person. Even aside from the Internet, there can be plenty of clues just in the resume.
___________________________________

In addition, her story doesn't make sense--if she started a tech venture wouldn't that make her the boss?
___________________________________

If the men and women who brag and treat her condescendingly were her subordinates, she would have said so - there would be no reason not to say so. Maybe they're clients or colleagues of some kind. (But even subordinates are not immune to behaving badly, even toward a boss, if they're too conceited to imagine they might get fired.)
___________________________________

As to mansplaining, I have found that men enjoy explaining things to each other and we also enjoy learning something new. If someone starts explaining something and they are wrong, we just debate it "no no, that isn't how stock options work". And no one gets their feelings hurt. A guy cried at work? Really? I have never seen that in my life.
___________________________________

That polite conversational style doesn't sound like what she described - she referred to "bragging and bravado." People who are that conceited tend to be thin-skinned. There's a first time for everything. Even crying.

Plus, more than one member at this blog has complained of how spoiled millennials are and how they behave in ways that Gen Xers and boomers generally didn't, at that age. (The attitude that anyone old enough to be your parent doesn't really "know anything" is an attitude you're supposed to outgrow, like your teen years. But apparently, a lot of millennials didn't.)

But, I will say that this is precisely why I avoid labels and political slang as much as possible. Had I been in her place, I might have said "thank you, I knew all that long ago; you do know how many years of experience I've had in that area, right?" Or, in a worse case: "you're being condescending and you know it, so please stop it."

I've only had to do that with one person - namely, an uninvited (but economically desperate) houseguest who complained bitterly about any luxury that I didn't provide, like his favorite classical music - no kidding - so when things got worse, I had to tell him to stop it.

And, to repeat something from a 2017 thread:

...one doesn't assume that others don't know what one is about to say unless there's a ton of evidence in that direction.

I knew a charming Polish psychologist in his late 80s who owns at least 5,000 books, and he's known me for years, so he knows I don't have a degree in psychology. Yet, if he wants to talk about, say, B.F. Skinner, he will ALWAYS ask first "what do you know about Skinner" before assuming that I don't know what he's about to tell me. Same goes for any other subject, psychology-related or not. It's not as though I'm a teenager, after all.

There's nothing noble about this; it's just a common courtesy that everyone should practice.

> I didn't write that column

With the link, the extended cite and the absence of comment, it seemed reasonable to affirm that it generally described your thought.

No?

Or to assume it affirmed your thoughts. Doesn't it? I spent 2018 on this here blog citing Haidt, Lukianoff and Twenge on those same patterns.

Crid, yes, you're right. I just didn't want you to give me credit for that lucid column.

One thing Rosemond didn't mention was that parents, these days, are the ones who are really afraid to be different. Also, NOT keeping up with the Joneses is considered practically Un-American. So they don't know what else to do. (Somehow, it doesn't occur to them that kids truly need to spend as much time as possible on exercise, creative play, social skills - such as looking people in the eye without freaking out - and slow-paced reading, which clearly helps their attention spans.)
_________________________________

Btw, about the people here who complain about spoiled, entitled millennials - that apparently includes Amy herself, when you read the first part of this thread:

http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2020/06/the-young-royal.html

Quote:

The Young Royals Of The Workplace

"There's an attitude I see in younger people now, in stories of the workplace and beyond, of taking offense at everything and being unwilling to take much responsibility.

"This is a huge generalization, but I thought about it, and I don't think I'm being inaccurate to say there's more of this than there was.

"As for why...a bit of speculation on part of it (beyond helicopter parenting and scheduled playdates and other elements of the coddled childhood of today)..."

(snip)

> parents, these days, are the
> ones who are really afraid
> to be different.

Yes, and I think that part of it is accelerated by the relative isolation of parents from each other — from nearby parents in the community — as opinions are forged and decisions are made about the hazards their children face.

Might be wrong, but I think there was a LOT more interaction between multiple moms & dads, as family leaders, up and down the economic ladder 50 years ago. Divorce, TV and other entertainments, and even wealth itself have isolated families from other families, foreclosing many opportunities to discuss the hazards most likely to threaten children. Nowadays, marriage itself is described as a resource claimed & practiced most reliably by upper-income (and more-intellectual) families…

Specifically, by the high-achievement couples in Silicon Valley, who know better than to let their kids wallow in social media.

And, as I was yammering a couple years ago, Haidt argues convincingly that the "Have you seen me?" milk cartons weren't merely fodder for standup comedians. Those petty little firecrackers of fear, detonating torpidly but relentlessly on the breakfast table every morning for twenty years, made people nuts. And the Adam Walsh teevee shows put an hour of smoldering suspicion into living rooms with color and music and earnest actors and ominous voice-overs for years.

But yeah, I can imagine a lot of parents have felt
concussed with shame when another parent, waiting in the school hallway for a semi-annual parent-teacher conference, said something like, "So you let them do that? Gosh, we'd NEVER let little Connor walk to the grocery without our supervision!"

Connor's in grad school now, and he wants to defund the police. Connor is unwordly; Connor is an asshole.

Pooched the edit, but you see what I was getting at, yes?

Yes, and the phenomenon is weird. On the one hand, as Rosemond has mentioned elsewhere, modern parents automatically turn to "experts" instead of asking their neighbors for advice - or their older relatives, even by phone, despite the possibility that too many "experts" are just promoting the latest useless fad in parenting. (Rosemond has said, multiple times: "I have nothing original to say. I'm just channeling for your Grandma, and I'm proud of it.")

But on the other hand, bizarrely, parents allow their neighbors to tell them what to do even when the POLICE say such precautions aren't necessary. A detective in the 1980s said that the abduction statistics were "absurd," because, if they were really true, everyone would know a family whose child had been kidnapped. Obviously, that is NOT the case, even if you include kidnappings by non-custodial parents or other relatives.

Again, I think the peer pressure between parents is strongest when it comes to material goods; parents naturally don't want their kids to look poor, since poor kids are often picked on. But it seems to me that whether or not money is really the issue, there wouldn't be much of a problem if parents would just say to their kids: "Feel free to look your classmates in the eye and tell them 'my mean, rotten parents say I have to pay all the bills for the phone myself. So unless YOU'RE offering to buy me a phone and pay all the bills, buzz off.' "

Is there a type of phone that will only be a phone and do messages? No games (not even dinky ones), no shopping, no internet?