Category Archives: Aesthetics

Non-Glam, ‘Return-To-Reason’ Column Image

Aesthetics, Ilana Mercer, IlanaMercer.com, Paleolibertarianism

Two more recent images (taken in Oct. 2012) have been added to ilanamercer.com’s Gallery.

The more cheerful image is also the image now appended to Return To Reason, WND’s longest standing, exclusive, paleolibertarian column. The previous image was, well, dated.

My editor has informed me, diplomatically, that, for WND’s purposes, “glam” photos are better than the do-it-yourself kind. I know. I’ll get to it. But right now, professional images, like the one on RT’s “Paleolibertarian Column,” are expensive.

Besides, as you get older, you get more comfortable with a non-finessed look.

Katherine Fenton’s Typical Whining Womanhood

Aesthetics, Economy, Elections, English, Feminism, Gender, Labor, Republicans

Ridiculous is the imprecision with which conservatives have lashed out at the repulsive Katherine Fenton. She is the “young woman” who questioned the president and his rival, during the second presidential debate, about a non-existent construct: Pay “inequalities in the workplace.” “Specifically regarding females making only 72 percent of what their male counterparts earn.”

Attack her as the specimen of whining womanhood she is, will you? Don’t call her vague names (“”Feminazi,” “Tool”).

Also, go for the execution: Without exception, the clones that keep stepping into the limelight stud their conversation with the same mind-numbing commonplaces and humbugs, delivered in grating, staccato, tart tones of speech and a truncated vocabulary.

“I feel like” is how these women—endearingly called “young women”—preface every utterance; for they feel a lot, but don’t think much.

Yuk.

Is any conservative going to point out how off-putting America’s “young women” sound, irrespective of how pretty they look?

No, because The Thing I’ve described fits most young conservative commentators too. Remember how Laura Ingraham was forced to grovel for lampooning the dense Meghan McCain’s unmistakable moronity and Valley-Girl inflection?

In any event, implicit in Fenton’s question is that the wage discrepancy reported speaks to a widely accepted conspiracy to suppress women’s wages; and that the length of time a woman has been in the work force, her age, experience, education; whether she has put her career on hold to marry and mother—do not factor into the wage equation.

Incapable as these women are of analytical thinking, they cannot comprehend how certain realities factor into the wage equation. To wit, women are more likely than men to have had an interrupted career trajectory and to opt for part-time and lower-paying professions—education instead of engineering, for example.

If your average Republican galvanized economic logic to dispel distaff America’s claims of disadvantage, this is what he’d have said:

“If women with the same skills as men were getting only 72 cents for every dollar a man earns, men as a group would have long-since priced themselves out of the market. The fact that entrepreneurs don’t ditch men for women suggests that different abilities and experience are at work, rather than a conspiracy to suppress women.” (From “Guys Do Double Duty For Feminist Delusions.”)

Bottoms Up,* Kate Middleton

Aesthetics, Britain, Celebrity, Ethics, Etiquette, Free Speech, Private Property

She’s a gorgeous girl. She’s also stabler than her late mother-in-law (which, I guess, is not saying much, considering that the dodo Diana was a manipulative neurotic, given to histrionics).

In any event, Kate Middleton, aka The Duchess of Cambridge, will get over the fact that images of her bare breasts and bum are already in circulation, snapped in order to feed the voyeuristic fetish of the average consumer.

Certainly demand-driven, unethical, ugly and maybe even immoral: Hounding this girl wherever she goes is all of the above. But surely only trespassing on private property renders the action of the offending photographer illicit in natural law?!

The topless images of Kate were snapped from “the side of the road between trees, around half a mile away from a chateau,” in the south of France.

Was the photographer trespassing on private property? No report seems to specify. “Invasion of privacy” laws seem to belong to a broadly defined area of law, one that has little to do with the always unmentionable rights of private property.

(Bottoms up* means “here’s to you.”)

UPDATED: Sweet Sounds Of “Seven” Vs. Primal Screams Of Sanchez

Aesthetics, Art, libertarianism, Music, Pop-Culture, The Zeitgeist

The cultural gulf that separated the 2012 Republican National Convention from the Democratic equivalent, now underway, is glaring.

The disparate artistic sensibility is expressed in the rendition of the national anthem, the words to which were written, as few Americans probably know, in the aftermath of the Battle against the British, at Fort McHenry. “The Defence of Fort McHenry” ended in American victory on September 14, 1814.

The opera group “Seven” sang the National Anthem during the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., Aug. 30, 2012.

Appreciation of musicianship being what it is, these days, I could not locate online a rendition by “Seven” sans the ceremonial clap trap. So, to listen to their glorious sound, please fast froward 2:00 minutes into the proceedings:

Contrast Seven’s harmonization and controlled use of the human voice (only 778 YouTube views, so far) with the popular, brutal-sounding primal screams of one Jessica Sanchez, who is scheduled to ululate at the Democratic National Convention, tonight.

So discordant and jarring are the Sanchez yelps. How has such crass screaming come to be considered musical?

UPDATE: From Facebook thread. This post was meant as cultural critique. Tough concept, I know, as some insist on reducing all commentary on things cultural to the libertarian law. So sooner does this paleo-libertarian address the matter of cultural standards—in this case, what goes for singing these days—and another will step in Soviet style and command her to stick to her mandate: whittling it all down to the non-aggression axiom. Don’t you find that boring? A tad lazy?

The same transpired when I commented on the “Bump ‘N Grind Britannia” of the Olympics. Such cultural commentary was, apparently, verboten, because the Olympics were a display of statism. illogical. Lazy. Bad reasoning, as the one does not flow from the other.

Over the years, I’ve commented a great deal on cultural standards, or lack thereof. If you can’t address the topic, don’t prevent me from so doing; don’t limit the discussion.