Category Archives: Aesthetics

Minimizing the Crime of Home Invasion

Aesthetics, Crime, Criminal Injustice, Individual Rights, Natural Law, Private Property, Race

Don Lemon, one of CNN’s not-very-bright, cherubic, soft-spoken “girlie-men,” called the murder of Washington Redskins star Sean Taylor a “robbery gone wrong.”

In other words, the four career criminals who invaded Taylor’s home and shot and killed him were modern-day Jean Valjeans. Like Victor Hugo’s protagonist in Les Misérables, these thugs intended only to take a loaf of bread, sate their hunger, and then leave. (Please don’t tell me I have to post a “cynicism alert” every time I’m being, well, cynical.)

Let’s unpack this.

Confronted with a criminal breaking and entering, there’s precious little a homeowner can do to divine the intentions of the invader. If you violate someone’s inner sanctum, then he or she ought to proceed from the premise that you’re willing to violate the occupant.

The law ought to proceed from the same premise. A home owner ought to be permitted to deploy deadly force in defense of his home and family. In general, albeit with a growing number of exceptions, I believe this is the rule in the US. (Although, not in Cool Britannia.)

This is why neighbors are out in force to demonstrate their support for Pasadena hero, Joe Horn (good luck finding this story on the major news networks’ sites; I couldn’t):

Horn “shot and killed two suspected burglars at his neighbor’s home last month… The neighborhood has been awash in controversy ever since the two men, Miguel Dejesus, 38, and Diego Ortiz, 30, were shot.
The whole thing started when Horn called 911 to say that two men were breaking into his neighbor’s home.

In a tape of the 911 call released to the media, the emergency operator can be heard urging Horn to remain in his home and wait for police to arrive.
‘You’re gonna get yourself shot if you go outside that house with a gun. I don’t care what you think,’ the operator said.
Horn disagreed.
‘You wanna make a bet?’ he said. ‘I’m gonna kill ‘em.’
After the shooting, a shaken Horn called 911 again.
‘I had no choice,’ he said. ‘They came in the front yard with me, man. I had no choice. Get somebody over here quick.’”

[Snip]
“Values” is a buzzword not only in the presidential campaign. There is a veritable revival of the civil rights movement around certain criminal core values. African-Americans are coalescing around thugs to make the case that, wait a sec; what case are they trying to make? You tell me. If the issue is indeed race, then the Juvenile criminal from Jena came close to killing a white boy; these two black men robbed the home of whites.

Incidentally, why do you suppose this story is so hard to trace?

Skank in the Skies

Aesthetics, Etiquette, Private Property, Sex, The Zeitgeist

The moron media is celebrating the saucy skank, who stood up to Southwest Airlines in her skimpy ensemble. Kyla Ebbert is being dragged onto every cable network set to parade the porn get-up in which she boarded the airline, only to be asked to cover up, or purchase more appropriate attire in which to travel.

Ebbert’s offending skirt is so short that hot pans would have been more modest. She sports one of those cropped wrap-around tops on top of a tank top, the purpose of which is to obscenely emphasize her huge bosom, so obviously augmented.

Mother was there to support her vacuous offspring’s “rights” and perfectly appropriate dress code. What amazes is how the tele-twits interviewing this woman (one was Matt Lauer, but women stood up for Ebbert too) kept gushing, “Wow, I can’t believe they did this to you; this outfit is just great.” Had she uncrossed her tightly wound legs, as she sat opposite her interviewers, Ebbert’s undies would be plain for all to see.

One “argument” made in support of the porn apparel (besides the heat) was that all young people Ebbert’s age dress like that. Need I dignify that?

Southwest Airlines personnel are in their right, of course, to enforce minimal dress codes on their airline, if they so wish.

That this has been developed into a news story is more revealing than the outfit.

Update: A comment below indicates how deeply misunderstood property rights are in contemporary America, a country founded on private property rights. Who owns the property onto which the Skank Ebbert set foot? The airline does!! The comment writer below has no right to deliver a speech—i.e., exercise her free-speech rights—in my living room without my permission, because, guess what? My living room is MINE.
Similarly, the airline owns the plane (although, nominally, due to government regulation). On their property, the airline owners have the right to determine how they wish people to behave and dress. I’ve explained this vis-à-vis airline security in “Who’s Property Is It Anyway?” The writer can read this column (and this one) to familiarize herself with what private property rights mean—and this does not pertain to libertarianism only. The definition of property isn’t changeable or negotiable. What’s yours is yours to do with what you may.

The writer also complained about my stooping to dignify the topic. Once again, she evinces yet another misunderstanding as to what my mandate is. In case anyone has failed to notice, I’m a commentator. I comment on the Zeitgeist. This vignette, in particular, is meta-commentary: commentary about commentary. The commentary that cuts it these days as commentary is, in itself, an important area for analysis for what it reveals about the culture we inhabit. I offer insights about the culture.

Finally, aesthetics. I understand that what I’ve termed the “porn aesthetic” is appealing to men. I don’t blame them; I blame women, who generally tend to be far more narcissistic and exhibitionist than males. A woman, moreover, can dress both provocatively and attractively. Provocative dress is more appropriate for evening wear than for daytime travel or work. That women constantly ho-up for travel and work gives us a glimpse into the “Silly Sex.”

Furthermore, there is sexy and there is skanky. Ebbert is skanky. With her genitals and mammary glands threatening to pop out of her stretched-to-the-limits garments, Ebbert’s entire demeanor screams, “Do me!”

Updated: 'Sluts Galore: Scenes From 2006'

Aesthetics, Hollywood, The Zeitgeist

Let’s see, the line-up of sluts and just plain unsavory sorts in today’s WorldNetDaily column is long: Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, “Hue Hefner’s harem of hos,” Judith Regan, Michael Richards, Barack Obama. Even Oprah, “the Queen of Kitsch,” cameos.

As usual, politicians make most ordinary sewer rats pale in comparison. Here’s “Sluts Galore: Scenes From 2006.”

Update: Mike Burns dares me to print his apparently very gritty letter, so here goes:

You have written many a wise and witty column, Ilana. Unfortunately, “Sluts Galore” wasn’t one of them.
In an astoundingly vicious screed, you succumb to a pervasive form of bigotry, one of the last few “acceptable” forms left in America: bigotry against people you consider “ugly.”
Don’t start saying I’m defending the slutty behavior of Brittney Spears et al [That would be a moralizing, Malkin-type, red-herring retort, not one Mercer resorts to]. I don’t approve of that anymore than you. But denigrating her (and by extension, those of similar physiognomy) on the basis of the features she has is just plain mean.
I call ’em as I see ’em. Dare you to print this.

–Mike Burns

Mercer Reply:

Although these females are not beautiful, neither are they ugly. Nor were they so termed in my column. Rather, they represent what I call the porn aesthetic the essence of which is not true sensuality or real physical beauty, but something that corresponds to the lowest form of sex. They are pornographic phenoms theirs are faces that men want to see on hookers; on women they have plain crude sex with. They look well-used, cheap, unrefined, and whorish even in their youth. This nuance has evaded Mike’s righteous indignation. In fact, like the best of left-liberal sensitivity enforcers, Mike rails against aesthetic judgment per se. — ILANA

Updated: ‘Sluts Galore: Scenes From 2006’

Aesthetics, Hollywood, The Zeitgeist

Let’s see, the line-up of sluts and just plain unsavory sorts in today’s WorldNetDaily column is long: Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, “Hue Hefner’s harem of hos,” Judith Regan, Michael Richards, Barack Obama. Even Oprah, “the Queen of Kitsch,” cameos.

As usual, politicians make most ordinary sewer rats pale in comparison. Here’s “Sluts Galore: Scenes From 2006.”

Update: Mike Burns dares me to print his apparently very gritty letter, so here goes:

You have written many a wise and witty column, Ilana. Unfortunately, “Sluts Galore” wasn’t one of them.
In an astoundingly vicious screed, you succumb to a pervasive form of bigotry, one of the last few “acceptable” forms left in America: bigotry against people you consider “ugly.”
Don’t start saying I’m defending the slutty behavior of Brittney Spears et al [That would be a moralizing, Malkin-type, red-herring retort, not one Mercer resorts to]. I don’t approve of that anymore than you. But denigrating her (and by extension, those of similar physiognomy) on the basis of the features she has is just plain mean.
I call ’em as I see ’em. Dare you to print this.

–Mike Burns

Mercer Reply:

Although these females are not beautiful, neither are they ugly. Nor were they so termed in my column. Rather, they represent what I call the porn aesthetic the essence of which is not true sensuality or real physical beauty, but something that corresponds to the lowest form of sex. They are pornographic phenoms theirs are faces that men want to see on hookers; on women they have plain crude sex with. They look well-used, cheap, unrefined, and whorish even in their youth. This nuance has evaded Mike’s righteous indignation. In fact, like the best of left-liberal sensitivity enforcers, Mike rails against aesthetic judgment per se. — ILANA