Category Archives: Etiquette

NEW COLUMN: Real Societies Use Prophylactics, Part 1

Constitution, COVID-19, Etiquette, Law, Pop-Culture

THE NEW COLUMN IS “Real Societies Use Prophylactics, Part 1.” It appeared on WND.COM, and The Unz Review and is currently featured on American Greatness .

An excerpt:

Ideas about liberty have evolved, thankfully.

Egas Moniz, a Portuguese neurologist, received a Nobel Prize for performing lobotomies on his vulnerable, unconsenting psychiatric patients—or victims. Today, he is the just recipient of the contempt of decent mental-health practitioners. (Those who do not hold him in contempt are not decent.)

The same fate may await Alan Dershowitz’s status as a constitutional scholar for his coronavirus jurisprudence. Dershowitz has stated that the State has the power of precedent to drag you to a doctor’s office and plunge a vaccine-filled syringe into your veins.

Inconvenienced Vs. Violated

Contra Dershowitz’s forced-vaccination violence, and contrary to the opinions of many of my friends on the Right, social distancing and masking are mere inconveniences. They are not rights-infringing. Being inconvenienced is not the same as being unfree.

That you are asked to sanitize, suite-up and give people space means only that you are inconvenienced. That you are being requested not to encroach upon others—not to rub-up against them, or expel sputum on them: This is but an inconvenience.

In the context of a pandemic, these are quotidian requests, to be associated with civility and comity. They crimp your style, not your rights. The thing that infringes on your natural rights to sustain life and liberty is the lockdown.

Sequestering you so that you cannot feed yourself and your dependents is a violation of both natural and constitutional rights.

But prevention? Please!

Prevention is about delayed gratification. When you go out on the town or to work, you have to make an effort to protect others.

After all, isn’t asking members of society to cover-up and keep a distance as non-invasive as a request can get? Give it some thought.

Real men use prophylactics: Remember that ad campaign? …

... READ THE REST… THE NEW COLUMN IS “Real Societies Use Prophylactics, Part 1.” It is currently featured on American Greatness.

 

 

UPDATED (4/27/020): INDIA And COVID-19

Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Ethics, Etiquette, Healthcare

The Covid-19 case count in India is, so far, low. Or, rather, Indians are not getting infected in the numbers one would expect! The country’s population count is just shy of 1.4 billion.

The number of Indians presumed to be infected with COVID-19 is a mere 26,283. Total deaths stand at 825.

Perhaps the disease has “yet to hit India in a widespread way.” Perhaps it arrived in India late and has yet to climb its deadly curve.

If Indian coronavirus fortunes persist, we might look into their eating habits.

A large number of them don’t eat cows, they worship them. And they absolutely love their anti-inflammatory Curcumin, Tumeric, Curry and Cumin spices.

India has more vegetarians than the rest of the world put together.[62] In 2007, UN FAO statistics indicated that Indians had the lowest rate of meat consumption in the world.[63] India, the world’s second most populous country, has over 500 million vegetarians.

UPDATE (4/27/020): “India coronavirus: The ‘mystery’ of low Covid-19 death rates.”

Chris Matthews Ousted For Not Being A Girly Guy

Affirmative Action, Conservatism, Etiquette, Feminism, Gender, Media, Sex

Chris Matthews has always been a tough-talking, gnarled interviewer. His style is manly and abrupt. You can’t have that in the Age of the Girly Boy—where men are expected to be clones of the females with whom they work. Or, else.

Guy talk, like calling a woman, actress Kerry Washington, “a total knockout,” and commenting to one Laura Bassett, “Why haven’t I fallen in love with you yet?”—those won’t do in the age of the wimp.

Matthews also used silly hyperbole to describe Mr. Sanders’s victory in the Nevada caucuses, and he dared to question, rather than just accept, E. Warren’s version of Mr. Bloomberg’s alleged sexual misconduct.

Ageism is also a factor.  A stupid society worships the stupid. Unfortunately, in our age, The Age of the Idiot, the younger the individual, generally the more ill-educated and illiterate he or she is.

Irony of ironies: Conservative-minded people (check) are more likely to defend Matthews on principle than progressives, creators of the culture that has just cancelled him.

New York Times:

… Mr. Matthews, 74, had faced mounting criticism in recent days over a spate of embarrassing on-air moments, including a comparison of Senator Bernie Sanders’s campaign to the Nazi invasion of France and an interview with Senator Elizabeth Warren in which the anchor was criticized for a condescending and disbelieving tone.

On Saturday, the journalist Laura Bassett published an essay accusing Mr. Matthews of making multiple inappropriate comments about her appearance, reviving longstanding allegations about the anchor’s sexist behavior. By Monday, his position at the news network he helped build had become untenable.

Accompanied by his family, Mr. Matthews walked onto the “Hardball” set inside NBC’s Washington bureau shortly before 7 p.m. to deliver a brief farewell. His longtime crew members, who had been told of his plans roughly an hour earlier, looked on stunned.

“I’m retiring,” Mr. Matthews told viewers in a solemn and brief monologue as his broadcast began at 7. “This is the last ‘Hardball’ on MSNBC.”

His sudden signoff took many colleagues by surprise — “Wait. What?” the MSNBC anchor Katy Tur wrote on Twitter — but it followed days of discussions with Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC and one of the early executive producers of “Hardball.”

Mr. Griffin, who is close with Mr. Matthews, traveled to Washington over the weekend to discuss his future in person, according to three people who requested anonymity to describe sensitive conversations.

On the air on Monday, Mr. Matthews made clear that the timing of his exit was not entirely his choosing. “Obviously, it isn’t for a lack of interest in politics,” he said, going on to apologize for his past insensitive comments.

“Compliments on a woman’s appearance that some men, including me, might have once incorrectly thought were OK are never OK,” he said. “Not then, and certainly not today.” …

… Commenting on the Nevada caucuses, Mr. Matthews compared Mr. Sanders’s victory to Germany’s takeover of France in World War II, drawing the ire of many liberals. He later apologized on-air, saying, “In the days and weeks and months ahead, I will strive to do a better job myself of elevating the political discussion.”

A day later, he was under fire again, this time for repeatedly questioning Ms. Warren about her assertion that Michael R. Bloomberg had mistreated his female employees. Ms. Warren was referring to a widely reported anecdote, and Mr. Matthews’s disbelief was criticized as sexist and dismissive.

On Friday, yet another faux pas: Mr. Matthews confused the identities of two African-American politicians, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Jaime R. Harrison, a Democrat running for Senate in that state. “Big mistake; mistaken identity, sir, sorry,” Mr. Matthews said after he was corrected on-air. …

* Chris Matthews, Via Slate

New Column (Updated 1/26): Queen Elizabeth Beats Hollywood And The Stumblebum Sussexes

Britain, Celebrity, Communism, Etiquette

The new column is “Queen Elizabeth Beats Hollywood And The Stumblebum Sussexes.” It’s on American Greatness,  WND.COM and The Unz Review.

An excerpt:

His wife, a hero of sorts only in the TV series “Suits,” had hightailed it to Canada, leaving Harry Windsor, formerly known as Prince Harry, to deliver a concession speech.

Make no mistake—no matter the moola they rake in, Harry and Meghan Markle have been sorely defeated and deflated.

Earlier in January 2020, the stumblebum Sussexes had smugly announced to the public that they “planned to carve out a progressive new role within this institution.” The unavoidable implication of that sleight-of-hand was that “this institution” (the monarchy) was just not “woke” enough for the two’s exquisitely honed sensibilities.

Gallantly has Harry tried since to make his subjects believe that it is he, not Meghan Markle—his meddlesome, divisive, American wife—who had attempted, and failed miserably, to outsmart Queen Elizabeth II.

But the crass and callous rollout production, lacking in etiquette and contemptuous of royal protocol, fell flat.

So deeply silly was the Sussexes Instagram statement, that it had brainy royal correspondents and members of the queen’s bench snickering that Harry and his Hollywood wife must have been getting bad advice from friends across the Atlantic, who knew nothing about the workings of the British monarchy.

A woman of impeccable class, HM the Queen, aged 93, handled the Markle tantrum with great kindness—even though the couple had informed the world of their antics, before apprising the queen and other members of the royal family.

Wrapping up Markle’s failed brinkmanship, Harry unleashed a load of bafflegab, peppered with oddly fatalistic phrases such as, “after so many years of challenges,” “there really was no other option,” and, sadly, “it had come to” this.

Translated: After two years of royal toil, my wife had had enough. She cracked under the duress of being dressed to the nines, served the food of her fancy, watched over and catered to, housed in a palace of her own design, and showered with her heart’s desire and a title.

These were paltry rewards for Markle’s herculean efforts. In a word, Meghan prefers the life of a celebrity to that of a public servant. …

… Once upon a time, a dolt from Tinseltown imagined she was a match for the queen of England. …

The End.

… READ THE REST. The new column is “Queen Elizabeth Beats Hollywood And The Stumblebum Sussexes.” It’s on American Greatness,  WND.COM and The Unz Review.

* Image courtesy of The Unz Review.

UPDATE (1/26/020): Shallow. 

Then there’s the radical, leftist perspective of Mr. and Mrs. Markle and their friends. For them, being “exposed to the world” means being exposed to “Obama, Winfrey, etc.,” and to have “no one [that] doesn’t return your call or accept an invitation to lunch.”

MORE: “Family business: Prince Harry, Meghan Markle bolt for the exit. Can you really blame them?”