“There’s David Petraeus, former CIA director, formerly a four-star general who cultivated his own celebrity. There’s his mistress-cum-stalker, the bombastic, narcissistic Paula Broadwell, who despite—or, rather, because of—her pockmarked character has been propelled to prominence by the country’s elites.
There’s Petraeus’ even skankier BFF (Best Friends Forever), Tampa socialite Jill Kelley, and her dysfunctional twin. Primped like street walkers, the twins can be seen in pictures, flanking their BFF and his ungroomed, graying wife, Holly Petraeus.
The fawning press takes the position that this—the flotsam and jetsam of American society—is indeed an aristocracy of talent and merit. Broadwell, they tell us, was soul-mate and intellectual companion to our grandiose general. Their mating was a meeting of minds. Woe is me!
In the tradition of this ‘meritocracy’ is U.S. Marine General John Allen. Mentored by Petraeus, Allen is the top American commander in Afghanistan, and candidate for supreme commander of NATO. Allen and Kelley were caught in flagrante. As a shrinking segment of America toiled to support these ponces, in-style, the two had been exchanging 20,000 to 30,000 steamy, pixelated pages over the course of two years. …
… Petraeus’s paramour blew her cover as the lover some months back. The pushy, dumbbell-obsessed lightweight is said to have threatened the cheap-looking BFF (Kelly). …”
More on “the Military top brass and the brassy broads who attach themselves to Rome’s Army, and who “do not stand aloof from the state and its supermarket culture,” in“Whoring and Warring In the Military: What’s New?”.
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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.
There exists throughout America a species of busybody who decides morality and behavior for the rest of us. Sometimes it is just silly things like a yellow ribbon to “support the troops” (does that protect against IED’s?), or a pink ribbon for breast cancer (as if I need to be reminded of breast cancer). I guess if shoving your head in a toilet bowl makes you feel better about the Holocaust, go to it!
Of course, the current rage is to “pile on” the notorious Jerry Sandusky child abuse case, where we need to “make a statement” via some collective punishment. Maybe we can drop a nuke on Sandusky? Or change the ice cream brand to “Ben and Hortense’s”? Or rename “Pennsylvania” as “Lesotho”? Into this collective mentality steps this cartel of hypocrisy known as the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
Now, you might take a step back and ask why state governments need to run colleges when private universities do fairly well. Thomas Jefferson thought that some public education would make us enlightened and freer, not knowing that most universities would be run by neo-Marxist academicians. While some colleges stick to learning (such as Caltech, which lost 300 basketball games in a row), others run semi-professional football and basketball teams. I guess colleges could also operate breweries, pencil factories, and whorehouses – the latter of which is, arguably, in line with the rest of what goes on there!
Hence the neo-Marxists wind-up sending hulking semi-literate Neanderthals to bash each other with weekly concussions for subsistence “scholarship” under the pretense that they are “students.” Should one of these exploited gladiators hock a T-shirt for $50, they get pounced upon for violating the “rules” that they have no say in! This, we are told, maintains the “integrity” of the process.
But even on non-athletes, the Universities are hardly better. With severe shortage of scientists in the labor force, they could hire paid “staff” to do the grunt work of searching for the Higgs Boson – but instead, they train “graduate students” for subsistence to work 100 hour weeks soldering connections to scintillation counters, for the same reason that Simon Legree employed slaves on the plantation – cheap labor. [IM: Myron, slavery, which was economically inefficient, was purported to be “free” labor.] The fact that there are going to be ZERO jobs in experimental particle physics in 2030 is of no concern to the professors.
Back to the NCAA. They have decided to follow the dictum of Orwell: “Those who control the past control the future,” by ex post facto declaring victories of Penn State to now be losses – which, undoubtedly, will also erase child abuse!
Why not award the ersatz victories toCaltech?! This has to rank with the claim that the late Kim Jong Il of South Korea golfed a 34 in 18 holes including 11 holes-in-one. Undoubtedly this constitutes another victory for both morality and academic integrity.
They also decided to limit the amount of “scholarships” that the taxpayers of Lesotho (formerly known as Pennsylvania) can give to muscle-laden ghetto kids to bash their brains in.
However, in fairness, the NCAA is allowing the “scholars” to transfer to other Bowl-bound semi-professional franchises (sometimes called “Universities”). Hallelujah, justice is served! Ten years from now, most of those former “scholars” will be serving fries with that “justice” on torn cartilages, suffering migraine headaches.
**
Barely a Blog (BAB) contributor Myron Pauli grew up in Sunnyside Queens, went off to college in Cleveland and then spent time in a mental institution in Cambridge MA (MIT) with Benjamin Netanyahu (did not know him), and others until he was released with the “hostages” and Jimmy Carter on January 20, 1981, having defended his dissertation in nuclear physics. Most of the time since, he has worked on infrared sensors, mainly at Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC. He was NOT named after Ron Paul but is distantly related to physicist Wolftgang Pauli; unfortunately, only the “good looks” were handed down and not the brains. He writes assorted song lyrics and essays reflecting his cynicism and classical liberalism.
The new ‘poster child’ for a bully victim in America is, wait for it, not a helpless small child, robbed of lunch money by the schoolyard ruffian, but an adult entrusted with supervising them.
The Internet watched 68-year-old Karen Klein, who was charged with ‘monitoring’ bused children in the town of Greece, N.Y., dissolve in tears to the taunts of her 13-year-old charges.
Klein’s failure to fend off the feral children was captured on YouTube by her tormentors, students at the Athena Middle School in suburban Rochester.
To the sight of a feeble adult, who occupies two seats on the vehicle she’s supposed to supervise; too fat to budge and too powerless to perform the task for which she is being paid—the Internet erupted in cheers.
Klein was quickly catapulted to fame for her, yes, courage. ‘God bless, you are my hero,’ effused a woman with the handle ‘Marykate,’ in an online post.
Charitably put, Klein has not advanced adulthood in infantile America. …
… In defense of the wolverines who preyed on Klein, how is an adult such as herself to command their respect? From whom are these fiends, out on a wilding spree, expected to learn a lesson? From Supervisor Klein, who was not adult enough to holler for help? Klein lacked the wherewithal to ask the bus driver to stop the bus and set the kids straight, then and there. …
… Or, perhaps the bus drive is another fearful fatty, who was unable to dislodge herself from her seat? Perhaps the two live in fear of potential law suits, lodged by the parents who sire these good-for-nothing seventh graders? …
… Natural order is not predicated on state-enacted laws. The natural order that has worked throughout the ages to tame young terrors is predicated on hierarchy; on the preservation of clear, never-to-be-blurred boundaries between adults and kids. These boundaries were once upheld in-house—in the principal’s office, the home and the church. …
… Restore old-fashioned discipline to classrooms and school buses.
… Better still: Drain the septic tank that is our federalized education system, and with it the auxiliary personnel that infest the schools and feed off a dwindling tax base. There is now one non-teaching adult for every 8 or 9 children. …
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I’m appalled by these Lord-of-the-Flies adolescents. But I also recall my Irish grandmother, who would have stuffed their words back down their throats ’til they choked, and then settled back for a nip of her favorite whiskey.
The U.S. these days is sadly lacking in cranky old folks.
I reply:
SS: I love your comment. Exactly my sentiment. I grew up around wiry little old Israeli ladies, who were so tough and scary that we kids used to imagine they were witches who would eat us up if we got close enough. (There were no Idiot Pads in those days; we’d think up scary stuff for fun.) Anyone taunting these former pioneers of the Holy land, who had drained swamps in their youth, would run for his/her life. We respected our elders.
UPDATE III: Guys start fighting on my Wall over abortion. I write: “AMM: There is not a thing you can do when people go off about fetuses (which I, of course, love). As I once wrote: “Would that Republicans fussed as much over the many fully formed human-beings dying daily in Iraq, as they do over fetuses.” Fuss all you like, but not on this Wall, fetuses (which I love) are not the subject here. But, I have a very low regard for your average Republican’s “culture of life.”
Ilana Mercer, one day you will be old, and fat, and powerless, and someone will heap on the last straw…and you will break, and sob, and understand what this woman went through. Until then, you’ll be a soulless fraud.
How does the fool writing this know I am not “old”? Because of the way I look? American slobs make me sick. You know nothing about real suffering, but you think a cruel word qualifies. (Read Into the Cannibal’s Pot to get a perspective on just how disgustingly self-indulgent and full of self-pity you are.)
Americans are blind to anything and anyone that isn’t like them; you can identify with Klein because she looks like you. You cannot identify with those who do not mirror indulgence and sloth (“old” though they may be).
From the fact that someone looks OK, you deduce that they are young, have it easy, haven’t suffered like the Klein woman has (she doesn’t know what real suffering is)?
If someone looks OK in middle age, you think that comes easily and doesn’t involve hard work and disciple, and isn’t achieved despite a difficult life? You pity the slack and pile on hard-working disciplined folks, for what? Driving themselves hard (I do that)? Running 12 miles a week for the last 22 years? (I do that, come rain or shine). Not wallowing in pity (I don’t do that). Anything to excuse the way you eat and look, and the arrogance with which you treat others not like you.
How old does the writer think I am, what with a daughter who is 29-years old?
Misplaced compassion and envy; that’s what this country is increasingly about.
What I once said in an interview about reason and misplaced compassion obtains: “In well-functioning people, the intellect is not separated from the affect (i.e. the emotional). They are integrated. When people are rational, they observe reality as it is, and are more likely to be concerned with justice and avoid misplacing compassion.”
