wolfe’s Growling Musings

Yes, these are all short posts. That shall change. Can you spell? I got 15/15. Go me. Of course I got as little as 2/10 (below random guessing) on one of their quizzes.

-wolfe

This of course is my revenge on Zogmama and Female for their chat in comments about how men hate asking for directions. Hey! It worked for Christopher Columbus, Captain Cook (well apart from dying), and Neil Armstrong, didn’t it?

Clicky-clicky safe visually for work, but one naughty word at the very end.

-wolfe

Violence against women isn’t funny. Except, well, when it actually is. Because it’s so ludicrous, or because the woman is so strong (e.g., Kill Bill).

I think this vignette illustrates so much that’s wrong with both men and women at the dawn of the 21st century. And I found it funny, though disturbing.

Not embedded, but clicky-clicky, and you shall be ‘rewarded’. (Safe for Work?? Probably.)

-wolfe

On January 1, 2007. 5 days remain.
-wolfe

PS. If I drink too much New Years Eve, the secret shall be revealed on the second. Or the third.

-w

Via Pajamas media, but from Petcaretips:

Male reindeer generally shed their antlers long before December 25, whereas the females retain theirs until at least January. The reindeer pulling Santa’s sleigh are always show[n] as having antlers, so Santa’s reindeer must all be females

At least Santa’s a man.

-wolfe

Hanukkah, and Happy Festivus.

Only very short posts are working.

Click here for one of the odder menorahs I’ve seen in my life. I’d post it here, but that’s not working.
-wolfe

As it says. Trouble ticket is in. I will blog at wolfe.wordpress.com (currently just a test site) if this persists past Christmas.
(Finally this one appeared). Posts are taking days to appear, and I can’t comment reliably either. Wordpress seems to think it’s a problem on Dick’s site; I’m not sure what the problem is.

-wolfe

For certain readers… a warm and fuzzy Christmas story. Stolen from Saturday Night Live:

Scott: You don’t look like Santa. Santa’s supposed to have a red suit and a cherry nose. You have a black suit and your nose is..

Hanukkah Harry: [waves the description off] You’re a very smart boy. I’m not Santa Claus, I’m Hanukkah Harry.

Christine: Hanukkah Harry?

Hanukkah Harry: Yes, Santa, he had a stomach virus, so I’m filling in, bringing toys to all the Gentile boys and girls. Now Christine, Santa told me you’ve been very good. So I’m being especially nice to you. (hands her a present)

Christine: (excitedly rips open her gift) Socks?!

Hanukkah Harry: EIGHT pair, can you believe it?! And Scott, for you, some slacks!

[Scott opens a box with a pair of men's pants.]

Hanukkah Harry: They’re a little big, but you’ll grow into ‘em.

Christine: “Gee, Hanukkah Harry, Thanks and everything, but normally Santa brings us toys and fun stuff.

Scott: Fun! Ha! Have I got fun! Christine, for you - a dreidel! And for you, son, some chocolate coins.

[The children are obviously disappointed.]

Christine: Wait a minute, I get it!

Scott: Get what?

Christine: Well you know how we’re always jealous of Rachel and Josh down the block ’cause they always get Hanukkah presents for 8 nights? Well maybe these are the kind of presents they get, so we shouldn’t be jealous!

Scott: You’re right! You’re right!

Christine: And if Hanukkah Harry is helping Santa, maybe that means that Christians and Jews, deep down, are pretty much the same. Maybe that’s the true meaning of Christmas!

[The group is surprised by the sound of sleigh bells and the sound of "Ho! Ho! Ho!" coming from outside.]

Kids: It’s Santa! Santa!

Hanukkah Harry: He must have tried the cottage cheese!”

[Santa slides down the chimney, fit as a fiddle, while the kids shriek and jump in disbelief.]

Santa Claus: MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Christine: (hugging Santa) “Santa Claus, it’s really YOU!
Santa Claus: Yes Christine, your little speech about the true meaning of Christmas magically cured my flu! Now I can relieve Hanukkah Harry and deliver all the toys to all the gentile boys and girls!

Santa Claus: (digs through his sack) “Christine, Your not supposed to open this ’til tomorrow.

Hanukkah Harry: Oh COME ON!

Santa Claus: Alright, it’s a Barbie make-me-pretty!

Christine: OH THANK YOU SANTA!

Santa Claus: Scott, this is for you - a pellet gun!

Scott: We love you Santa!

Hanukkah Harry: What am I, molded white fish all of a sudden?

Whoo Hoo! Guns for the boys and barbies for the girls. Now that’s warm and fuzzy!

-wolfe

I thought those days were over. You’ve got to wonder what was going through the head of those men… I mean asking a woman to move to the back of the bus doesn’t exactly have the best track record. Then you beat her for refusing? You’ve got to figure that’s going to play really, really badly in the media.

Where? Why the middle east of course. This time, though, it was Israel:

Miriam Shear says she was traveling to pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City early on November 24 when a group of ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) men attacked her for refusing to move to the back of the Egged No. 2 bus. She is now in touch with several legal advocacy and women’s organizations, and at the same time, waiting for the police to apprehend her attackers.

In her first interview since the incident, Shear says that on the bus three weeks ago, she was slapped, kicked, punched and pushed by a group of men who demanded that she sit in the back of the bus with the other women.

Of course, she may have deliberately provoked this; maybe she’s lying, but a purportedly unrelated (male) witness backs her story. The bus driver doesn’t, though if she’s telling the truth, he’d certainly have motivation to lie since he did nothing to stop the attack on her.

From the sound of it she’s an annoying uppity feminist.

Well, in places where women are being told to move to the back of the bus on public transportation, maybe we unfortunately need a few annoying uppity feminists.

NB- I don’t care if a private religious orthodox bus line wants to segregate by gender, but not if it receives a shekel of public funding. Indeed, if a private bus line wants to refuse to carry women at all, that’s fine with me. (Before any yelp at that, the 3 gyms nearest me are all women-only. I don’t like that, but I support their right to do it).

-wolfe

One of the characteristics of a not-so-free country is a not-so-free press: a press that doesn’t print the truth, but some ‘version’ of the truth more palatable to the elites that rule.

In a free (or freer) country, it’s much better, but there’s still a disturbing trend to report not what happened, but what one would have liked to imagine happened. Truthiness, as Stephen Colbert would say. Rather than report the objective truth, they report what they’d like to be true.

A very fond truthiness that’s been oft-reported is ‘youths’ rioting in Paris and elsewhere in Europe. Rather than reporting the truth — that disaffected Muslims are rioting in thousands and tens of thousands across France, and continuing to burn cars by the hundreds every week, we speak of ‘youths’, and don’t mention the billion-plus dollars in damages they’ve done over the last year.

This allows multi-cultural boosters to bask in the warm glow of feeling that they’re not racist, even while society starts to tear itself apart. It’s not so good for, well, people who drive cars or people who don’t want to be burned to death.

Copenhagen youths stage an unannounced
demonstration last night. AP photo

Last night, the famous ‘youths’ rioted again in Copenhagen. Did I say ‘rioted’? I meant ’staged an unannounced demonstration’. In a story almost worthy of Pravda, Reuters writes:

Protestors throw stones at police vans in a Copenhagen street December 16, 2006 … hundreds of young people started an unannounced demonstration.

What does this mean? Who are these youths? Are the Danish really going that crazy? More:

Several hundred demonstrators threw cobblestones, bottles and fireworks at police and erected blazing barricades made from Christmas trees, trash cans and bicycles, police said.

They were setting Christmas trees on fire. Maybe they were atheists? Maybe they were anti-Christian? Maybe they were Christians unhappy about people saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”?

Ah-ha! Maybe it was leftists:

The conflict over the youth centre has been brewing since 2000 when local government sold the building that houses the centre. Left-wing activist have been using the centre as a base since 1982.

It was certainly very violent:

“It was extremely violent. It looked like a war zone and it’s been many years since we last had to use tear gas on the streets,” police spokesman Flemming Steen Munch told reporters.

Police responded with tear gas attacks and split the main crowd of demonstrators into several smaller ones using armoured cars. Groups of demonstrators walked toward the city centre smashing shop windows, leaving a trail of destruction.

Tear gas and armored cars? Some angry youths.

In the end, this story tells us nearly nothing. We don’t know if it was a mass Muslim riot like almost all the other ‘youths’ rioting in Europe of late; we don’t know if it was a bunch of leftist squatters; we don’t know if it was people mad about Christmas! We read the story, and we’re simply not informed… other than that violence is breaking out.

Truthiness is such a wonderful thing.

-wolfe