TMR Is A French Futurist (And Everything's Going Black)

Janine di Giovanni has just written The Fall of France for Newsweek. She is currently living there. 

I am going to compare a few of her comments with those from TMR's five-year-old post, Just Face The Facts: Nobody In Their Right Mind Would Want To Live Like This (More On France):

Keep in mind - I knew all this for 5 years before I wrote my comments five years ago:

"Since the arrival of Socialist President François Hollande in 2012, income tax and social security contributions in France have skyrocketed. The top tax rate is 75 percent, and a great many pay in excess of 70 percent.

As a result, there has been a frantic bolt for the border by the very people who create economic growth – business leaders, innovators, creative thinkers, and top executives. They are all leaving France to develop their talents elsewhere." 

- Newsweek, January 3, 2014

"Socialism kills the initiative to do anything - especially work." 

- TMR, July 9, 2009

"It’s a tragedy for such a historically rich country. As they say, the problem with the French is they have no word for entrepreneur. Where is the Richard Branson of France? Where is the Bill Gates?" 

- Newsweek, January 3, 2014

"I've seen french men, crying, because they couldn't get a piece of the Dot-Com Boom; sobbing about Silicon Valley like it was fucking Kansas and they were Dorothy wanting to get home.

...Remember: In America, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are merely 'Bill' and 'Warren' or 'Bill Gates' and 'Warren Buffet'. If they were french, they'd be demanding you call them 'Mr.' so-and-so and acting like their shit don't stink." 

- TMR, July 9, 2009

"When I began to look around, I saw people taking wild advantage of the system. I had friends who belonged to trade unions, which allowed them to take entire summers off and collect 55 percent unemployment pay. From the time he was an able-bodied 30-year-old, a cameraman friend worked five months a year and spent the remaining seven months collecting state subsidies from the comfort of his house in the south of France.

Another banker friend spent her three-month paid maternity leave sailing around Guadeloupe – as it is part of France, she continued to receive all the benefits.

Yet another banker friend got fired, then took off nearly three years to find a new job, because the state was paying her so long as she had no job. “Why not? I deserve it,” she said when I questioned her. “I paid my benefits into the system.” Hers is an attitude widely shared.

When you retire, you are well cared for. There are 36 special retirement regimes – which means, for example, a female hospital worker or a train driver can retire earlier than those in the private sector because of their 'harsh working conditions,' even though they can never be fired" 

- Newsweek, January 3, 2014

"Between the long lunches and all the strikes, they're hardly getting anything done.

...I've seen school teachers with up to 10 assistants - what they refer to as "functionaires" - doing nothing but make-work, or drawing with crayons. How about 9 guys standing around a pothole, with two working and the other 7 smoking for 8 hours? And even the functionaires hate what it's doing to them:

Ask a functionaire what he does for a living and he hangs his head, mumbling in embarrassment." 

- TMR, July 9, 2009

I Think We'll All Be Cutting Out At About The Same Time

“It is a gross mistake to suppose that self-esteem is always a good quality, the more of it the better.”

- THEODORE DALRYMPLE 

 That quote's from a child-killing story I needed to brush up on, as I'd let it slip by with just a glance before, and felt a bit guilty. 

God, I'm glad I'm not a hippie. I've just had to live with them, in the destruction of their wake. That's been enough. 

I've learned how to laugh about it. 6 kids dead so a fool could "feel good about himself"? ♬It's getting better all the time!♪

So, that said, can we get to the nude photo spread of Miley Cyrus already? Isn't that where this is all leading? Isn't the gradual push, push, push, just extended foreplay for television to graduate into the equivalent of a 24 hour porn booth? You see any other "artistic barriers" being broken? Even attempted to be broken? Well let's get on with it then. You're "liberated," baby - Madonna said so - now show me your tits.

There goes my gag reflex. Unfortunately, it's usually triggered by things other people insist on me watching, like the selling of Barack Obama. 

We HAD to have him, too, remember? He was the fulfillment of,...something. The editor of Newsweek said he was a god. People shot guns in my neighborhood when he got elected. Meanwhile, I was hunkered over the toilet, because I share a planet with anyone so stupid. That's how I've spent a lot of my life. Shoot, who am I kidding - it's become real life:

One long session, staring at porcelain, giving it up,...

 

I'm Keeping Score (In The "Spirituality" Olympics,...)

So let's see: 

I warned you Rebecca Brooks and her sleazy husband are NewAgers, and now they're charged in England's phone hacking scandal.

I also predicted bad things once Newsweek was sold to yoga master (and former California politician) Jane Harmon - and now it's going digital only in what Drudge is calling "the death of print."

But I'm wrong about Romney and the Mormons? We'll see. I keep telling you cultism's a great clue to everything - because it touches everything - and, alas, it ultimately destroys everything it touches.

BTW - for the billionth time - we wouldn't have to witness the death of print (or journalism) if the editorial boards would simply report on NewAge accurately. There's a great story here - how the West has been fooled into killing itself - that could easily fuel sales into the next century. But it will never happen, because it requires those same editorial boards to out themselves as complicit in the deception, and they'll never do that.

So it may be the death of print after all,...

 

How Can You Deny You're A NewAger If Nobody Can Even Define What The Damn Word Means?

O.K. - don't be afraid - I'm just giving you the links early today, in hopes you'll pass them around over the course of the day. And I'm beginning with a little lesson on NewAge. What's the lesson? It goes like this - here's what a "psychic" sells:

Bu this is what a psychic is:

One more time. Here's what a psychic sells:

But this is what a psychic is:

Got it? Psychics sell lies. As far as their so-called "powers" are concerned, here's yet another story about yet another "psychic" who should've seen yet another bust coming:

A Lafayette woman who claims to be a "master clairvoyant" and offered psychic readings out of her homes on South and Main streets is being investigated for allegations of welfare fraud and theft, court documents reveal.

Judge Randy Williams of Tippecanoe Superior Court 1 signed off on a search warrant Friday that allowed investigators to further look into Patricia Johns and her business, Astrology Gallery.

The warrant was requested by a special agent with the Social Security Administration's Chicago Field Division, Indianapolis office.

According to a probable cause affidavit included in the warrant request, Johns has received supplemental security income benefits since 2001 for affective disorders.

She's accused of never reporting employment with or income from Astrology Gallery.

Johns' telephone listing for her psychic services went straight to a recorded message on Monday, and a message could not be left because the voicemail box was full.

Her website, www.astrologygallery.com, also was down on Monday.

According to a Twitter account that reportedly belongs to Johns, @FREE_psychic, she posted on March 22 that she is now in Dallas and available for readings there.

Here's what prompted the Social Security Administration investigation, according to the affidavit:

The special agent read a story in February by Indianapolis television news station WTHR about Johns and former clients who believed they had been scammed by her services.

The four victims -- three in Lafayette and one in Frankfort -- paid Johns a combined $181,432 in goods and money. The "goods" included a Rolex watch and crystals.

The special agent then contacted Lafayette police and decided to check Johns' name in the Social Security Administration database, which showed that she has received $67,012 in supplemental security income benefits since November 2001.

Now that's how you fight fraud in this country. Watch - I'm going to follow this story and, I'll bet you, this investigation will lead to other crimes being exposed. These "psychics" are all criminals, and they work together, and I know getting to one's computer files will yield information on the others. Flipping over the rocks they hide under, and exposing them to the light, that's how we stop what they do.

Stay tuned.

Here's something else I know - remember this?

"She always protested that she was not New Age. You've heard that one before, for sure. 'Who me? Oh, I'm not New Age!' We've all heard it. Only terminal cases ever admit to the proclivity. Maybe the last gasp of those people who recently died in James Arthur Ray's Sedona sweat lodge was 'Oh fuck, I guess I am New Age!' But of course, we'll never know if, even then, the denial was finally overcome. When you get right down to it, nobody wants to be seen as New Age because nobody wants to be seen as irreparably stupid.

Prophetic. That's from Chris Locke at the Mystic Bourgeoisie, but TMR's related message is, when anyone else can deny a NewAger is a NewAger, it's such an embarrassment that's what they're going to do, too! Listen to the friends and family of Kirby Brown, who died in James Arthur Ray's Sedona sweatlodge:

She was a free-spirited adventurer who lived in Mexico in an octagonal art-filled house on "Gringo Hill," overlooking the Sea of Cortez. Her high-end interior painting business was taking off. And on many mornings, she shared the waves at Old Man's break with the legends of long board surfing.

As summer faded into fall in 2009, Kirby Brown stood at a crossroads. Although her bohemian lifestyle in San Jose del Cabo was the envy of her friends, she felt something was missing.

At 38, she was still searching for her one true love. She craved financial stability. She wanted children. And so, her family and friends say, she dedicated herself to introspection and self-improvement.

"Trying to find that bigger meaning was important to her," said her brother, Bobby Brown.

To that end, she lived "a self-styled life," added her sister Jean Brown, who admired Kirby's ability to set priorities and create "a wonderfully abnormal life."

She constantly tried new things, and when she found something she liked, it became a part of her. So, it was no surprise to the people who knew Brown that when she turned her light inward, she gave it her usual "135%."

She was "not overly 'New Agey,'" said her longtime friend and confidante, Emily Forbes, "just looking outside the box."

From the best-selling author Caroline Myss, who blends mysticism, spirituality and healing, Brown learned, "We are in charge of our happiness," said Forbes, her best friend since their freshman year at the State University of New York at Geneseo.

But Brown remained a healthy skeptic. "I don't think she got too hung up on the different chakras."

She was drawn more to the practical approach of James Arthur Ray, whose seminars challenged participants to shed fears and old baggage and build "harmonic" lives with personal and financial success in balance. Believing the so-called "mystical millionaire" could coach her on how to "live impeccably," as he put it, Brown ponied up $9,695 -- her life's savings -- for Ray's Spiritual Warrior seminar in Sedona, Arizona, in October 2009.

Folks, when you've got a "free-spirited adventurer" leading a "bohemian lifestyle" involving "introspection and self-improvement" (any thing with the word "self" in it, really, like "self-help") who's "trying to find that bigger meaning" in her "abnormal life" by "constantly" trying "new things" to fill the emptiness - and those things involved words like "mysticism, spirituality and healing" and a desire for "happiness" in an attempt to "shed fears and old baggage" (which probably means they're depressed) in an attempt to achieve "balance" - I don't care what you say, only an idiot would buy any story the person you're discussing is a skeptic and "not overly 'New Agey'".

Anyway, let's cut to the chase here, on this typically dissatisfied NewAge nut:

"She was constantly looking for ways to make herself better, even though she already was an amazing person," said Billy Dahly, a commercial real estate appraiser from Denver, and one of her surfing friends in Mexico.

So she headed to Sedona's mystical red rocks in search of enlightenment. There, she would be asked to get a buzz cut, go without sleep and fast for 36 hours before squatting in her bikini on the dirt floor of a makeshift sweat lodge.

At the end of the five-day seminar, Kirby Brown's life wasn't enriched. It was over.

And, if you ask me, that's the most NewAge thing she could've done.

And finally, Sidney Harman - who bought Newsweek for a dollar and whose wife is political yogi (and former Congresswoman) Jane Harman - has died. He was 92 and, as far as I know, it didn't happen in a sweatlodge.

Somebody should keep an eye on Jane now:

At times like this, the vultures will be circling,....

This Is A Rant: We Couldn't Buy Your Magazines If We Wanted To (Which - Surprise! - We Don't!)

Mickey Kaus links to Slate's Jack Shafer column - about Tina Brown's "new" Newsweek - saying of the Leftist/feminist rag:

This is a meal that a homeless person would walk away from.

Now that's funny, considering all the people who are, or will soon be, homeless out there! (We happen to be using the phrase "homeless" in two ways - in the traditional sense, and to represent Generation Jones, those of us who aren't Boomers and never bought into the prevailing Boomer mindset.) Considering the Right is currently doing the exact same thing the Left is, this got us to thinking:

What else are we "homeless" walking - or running - away from?

In a world where the rich and celebrated are destroying our institutions while hanging out with killers and pedophiles, the president's a baldfaced liar (and delusional as he blows our money) and won't support freedom, doctors are quacks who give out fake excuses to miss work, a college degree is worthless (unless you want to see a woman get off for $50,000 or support a dictator) older people sleep with guns because their daughter's done well, organizations we support take us for granted and are anti-semetic, what's a true blue "homeless" American not to like?

Our answer is "everything". This isn't a case of a few "bad apples" - with some, like Glenn Reynolds, representing the good guys - but of a despicable culture, eating itself alive, in order for the rest of us not to have a meal. The Left and the Right are strangling the middle, in every way possible, and daring those of us closest to the bottom to say a word about it.

Oh, they don't mind if we scream, because they're no more likely to publicize it than their brothers in the mainstream media or the dictatorships they claim to despise. As a matter of fact, to let any accurate criticism of them get out is their worst nightmare, because they have no interest in fixing anything - they only want power as badly as the so-called "bad guys". They speak for those who can "buy now" - not for those who can't buy anything because of long-standing cultural and political policies they've supported, that have made them rich, but that made the rest of us "homeless", both in the financial sense and ideologically.

There is no outlet for those that dislike what they're all doing.

So yes - when it comes to what we "homeless" desire from those in the Boomer set - yes, yes, yes:

Considering what you've made, we'd rather break your plate than eat from it.

We Want To Hear The Man Bust One Verse Of "O.P.P." Before We Say Another Word,...

This morning Glenn Reynolds announced "The Treach Is Back" - with some rap lyrics - to which we say "not a moment too soon!" (We, too, have been huge Naughty By Nature fans from way back - they're brilliant.) Returning with that same familiar hard-hitting Pop-Hop style, Treach has got a question for everybody:

Speaking of nincompoops and Newsweek, Andrew Sullivan announced he’ll soon be bringing his tireless search for Trig Palin’s afterbirth to the Daily Beast. He’s just asking questions! Here’s a question: Why does anybody read Andrew Sullivan?

To which we also say, "We don't know, dude." Hell, we don't understand how he keeps getting hired! That clown can't even rap!

But we know you Da Man, and can get that inside scoop, so be sure and hit us back if you learn anything:

For sure, nobody's talking to us.

Wait a minute - The Daily Beast? Andrew Sullivan?

What motherfucking Treach is this?

Mary Katharine Ham: Hamming It Up Too Much

Out of all the conservative talkers, we probably find Mary Katharine Ham to be the most insufferable - and yeah, that's saying a lot when we include the likes of Bible-thumping bulldogs like Sean Hannity. Even when we agree with her - as we do here - she still comes off as being as smug as any San Francisco liberal (what's with her gratuitous reappearance for a hair flip at the end of this piece?)

Sure, she's not bad looking, and has a mouth that a friend of ours won't shut up about, but other than those typical superficial female attributes that women use to get ahead, there's absolutely nothing special about Mary Katharine Ham. So she's noticed the "new civility/new tone" is hypocrisy in action? Well, whoop-de-doo, that pretty much puts her with everyone who isn't a liberal out there. Does she have anything else to add to that observation? Sure:

That fucking hair flip.

Look, Mary Katharine Ham is a staunch conservative, and she does really well defending our ideals on the TV talk shows we've seen her on (when we bother watching). But if "new conservatism" is going to have legitimacy attacking, say, Tina Brown's "new" Newsweek as "staleness, meaning a lack of both a) editorial imagination and b) news" then the Right, too, will have to do better than trying to cover those same deficiencies by plastering another woman's face before the public and claiming it's a great leap forward. It ain't:

And the fact our friend is focused on Mary Katharine Ham's mouth - and not what comes out of it - is proof enough of that.

[The controversy continues,...]

The Fact So Many Love Her Is Just Extra Gravy

Oh boy.

First it was the scientists. Then it was Newsweek Magazine. And now it's The L.A. Times, but, still this crazy bitch doesn't listen. She helped bring about the era of "Hope & Change", but - more than any conservative on the planet - it's she who refuses to change the most. Listen:

Dear Ms. Winfrey:

I get it.

I understand why you have so many guests on your show offering advice about health. I'm not a fan of alternative medicine, but I know sensationalism sells. Stuff that stands up to scientific scrutiny often lacks the pizazz that makes for scintillating television.

And just because I'm not into aligning my chi or awakening my Tony Robbins giant within doesn't mean other people don't have the right to seek alternatives to modern medicine. I know you are interested in presenting the millions of people who watch "Oprah" with different options.

However, I'm concerned that some of the people you have had as guests on your show and highlighted on your website may have led you astray when it comes to your own battles with weight, a topic about which you've been admirably frank. For instance, it might be a good idea to get advice from a doctor who doesn't say things like many women develop thyroid problems due to "an energy blockage in the throat region" that develops over "a lifetime of 'swallowing' words one is aching to say," as your frequent guest Dr. Christiane Northrup writes in her book, "The Wisdom of Menopause," which you discussed and endorsed on your show.

You're not known for swallowing words, are you?

You seem to have an affinity for the Law of Attraction — the idea that your thoughts "are sent out into the universe" and "magnetically attract" your desires, as Rhonda Byrne explains in her bestselling book "The Secret" and discussed on your show — but I don't think you believe that you can achieve your ideal weight just by thinking about it.

Shut up, bitch. This is Oprah Winfrey we're talking about. She believes in any damned thing that can be pawned off on her gullible followers for a buck.

To paraphrase George W. Bush, that's what a cult leader does.

There's no point in trying to reason with her. She's rich and you ain't, and that's the only metric that anyone in the world has given a damn about for the last 25 years:

Fuck that lady who got killed following Oprah's advice.

Fuck that girl who got raped by going to Oprah's school (wait - that didn't exactly come out right. Whatever: Oprah said it probably wouldn't have happened if she had spent more time interviewing the staff and less time picking out the sheets and curtains - well, yeah.)

Fuck all the relationships she's destroyed by promoting negative feminist "spiritual" bullshit with no point but to make charlatans rich.

Fuck everything, because nothing else matters except she's rich and you ain't, and that's the only metric that anyone in the world has given a damn about for the last 25 years.

Stupid thinking person. Leave Oprah alone so she can make enough money that, after she finally finishes taking you NewAge idiots for a ride, she can continue stuffing her fat face in peace.

Jeez.