A NEW DISCOVERY.

Some of you may remember what fun I used to have with a little number called Acculturated, a rightwing ladymag apparently created to propagandize readers of the Seven Sisters and fashion books. They delivered some lulus, including columns by Boof Kavanaugh buddy Mark Gauvreau Judge and the deathless coochphrase “skin bus to Tuna Town,” before giving up the ghost at the end of 2017.

But wait! There is another, apparently: Something called Evie, which has apparently been operating under the radar since last year. It offers a premium print version, the covers of which appear to emulate the design of Elle, but mostly it’s online. 

I’m probably going to more fully scan the rack, as it were, for Roy Edroso Breaks It Down tomorrow, but for now I want to call your attention to this honey from August, “Man-Hating Feminism Is Turning Us Into Narcissists,” by staff writer Meghan Dillon. It’s all about how, while the good feminists of yore were about “equality and suffrage,” the kind you whores practice is about “sexual empowerment, man-hating, and bashing women who disagree with them.” Dillon also tells us that though stupid feminists think “there would be no more wars if women ruled the world” (“I even heard this sentiment echoed from history professors when I was in college”), she counters that “women can be just as cruel as men” and cites Margaret Thatcher as an example. (I’m not sure she thought that one through.) 

In defense of her thesis Dillon cites authorities like “podcast host Suzanne Venker” and Jessa Crispin, which brings me to my favorite part:

Crispin argues that this attitude leads to a sense of grandiose self-importance, making some modern feminists think they’re more important simply because they’re women. This sense of self-importance (and lack of empathy for others) leads to narcissism, as Crispin writes, “It is a failure of empathy to identify yourself only with those who resemble you. That is as narcissistic as working exclusively in your own self-interest.”

I can’t think of a more relevant example for this phenomenon than what Bachelorette fans witnessed during the season 17 finale.

Very promising! More tomorrow at REBID. 

UPDATE. My fuller consideration of Evie is up now. 

ANNALS OF THE CULTURE WAR, CONT.

I am grateful to Will Sommer -- who's doing fun things with the Washington City Paper blog, by the way -- for luring me back to Acculturated, the rightwing kulturkampf factory where I had previously found an essay about how feminists kept us all from living in Downton Abbey and saying "jolly good" or something. Sommer's find is by Mark Judge, nee Mark Gavreau Judge and a recurring minor character in the alicublog buffooniverse, who agrees with Kay Hymowitz's shtick about American men having too much fun, and blames women.

These days the problem isn’t as much pre-adulthood males as it is uncultured people–including women. When I was in high school at Georgetown Prep, a Jesuit school that prided itself on producing men who could both lay down a block and conjugate Latin, we had a term for well-rounded women: “cool chicks.” Yeah, she’s a cool chick. A cool chick would go to a baseball game with you, maybe liked a cool band, and also had a favorite museum and novel. They were cool because they weren’t just one thing–the Lena Dunham hipster, the scholarship-obsessed athlete, the Ally Sheedy Breakfast Club basket case. Do cool chicks exist anymore? Is there a Dianne Keaton of this generation?

Translation: I just can't beat off to the Vanity Fair "Hollywood" annual since Meryl Streep got crow's feet.

But then I found that Judge's essay is only "part of a symposium in which a variety of writers and thinkers weigh in on the question: 'Can men be men again?'" -- a line I'd prefer to believe is a Rusty Warren set-up, but which these brightish youngish things apparently take very seriously. One of these is Ryan Duffy, and his essay is called, not even kidding, "Training Men to be Better: Rewards and Punishments."

Duffy tells us it's important that we get guys to stop liking casual sex because who knows why (with this crowd the reasons don't even have to be mentioned, but I bet birth rates are involved), and like Judge he blames women (I sense a pattern), because they "have been feeding the beast of men’s desire for short-term relationships." But if the stupid bitches will just listen to him and Steve Harvey, we can turn this thing right around:

But should we also look to women to play a role in this process? In his book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, Steve Harvey talks about men like animals and the importance of rewards and punishments. Harvey actively acknowledges his suggestions might not work so well with feminists, but makes suggestions likely waiting ninety days before having sex with men to ensure he is truly in it for the right reasons. 

I believe there is some morsel of truth to Harvey’s claims. If we as a society want men to grow up and be real men–whatever that definition is–it’s critical that we go back to the simple rules of behaviorism. People will feel, think, and behave in ways that they are rewarded or punished for. If we truly want men to change, we can hope they will reward and punish themselves, but acknowledge that we (and especially the women dealing with them) must also play a part.

I suppose it is progress, in a way, that instead of relying on embittered mothers or maiden aunts to teach women to treat men like dogs, conservatives are starting to enlist the aid of Magic Negroes. Maybe this is the direction their minority outreach will take: encouraging Ice Cube, for example, to go out on stage with Allen West to do "Black North Korea."

Still, if your strategy relies on convincing people to stop having sex, you've got a hard sell no matter how you jazz up the pitch. Maybe it's time they went really retro and advocated the establishment of red light districts. Of course, they'd probably abandon the project once they realized they have to pay the comfort women at least $9 an hour. Sigh. I guess it's rightwing sitcom reviews until someone gets them all jobs at The Atlantic.

Parting irony, though: Isn't it rich that their plan for whipping male sexuality into shape requires women to behave like a union?

UPDATE. ADHDJ, in comments: "Indeed, it's easy to forget the world pre-January 2009, before titty bars and pool halls were invented."

UPDATE 2. Late as it is, I should like to add chuckling's observations on Judge and his Lena Dunham hangup, which could easily be applied to any of these guys and their Lena Dunham hangup:

Anyway, interesting the dude's definition of cool when applied to a young woman: It's not someone who's smart, well-educated, cultured, ridiculously successful in television, probably crown fucking princess of the New York indie celebrity scene -- no, none of that is cool -- but someone who will fetch him a hot dog at a baseball game. Of course pretending to share the interests of some conservative ass and smiling as he drones on and on about whatever infuriates him at the moment is a more achievable aspiration than being Lena Dunham for most women, but unfortunately it's pretty much nobody's definition of cool.

HEAH COME DA JUDGE.

It may seem as if I'm picking on Mark Judge of culture-war catastrophe Acculturated, but look, it's a busy day and sometimes you just have to take the easy lay-up. His latest is about how men should be able to go out with other men -- no, he doesn't mean anything gay, though it does get physical -- when Judge hangs with his old school buds "it’s noticeable how physical our friendships still are, even decades after we graduated. At reunions we tend to fall back on the age-old male expression of affection—light punches on the shoulder, a bear hug, even playful wrestling after a few beers." (I would pay good money to see Judge's remake of Cassavetes' Husbands.)

Judge's plea is actually for Boy's Night Out, which leads me to ask: so who's stopping you? Like all culture-warriors, he thinks behaviors of which he disapproves reflect political ideologies:

Both feminists who hector men to spend every moment with them—making sure all activities are of equal time—and conservatives who argue that a man’s entire life should revolve around his family, are both presenting ideas that are harmful to men.

Hectoring men to spend every moment with you -- isn't that from Our Bodies, Ourselves (That Includes You, Larry)? And even the comedy strawmen that pass for conservatives here at alicublog don't think "a man’s entire life should revolve around his family" -- how then, for example, would married preachers ever get away to Bible conferences for anonymous sex with men?

Here are my two favorite parts of the thing, devoid of context because who gives a fuck:

Feminists of course will take this (like everything else) the wrong way—I’m mansplaining why women don’t feel stress, etc.—but it’s actually a compliment.

And:

The decision was instant and near unanimous: No. All it took to make the right call was a reminder of last year’s monkeyshines: the drinking, pick-up games, late night skinny dipping in the ocean, frank talk about women and sex. We needed to pick the insects and fleas off of each other, and that was best done without girls.

Readers Who Liked This also enjoyed "Why the ‘Conan the Barbarian’ Sequel Should Focus on Fatherhood," which amazingly exists but was written by somebody else.

CULTURE WAR IS WAR ON CULTURE, PART 1,927,922.

So I'm idly flipping through National Review when I find this by Ian Tuttle:

Novelist? Essayist? Short-story writer? From our friends at Taliesin Nexus, for creative types who love liberty...

"Love liberty" is the hi-sign -- like "getting a little dark in here" and "I hate fags." There follows a prize pitch familiar to readers of Writers Digest: "Calling the next great American author! If that’s you, then September 9 – 11, 2016, have us fly you out to New York City, put you up in a hotel, and spend an entire weekend developing your work at the Calliope Authors Workshop..." This connects us to Taliesin Nexus which, it turns out, was previously pimped at National Review in 2015 by John J. "50 Greatest Conservative Rock Songs" Miller as "a 'safe space' for libertarians, conservatives, and other right-leaners who want to work in the arts." I guess they've gotten secretive, since you know how Liberal Fascists are always oppressing rightwing artists.

Anyway, Taiesin Nexus connects us to a delightful blog, "a (loosely affiliated) beta project of Taliesin Nexus," called Smash Cut Culture. Its slogan is "Liberate the Culture" -- in case you haven't caught on that what's happening here is culture war, as opposed to what the libtards call "culture" -- books, movies, pah! What's wanted is wingnut propaganda essays, and Smash Cut Culture's got loads. Here's one:

Sexy Panties and Prison: What Orange is the New Black Can Teach Us About The Regulatory State

Wait, don't go yet -- let's give author Anne Butcher a chance!

If you are a fan of Netflix’s Orange is the New Black, you already know that far too much of Season 3 was spent telling the tale of Piper’s Prison Panties. As a fan of the show, I was a bit sad that the screen time invested in this plotline was not spent on some of the more interesting ones. But as a libertarian, I must say that the way this story concluded in Season 4 provides a great parable for how regulation hurts people in the real world.

Yeah I want to run too, but wait -- she's talking about an ep where the female prisoners sell their used panties to pervs (though Butcher seems shy about saying so). Let's see what the libertarian angle is!

At the start of Season 4, Piper has gotten cocky. After mercilessly disciplining some of her rogue employees, she loves her new position of power within Litchfield. But as in the real world, money-making ideas breed imitators. Just like Apple inspired Microsoft, and Coke inspired Pepsi, Piper’s Prison Panties inspired a copycat business as well. This new business, lead by Maria, draws many of of the Latina inmates into the illegal panty trade, and Piper is not happy about it. 

In the real world, there are constantly new startup businesses challenging more established ones. This is a good thing, as it can inspire all businesses to be more innovative, gives the consumers more options, and give employees more freedom to leave unfair employers. Of course we’ll never know if that’s what would have happened to the used panty industry of Litchfield Prison because like other established business people before her, Piper decided restrictive rules were preferable to a free market.

THEY'RE IN PRISON! THEY'RE SELLING PANTIES DRENCHED IN THEIR COOZE BECAUSE THEY'RE IN PRISON! THERE IS NO FREE FUCKING MARKET IN PRISON!

..In real life, protectionist regulation doesn’t just hurt the businesses that challenge more established competitors. It can hurt the consumers who have to pay higher prices.

Yeah, freaks who buy cooze panties from prisoners. Fuck, what's the use of talking to this nutty chick. Elsewhere at SCC:

The Original Ghostbusters: More Than Just Busting Ghosts?

BE NICE, author Brodie Cooper is not like the fedora-heads in your building, bitching about bitches who ruined their childhood. This is about the original, and stupid in a mostly different way:

A lot of public frustration over the government bureaucracy tends to stem from its inaction or overaction resulting in the loss of an individual’s ability to control his or her own decisions. In the case of Ghostbusters, the EPA, which represents bureaucracy, ends up interfering and shutting our heroes down. 

Oh fuck -- the planet is being boiled like a frog, and Cooper is still all about William Atherton getting slime dumped on him because statism.

A recent New York Times poll found that 54 per cent of Americans believe over regulation has stifled economic growth. Furthermore...

OK, Brodie Cooper has ruined my youthful Ghostbusters experience  -- except she's a woman, so yay feminism, it's Thatcherrific. Let's see what else they have --

South Park’s Stance On Censorship: More Relevant Than Ever?

AHGGGHH! OK, I quit, let's go to Acculturated and make fun of Mark Judge.

REPUBLICAN WOMEN'S OUTREACH IS GOING GREAT.

See what happens when you maintain access with the White House? You get great stories like this:

CBS News has learned President Trump took a lot of heat from his family over the racist chants at a campaign rally in North Carolina on Wednesday. He heard from first lady Melania Trump, his daughter Ivanka and Vice President Mike Pence...

I am loving this idea of Melania registering a complaint.

[TRUMP at desk in Oval Office, fiddling with phone. Enter MELANIA in some kind of ridiculous gown.] 

TRUMP: [not looking up] How'd you slip your collar? 

MELANIA: Donald I am ver' upset wiz you. 

TRUMP: [not looking up] Get a couple grand from Mnuchin and have a nice lunch.

MELANIA: You are tellink ze women to go back and is mehking me look ver' bad.

TRUMP: [not looking up] Know what'd make you look bad? A rap in the mouth.

MELANIA: [Speaking into her two-way wrist TV] Dehncer to Mehstermind. Dehncer to Mehstermind. I hev made ze heat.

TRUMP: [not looking up] Tell Mick I say hi.

This is their outreach to women, I guess. I've mentioned at the newsletter (Subscribe! Cheap!) this new Trump Women Daily thing but I rather doubt it's official. It seems to be in the line of those rightwing ladymags Ole Perfesser Instapundit used to push for (and which briefly found fruition in Acculturated and other outlets, but now seem to have shrunk to occasional items in The Federalist). The Trump Women Daily website is unready but they've been sending me emails. Behold a sample:

That oughta sway swing voters! It's pretty much all like that. And then there's the "earned" media -- like some clever propagandist circulating a clutch of female Trump operatives as Jes' Plain Trump Fans. It's all so shabby one begins to suspect that Trump's only interest is to keep the same rump of racist mouthbreathers agitated for 2020, and to demoralize, intimidate, and suppress enough Democratic voters to make that work. But it's early yet -- maybe Brad Parscale will get Trump to guest-host The View ("You bleed how many days? But for prostitutes it's much less, right?").

A FAN'S NUTS.

Let's see what those scamps at kulturkampf site Acculturated are up to. R.J. Moeller:

Our post-modern, secularized, relativistic culture does not quite know what to do with “true believers.” Not, at least, when it comes to deeper questions of mankind’s existence and our relationship to the Divine. We’re strong-to-quite-strong when it comes to dealing with stuff like vapid celebrity Tweets, the YAC (yards after catch) racked up by our favorite fantasy football player, or the “controversy” of an under-performing new movie on its opening weekend. We’re lousy with politicians and pundits who tell us what we want to hear. 

But give us a prominent man or woman with strong, articulated, uncompromising values in the public square–especially if these values are of the traditional, Judeo-Christian variety–and people freak out. 

Enter: Timothy Richard Tebow.

Yes, it's a paen to the world's most famous backup quarterback. Moeller wonders aloud why people are always talking about Tebow's religiosity, and blames a corrupt press ("I dare you to read a single article or column on Tim Tebow that doesn’t make multiple references to his evangelical faith or [lamely] attempt to weave religious-sounding puns into the text of the piece") rather than Tebow's propensity to spontaneously take a knee, make anti-abortion ads for Focus on the Family, and otherwise inform the world at large that he's down with the King.

Also:

As a young religious American who grows increasingly weary of the “Get-Out-of-Jail Free” card that is offered to anyone in our popular culture who espouses spiritual beliefs in literally anything other than Christianity, I am glad that Tim Tebow exists and continues to fight the good fight.

I'm having a hard time thinking of any actors or rock stars who make a big deal of their Zoroastrianism or whatever, at least not since Madonna was playing at Kabbalah in, when was that, 1988? But I don't follow the NFL closely, so maybe that's what he's talking about. Are there Orthodox Jewish players who daven on the field, or Muslims who call a timeout to pray to Mecca? Because then maybe I'd start paying attention again.

I will post here Moeller's closing only because I know many of you refuse to click the links and I don't want you to be deprived:

But I won’t be devastated if I wake up one morning and find a headline about Tebow having a child out of wedlock or about him being rounded-up by police after an all-night Jack Daniels-fueled bender. 

Why? Because my hope is in Him, not Tim. And from every discernible indicator he’s ever given the public, so is Tim’s.

That's just magnificently bad, plus it inspires a wonderful vision of Tebow staggering unshaven and disheveled out of a police station and, as he genuflects for the cameras, blowing a titanic whiskey fart.

A SHORT TOUR OF THE CULTURE WAR BATTLEFIELD.

Well, boys, how's the culture war going?

How Big Government Ruined Parks and Recreation

Clickbait for sure, among a certain population! Spencer Klavan (Jesus, Andrew has a brother? I weep for the Republic) complains at PJ Media that the show "has devolved from incisive comedy into aggressively unfunny propaganda." See, once it was about "the morass of self-importance and illogic that results when people get together to plan other people’s lives for them" -- that's conservative for "small-town government," folks -- but then "the writers replaced it with a dogmatic fantasy world based on the unexamined conviction that everyone needs a hyper-attentive government mommy. That’s when Leslie Knope became a hero, and Parks and Rec became about as entertaining as a health code referendum."

Wow, so they beefed up the role of the star? And a cynical supporting character became more cuddly? Just like in nearly every sitcom that lasts more than three seasons? What a bunch of statists!

But courage, kulturkampfers -- it's not all liberal fascism on the TV; here's a show that Matthew Rousu of The Federalist says teaches a conservatarian message:

What TV’s ‘Suits’ Tells Us About The Job Market 

...Ross and Spector form a great team. They trade witty rejoinders and provide incredible service for their clients. But in the United States, for the most part, it is illegal to practice law without passing the bar exam. That Ross is practicing law illegally — and what he must do to avoid being discovered – provides part of the show’s drama. While I find the show entertaining, it troubles me because these types of situations happen in real life. There are people who would be good at a job, but restrictions make it illegal for them to work...

Yes, it's the old licensing-restriction rap, with which max-freedom fans sometimes get liberals to agree five minutes before they call them hypocrites for thinking polluters can't regulate themselves. Mentioned in essay: Uber. Not mentioned: State medical boards.

Meanwhile at Acculturated, Erin Vargo:

Drugs are ruining EDM...

Which is like saying sugar is ruining cake, but go on:

...and not only as a matter of individual health and safety (a sobering topic in and of itself). Drugs at EDM festivals ensure that Calvin Harris is virtually indistinguishable from a remix DJ at a wedding party.

[pause, suppressing laughter]

Sure, he showed everyone a good time, but the event wasn’t really about him or his skills and talents and creative capacity.

[pause, stabbing myself in the thigh with a pen] For our reductio ad wingnut let's go to The Federalist's Rachel Lu:

Is it possible that Clueless Dad (that tired old television trope) is going into decline? He’s long since outworn his welcome. And General Mills seems to have gotten the message. 

Their new commercial for Peanut Butter Cheerios...

For some reason I'm reminded of the end of The Incredible Shrinking Man, though it's not so much the "closing of a gigantic circle" as a disappearance up one's own asshole.

ANNALS OF THE CULTURE WARS, PART 432,239.

I hadn't looked at Ben Shapiro's Truth Revolt (which Breitbart.com told us in October would "WILL MAKE MSM 'PAY' FOR LIES, CHANGE 'NATURE OF MEDIA'") before now. Right out of the gate:

Also, there's an item devoted to telling us what Shapiro said on Fox News. Sample:

...[Megyn] Kelly moved on to a another quote from the piece that posits a society where people were paid for doing only what they were passionate about, like painting murals. When Kelly asked who would pay the millennials for painting their murals, Shapiro turned the conversation to the inherently destructive philosophy of Keynes.

Shapiro: This is the whole thing, passing the buck to the next generation that doesn’t exist yet. And John Maynard Keynes was fond of saying that in the long run we’re all dead. This is that philosophy taken to the extreme: In the short run we’re all dead, so we might as well all paint murals. Who’s going to clean the toilets? Who’s going to do the actual work that needs to be done in this country? Maybe this is why some of these folks want open borders.

The Mexicans clean toilets, millenials paint murals, and Shapiro yammers on Fox News. Maybe Shapiro will explain how he would redistribute these responsibilities in Part 2. I'm guessing Shapiro won't wind up wielding a brush of any kind.

Rule of three demands:

Vogue Mag Lowers Standards
‘Girls’ star Lena Dunham to feature on cover despite untraditional body type

No clue whether, before he wrote this, the author saw the recent Acculturated essay called "Why Conservatives Should Cheer On HBO’s Girls" (short vs.: The characters are dissatisfied with their lives and since they're liberals the reason must be liberalism). Despite her untraditional body type, I would bet that since the 2012 election Dunham has gotten enough hate-wanks out of conservative men to float a National Review cruise out of drydock.

UPDATE. In comments, Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard:

Leaving aside the fact that one's body type is a matter of biology, not tradition, a perusal of the large "History of Art" textbook on the shelf reveals more depictions of women who are built like Lena Dunham than like Kate Moss. A quick stroll through the neighborhood finds me encountering more women who are built like Lena Dunham than like Stephanie Seymour. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear that Mr Shapiro has never seen a female body up close.