Like a lot of people I was surprised, and not a little dismayed at the presidential election result on Nov. 8th. I've read some of the many (many, many, many, many, MANY) analyses of what happened, why and how, and indulged in my own. Which
I have now whittled down to the following succinct and (if I say so myself)
brilliant summing up of the fundamental problem. Solve this and a whole lot
​of seemingly-impossible problems become quite solvable. 
-Mary Whealen

Faith is defined by Merriam-Webster as "firm belief in something for which there is
​no proof."    
By corollary also, "belief despite proof to the contrary." 
Ergo, in in the face of actuality to the contrary, both sides double down on their
article of faith.
Ergo, both sides are retarded kindergartners. 

To read more see also:
Peppy Ann Artifact
Bread and Circuses
Moral Majority-ism of Political Correctness

I was watching poker on TV when one of the players said to another, "You're verbally abusive."
    When a player at the uber-competitive, couch-potato machismo-fest that is the World Series of Poker complains that another player's table talk is abusive, then the "New Wave of Social Justice" has tipped us into the surreal land of Kafka and George Orwell!
    Here's an idea for a really trending app, one that screens and censors everything you say before you say it so as to avoid stepping on any toes-- except those arbitrarily deemed at the moment de rigeur to step on.  Oh wait, there already is such an app and it is (probably) you! 
    So internalized is this horrorshow of cultural sensitivity and "safe spaces",  identity politics, political correctness and new moral majority-ism that y'all have no clue that this gone-way-too-far nonsense is what actually gives rise to the likes of Donald Trump and his followers.
    I'm reminded of the difference between Halloween as depicted in the 1944 film Meet Me in St. Louis (an unregulated Tim Burtonesque night of bonfires and facing real fears) and Halloween today where kids parade from merchant to merchant at a fucking mall and are dispensed candy without even having to say "trick or treat?"
       The latter is a sterilized approximation of real life. 
  It's time to butch up people and develop a little toughness and fortitude. Demanding the world accommodate your sensitivities makes you weak and manipulable. 
    Forget the "this-is-an-issue-of-moral-rightness-and-fairness" bilge you've been sold; if all it takes for me to drive you hysterical or injure(!) you, is to speak some magic bad words, then I am your master. And you are forever more a slave. 
-Mary Whealen


For more info see: 
Have our thin-skinned times killed off satire for good? The Spectator, UK.
John Cleese - Political Correctness Can Lead to an Orwellian Nightmare. YouTube
A clip of the classic Halloween scene from Meet Me in St. Louis.