Hayley Williams states in a new interview with Clash Magazine that people should feel welcome at her upcoming tour and makes clear… “I don’t want racists around, and I don’t want sexist people around, and I don’t want people there who think that trans people are a burden.” pic.twitter.com/vuTiweBFez
I made the mistake of reading the comments on a Facebook article tonight.
Hayley Williams, a singer I had never heard of (more on this shortly) told Clash magazine that she doesn’t want any racist, sexist, or transphobic people to attend her concerts.
Since Hayley Williams’ statement is so vague as to be meaningless, the comments devolved into a war between older folks who smugly asked “Who?” and younger folks who seemed to regard Hayley Williams as some profound thinker.
Although my Gen X instinct is to yawn and roll my eyes at yet another instance of celebrity political preening, the aforementioned trend of the comments raises a question: when is it okay to leave youth culture behind?
In 1985, I thought that Def Leppard and Rush were the most important musical forces in Western Civilization. My parents (then right around 40) knew nothing of them. And my grandparents (then in their 60s) barely knew that MTV existed.
No—scratch that. My grandparents probably didn’t know that MTV existed. And they had certainly never seen a music video.
I’m going to suggest that there comes a time in adulthood when it is perfectly permissible to stop keeping up with youth music. I don’t feel ashamed that I had never heard of Hayley Williams. Nor do I tout this lacuna as a badge of honor.
I’m 57, and I continue to learn. I read multiple books each month, and I study new foreign languages. But I’m at a point in life where knowing the latest pop culture icon just doesn’t seem as important as it did in 1985.
Young people, for their part, should neither ridicule nor resent this. Let me ask the youngsters out there: do you really want 50- and 60-something adults to have a say in what is “popular” on the youth scene?
My guess is that you would prefer us to stay far, far away. And the vast majority of us are happy to leave youth culture to the young.
Matilda Welin, a writer for the BBC, wants you to be disgusted by your next sirloin steak or salmon filet. The more grossed out you are, the better!
In an article entitled “How a month of abstinence can lead to ‘meat disgust'” Welin encourages readers to give up meat in anticipation of the New Year, during “Vegan January”, or “Veganuary”. While her article includes most of the usual vegan talking points, she focuses on the idea that meat is disgusting:
‘The more meat people managed to cut out during Veganuary, the more their meat disgust grew over that month,’ says study author Elisa Becker, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford in the UK. “When you stop eating meat, that disgust ramps up, which is really interesting. “This suggests that just one month of meat abstinence changes how you view meat.”
Perhaps. A few years ago I spent two weeks in Japan. During this time, I subsisted on slivers of raw fish, rice, and seaweed. When I returned to the USA, I craved steak, chicken, and eggs, like a ravenous Viking. No meat disgust for me!
From a purely clinical perspective, though, meat is disgusting. So are childbirth and sex. (Most vegans, being the ultimate killjoys, are against these, too.) And for that matter: the inevitable bodily functions of anyone who eats anything (vegan, carnivorous, or otherwise) can be quite disgusting. Should we stop exercising those body functions, too?
As Tennyson said, “Nature, red in tooth and claw”. Nature is not vegan, and human beings are part of nature. (Just try to sell a great white shark on the idea of going vegan.)
Like most articles on veganism, Welin’s piece is political, both in what it emphasizes and what it omits. I would love to see the British government ban halal slaughter. (Perhaps London Mayor Sadiq Khan could lead the effort.) But the BBC is much more concerned with lecturing ordinary Brits about the evils of eating bangers and mash.
Sarah Beckstrom, one of the West Virginia National Guard members shot by Rahmanullah Lakanwal, has died.
Beckstrom was twenty. I had no connection to this young woman. But as someone who has lived nearly three times that long, I have a sense of all that was taken from her.
And for what? Blind faith in immigration policies that have proven disastrous for everyone involved.
Beckstrom’s death has led to a predictable debate about the wisdom of bringing so many Afghan refugees into the USA following the American bug-out from Afghanistan. (Which happened, incidentally, less than one year before Ukraine became “essential to our national interest”.)
Sarah Beckstrom’s murderer was one of the 77,000 Afghan refugees brought to the USA in the wake of the Taliban takeover.
I wrote on X:
“This goes both ways. I certainly wouldn’t recommend relocating 77,000 Americans to Afghanistan. If you did, there would be similar problems.
Islam is one of the world’s great civilizations. But it has never been compatible with Western civilization (or vice versa). The best way to keep peace between Islam and the West is to keep them apart.
As for the Afghan refugees post-Taliban, they should have been resettled in another Muslim-majority country. There were more than 50 to choose from. Why bring so many people to an alien civilization that so radically clashes with their own cultural values? It makes no sense.”
I am not a performative Quran burner. (That’s just asinine, not to mention very unoriginal, in 2025.) Nor am I in favor of turning a blind eye to the plight of refugees.
But nor do I agree that it makes sense for everyone to come here, as if the USA (or some other Western country) was the only option.
There are in fact, many other options, many of which would better serve refugees from non-Western countries like Afghanistan.
-ET
This goes both ways. I certainly wouldn't recommend relocating 77,000 Americans to Afghanistan. If you did, there would be similar problems.
Islam is one of the world's great civilizations. But it has never been compatible with Western civilization (or vice versa). The best way…
A certain kind of media person is still stewing in bile over Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle “good jeans” ad. Such media types are eager to see Sweeney suffer perdition for her perceived thoughtcrimes. As a result, she gets virtually no press coverage that doesn’t overflow with snark and sarcasm.
Indeed, it does seem that Sweeney’s biopic of Christy Martin, a 57-year-old boxer whose heyday was in the 1990s, failed to pack the theaters. But so did last month’s Bruce Springsteen biopic. And many people actually know who Bruce Springsteen is. (My apologies to diehard fans of women’s boxing.)
I previewed Christy, and it seems like a worthwhile film. But probably one that I can wait for on cable.
From what I can see of Sweeney’s performance, she did a virtuoso job of transforming herself into an unglamorous female boxer from West Virginia. (Sweeney gained 30 lbs for the role.)
Regular readers will know that I rarely compliment anyone in the under-30 crowd for anything. But Sydney Sweeney is not just another pretty face and overflowing bosom. She’s a damn good actress. And in recent exchanges, she’s proven that she’s a lot more intelligent than the typical mainstream media journalist.
-ET
Sydney Sweeney isn’t backing down. She’s standing by her ‘Great Jeans’ ad and refusing to apologize.
Yesterday President Trump announced an additional 10 percent tariff on Canadian products. The president claims to have done this because the Canadian province of Ontario aired an anti-tariff commercial that featured quotes from US President Ronald Reagan.
The commercial uses quotes from a 1987 Reagan speech. Among the included Reagan quotes are “Over the long run… trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer,” and “When someone says, ‘Let’s impose tariffs on foreign imports,’ it looks like they’re doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs. And sometimes, for a short while, it works — but only for a short time.”
President Trump called Ontario’s use of the Reagan quotes “dirty play”, and accused the Ontario government of “twisting Reagan’s words”.
I remember Ronald Reagan. Reagan was basically the president I grew up with. I was in junior high when Reagan took office in January 1981, and in college when Reagan left the White House in January 1989.
Throughout the 1980s, the Democratic Party was known as the party of tariffs and protectionism. Congressional Democrats like Dick Gephardt, Dan Rostenkowski, and Lloyd Bentsen repeatedly sponsored bills that would impose protective tariffs on our trading partners, especially Japan and South Korea.
Republicans generally opposed these measures. Opposition to managed trade, and the promotion of free trade, was a consistent theme of both the Reagan and the George H.W. Bush administrations.
Republicans of the 1980s were almost universally opposed to protective tariffs. Democrats were in favor of them.
Once again, folks: I remember watching all of this on TV as it happened. At the time, Americans were concerned about the struggling US domestic automobile and electronics industries. Trade-related debates were constantly in the news.
Outside of Congress and the White House, opinions varied. Critics charged Democrats with being too cozy with the unions (who favored protectionism). Republicans were accused of favoring business and economic growth over the concerns of the working class.
Forty years later, we can have a spirited debate about which side was correct, but two basic facts are indisputable: the Republican Party of the Reagan era was pro-free trade, and tariffs/protectionism was the default Democratic Party position.
There is, of course, another side to this. Neither of our two major political parties is what it was in the 1980s, back when the world made a lot more sense.
The Democratic Party used to be the party of farmers and factory workers. The Republican Party, on the other hand, used to function as a pro-free market, pro-business party.
In the 1980s, then, we had one party to make sure the people were taken care of, and one party to make sure there was money to take care of the people.
Today the Democratic Party is the party of Drag Queen Story Hour, open borders, and other fringe positions. The GOP, meanwhile, has become the party of MAGA, at times indistinguishable from a personality cult. At the national level, I’m not sure if there are any Republicans remaining who are willing to oppose President Trump’s positions when he goes off the rails. (Maybe Rand Paul, a little.)
But here’s the point, where Reagan is concerned. You can choose your own interpretation of history, but you can’t choose your own historical facts. If you want to claim that Reagan and the GOP of the 1980s were wrong about free trade, you can do that. But you can’t deny that Reagan and the GOP of the 1980s were opposed to protective tariffs and in favor of free trade. Those of us who were there remember the truth.
-ET
****
TERMINATION MAN
A ruthless business consultant meets an even more ruthless client. But is he willing to commit murder in order to complete the job?
There were some “No Kings” protests in Cincinnati this Saturday.
Everyone has the right to protest the policies of our government, regardless of the party in power. Conservative “Tea Party” protestors certainly made their presence known here in Ohio during the Obama years. Ohio was also the scene of multiple protests against Covid-19 lockdowns.
Moreover, democracy, by its very nature, is an iterative exercise, a conversation. (Peaceful) public protests are part of that conversation.
This argument has arisen each year since at least the 1990s. It is what the Japanese call a 水掛け論 (pronounced mizukakeron) or “endless debate”.
You’ve heard much of this before, so I’ll be brief.
The Native American experience with European settlers was not a monolithic one.
Some Native American tribes were fierce. In 1813, a large force of Creek Indians slaughtered over five hundred US civilians and militiamen near present-day Mobile, Alabama. This became known as the Fort Mims massacre.
The Comanche were cruel to both other Native American tribes and white settlers alike. The Plains Indians were also formidable fighters.
Other native tribes were rapidly subjugated.
Many (most) Native American tribes got raw deals once the shooting stopped. In many cases, the victors (the US government) altered the terms of the agreements retroactively. Continue reading “The Columbus Day debate, 2025 edition”
First things first: I don’t care who sings at the Super Bowl: Bad Bunny, Bugs Bunny, whoever.
I don’t object to a Puerto Rican singer performing at the Super Bowl.
And it’s fine with me if BB wants to sing in Spanish, or Swahili, or Lithuanian.
Foreign language study is one of my passions. And I’ve been studying Spanish for more than 40 years. I’ve spent weeks at a time in Mexico, speaking only Spanish.
So unless you’ve read Cien Años de Soledad in the original Spanish text (I have) please don’t play that card with me.
Writing on X, Democratic Party activist and occasional horror writer Stephen King describes himself as “the most banned author in the United States”.
“I am now the most banned author in the United States–87 books. May I suggest you pick up one of them and see what all the pissing & moaning is about? Self-righteous book bannersdon’t always get to have their way. This is still America, dammit.”
I am now the most banned author in the United States–87 books. May I suggest you pick up one of them and see what all the pissing & moaning is about? Self-righteous book banners don't always get to have their way. This is still America, dammit.
I discovered Stephen King as a high school student in Cincinnati, Ohio, in the mid-1980s. His books were in my school library. If he wasn’t banned in that time and place, then he isn’t banned much of anywhere.
If you are near any population center in the United States, then you are almost certainly within a mile of a Stephen King novel or two.
King also has an estimated net worth of $500 million. He has pleased many readers over the years, and his success is well-deserved. But his attempt to portray himself as the victim of a mass rightwing censorship campaign is a tad pathetic.
I was just turning 15 when Risky Business—the movie that launched Tom Cruise’s acting career—hit the theaters in August 1983. I was too young to get into an R-rated movie without an adult; and this wasn’t a film that either of my parents would have been interested in seeing with me.
I neglected to see Risky Business for more than 40 years, partly because I was put off by the much-played clip of Tom Cruise dancing in his underwear. Call me homophobic if you’d like; but that isn’t the way to get me to see a movie. And there were just so many other movies to see.
I finally got around to watching Risky Business a few days ago. (Better late than never!) The movie was quite well done for a film that was originally conceived as a throwaway flick for Reagan-era young adults. (Moreover, despite the ubiquity of that clip with Tom Cruise in his underwear, that scene is a minuscule portion of the 95-minute movie.) Continue reading “‘Risky Business’: an entertaining film that would never get made today”
Before his assassination on September 10, Charlie Kirk was barely on my radar. I was aware of him, of course. But at my age, I was far outside his target demographic. (I am also somewhat resistant to taking moral and political instruction from anyone born when I was already an adult. I was 25 years old when Charlie Kirk was born on October 14, 1993. Call that my old man’s bias, if you wish.)
The folks at Viceare befuddled because members of Gen Z are more concerned with “body count”—i.e., the number of past sexual partners a potential romantic attachment has had—than members of Gen X or the Baby Boom generation were at a similar age:
“For a generation raised on sex positivity and non-traditional dating apps, Gen Z is surprisingly hung up on sexual history. According to a new survey by Lovehoney, 41 percent of Gen Z respondents said a partner’s “body count” would bother them. That’s higher than any other age group, including Gen X and Boomers, and well above the national average of 29 percent.”
Target’s sales are in freefall. Brian Cornell, the company’s longtime CEO, has fallen on his sword and stepped down.
There is no shortage of glee in the press about all this. Target was one of the companies that abandoned DEI policies in the wake of Trump’s election, and the general shift in the national mood.
Suzy Favor Hamilton and I have two things in common: we were both born in August 1968, and we were both drawn to running at a young age.
That is where the similarities end. Hamilton made it to the Olympics in 1992, 1996, and 2000. I made it only to the Ohio State Cross Country Championships in 1985—where I placed about midway through the pack.
After her running career ended, Hamilton also worked as a high-price escort in Las Vegas for a while. As in running, her competitive instincts took over. She explains in an interview (above) how she became fixated on achieving a top ranking on The Erotic Review, a website where clients review escorts.
By this time she was also a wife and a mother. Hamilton’s husband was aware of her activities. Whether this was some kind of a kink for him, or merely something he tolerated, is unclear. But he knew what she was doing.
One thing is clear: she got careless. By 2012, Hamilton was in her 40s, and her Olympic career was in the past. She was never a household name or a major celebrity, in the way that Bruce Jenner, Michael Phelps, or Kristi Yamaguchi were. Nevertheless, she was a public figure of some renown, and she was asking for trouble when she revealed her identity to several clients. Continue reading “Suzy Favor Hamilton: Gen X ‘Fast Girl’”
More details are emerging about the deranged inner world of Robin Westman. He/she/whatever is the transgender gunman who shot up a Catholic church filled with kids last month, on the first day of classes at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis.
It seems that Westman had a girlfriend named Abigail Bodick, who was a “furry”. For the uninitiated out there, a “furry” is a person who identifies as an animal, usually a dog or a cat.
Yes, this is completely insane. And this brand of insanity certainly didn’t flourish in the 1970s and 1980s, when I was a kid. This is a Gen Z thing.
But who is to blame for Gen Z? Certainly not the much-disdained Baby Boomers. The Gen Z birth years run from 1997 to 2012. A Baby Boomer born in 1947 turned 50 in 1997. That was a little old to be having kids. Continue reading “Gen Xer = bad parent?”
