Leslie Fish's Blog

Bard As Prophet

 I just came across proof that really inspired musicians are prophets.  I stumbled across an article on Leonard Cohen, who died seven years ago, and noticed a reference to one of his songs.  It was "Everybody Knows", which he wrote back in 1988.  A brief reading of the lyrics made me do a double-take as I recognized just how apt they are to a particular ongoing story in the news today.  With no further ado, the words are:

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knowsEverybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died
Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long-stem rose
Everybody knowsEverybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you've been faithful
Oh, give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you've been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
Everybody knowsEverybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knowsAnd everybody knows that it's now or never
Everybody knows that it's me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
When you've done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe's still picking cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knowsAnd everybody knows that the plague is coming
Everybody knows that it's moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knowsAnd everybody knows that you're in trouble
Everybody knows what you've been through
From the bloody cross on top of Calvary
To the beach of Malibu
Everybody knows it's coming apart
Take one last look at this Sacred Heart
Before it blows
Everybody knows. 
   ,,,Think of the name: Hunter Biden
--Leslie <;)))><  

Movies Then And Now

For various reasons (long story) I've been stuck in front of my computer for the past few weeks, doing nothing much but viewing the news about the slow collapse of Hollywood.  Thanks to their strategy of eating the competition, there are only two major production companies left -- Disney and Warner Brothers -- and both of them have produced mostly flops for the past two years.  There's no shortage of independent critics offering explanations as to why this has happened -- everything from business over-extension to bad distribution strategies -- but the most common cause is playing at politics: pandering to the ESG scores of Blackrock, Vanguard, and State Street investors at the expense of creativity and respect for the customers.  In brief: go Woke, go broke.  

It's not hard to see the truth of that.  Most audiences aren't interested in watching badly-mangled remakes and worse spin-offs of old classics, having Diversity and Transgenderism shoved in their faces, seeing men reduced to bumbling idiots and women -- "strong female leads" -- displayed as hyper-powered thoughtless bullies.  Examples are too numerous to list here, but I'm sure we can all think of several in TV series and movies produced over the last two years.  The big entertainment corporations have sold their creativity for a pot of message, and it's poisoning them.  We can almost hear the stumbling footsteps of dying dinosaurs.  We can also hear the scurrying of the survivors -- the little independent companies, too small to have any interest in ESG scores -- hurrying to replace them.

The real irony is that movies made before 2010 were quite capable of presenting liberal ideas with strong and realistic characterizations, brilliant stories, excellent and innovative production values, without pandering to Political Correctitude -- but still managed to win the hearts, and dollars, of the general movie-going audience.  Some of them became classics, and all of those were, as best I can determine, made by different companies too.

So here's my list of the ten greatest movies of all time -- not just my favorites, or this list would be more than twice as long.  In roughly chronological order:

1. The Passion of Joan of Arc  (1928, B&W, silent)  This is an absolutely minimalist film.  There are only three sets: Joan's cell, the interrogation room, and the courtyard outside.  The interior walls are bare, the actors wear no makeup, and there are almost no furnishings. Most of the shots are close-ups.  There's nothing to distract the viewer from the intensity of the emotions on display;  at one point a shouting judge spits in Joan's face and she doesn't even blink.  The script is largely taken from Joan's trial records, and could almost be a documentary.  Only in the last scene, at Joan's burning, is there a crowd and action and the full lighting of an open sky, and it seems like a liberation.  It's one of the most intense movies I've ever seen, and but for the lack of a sound-track it could play well to modern audiences today.  It would be hard to find a stronger "female lead" anywhere, even though Joan doesn't beat up a single male, except in Matters of Faith.

2. The Jazz Singer (1927, B&W, mostly silent)   Based on a 1925 play by Samson Raphaelson, derived from his short story "Day of Atonement", this is an intensely "ethnic" -- Jewish -- movie.  remembered today as the first film to have a sound-track, it's actually mostly silent.  The sound track is a few lines of dialog and some disconnected songs -- and, ironically, "Mammy" is the last of them.  The first musical piece ever played in a movie sound-track is "Kol Nidre", which is quite fitting.  The film is really a serious character study of a talented young Jewish man who forsakes his Orthodox family to join secular society and make his fortune.  He wears fashionable clothes, eats ham sandwiches, visits night-clubs -- in fact, gets his professional start there -- and consorts freely with unmarried young women, one of whom becomes his fiancee.  Then he gets word that his father is dying, and the old man's last wish is to hear his son sing the "Kol Nidre" at the Yom Kippur service -- which, unfortunately, is the night of the hero's  big theatrical breakthrough.  Which will he choose?  He makes his choice in a single long close-up scene, where he tells his sweetheart and manager that "It's the call of my blood, of my race, and I cannot deny it."  What's most powerful about this scene is that he says it in blackface makeup -- without the comic fat white lips or wig, just his true face painted all black.  

3. Gone With The Wind (1939, color)  One of the earliest color films, based on Margaret Mitchell's novel, it's totally faithful to its source.  An intense character study set against the historical background of the Southern side of the Civil War, this is very much a women's movie.  Not only is Scarlett O'Hara a "strong female lead" -- without deviating a hair from contemporary notions of "femininity" -- but so is Mammy, a role which won Hattie MacDaniels the first Academy Award given to a Black actress.  The acting is superb all around and so is the direction.  The camera-work is spectacular, and so are the special effects, such as the burning of Atlanta sequence.  The train-station scene -- where the camera pulls up and up to reveal the self-absorbed Scarlett picking her way through an enormous field of wounded bodies -- is not only a revealing piece of characterization but also, quietly, one of the most effective anti-war statements ever filmed.

4. The Grapes of Wrath (1940, B&W) Admittedly political, this film is based on John Steinbeck's award-winning novel, and the script is -- again -- very faithful to its source material.  The acting is excellent, and  not just the tour de force by Henry Fonda.  The camera-work is subtly brilliant, particularly in the scene with Ma Joad saying her silent farewell to the old farm and her old life.  Almost equally good is the sly "camp dance" scene where the Dust Bowl refugees neatly silence and dispose of the would-be agitators, out of sight and sound of the corrupt sheriff.  Probably the most effective scene is the sequence in the roadside cafe where the Joads try to buy "ten cents worth of bread", and the cook, waitress, and two truck drivers display the profound decency of the "common man". 

5. Fantasia (1940, color) Though not the first full-length animated movie (that was "Snow White"), this film set the bar for animation before the era of CGI technology.  Even its CGI sequel, made in 2000, can't match its quality.  The musical selections are excellent and the accompanying visuals are spectacular.  The opening sequence, Bach's "Toccata and Fugue", is illustrated by what's probably the best abstract animation ever filmed.  The other sections are brilliantly drawn, as close to three-dimensional as was possible before CGI.  The "Dance of the Hours" sequence is one of the funniest animations ever made, and the "Rites of Spring" one of the most memorable.  A timeless film, it's been re-released countless times, modified and restored, to countless formats 

6. Moby Dick (1956, B&W)  From the classic Herman Melville novel, with screenwriters including John Huston and Ray Bradbury, the film is, yes, remarkably faithful to the source material -- including the novel's extremely subtle sub-theme.  The acting and direction are deliberately surreal, stressing the mythological aspects of the story, and the camera-work underscores them brilliantly.  The special effects are remarkable for the time, especially the scenes with the whale.  Modern CGI couldn't have done better (and didn't, in the disappointing 1998 remake).  In some ways, this is one of the most Pagan movies I've ever seen;  I once watched on TV with a bunch of Pagan buddies, and every few minutes one or another of them would point and shout "Look at that!  Look at that!".  I'll reveal it here;  the secret of "Moby Dick" is that Ahab was trying to kill the Puritan God (whom Mark Twain described as "a malign thug") by voodoo, using the whale as his voodoo doll.  I have a song about that. 

7. Friendly Persuasion (1956, B&W)  Another adaptation of an award-winning novel and faithful to its source, this is a morality-tale of a pacifist Quaker family in Indiana, obliged to deal with the Civil War.  As Confederate troops approach their home, each member of the family (parents, older son, daughter and younger son) makes his or her own moral decision about how to respond.  Most remarkable is the tactic of the wife, who simply invites an invading troop of Confederate cavalry to take what they need -- and then offers them a home-cooked meal, all of which mollifies the soldiers considerably.  She does, however, take a broom and thwack one soldier who's trying to steal the family's pet goose.  I defy anyone to say that she isn't a "strong female lead" -- while being a pacifist.  The acting is superlative, the direction brilliant, and the camera-work moves seamlessly from intimate to epic.  1956 was a very good year for movie-making.

8. Twelve Angry Men (1957, B&W)  Based on a 1954 television play by Reginald Rose, and -- one more time -- very faithful to its source, this is still considered one of the best courtroom dramas ever made.  Technically, it's not even in the courtroom, but the jury-room -- practically the only set in the film -- which adds to the sense of claustrophobic intensity.  The plot -- simply the deliberations of the jury -- runs the gamut from mystery to psychological study to political statement, and features some spectacular performances by its top-notch cast, including another brilliant job by Henry Fonda.  The camera darts from the whole room to mid-shots to faces, catching every emotional nuance and gesture, leaving nothing unexposed, zooming in for significant moments -- such as when the old retiree mentions the "same two little marks" on a witness' face that call her whole testimony into question.  The director places several such cinematic "pounces" throughout the film, right up to the last shot before the jury makes its climactic decision, making this another classic that withstands the test of time.

9. Schindler's List (1993, B&W)  Based on the novel "Schindler's Ark" by Thomas Keneally, this has been called the best film ever made about the Holocaust.  Director Steven Spielberg deliberately shot it in black and white not only to give a gritty historical feel, but also to use one brilliant cinematic trick.  The only spot of color in the whole film is the red coat of a little girl, rounded up with the other Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto, killed and dumped in a cart with other corpses as the hero looks on.  This is the decisive moment where Schindler changes from a self-centered and greedy businessman into a hero determined to save as many lives as he can.  This film is both a Hero's Journey in psychological terms and a historical revelation of a subject that had been covered in film only by documentaries before this.  The direction is superlative, as might be expected from Spielberg, and so is the acting at every level.  There isn't a wasted scene or shot in the entire movie;  this is an ageless and flawless film.

10. Avatar (2009, color)  What "Fantasia" was to drawn animation, this is to Computer Generated Imagery.  Written, directed, co-produced and co-edited by James Cameron, this film seamlessly blends extensive CGI with live action in a complexity never seen before.  The plot is deceptively simple, the characterization deep and thoughtful, the acting and direction excellent, and the special effects beyond spectacular.  It adds a whole new dimension to the concept of fictional "world building".  The "diversity" of the cast includes a lot of aliens, and it would be hard to find a stronger female character than Neytiri or Dr. Grace, and its political theme is far enough Left that the most devout of Woke nit-pickers could find nothing to complain about except a lack of Gay characters -- to which, IIRC, Cameron replied "How would you know?"  It's not surprising that a sequel has just come out, nor that it took so long to make. 

So that's my list of the ten best movies ever made.  Do you notice a recurring pattern among them?  Seven of the ten are based on successful earlier literary works: highly acclaimed novels or plays, which had already stood the test of time, critics, and box-office.  Each was the result of an original individual vision;  each of those original visionaries were remarkably creative, and were left alone to work undistracted by corporate nagging.  Any political attitudes they had were the creators' own, not determined by company ESG scores.  Each of these films was conceived as a piece of art for its own sake, not a "product" calculated by bookkeepers' algorithms.  Artists have always worked for patrons, but before now the patrons had the sense to back off and let the artists work without micromanaging.

That's the reason why little independent filmmakers are turning out respectable successes, while nine out of ten of the big-company Hollywood films of the last two years have been such flops.  That's also why I don't fear that AI-produced films will take over the market.

--Leslie <;)))><

     

Revelations on Sexual Stereotypes

If your four-year-old boy comes toddling up to you and announces: "I'm really a girl, and I want to be treated like one," the first words out of your mouth should be: "What is a 'girl'?  What are girls like, really?  What about girls do you envy so much?"  Then listen carefully;  you'll get an earfull of amazing stereotypes.  It's incredible what lies children pick up just through social atmosphere.

For that matter, when somebody announces that we need to restore 'true' masculinity, or femininity, ask them just what those words mean.  Again, you'll get an astounding pack of stereotypes and lies.  You have to wonder who came up with the idea that human females are naturally attracted by the color pink, or that human males are genetically programmed to chase footballs.  

In fact, the "characteristic behaviors" of human males and females vary wildly according to culture.  There's a group of islands in Polynesia where the women farm and the men fish, and the people claim this is the true nature of men and women, ordained by the gods since the beginning of time;  just 50 miles away there's another group of islands where the men farm and the women fish, and the people claim that this is the true nature of men and women, ordained by the gods, etc.   Never mind how widely sexual "characteristics" vary elsewhere.  

It's hard to tell just which, if any, characteristics of men and women are "natural" because all humans today live in societies, and societies have cultures centuries if not millennia old, and those cultures carry ideas about what men and women are supposed to be like, and children raised in those cultures grow up shaped by those ideas.  Since those ideas include "proper" diet and exercise, they can actually affect the physical development of the children and exaggerate physical differences between the sexes, which also affect behavior.

Looking far back through history and all around the world, I've found only two "characteristic behaviors" of males and females that can even be called universal, let alone "natural".  Those are: women nurse infants, and men direct their urine.  Both of these are obvious natural effects of anatomy.  Nothing else is.  In fact, a woman can write her initials in the snow with her own p!ss, but it requires spreading one's legs painfully wide and wriggling like a cootch-dancer, and the letters aren't very clear.  Don't ask how I know.

It's not even true that males are naturally bigger and stronger than females;  that too is an effect of culture.  Archeologists digging up the graves of ancient Gauls and Spartans were struck by the fact that the skeletons of both males and females were generally the same size and had the same number and size of muscle attachments.  The Gauls left no written records of how they accomplished this, but the Spartans did;  in ancient Sparta the male and female children were raised with the same diet, exercise, training and expectations.  Even when puberty kicked in and the boys got extra doses of testosterone, the girls made up for it by producing more adrenaline, which has the same effect on bone and muscle growth, and there were cultural means of encouraging this.  The Maenads were not just a myth.  Neither, for that matter, were the Amazons.  

There isn't room to detail here just how this knowledge was lost or suppressed for the last 2000 years, but I think we can understand why.  Let me offer an example.

When I was a little kid my mother despaired of making a proper feminine "lady" of me, but oh, did she try.  I can't remember a day when he didn't spend at least an hour fussing at me to walk just so, and talk just so, and coo and croon, and wriggle and giggle, and obsess with clothes and hair, and stay indoors where I wouldn't "muss" my clothes and hair, and avoid vigorous exercise and the horror of sweat.  "Sweat" was a dirty word, nearly as bad as "dirt".

I put up with this bullying no more than I had to, and the moment Mama's back was turned I'd be out of those constricting stiff pink dresses and back into jeans and sneakers and T-shirt, and outdoors and away.  I wanted to go run off into the greenbelt, climb trees, hunt for snakes, and above all I loved horseback riding -- not just pones, but full-size horses.  I can tell you some things about the common love of young girls for horses, and it has nothing to do with Freudian notions about rubbing one's crotch on the saddle.  It's about having the use of that big powerful body -- which can run faster, jump higher, and fight more fiercely than any man.  It's a love which takes money to sustain, since it takes a lot of land to grow the food to fuel that big body, and thus it's become associated with wealth.  That's probably the reason that Mama let me do a lot of horseback riding until I escaped to college.  But anyway...

I knew from an early age that Mama's (and the surrounding culture's) ideas of "femininity" weren't natural -- otherwise, why did she have to spend so much time hammering them into my skull?  Natural desires and behaviors don't have to be Carefully Taught.  Eventually I clarified the idea enough to ask her, straight out, "Why do you keep trying to make me Ladylike?"  The answer she gave me really did explain everything.

"So you can marry a rich man."

Oh, of course!  A rich (and powerful) man is called a Lord, and Lords only marry Ladies.  A Lord has enough money (and power) to maintain his female relatives in comfort if not luxury all their lives.  And marriage is the fallback career for women;  if you can't make good money on your own, find a rich man and seduce him into marriage.  It's also called the Catch-A-Man game.  I have a song about that.

So what it comes down to is that "femininity" in modern culture consists of the characteristics of women who play Catch-A-Man, hunting for rich men.  Never mind what the characteristics of "masculinity" are!  Modern sexual stereotypes add up to relationships of money (and power).  The wiggling and crooning "lady" and the bellowing and brawling "lord", whose images are strong enough to seduce people into surgically changing their apparent sexes are basically about money -- and the power money can buy.  They have nothing to do with nature, genetics, or psychology.

There are two ways out of this mess.  First, do as the Spartans did;  raise male and female children with the same nutrition, exercise, dress, training, educations and expectations -- and when they reach puberty, give the females enough adrenaline to match the males' testosterone.  Second, take the money away from the stereotypes.  This would mean creating an economy which rewards merit -- performance -- only, and to hell with everything else: race, religion, gender, family status, etc. etc.

It's hard to predict which would be the more difficult to do.

--Leslie <;)))><      

Random Notes on the Transgender Craze

On the suicide threat:

One of the big tactics of the Transgender movement is that kids (or adults) who want to change sex are suicidal, and must be transed or they'll kill themselves.  Nor much is said about people who have transed and still want to kill themselves.  Nobody seems to note that suicide threats are a tactic, and should be treated as such.  

I remember, when I was five years old and seriously wanted some candy, saying to the parents: "Give me the candy or I'll kill myself, and then you'll be sorry."  All that won for me was a quick brisk spanking and then being locked in my room until I quit howling.  After howling for awhile and getting no result, I gave it up and -- I remember clearly -- thinking to myself: "Well, that didn't work."  

Don't kid yourself;  children know very well that they're ignorant pygmy slaves in a world of giant sorcerers, and they use any leverage they can think of to get what they want out of the sorcerers.  Love has nothing to do with it.  No, I didn't get the candy.  The parents showed me clearly that that tactic didn't work, and I didn't try it again.

Fast forward a few years, never mind where or when or with whom: I saw a teenaged girl (well known to be vain, self-centered and manipulative) yelling at her mother: "Let me XYZ or I'll kill myself, and then you'll be sorry."  The mother, being smarter than most, coldly replied: "No, I won't.  If you really are that delusional, that infantile, that neurotic, that arrogant and bullying, then you're a worthless human being.  Nobody will cry if you stop breathing our air and taking up our space.  Besides, I still have the forge--" (slapping her belly) "--and the anvil--" (slapping her crotch) "--to make another, better than you."

Result: said teenaged girl gaped, gulped, blushed, then burst into tears and ran off to her room where she stayed for the next two hours.  When next seen, she was much subdued and better behaved.  It occurred to me then that, in an overcrowded world, threatening suicide isn't much of a tactic.

On seducing children:

Again, never mind where or when or with whom;  a teacher was escorting a busload of second-graders to the town library to show them how it worked and how to take out books.  As the kids got off, she had the foresight to tell the bus driver to wait right there while she went to see if the library was crowded or not.  She walked the kids into the front room of the library, and there sat a Drag Queen -- complete with padded boobs thick face-paint and three-inch fake eyelashes -- reading a story-book, in a classic crooning voice, to a small bunch of puzzled-looking six-year-olds.  The teacher yelped "Omigod," then turned around and yelled to her second-graders: "Run away!  Run back to the bus and get in, and hide under the seats!  Run!"  They did, and she ran after them, and the bewildered bus-driver let them back on, and the kids all hid under the seats, and the bus-driver shut the door after them.  Then the teacher stood in the stairwell, whipped out her cell-phone and called the cops.  "Help!  Please come help!" she cried to the 911 dispatcher. "I"m Ms. *****, of ***** school, with my second-grade class, in the bus just outside the ***** library.  We don't dare go inside, because there's a whore in the library, seducing the children."

Needless to say, the police showed up and there was much excitement, and the children watched in fascination as the police escorted the Drag Queen away.  They also listened intently when the police questioned the teacher and the upset librarian who had arranged for the Drag Queen Story Hour.  The teacher, glaring daggers at the librarian, insisted: "I know a whore when I see one, and male or female, that was a whore.  You cannot have whores in the library, crooning at children and petting them and cuddling them on her -- or his -- lap.  Never mind 'gooming';  that is seduction, and it has no place anywhere near our children."  The librarian burst into tears and cried elaborately about 'tolerance', but the cops looked at each other and allowed that the teacher had a point.  The children eventually got into the library, with police escort, and dutifully learned how to find and take out books -- from the children's section -- but that wasn't their main topic of conversation thereafter.  

On Public Displays of Affectation:

This happened today, never mind where or with whom.  There was a Gay Pride parade planned, but the town didn't give it a permit.  So when the paraders showed up in defiance, they found that the street had not been blocked off, there were no announcements except those the parade organizers had made and put up themselves, and there was no crowd lining the streets.  Drivers tried to turn onto the street, found their way blocked, and waited politely for the marchers to move on but honked irritably, which clashed with the marchers' music.  The parade was cut short, and the participants went home -- or to the nearest bar -- early.  Yes, the complaints have started showing up on the Internet, but they're remarkably few so far:  half a dozen strident rants about "homophobia", and nearly as many polite complaints about "protesters" blocking the streets and tying up traffic.  One of the organizers has threatened to go on local TV (in drag, no doubt) and complain on the local news.  Let's see how big an audience he gets. 

I think the moral of all these stories is: "pushiness does not pay".

--Leslie <;)))><  

"Transphobia" Doesn't Exist

 

    There have always been people who wanted to live as members of the opposite sex.  Historically, these have usually been women, living in sexist societies in Europe or Asia, who wanted more career choices than wife, nun, and whore.  History and folklore are full of tales of women who disguised themselves as men, became soldiers or sailors or even pirates, and made good account of themselves.   In the 1700s there was an English army doctor who was known to be short, quitck-witted, and an absolute stickler for hygiene and cleanliness, who was repeatedly promoted and honored for saving the lives of countless soldiers.  Only after he died did the servants who were washing the corpse discover that "he" was a woman.  The English army, anxious to avoid scandal, buried the doctor in his uniform, with the usual military honors, and no mention of his real gender.  

    For men in sexist societies, who wanted to live as women, about the only career choice was "actor".  In Africa, the Americas, the Pacific islands and fringe societies, the situation was more fluid;  one could always claim to be a shaman/sorcerer/witch-doctor and be respected for one's weirdness.

     The key word here is "sexist".  Sexist societies exaggerate the differences between the sexes, often well beyond the ridiculous point -- enforced with amazing punishments.  Joan of Arc comes to mind.  Then again, sexist societies also create sexual stereotypes which, ironically, make cross-sex disguises easier.  In centuries past it was usually enough to put on the clothes of the opposite sex, reshape one's hair, apply dirt or cosmetics to one's face and adopt the stereotyped mannerisms.  Nowadays it's possible to use sex hormones and surgery to make the disguise more convincing, though at great costs to one's health and lifespan.  

    Not so ironically, in less sexist societies the sexual stereotypes are few, not very onerous, and easily evaded, which allows a much wider range of careers and associated roles.   In the US today and most of its allies, women have held almost every career position -- not POTUS yet --in the country.  And there's been some drift the other way;  noticeable numbers of men work at jobs traditionally held by women -- such as nurse, cook, and cleaning servicers.  There's no longer any great economic incentive to pose as a member of the opposite sex.  The motivations are social, psychological, and complicated, but rarely financial.  This is reason to wonder why, in a low-sexism society, cross-gendering is suddenly fashionable.

    In any case, the myth of "transphobia" is totally false.  A "phobia" is a compulsive and irrational fear, and nobody is afraid of transgenders: sympathetic possibly, more often pitying, often contemptuous and sometimes severely annoyed -- but not afraid.  Even in the depths of the Middle Ages in Europe, when the ruling church deemed all sexual deviations to be "abominations" and burned the practitioners at the stake, nobody was afraid of such folk.  The term "transphobia" is only a political buzz-word, meant to manipulate people who -- if you please -- are afraid of being called "phobic", or any of the other current political epithets.  Shades of FDR!  "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." 

    The more serious question is why so many modern transgenders, in sexually tolerant societies, feel obliged to support the stereotypes of a more sexist age.  Female-to-male transgenders are frequently punkish and aggressive, even to the point -- which the media frantically deny -- of becoming mass-shooters, as in Nashville and Uvalde.  Male-to-female transgenders are often hyper-feminine and whorish, as in the case of Dylan Mulvaney and "drag queens" in particular.

    Why this love of stereotypes?  They're impractical at best, degrading at worst, and totally unnecessary for "passing" in a sexually tolerant society.  They certainly don't promote one's social standing or happiness.  In my long career as an entertainer I've encountered thousands of people, hundreds of whom were transgenders to one degree or another, and out of all those numbers I know of exactly four who transitioned completely and remained happy with their choices ten, fifteen, or twenty years later.  All of them had six characteristics in common:  1) they had all transitioned well after the age of 18,  in fact well after the age of 30;  2) in their original genders they had had successful love-affairs;  3) in their original genders they had successful careers;  4) in their original genders they were highly regarded in their communities;  5) in their original genders they had been considered unusually handsome;  6) in their new genders they were absolutely not stereotypical but presented themselves as respectable adults of their actual age and social class.  These were obviously not neurotic teenagers with mommy issues.

     The stereotypes are certainly not part of the alternate culture;  the original transgender, the unjustly forgotten Christine Jorgensen, after transitioning was considered a "stately" and "formal" woman.  That English military doctor was considered meticulous and punctilious, with never a hint of scandal or "coarse" behavior.  The taste for punkish/whorish stereotypes seems to be a modern affectation.  But what's the appeal?  And why now?

    All I can think of is the elusive but persistent thread of subtle contempt running through the current "transgender movement".  We've all seen examples of men who transitioned, then joined women's sports teams and flattened the competition.  We've all heard of male convicted felons who "identified" as female, got themselves sent to women's prisons, and then raped the women there at their leisure.  We've all seen drag queens doing shows that deliberately mocked women with exaggerated whorishness.  What fewer of us have seen is the pressure that "transgender activists" put on lesbian women to transition, or the subtle-to-overt bullying and contempt with which female-to-male trannies often treat straight women.  This leads me to suspect that the current transgender fashion was inspired not so much by envy of the successes of Gay Lib, but resentment at the successes of Women's Lib.  Particularly telling is the current push for teaching both sexual stereotypes and "gender fluidity" to small children, in the schools and elsewhere.  The outrage against that campaign has nothing to do with "transphobia".

    People who, for whatever reasons, want to live as members of the opposite sex can do it quite well without recourse to sexual stereotypes.  As Women's Lib has been telling us for decades, it's the stereotypes that must go.  They really are the last bastion of sexism in the western world. 

--Leslie <;)))>< 

    

   

An Open Letter to Glenn Beck

This is an old tale, but it bears repeating. 

 

Dear Mr. Beck:

You and I couldn’t be further apart politically, but I’vealways respected you as a historian. I’ve always enjoyed your tales of the obscure and remarkable corners ofhistory, and what they imply for the modern age.  Therefore I was delighted to pick up yourbook, “Dreamers and Deceivers”, especially when I learned that it had a chapter– “The Muckraker” – about the Sacco and Vanzetti trial, which I know some oddthings about.

First, my bona fides.  Back in the 1970s, when I was an idealisticyoungster – having supported the Civil Rights movement, the Anti-Vietnam Warmovement and the Feminist movement – I grew interested in the Radical Labormovement, moved to Chicagoand joined the Industrial Workers of the World. Yes, the Wobblies: they’re still alive, and growing today.  I became well acquainted with some of thegreat Old Timers:  Fred Thompson, thegreat Wobbly historian;  OttalieMarkholt, the investigative bookkeeper and organizer;  and the ancient Joe Vlad – who was there. More about Joe later.  I also hadaccess to the Wobbly headquarters’ library, which contained some surprisingbooks.  I still have my old Wobblymembership number, X306686.  I worked forseveral years as an editor and cartoonist of the Wobbly newspaper, The Industrial Worker, and as a musicianand songwriter for the union band, “The Dehorn Crew”.  Eventually I took an offer to move to California and workfull-time as a writer and musician, but I always maintained my contacts withthe old union.  That’s the main source ofmy information.

But anyway, on to your story.  Upon reading it, I was disappointed to seethat you’d gotten your information from the usual sources, including theSocialist ones, with nothing from the Anarchist side of the story – andremember, Sacco and Vanzetti were Anarchists, not Socialists.  The divide between the two ideologies hadalready started with the Russian revolution. It grew wider with the Kronstadt Revolt (which a lot of the Wobblieswitnessed), wider still with Trotsky’s betrayal of Nestor Makhno, andeventually became an impassable gulf when the Communists betrayed theRepublican alliance in the Spanish Civil War. I find it hard to understand why political researchers still assume thatthe Socialists and Anarchists are always allied.  You really should have talked to theWobblies.

Here’s what they could have told you.  In 1920 on the east coast, including Boston, the Italian wingof the labor movement was primarily Anarchist, and of an explosive temperament.  The only radicals more fiercely active were(and are) the Spanish;  in Spain they hadbomb-throwing Liberals, if you please!  Nowthe Anarchists were divided on the subject of money;  there were those who claimed that themajority of money had been stolen from the working class and – since money wasneeded to further the revolution – it was only just to steal it back.  Then there were those who claimed that moneyitself should be abolished and replaced with a system of labor/barter chits, orIOUs.  Sacco and Vanzetti – and theWobblies – fell into the second camp (largely because they had connections withfarming co-ops out in the countryside that could barter food).  Still, there definitely were ItalianAnarchists who were willing to commit armed robberies and throw bombs – thoughnot that many of them.  A couple of themdefinitely could have committed the Slater-Morrill shoe factory robbery.  Then again, a couple of completelynon-political robbers could have done the deed, leaving the Italian Anarchiststo take the blame.  To this day, nobodyknows who really did it.

Now, one thing the Anarchists were (understandably) short onwas competent lawyers.  When the policedecided that Sacco and Vanzetti, because of their prominence in the BostonItalian Anarchist movement, simply hadto be the perpetrators, where were the defendants to get a lawyer?

Enter Frederick Moore, Socialist – and from a wealthy enoughfamily to have gotten through law school. He had also worked for the railroad companies, before making enoughmoney and contacts to establish his own office in Los Angeles. There were also those who said he left the railroad’s employ because hewas “quarrelsome” and “opinionated” and “wouldn’t get along with anybody”.  Not all of this could be blamed on his tastefor cocaine.  In any case, sometimeduring his years in Los Angeleshe became a Socialist – but of a peculiar sort. 

 

He was the sort of rich Socialist/Communist whom theWobblies came to call a “Parlor Pink”. That is, someone wealthy enough that s/he’ll never have to join withothers to contest with a boss over wages – in fact, will never have to worryabout income in their whole life – and who joins a radical political movementfor purely psychological reasons.  Now,there have been rich radical sympathizers who have done a lot of good –primarily because they were willing to listento the people directly involved in the problems and conflicts, and didn’tassume that their superior education automatically gave them superior minds anda superior right to steer the “peasants” in the right direction.  Then there’s the other sort, best typifiedtoday by characters like Bill Ayers, who assume that a revolution is coming andthey should be the kingmakers, if not the kings, thereof.  Fred Moore was that sort.

He gained his contacts with the Radical Labor movement whenan acquaintance of his, who happened to be a Wobbly, was arrested for making apro-union speech (which was illegal then) in San Diego. Moore,upon learning that there were hardly any lawyers willing to defend unionorganizers, saw an opportunity.  Hedidn’t manage to get his friend off on the charge, but got him a sentence muchreduced from what the police wanted.  Theword spread, via the Wobblies, and Moorebecame the lawyer for labororganizers to hire.  He didn’t make muchmoney at it, because his clients were usually dirt-poor and their strugglingunions couldn’t raise much from their entire memberships, but oh, did he becomefamous.  His clients, often recentimmigrants who understood little or nothing about American law, would alwaysfollow his advice – which gave him a considerable sense of power.  He successfully defended Giovanitti andEttor, scapegoats of the Lawrencestrike, and Charles Krieger in the Tulsa Standard Oil frame-up, after which hisfame went nation-wide.

 

It was at this stage that Moore learned about the Sacco/Vanzetti case,and agreed to defend the men.  It shouldhave been a slam-dunk defense;  neitherman had a criminal record, both had good alibis, and the witnesses to theshooting and robbery only got a brief look at the robbers from a second-floorwindow in the dusk (at a time when no man with any self-respect went outdoorswithout a hat, usually a broad-brimmed fedora), and neither of them knew thedefendants on sight.  Even the mainwitness, who had obviously been carefully coached by the police, admitted whenasked about Sacco: “I wouldn’t say it was him, but he’s a dead image ofhim.”  Any good lawyer should have tornthose witnesses’ statements to shreds in short order – say, with a lineup ofother Italian men resembling Sacco – not to mention clearing Vanzettieasily.  There were witnesses who sawVanzetti in Plymouth, selling fish, at the timeof the robbery, and others who saw Sacco getting a professional photo taken ofhimself and his wife in Bostonat the time.  The only retort theprosecution had was that all the witnesses were Italians, and thereforecouldn’t be trusted.

 

Ah, but there wasa witness to Sacco’s whereabouts that day who wasn’t Italian.  Remember Joe Vlad?  Joe was quite young when he came to America from Hungary in 1901, and he joined theWobblies soon after they were founded in 1905. He was living in Bostonat the time, and often hung around at the Italian Social Club, which was aWobbly/Anarchist watering-hole, because he liked the discussions and alsopreferred wine to beer.  He recalledclearly that he saw, and talked to, Nicola Sacco on that day in the ItalianSocial Club in Boston, and that Sacco had leftto go get his photo taken with his wife less than ten minutes before therobbery took place – clean across the city, in Braintree. No way in hell could Sacco have gotten to the robbery in time.

So Joe Vlad asked around, and looked up the address of thehotel where Moore was staying, and went to thecourthouse, and tried everything he could think of to tell Moore his story and offer himself as awitness.  Well, Moore refused to see him,left orders not to admit him at the office, and used various schemes to keephim out of the courthouse – even unto getting Joe arrested, but then gettingthe charges dropped before Joe got to court so that there was no chance thatJoe could hang out in the courthouse and run into anyone who would listen tohim.  So he never got his chance to givehis evidence to the jury.  Fifty yearslater, Joe was still telling the story.

So, why didn’t Moorewant Joe Vlad’s testimony?  Why didn’t heuse a simple lineup to show that the witnesses could easily have been mistaken?  Why didn’t he lean on the witnesses to revealhow the police had leaned on them?  Whydid he sabotage his own case?

It was because he was a Parlor Pink, and he had anAgenda. 

As a Socialist, Moorehad no love for Anarchists.  He saw them,as Stalin saw intellectuals, as “useful idiots”.  Likewise, he had no respect for Italian“peasants” who could barely speak English. What he did want was to use them to expose class warfare, classprejudice, and the corruption of the legal system – particularly in Boston.  For that purpose he sent his assistant to Italy,supposedly to collect character witnesses, but really to publish inflammatoryarticles in the Italian radical papers. For that purpose he alienated the judge, who was known to have sizableanti-Anarchist sympathies, instead of using legal methods to get the judgereplaced.  For that purpose he needed“martyrs”, and a couple of Italian Anarchists fit the bill perfectly.  He never intended to get Sacco and Vanzetti acquitted;  he intended to use them as pawns in apolitical circus, which required keeping the trial going as long aspossible.  It was a carefullyorchestrated passion-play, and had to end in the martyrdom of his haplesspawns. 

 

How did telling Sinclair that his clients were guiltyfurther his cause?  Most likely becausethat would keep Sinclair from investigating any further, possibly questioningwitnesses to Sacco’s and Vanzetti’s alibis – and possibly running into theinsistent Joe Vlad.

 

Joe Vlad died in 1982, at the age of 96, still sharp as atack, still telling his tale of meeting Nicola Sacco at the Italian Social Clubon that particular day in 1920. 

By then, the gap between the Socialists/Communists and theAnarchists was as wide as the ocean, thanks to betrayal after betrayal, and theLibertarian movement had started up, changing the traditional definitions ofpolitical left and right beyond repair. The labor movement has risen and fallen, and is beginning to rise againwith new allies.  And the Wobblies arestill here, and growing. 

 

Still, Fred Moore does deserve to be remembered, along withhis various imitators, as a fine example of why you cannot trust a ParlorPink.  The False Flag tactic is alive andwell, and needs to be watched for.

Think.

--Leslie <;)))>< Fish 

IWW #X306686      

 

Medical Annoyances

     Hello again, fellow-fen;  I'm back.  As to where I've been for the past several weeks, that's a long and dismal story.  

    On Valentine's day, instead of chocolates, I got a cramping pain and partial paralysis in my right leg.  My house-guest, Henry, who used to be a paramedic, was seriously alarmed because those, he said, were symptoms of an embolism.  He took me post-haste to the second-biggest hospital in town (the biggest has a nasty reputation for poor diagnosis and predatory billing practices), where I signed in -- presenting my health-insurance card even before my ID.  After another hour's wait I was hauled off for testing: X-ray, sonogram, endless blood-tests, and endless questionnaires all asking the same questions.  Finally they parked me in a hospital room where I spent the next three weeks and eventually got surgery on that leg.  I also collected persistent bed-sores that took a full two-week course of antibiotics to get rid of, and a persistent upset gut with runaway diarrhea.  Oh joy.

    The operation did clear out most of the vascular blockage in my leg, because the numbness/weakness retreated down to my ankle.  There it stopped and stayed.  In the month since, despite the dozen post-operative medications and physical-therapy exercises thoughtfully provided by my insurance company, there's been no improvement.  So last week I went back to the surgeon for a follow-up exam, and I voiced my concerns, and the doctor gave me an appointment for another sonogram --at the end of the month.  Sigh.  If I wind up getting another operation, I'll insist that it be done at yet a third hospital, because I've found that this one too plays some cute tricks with billing.

    Here's how the trick works.  First, the hospital demands a "co-pay" from the patient (usually around $150 per day) for the first three to six days stay.  Then, once the patient is discharged, the hospital sends its claim to the patient's health-insurance company.  While waiting for the claim to go through, the hospital also bills the patient for the full amount of the stay.  Very often this will scare more money out of the patient.  If the patient is canny enough to contact their insurance company and report this, the insurance company will go have a talk with the hospital billing office -- after which the hospital will insist that the patient pay the co-pay anyway.  The insurance company and the hospital will do some jockeying around to determine just what fair co-pay is, but the patient will have to pay it in the end. The point is to avoid falling for those first bills.  In my case the hospital demanded over $14,000 out of me, while the insurance company informed me that the acceptable co-pay was no more than $900.  I figure we can pay that off in a year and a half, at $50 per month.  We'll  survive.

    The ultimate solution is to get health insurance that insists on no co-pays, or else belabor your state government to forbid co-pays in the whole state. No doubt the medical-billing industry will come up with some other trick to squeeze more money out of the patients, but at least this particular scam will end.  

    Meanwhile I'm stuck hobbling around the house on a walker, or else furniture-surfing, while I wait for that sonogram.  It doesn't help that the chair in front of my computer doesn't fit exactly, making it difficult to work the computer.  That's the main reason that I haven't checked in for all these weeks.  I'll probably be making fewer posts, but I'll do my  best to keep you all informed.  Stay tuned.

    And stay healthy.

--Leslie <;)))>< 

Review Within A Review

 

My old pal Sourdough Jackson just gifted me with his five new books: That Old Science Fiction -- his history of early SciFi, Torpedo Junction -- alternate-history World War Two, and Wurst Contact -- a trilogy about future space exploration, all three of which I found with their covers torn off because the stupid delivery man put them not into or on top of the mailbox but on the ground inside the fence where our tenant's dogs could get at them.  *Sigh*.  So far, I've almost finished That Old Science Fiction, which is a brilliant and concise history of pre-1970 Science Fiction, its perpetrators and its fandom.

I particularly liked his chapter on Eric Frank Russell, one of my favorite authors who has been undeservedly forgotten in recent years.  Yes, I recognized --with much fond amusement -- all the stories mentioned, all these years later, for Russell was a very memorable writer.  What I mourned is all of Russell's books that Sourdough didn't mention, such as Sinister Barrier, Sentinels From Space, and above all Wasp -- possibly Russell's greatest novel.

Terry Pratchett once called Wasp the world's funniest terrorist handbook, and wished that he had written it.  When I first read it I was involved up to my eyebrows in the antiwar movement, Women's Lib, radical Labor  --  via the Wobblies -- and associated reform movements, so I fully agreed with Pratchett, and did indeed use it as a tactical handbook.  Basically it's a tale of an Earth secret agent, planted on an enemy planet, and all the tools and tricks he uses to disrupt (successfully!) that planet's government.  The sheer detail of those tools and tactics were enough to make me wonder if Russell himself had ever been such an agent, or at least in contact with those who were.  

Wasp's popularity took a sudden downturn after 9/11/01, as readers noted how (from Tor's Alan Brown) "In portraying many of the tactics of irregular warfare...the book also takes us into morally dubious territory -- a fact made even more clear in the wake of recent events".  That's quite true;  Russell's hero disrupts the local enemy government by not only creating a fake protest movement -- to keep the secret police distracted and looking incompetent -- but by subtle economic warfare, suborning local organized crime into performing assassinations and sabotage, which are then blamed on the fake protest movement, and other questionable tactics.  As Brown notes, the hero of Wasp "may be fighting for 'our' side, but he does so in ways that make us deeply uncomfortable".  So the book sank into Out-Of-Print obscurity.

That, in my not-so-humble opinion, is a serious mistake.  If Wasp were commonly read today, a lot of people would recognize the agent's tactics as social phenomena being practiced right now, right here, and in US allied societies.  There's nothing paranoid in admitting that the US and friends do have enemies out there in the world, some of whom certainly do use tactics like these.  Yes, we are currently being "wasped", "gaslighted" and disrupted in subtle ways.  Likely perpetrators are obvious enough.   The government of China has been obsessed with conquering the world (often by economic warfare, regardless of its disastrous consequences to China itself) ever since the Ming dynasty.  Communist Russia, on Lenin's orders, infiltrated and began corrupting our educational system a century ago, and certainly hasn't given up its hold on such a handy tool.  The Caliphate -- the quiet and otherwise unlabeled association of the ambitious Muslim governments and organizations -- is certainly not displeased with the current fashion for denigrating the Christian and Jewish religions in the western countries.  All of them are busy pushing their own agendas, and only the effects are visible.

Knowing who's to blame is less important than knowing what to do about it, and that has to start with recognizing that: A) our society is under attack, and B) how.  Each individual tactic can be thwarted once we realize that it's happening.  When it comes to recognizing the tactics, I can't think of a better guide than Eric Frank Russell's Wasp, not to mention his other books.  So I want to thank Sourdough for that particular chapter in That Old Science Fiction, not to mention the rest of the book.  I can't wait to read the resst of them.

--Leslie <;)))><             

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Not the Usual New Year's Resolutions

Last evening I did an online interview with some folks from the International Pagan Music Association (did I get that right, team?), wherein we talked a lot about the Neopagan revival of the '80s, the people involved, and how the movement has gone since then.  Yes, I knew a lot of those Founding Elders -- Isaac Bonewitz, Gwydion, Morning Glory Zell, Tim/Oberon Zell, Paul Zimmer and others -- a dismaying number of whom are dead now.  It's sobering to realize that I'm officially an Elder now!  

Particularly interesting, to me anyway, is how the history and progress of the Neopagan movement parallels -- and is remarkably tied to -- Science Fiction fandom.  In fact, there's a considerable overlap of membership.  That's not surprising when you think about it;  SciFi fans have long played with the idea of psychic phenomena -- and bothered to learn that there's an enormous (and growing) body of evidence in support ot it.  Indeed, about 15 years ago the National Academy of Science yielded to that body of evidence and, in effect, said: "All right, all right, we'll admit that psychic phenomena are real -- now go away."  Of course the Academy didn't advertise that admission, but buried it in the back pages of its newsletter.  Still, it did make that admission.  "Psionics" are officially real.

From psychic phenomena to "Real Magic" -- as Isaac Bonewitz pointed out in his classic book of the same name -- isn't much of a step.  From magic to religion -- as James Fraser explained in his classic work "The Golden Bough" -- is a little more of a step, since the magician and the scientist have more in common than either does with the priest;  both of them hold that the universe runs on reliable rules, while the religionist claims that some intelligent agency can bend those rules at will.  Still, a god -- or goddess -- who sticks to his/her own rules is an acceptable compromise.  Bonewitz took it a step further by claiming that, by using psychic abilities, the magician can create gods/goddesses -- a step that only the Neopagans are willing to take.  

Take it they have.  I could tell you stories of experiments in "theogenesis" -- god-making -- carried out by various Pagan study-groups, and explored in many a SciFi story.  Note that once those "psychic standing waves" are created, they tend to hang around for a good while, especially if constantly nourished by the psychic input of "worshipers".  In other words, so long as the Pagans survive, their deities will too.  

Side-note: psychic practice requires putting oneself into at least Alpha-level trance state, visualizing the desired outcome, and putting a lot of emotional energy into it, since psychic talent appears to be rooted in the mid-brain, which is good for sensory and emotional processing, but not so good at linear logic.  To get into that state and then make use of it requires some light self-hypnosis and personal theatre, also called "psychodrama".  This, as Bonewitz discussed at length, is what a Magickal (or religious) ceremony is all about.  A great tool for such ceremonial activity is music -- often accompanied with dance, involving the rest of the nervous system into the activity.  

So it's not at all surprising that modern Pagan music and filkmusic evolved together, often practiced by the same people (including me).  

The development of the Pagan community and SciFi fandom took a serious hit over the last ten years -- first, a as various economic downturns cut into the money and time that the practitioners had available to spend on gatherings (ceremonies for the Pagans, conventions for the SciFi fans), and second, as the Covid lockdown isolated people.  We've not only lost much of our sense of  community but we've also lost track of each other, to a serious degree.  Both communities have tried to hold together by electronic communications -- "virtual" conventions, filksings, and ceremonies -- but we all know it's not the same, and certainly doesn't have the same intensity.  There's been some argument among the Pagan community as to whether a "virtual" initiation is valid.  I'd say it is, but not with the same strength as the real, face-to-face, within psychic range of each other, live activity does.  It's better than nothing, but we need more.  Virtual/electronic gatherings compare to real-live ones much like grape soda compared to Concord wine.  

Fans and Pagans both, we need to reconnect with each other and organize real gatherings once more.  Yes, I know how much gas costs these days.  Still, we've got to collect ourselves, even at small local events, and meet each other face to face again -- feast and party and talk and sing.  Now that the lockdown is over our only real barrier is economic, and there are ways we can work around that. 

So, my big new year's resolution is to reconnect, in real time.  Are there any fans, Pagans, et al (and let's not forget the SCA, likewise common to both) left in the Phoenix, Arizona area?  If so, get in touch with me (the usual email address), and let's start here.  Live long and prosper, and blessed be.

--Leslie <;)))><         

Sex, Gender, and Gender Roles

 

For my last rant of the year, I'd like to take on the current fashion for sex-change operations, particularly for minors.  

Now it's not as if people wanting to change sexes was anything new.  There have always been men who wanted to live as women, and vice-versa.  History is full of examples of people who managed to pull this off without surgical assistance -- most commonly women who wanted wider career choices than just wife/whore/nun.  In fact, successful sex-change surgery became possible only after World War One, and very few people took advantage of it.  

The first person to make the change and announce it publicly was a George William Jorgensen Jr., later called Christine, who had begun as "a frail, blond, introverted little boy who ran from fistfights and rough-and-tumble games".  He was drafted into a clerical job during WWII, went back to school after discharge and then, increasingly concerned about his "lack of male physical development", took interest in changing sex.  He went to Denmark, took hormone-replacement treatment for a year, and got the assorted surgeries in 1952.  S/he'd meant to keep the change secret, but the newspapers got wind of the story and were waiting for him/her she s/he returned to the US.  Stuck with notoriety, Jorgensen became a successful singer, actress and lecturer until her death from bladder and lung cancer in 1989, at age 62.

Despite Jorgensen's lecturing, and the Sexual Revolution of the '60s, and the assorted lawsuits and political and cultural upheavals of the '70s, '80s and '90s, the number of people applying for "gender-reassignment" surgery remained vanishingly small.  Only when Internet social networks really took off in the 2000s did gender-reassignment become popular, particularly among children, and their parents.  Studies by Harvard and Johns Hopkins, published in the JAMA, concluded that gender-reassignment surgeries had increased fourfold from 2000 to 2014 -- "as more public and private insurance plans began covering the procedure".

It's pretty obvious that the current craze for gender-reassignment is nothing but a political fashion, especially when the proposed transitioners are children as young as two.  It's equally obvious that the fashion is being pushed by adults, for their own narcissistic purposes, not the children themselves.  What does a less-than-ten-year-old know about sexuality, fertility, or medical risks?  What little kids do know about is gender roles.

At this point let's stop for some definitions, something that the media are notoriously vague about.  I'll claim here that gender means the arrangement of one's X and/or Y chromosomes and the physical results thereof, and is ordained by nature.  Sex means the arrangement of chromosomes, the physical results thereof and what people do with those, and is partly ordained by nature and partly by the individual's choice.  Gender roles means the collection of behaviors supposedly attached to gender and sex, and is created almost entirely by society.

Kids know little about gender and less about sex, but they recognize gender roles from an early age -- and often resent them.  Listen sometime to Peggy Seeger's classic song "Engineer" for an expos'e of the conditioning foisted on girl-children, how disgusting it can get, and how disgusted it makes the victim.  Boy-children are subjected to equally ruthless conditioning that's less disgusting but more painful, scary, and dangerous.  Since these conditioned roles are linked to gender, it's understandable that children often assume that they can escape the nasty roles by changing their genders.  I don't have curses enough to pile on the heads of adults who encourage children in this belief.

The obvious solution is to abolish gender roles altogether.  From the time they can toddle, dress the children in the same active-wear clothes (T-shirt, jeans, sneakers and ball-cap), give them the same nutrition (lean meat, raw-to-lightly-cooked veggies, nuts, fruits and dairy), the same toys and exercise and training and education and expectations, and let them choose for themselves which characteristics they want to adopt.  So what if little Suzy is fascinated with wrestling and Billy loves playing with doll-houses?  Let them follow those interests and develop their skills as they grow up.  There are women wrestlers and male architects making decent livings, you know.  When male and female children (not to mention adults) are treated the same, the idea of changing genders will lose its appeal.  

Until that solution becomes common, we can at least forbid gender-reassignment treatments and surgeries to minors, and forbid insurance companies to pay for such.  Anyone who is really seriously transgender can prove it by growing to adulthood, earning a living in their original gender, saving their money and paying for the treatment themselves.  

Above all, stop giving exhibitionist neuroses the backing of law.  People with male plumbing must use male-plumbing bathrooms, no matter how they're dressed.  People unwilling to be called by "he/him/his" or "she/her/hers" pronouns will be called "they/them/their" and nothing else.  People applying for jobs should be accepted or not purely on the grounds of their abilities and experience.  People whining about "transphobia" should be politely ignored.  People using the infantile trick of insisting "Give me what I want or I'll kill myself, and then you'll be sorry" should be laughed at and told that no, nobody will be sorry;  anyone that weak, whining and demanding is of no use to the human species or the planet itself -- except as fertilizer.  

To end the craze for transgenderism, simply stop feeding it.

--Leslie <;)))><   Happy New Year, Jolly Twelfth Night, and a partridge in a pear tree!