Couldn't agree more David, this column was sheer brilliance. Merrie avoided the profanity but hit all the bases. What the freak (cleaned up for you M) is wrong with people who feel compelled to judge others life choices? Especially when they have no idea of the road traveled.
Cat ladies of the world unite. Roar indeed come November.
When it comes to the pro-natalists, folks like the Collins are going to give the Duggars a run for their money when it comes to dysfunction once their kids are old enough to afford therapists:
"Simone and Malcolm want to show me that you can raise a family according to entirely rational, data-driven principles designed to alter the course of human civilisation for the better; that you can make large families work; that you can promote pronatalism without being racist. I am the first British journalist to see what pronatalism in action looks like by visiting the Collinses in their home. When I leave them, I will be utterly lost for words."
"Every decision the Collinses make is backed by data. 'Nominative determinism is a heavily studied field,' Malcolm tells me, when I ask about his children’s names. 'Girls that have gender neutral names are more likely to have higher paying careers and get Stem degrees.' Names like Titan and Industry are much more than gender neutral, I say. 'We wanted to give our kids strong names. We want our kids to have a strong internal locus of control,' he continues, as Octavian waves a plastic rubbish truck in front of my face."
"Their home is set apart from the nearest town, down a track from a main road, near a creek. When deciding where to live, they weighed metrics on a spreadsheet, ranging from LGBTQ+ rights (which they support) to the density of Nobel laureates produced in a given area to levels of homelessness to major weather events. Then, they looked at cost. They bought this house and the one next door for $575,000; they allow their neighbours to live in the second house rent free, in exchange for childcare."
Every time I see the Vance quote about folks without children shouldn't be running the country, I think of the Collins (who come from old Texan Republican insurance money) and shake my head that Vance thinks that yahoos who take their parenting cues from animal documentaries are somehow a better fit.
"Aniston — who typically keeps her personal life private, but has publicly spoken about her fertility journey — also wrote about Vance’s far-right stance on reproductive rights."
"'All I can say is… Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day,' Aniston wrote in her post. 'I hope she will not need to turn to IVF as a second option. Because you are trying to take that away from her, too.'"
"In 2022, Aniston gave rare comments in an Allure cover story, sharing for the first time that she struggled with her fertility and underwent IVF."
"'When it hits you that Taylor Swift is childless and has cats... The armageddon is coming for him,' one X user posted Tuesday night."
"Another user posted: 'Vance attacked childless women who love cats. Taylor Swift would probably like a word. Release the kraken (meowww).'"
"One fan suggested she use his comments 'right back at him' if she were to endorse Harris, while another lobbied for Swift-inspired 'Democratic fundraising merch.'"
As a hillbilly who recognized early on there was a way out before J. D. Vance was even born, I don't think he was that far off. I know more people from my era who did not make it out than those who did. It got even worse in the decades that followed because the culture became more ingrained. I once had a physician in Augusta who was about 25 years younger than me and who graduated as valedictorian from the high school in a northeast Georgia county adjacent to where I grew up. He said all he wanted was a pickup truck, a girl friend and a six pack. He got a job in a poultry processing plant in my hometown and decided after a few months that there had to be a better way to make a living. He joined the Air Force and stayed in long enough to finish pre-med studies and then went to med school. For every story like his, there are many more of failure and addiction.
The current media and pundit fad of bashing Vance is, like the previous orchestrated effort to denigrate DeSantis, nothing more than a manifestation of Trump hate.
Thought DeSantis did an adequate job of making himself unliked. Maybe if he connected better with voters and ran a smarter campaign he would have earned the nomination.
He did ok among most conservative Republicans but needed support from independents and women to defeat Trump. Unfortunately, those were the two demographics most swayed by the media onslaught.
Great post, Merrie! And the cat lady memes are fire!
Couldn't agree more David, this column was sheer brilliance. Merrie avoided the profanity but hit all the bases. What the freak (cleaned up for you M) is wrong with people who feel compelled to judge others life choices? Especially when they have no idea of the road traveled.
Cat ladies of the world unite. Roar indeed come November.
When it comes to the pro-natalists, folks like the Collins are going to give the Duggars a run for their money when it comes to dysfunction once their kids are old enough to afford therapists:
"Simone and Malcolm want to show me that you can raise a family according to entirely rational, data-driven principles designed to alter the course of human civilisation for the better; that you can make large families work; that you can promote pronatalism without being racist. I am the first British journalist to see what pronatalism in action looks like by visiting the Collinses in their home. When I leave them, I will be utterly lost for words."
"Every decision the Collinses make is backed by data. 'Nominative determinism is a heavily studied field,' Malcolm tells me, when I ask about his children’s names. 'Girls that have gender neutral names are more likely to have higher paying careers and get Stem degrees.' Names like Titan and Industry are much more than gender neutral, I say. 'We wanted to give our kids strong names. We want our kids to have a strong internal locus of control,' he continues, as Octavian waves a plastic rubbish truck in front of my face."
"Their home is set apart from the nearest town, down a track from a main road, near a creek. When deciding where to live, they weighed metrics on a spreadsheet, ranging from LGBTQ+ rights (which they support) to the density of Nobel laureates produced in a given area to levels of homelessness to major weather events. Then, they looked at cost. They bought this house and the one next door for $575,000; they allow their neighbours to live in the second house rent free, in exchange for childcare."
Every time I see the Vance quote about folks without children shouldn't be running the country, I think of the Collins (who come from old Texan Republican insurance money) and shake my head that Vance thinks that yahoos who take their parenting cues from animal documentaries are somehow a better fit.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/may/25/american-pronatalists-malcolm-and-simone-collins
* Jennifer Aniston has joined the match *
"Aniston — who typically keeps her personal life private, but has publicly spoken about her fertility journey — also wrote about Vance’s far-right stance on reproductive rights."
"'All I can say is… Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day,' Aniston wrote in her post. 'I hope she will not need to turn to IVF as a second option. Because you are trying to take that away from her, too.'"
"In 2022, Aniston gave rare comments in an Allure cover story, sharing for the first time that she struggled with her fertility and underwent IVF."
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/25/entertainment/jennifer-aniston-jd-vance/index.html
Here come the Swifties...
"'When it hits you that Taylor Swift is childless and has cats... The armageddon is coming for him,' one X user posted Tuesday night."
"Another user posted: 'Vance attacked childless women who love cats. Taylor Swift would probably like a word. Release the kraken (meowww).'"
"One fan suggested she use his comments 'right back at him' if she were to endorse Harris, while another lobbied for Swift-inspired 'Democratic fundraising merch.'"
https://www.cincinnati.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2024/07/24/taylor-swift-jd-vance-childless-cat-ladies/74525531007/
Odds it's Swift that's been teased for the DNC?
As a hillbilly who recognized early on there was a way out before J. D. Vance was even born, I don't think he was that far off. I know more people from my era who did not make it out than those who did. It got even worse in the decades that followed because the culture became more ingrained. I once had a physician in Augusta who was about 25 years younger than me and who graduated as valedictorian from the high school in a northeast Georgia county adjacent to where I grew up. He said all he wanted was a pickup truck, a girl friend and a six pack. He got a job in a poultry processing plant in my hometown and decided after a few months that there had to be a better way to make a living. He joined the Air Force and stayed in long enough to finish pre-med studies and then went to med school. For every story like his, there are many more of failure and addiction.
The current media and pundit fad of bashing Vance is, like the previous orchestrated effort to denigrate DeSantis, nothing more than a manifestation of Trump hate.
Thought DeSantis did an adequate job of making himself unliked. Maybe if he connected better with voters and ran a smarter campaign he would have earned the nomination.
He did ok among most conservative Republicans but needed support from independents and women to defeat Trump. Unfortunately, those were the two demographics most swayed by the media onslaught.
Kinda funny to further insult women in a comment to a post about how the GOP candidate for VP is insulting women.
You do you , though!
Would said vulgar language be something with an acronym along the lines of GFYYCMF?