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I needed to move a sofa.
I mentioned this to an American. He said, "You know anybody with a truck?"
I did not know anybody with a truck.
He looked at me with real concern. Not pity. Concern. The way you look at a man who has told you he does not have a name.
"You gotta know somebody with a truck."
I asked how one acquires such a person.
He said, "You just do."
This is the third time I have received that answer in this country. It is the answer to everything here. You just do. There is no process. There is only the eventual fact of having.
He said, "Ask Kevin."
I do not know a Kevin. He said Kevin like I should. He said it the way you say a shared uncle.
I met Kevin four days later. Kevin owns a truck. Kevin does not own a truck for himself. Nobody owns a truck for themselves. Kevin owns a truck for a fifteen mile radius.
Inside I said: THIS MAN HAS TAKEN A VOW. HE DID NOT ANNOUNCE IT. HE SIMPLY PURCHASED A BED AND ACCEPTED THE CONSEQUENCES.
Kevin arrived on Saturday. He brought the truck. He also brought a second man.
I had not asked for a second man.
The second man's name is Tony. Tony came because Kevin came. Tony did not know me. Tony did not ask what we were moving. Tony brought gloves.
They moved the sofa in eleven minutes.
I offered them money. Both of them laughed at the same time, which felt rehearsed and was not.
I asked what I owed them.
Kevin said, "Buy the pizza."
That is the price. That is the entire economy. The truck costs one pizza and the pizza is not negotiable and the pizza is also not expensive and everyone knows what size.
Inside I said: THE FEE IS FIXED ACROSS THE ENTIRE NATION AND WAS SET BY NO ONE.
We ate on the floor because the sofa was against the wall and none of us wanted to be the first to sit on it.
Tony told me his daughter plays soccer. I asked if she is good. He said, "She's aggressive."
I still think about that.
Three weeks later, Kevin texted me.
"You free Sunday? Helping Tony move a fridge."
He did not ask if I wanted to. He informed me of a fridge.
Inside I said: I HAVE BEEN CALLED UP. I DID NOT ENLIST. THE PAPERS WERE FILED ON MY BEHALF.
I went. I moved the fridge. I have no truck. I contributed only arms.
Afterward, a man I had never met asked me if I knew anybody with a truck.
I said, "Yeah, I got a guy."
I have a guy.
I am somebody's guy now, too. Tony has told two people about me.
He describes me as "the guy who's strong for his size."
I have never been prouder of a sentence in my life.
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The smarter women are, the more hostility they face.
In the U.S. & China, the higher women’s IQs, the less they're liked—and the more they’re undermined by coworkers. Men pay no price for being bright.
It's long past time to recognize female intellect as an asset, not a threat.
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British photographer Julia Margaret Cameron's 1867 portrait of her niece, Julia Jackson, mother of Virginia Woolf #womensart #PhotographerWeek 📷
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We were taught duck and cover for global thermo nuclear war, a shotgun just don’t cut it.
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Je veux présenter mes excuses, au nom des Français, pour avoir enfanté la French Theory (qui a enfanté la pire des merdes idéologiques : le wokisme).
Nous avons donné au monde Descartes, Pascal, Tocqueville. Et puis, dans les ruines intellectuelles de l'après-68, nous avons donné Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze. Trois hommes brillants qui ont fabriqué, dans l'élégance de notre langue, l'arme idéologique qui paralyse aujourd'hui l'Occident.
Il faut comprendre ce qu'ils ont fait. Foucault a enseigné que la vérité n'existe pas, qu'il n'y a que des rapports de pouvoir déguisés en savoir. Que la science, la raison, la justice, l'institution médicale, l'école, la prison, la sexualité, tout n'est qu'une mise en scène de la domination. Derrida a enseigné que les textes n'ont pas de sens stable, que tout signifiant glisse, que toute lecture est une trahison, que l'auteur est mort et que le lecteur règne. Deleuze a enseigné qu'il fallait préférer le rhizome à l'arbre, le nomade au sédentaire, le désir à la loi, le devenir à l'être, la différence à l'identité.
Pris isolément, ce sont des thèses discutables. Combinées, exportées, vulgarisées, elles forment un système. Et ce système est un poison.
Car voici ce qui s'est passé. Ces textes, illisibles en France, ont traversé l'Atlantique. Les départements de Yale, de Berkeley, de Columbia les ont absorbés dans les années 80. Ils y ont trouvé un terreau qui n'existait pas chez nous : le puritanisme américain, sa culpabilité raciale, son obsession identitaire. La French Theory s'est mariée à ce substrat, et l'enfant de ce mariage s'appelle le wokisme.
Judith Butler lit Foucault et invente le genre performatif. Edward Said lit Foucault et invente le post-colonialisme académique. Kimberlé Crenshaw hérite du cadre et invente l'intersectionnalité. À chaque étape, la matrice est française : il n'y a pas de vérité, il n'y a que du pouvoir, donc toute hiérarchie est suspecte, toute institution est oppressive, toute norme est violence, toute identité est construite donc négociable, toute majorité est coupable.
Voilà comment trois philosophes parisiens, qui n'ont probablement jamais imaginé leurs conséquences pratiques, ont fourni le logiciel d'exploitation à une génération entière d'activistes, de bureaucrates universitaires, de DRH, de journalistes, de législateurs. Voilà comment on a obtenu une civilisation qui ne sait plus dire si une femme est une femme, si sa propre histoire mérite d'être défendue, si le mérite existe, si la vérité se distingue de l'opinion.
C'est de la merde pour une raison simple, et il faut la dire calmement. Une civilisation se tient debout sur trois piliers : la croyance qu'il existe une vérité accessible à la raison, la croyance qu'il existe un bien distinct du mal, la croyance qu'il existe un héritage à transmettre. La French Theory a entrepris de dynamiter les trois. Pas par méchanceté. Par jeu intellectuel, par fascination du soupçon, par haine de la bourgeoisie qui les avait nourris. Mais le résultat est là. Une génération entière a appris à déconstruire et n'a jamais appris à construire. Une génération entière sait soupçonner et ne sait plus admirer. Une génération entière voit le pouvoir partout et la beauté nulle part.
Je m'excuse parce que nous, Français, avons une responsabilité particulière. C'est notre langue, nos universités, nos éditeurs, notre prestige qui ont donné à ce nihilisme son emballage chic. Sans la légitimité de la Sorbonne et de Vincennes, ces idées n'auraient jamais traversé l'océan. Nous avons exporté le doute comme d'autres exportent des armes.
Ce qui se construit maintenant, en silicon valley, dans les labos d'IA, dans les startups, dans les ateliers, dans tous les lieux où des gens fabriquent encore des choses au lieu de les déconstruire, c'est la réponse. Une civilisation se reconstruit par les bâtisseurs, pas par les commentateurs. Par ceux qui croient que la vérité existe et qu'elle vaut qu'on s'y consacre. Par ceux qui assument une hiérarchie du beau, du vrai, du bon, et qui n'ont pas honte de la transmettre.
Alors pardon. Et au travail.
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In the early 1900s, UK and US women often ran Tea Rooms, an acceptable form of employment in a limited world for females, which soon became subversive spaces linked to suffrage campaigns and other women's rights #WomensArt #WomensHistoryMonth
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Neda is 11 and lives in Afghanistan. She can't go to school so she learns online. She has not given up.
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The Yin Yang is my favorite symbol. It describes a type of symmetry the modern West has failed to focus on. Among other things, it illustrates the healthy gender dynamics that we have lost at every scale. Complementarity rather than identity. Spin it and it does not disappoint!
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A new Scottish tartan memorializing the (mainly) female victims of the Witchcraft Act has been officially registered, created by Claire Mitchell and Zoe Venditozzi, founders of the Witches of Scotland campaign #WomensArt
via Smithsonian Magazine
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A portrait of Maria Anna Mozart, also known as Nannerl, the older sister of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Maria Anna Mozart was also a child prodigy and a highly skilled musician, particularly on the harpsichord and piano. Her musical talents were recognized by her father, Leopold Mozart, who initially taught both her and Wolfgang.
In the early tours of Europe, it was Nannerl who was initially the star of the show. She was presented as the primary prodigy, with her father, Leopold, often writing in letters of her exceptional skill on the keyboard. He noted that she played with a remarkable precision and musicality that captivated audiences, and he even kept a notebook of compositions for her, the "Nannerl Notenbuch," which stands today as a small but powerful testament to her musical education. The fragments of compositions she did write, mentioned in correspondence, were praised by both her father and brother, fueling the speculation of what masterpieces she might have created.
Her life truly serves as a poignant example of the immense talent that was stifled by the societal norms of the 18th Century. While Wolfgang was sent to Vienna to pursue his career and flourish as an independent composer, Nannerl's path was redirected toward a more traditional domestic life. The absence of her compositions is one of the great historical tragedies of music, a silence that speaks volumes about the opportunities denied to women, regardless of their genius.
Despite her talent, societal expectations of the time limited her career as a professional musician once she reached adulthood. She played a significant role in her brother's early musical development and later in preserving his legacy.
Recent research suggests she may have contributed to some of Wolfgang's earliest compositions. Though we can never hear the music that might have been, Nannerl’s story endures as a powerful symbol of what was lost. Her legacy is not just one of tragedy, but of quiet strength and a reminder of the countless brilliant minds throughout history whose contributions were never fully recognized.
#archaeohistories
"Female is real, and it's sex, and femininity is unreal, and it's gender. For that to become the given identity of women is a profoundly disabling notion." - Germaine Greer. Video expounds on Greer's analysis of this quote and is well worth listening to.
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Spring is HERE in California.
California is mine & yours…let’s fight for it!
@WomenAreReals
