Blackmoor Vituperative

This is the first of a new thing I am doing: tips for young people from an old man. Today’s topic: condoms.

In movies, you often see people get into bed and the guy immediately starts fumbling with the condom wrapper. There are two problems with this.

First, practice opening a condom wrapper and putting on a condom. They aren’t expensive, and you can afford to waste a half-dozen. Figure out what to do with the thing when you don’t have someone naked waiting for you.

Second, when you first get undressed is not the time to put on a condom. Women don’t warm up as quickly as men do. I am assuming the person next to you is a woman, but even men take some time to warm up — and women take longer (15 to 20 minutes is not unusual). So fool around for a while until the other person is thoroughly warmed up (that’s called “foreplay”). Only when you are both ready for penetration do you pause to put on the condom.

As for foreplay, Google that term, and read up about it. It’s not hard to do well, but it’s very easy to do poorly. Pay attention to what the other person wants. Ask them from time to time if what you are doing is working for them, and pay attention to what they say and how they respond. As a guy — particularly a young guy — if you pay attention to the other person, and are good at foreplay, you will be a much better lover than most people.

Be accepting, patient, and kind. Good advice any day of the year. I do not follow it as closely as I would like.

Everything in the way the US government is organized is a compromise. From the two chambers of the US legislature, to the Bill Of Rights, to the Electoral College, literally every sentence in our founding documents is a compromise between competing interests (that is a thing that Americans used to be able to do).

The Electoral College was a compromise which was appropriate for its time. In the 1700s, the federal government was weak, the President was little more than a figurehead, and the states were de facto each an individual country.

The question we should ask today is, does the Electoral College do more good than harm for the 21st century USA? It clearly disenfranchises people. The votes of millions of California Republicans, for example, mean absolutely nothing in a Presidential election. They may as well not even be counted. Is that the way things should be?

“Grudges are for the weak and self-destructive. Do you want tomorrow to be better than today? Then stop stoking the fire of yesterday’s pain.”

Brandon Blackmoor , 2019-09-11

When someone urges you to “never forget” a particular tragedy, stop and think: what exactly do they want you to remember, and why? Is it that they want to honor the memory of those who have died? Or are they trying to turn your grief into anger? Are they trying to manipulate you for your benefit, or for theirs?

What do they gain by keeping you angry?

Where are they trying to direct your anger?

Think.

Your anger might be righteous, and it might be enough to motivate you to work for change. But it might also just be an easy way for a cynical person to manipulate you.

Google has removed the options to search for images “Larger than …” and “Exact size” from their Images search. If this makes Google Image search USELESS for you, as it does for me, consider using Yandex, instead.

“A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.”

— John Gall, “Systemantics: How Systems Really Work and How They Fail” (1975)

“It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out nor more doubtful of success nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things.”

-Niccolò Machiavelli, “The Prince” (1532), Ch. 6

Just finished “The Boys” on Amazon Prime. Great cast, great production values, pretty good cinematography when they could hold the camera still (the sooner “drunken monkey cam” dies a horrible painful death, the better). If only they had used those resources to tell a story that wasn’t an awful piece of garbage. WOW. Eight hours of my life, wasted.

I kept watching because the cast was great and the production values were great. With those, you would have to actively try to make a horrible a piece of crap to keep from making at least a halfway decent show. Which is apparently what they did, because it was a horrible piece of crap right up to the very end. Just a beautifully made, well acted pile of garbage. I kept thinking, “It has to get better…” Nope.

This may well be the worst superhero show I have ever seen. Worse than the recent “Titans” TV show. Worse than “Mutant X”. Worse than “Street Hawk”. Worse than “Black Scorpion”.

If you want to see a show with the premise, “What if nearly everyone in the world were sociopaths?”, watch Fox News. Skip “The Boys”.

People say we are in a gilded age of this or that. Fantasy TV. Superhero movies. Whatever.

I am not sure I agree.

How many Batmen have we seen? How many Spider-Men? How many Avengers movies? Can you recall what happened in which movie? In which one did Quicksilver die? In which one did Quicksilver rescue people from a house? The colors blur in my memory until it is a mottled brown expanse.

Take Spider-Man. Some people like Tom Holland in the role. Some don’t. I don’t think I have an opinion. It’s like trying to have an opinion about one squawk in a cacophony of geese. It’s all just noise to me now. A Spider-Gwen movie might rise above that noise like a black and pink bouy in a sea of diluted mud, but it might not.

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

Matthew 25:40-45

U.S. Implementing ‘Third Country’ Rule On Central American Migrants Seeking Asylum (NPR)