New Year's Miscellaneous

 I would add the non-word "anyways" to the Banished Words list.

"6-7" belongs on there big time.  I was so sick of hearing it at the school where I work.

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New Year's Eve's Reads

 Why should women's rights even be a subject for debate?

To even suggest there is a debate about it is proof sexism is alive and well and very hard to root out.

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Why is social media becoming increasingly worse?

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Donald Segretti had a word for this.

The U.S. is a two-party system.  Third parties will never work here and never have.  If people want third parties, they can move to a country with a parliamentary system.

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The Nine Lives of the "Sex Kitten" Are Over

Early today marked the passing of 1950s French icon Brigitte Bardot, who was 91 years old and had mostly been out of the limelight since retiring from films in the early 1970s.  Beginning in 1952 or thereabouts and being the wife of the older (but not THAT much older) director Roger Vadim, she created a sensation in the movie And God Created Woman, a film I have not seen.  Back then, she had a fresh-faced innocence about her plus a great figure (she had been trained as a dancer), so men all over the world drooled over her.  She didn't have that much of a career in film, as I recall.  She was more popular in the gossip columns being linked to this man or that man, a few marriages after Vadim, and at least six suicide attempts, the last one being in 1992, around the time she married her final husband, Bernard d'Ormale, who survives her.  She also had little contact with her son, born in 1960 and raised by his father, and was basically estranged from him and her grandchildren.  

In other words, she achieved icon status in films despite not being all that talented, while she was an absolute mess in her private life.  About the only bright thing about her life was being involved in animal welfare following her retirement from movies although it was  of more the nutso animal "rights" bent ala PeTA rather than supporting the humane treatment of animals.  It could be argued that this activism was consistent, for Bardot was not just eccentric, she was an outright misanthropist.

It was her involvement in far right politics that not just got her into some legal trouble, but the involvement really tarnished her image.  She was a fascist, with her husband d'Ormale having been an advisor to the late far right French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen (1928-2025--I may have forgotten to  note his death on this blog), which is as bad as it gets in that country.  She was  racist, she was xenophobic, she was misogynist, and she was homophobic.  She was truly a contemptible person.

Yours truly tried to make those points in various comment sections around Facebook and elsewhere, but still there are people who try to make the argument that none of that really matters.  It is mostly men who are doing it, which should tell you their thinking is  not with their brains.

Bardot was simply not that nice a person, and no amount of sugarcoating it changes it.

In her youth 

She had a younger sister, Marie-Jeanne, stage name of Mijanou Bardot, who was also quite pretty, and who appeared in that notorious 1960 dreck, Sex Kittens Go to College, which had nothing to do with Brigitte.  She is long retired from films and is 87 years old.

PBS obit:

Later, however, she fell from public grace as her animal protection diatribes took on a decidedly extremist tone. She frequently decried the influx of immigrants into France, especially Muslims.

She was convicted and fined five times in French courts of inciting racial hatred, in incidents inspired by her opposition to the Muslim practice of slaughtering sheep during annual religious holidays.

Bardot's 1992 marriage to fourth husband Bernard d'Ormale, a onetime adviser to far-right National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, contributed to her political shift. She described Le Pen, an outspoken nationalist with multiple racism convictions of his own, as a "lovely, intelligent man."

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Brigitte sure knew how to pick 'em.  

The End of an Era

 Two days ago, Annette Dionne, the last of the world-famous Dionne quintuplets, the first quints born who all survived and, I believe the ONLY identical quintuplets in medical history, died at the age of 91.  Her sister, Cecile, died in July, and somehow I missed her obituary.  

Annette and Cecile in later years

It is hard to understate just how major a story the quints' births were.  They were biologically unique, and, during the Great Depression, millions of people avidly followed their journey from childhood to adulthood.  It took people's minds off of the economic catastrophe so many were suffering.  However, despite or because of the publicity, the quints being major tourist attractions in Canada, and the money generated from souvenirs and collectibles, the girls' lives were very hard and in fact quite miserable for many years.

They were treated as lab specimens, and they did not have any kind of normal family life at all growing up.  It was amazing they turned out as well as they did.

Emilie was the first to pass away. She was only 20 years old.   She died before I was born, in 1954, I believe of epilepsy.  Marie passed away in 1970 at the age of 35.  The last three lived for many years thereafter, and they weren't hesitant to tell the world about how horribly they were exploited as children.  Yvonne passed in 2001, aged 67.  They were born May 28, 1934.

Here is a snip from Cecile's obituary from July:

The Ontario government removed the quintuplets from their family when they were just four months old. The province deemed their parents unfit after agreeing to display them at the Chicago World's Fair (though they later changed their mind). 

In government care, the sisters were moved into a special nursery and observatory called Quintland, with scheduled viewing times for the public.

In Quintland, the girls were tended to by a team of nurses and were put on display for thousands of curious tourists.

link

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As the article notes, the parents sued for custody of the quints and got them back when they were nine, but it was little better, as the quints alleged their father abused them.

In their heyday

   From article about Annette's passing::

  The Dionne Quints Museum reported that Annette,    the last living member of the family, passed away on December 24. 

"It is with deep regret that we announce the passing of Annette on Christmas Eve," the Dionne Quints Museum posted on social media on Boxing Day.  

"Much beloved, Annette had championed children's rights. She believed it was important to maintain the Dionne Quints Museum and the history it provides for the future of all children."

Annette was the only surviving Quint and was the last surviving sibling amongst the 14 children of the Dionne family.

The museum's website is here.

Some Friday Reads

 No, I didn't win the billion-dollar Powerball.

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The University of Oklahoma decided to kowtow to TPUSA and throw academic standards under the bus.

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To call it an eyesore would be way too kind to describe the monstrosity that is now the White House Oval Office.

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Tuesday Stuff

 Senator Cory Booker decided to share the controversial CBS 60 Minutes segment on the El Salvador prison and its violation of human rights:

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Mike Johnson is the worst Speaker of the House ever, not least because he is a shameless lapdog for Trump.

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Monday Whatever

 People need to quit using the word "conservative" to describe these right-wing lunatics.

When people are lunatics, they engage in lunatic behavior as demonstrated by the recent meeting of the fascistic 21st century Hitler Youth, aka Turning Point USA.

Snip:

Ben Shapiro, a prominent conservative commentator, opened the event with a scathing takedown of a slew of Republican pundits, including some he accused of elevating conspiracy theories and antisemitism.

“The conservative moment is also in danger from charlatans who claim to speak in the name of principle, but actually traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty,” Shapiro said. “These people are frauds, and they are grifters, and they do not deserve your time.”

Throughout his remarks on Thursday, Shapiro chewed out Candace Owens for promoting “baseless trash” about Kirk’s murder, blasted Megyn Kelly for failing to hold Owens accountable, criticized Tucker Carlson for his normalizing of Fuentes and derided Steve Bannon as a former “PR flack for Jeffrey Epstein.”

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Shapiro will never abandon his own right-wing lunacy, but it is still nonetheless entertaining to see him blast the even more lunatic fringe of the political right.

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These lunatics will still spread the mythical "Christian nation" idea because it is a convenient way to soften the public up for their Christofascist takeover and misusing the law to force their weird beliefs down everybody else's throats.

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Things for Sunday

 As if any further proof is needed that Mike Johnson is a smarmy piece of shit.

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The fact Congress is made up of a bunch of lazy shits is intentional and is "proof" of the right-wing contention "government doesn't work."

It is pretty damned obvious.

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Obit:  Actor James Ransome, only 46, was found dead Friday of an apparent suicide.  

Snip:

The Baltimore-born actor appeared in nearly 80 films and TV shows, according to IMDb. He played Chester "Ziggy" Sobotka throughout Season 2 of "The Wire," which aired in 2003.

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