As IF Times

Source: Colin Powell Says He’ll Vote for Hillary Clinton – The New York Times

One of the oldest clichés concerning public office is that politics make strange bedfellows.  This old chestnut has never been truer than as it applies to this year’s US elections.  As we all know by now, after a bruising convention, Donald Trump wound up as the nominee for the Republican ticket beating out some well known candidates in bare knuckled fights with unexpectedly personal attacks on their characters and records.

Those hurt feelings have yet to heal (if ever) and many of the contestants have publicly disavowed their support for The Donald.  This animus has extended to other old line Republicans including such as Colin Powell, a former GOP cabinet official, that feel compelled to publicly announce their support of the Democratic candidate.  Party loyalty, at least on the GOP side has been fractured and so other considerations are at play.  While many party deserters are claiming moral conscience in dissing Trump, it is laughingly disingenuous when you consider the alternative.  Party affiliation is obviously more an issue of expediency than of principles.  In the case of Mr. Powell, he claims thusly;

“…I am voting for Hillary Clinton,” he said,  Mr. Powell went on to praise Mrs. Clinton for her skills as a leader and her experience...”

Thanks to WikiLeaks document disclosures of his candid conversations, we know these sentiments are as fake as his former party loyalties.  We don’t recall experience being a requisite when he endorsed the neophyte Obama during his run for office.  Powell should be a man and just state that he despises Trump and would rather eat a bowl of slugs than support him.  Instead, he supports Hilary’s ‘experience’.

Powell’s endorsement is just one of the massive throng of ‘public’ figures rooting for Hilary in addition to most of the major media outlets, so it’s not as if it has any more effect than peeing into the Atlantic.  But if you did not know the issue at hand and only looked at the contingent of people vociferously and publicly championing one side; luminaries such as the bj offering  Madonna, Miley Cyrus, Justin Timberlake, Kim, Alec Baldwin, George Clooney, Mark Zuckerburg, Black Lives Matter, Joy Behar and Oprah, not to mention the political nutters including Elizabeth Warren, Tim Kaine and Al Sharpton, you’d HAVE to pull an opposite George and take the other side of the trade because that would be the rational thing to do.

As it happens, in this case, it’s politics.  The issue boils down to this:  They would rather vote for the person that has a proven record of duplicity, gotten people killed, is funded by hostile governments and is a danger to national security, than for the other guy because he said mean things.   In fact it’s the gaggle of shrill, bleating mean girls that are doing the bullying.

Source: Out with hunks: fashion breaks codes for male models

Ya, that’s not going to fly. Of course a pushback against the feminization of men is made more difficult these days with the constant onslaught of ads and portrayals in pop entertainment pushing the beta male ideal.

Throughout history, societies have focused on the wants of women as far as fashion and style.  Men’s concerns about fashion generally revolve around comfort. There’s the old saying that women dress for other women, not for men.  For the most part, men’s appreciation for women’s appearance is fairly simple and straightforward; namely that they can’t be men.  They tolerate the fashion dictates of the day as indulgences on the part of women but not as necessities.

The strange places that fashion has taken us over the years is especially amusing when viewed through old images.  But things such as bell bottoms, padded shoulders and wide lapels are to be expected since the fashion racket needs to constantly fuel their business.  But these are just ephemeral flirtations and curiosities to be discarded next season.

The really sinister part is when the fashion gods dictate that a body style is the must do of the day.  A few years ago, ‘heroin chic’, that gaunt, starved cat look was flouted on fashion runways.  Not sure who found that attractive, but it wasn’t red blooded men.  At the moment, we are living in a time when thin women with ample cleavage and no body hair is considered desirable (go figure), leading  women to spend money on fat vacuums, breast implants and depilatory aids.

Having run out of things to torture women with, the haute couture  poobahs are focusing their attention on insecure men.  They are trying to make men sensitive to eyebrow shapes and body hair and odor. The are essentially pushing to downplay normal masculine features.  Actually if you look at the ideals trotted out by the fashionistas, they appear to be trying to make men and women look like each other, with asexual being the ideal.  We are already seeing some sensitive men being swayed by this propaganda as evidenced by the man bun craze.  Will Jimmy Choo offer man-lettos next?

I hope that men will have the confidence not to succumb to the effeminate ideals being offered by pop fashion.  But it may be a losing bet.  The feminization of culture has already emasculated men in many aspects of our sex.  Nature had it correct from the beginning; men are men and women are women; a damn good arrangement.