Style over substance

By the time the US got to Reagan the country was already well primed for style over substance. Having watched JFK beat Nixon in 1960, the GOP wanted to get someone who was camera ready and in 1966 chose Reagan who was a know nothing actor and pumped him full of talking points to run for governor in California. Even when he was later president, Reagan had been surprised to learn that South America wasn't one country.

Dubbya for his part was the folksy president you wanted to have a beer with and despite his ivy league schooling he had been a frat boy who Karl Rove and others molded into a facsimile of a politician and Neocons like Richard Pearle and Paul Wolfowitz helped goad into an unjust war which killed thousands of innocents.

That Trump has been the worst of them only speaks to the increasing disdain for knowledge and intelligence over media personality. At his best a blithering idiot, he manages to lead polls based on questions posed to people who often know less than him and thanks to social media have the attention span of fruit flies.

Today there is little point running an intelligent and measured politician, for the age of anti-intellectualism is more than ever alive and well.

Impulse

As we strip away societal programming and obligation we are hopefully left with our original core selves. Many of us get to a stage where the fatigue of keeping up appearances compels us to act.

I've been told by some friends that I am brave but I never see it that way at all. Instead it has been an impulse to become the person I should always have been that has gotten me here. For there is nothing worse than giving someone else, most of all perfect strangers, the right to define you.

Whoever yells loudest

Bubba Copeland took his own life the other day with a gun after photos were published of him wearing women's clothing. The Alabama mayor and pastor did nothing wrong except have a private life with a penchant that some felt was worth exposing apparently to get attention.

Meanwhile, gender critical extremists are desperately trying to make life impossible for transgender people to exist openly in the public space citing protecting children and same sex spaces as false pretenses.

Adding fuel to the fire are caustic people like Blaire White whose personal insecurity and attempts to align with right wing extremists in her own country, feed into gender variant infighting as to who is authentic and who is not.

The environment we are in today is disturbing to be sure and as the silent majority adjusts to the reality that gender variance exists and always has, the most vocal minorities are waging wars without applying common sense critical thinking to address what are sometimes legitimate concerns.

It's the tried and true adage of whoever yells loudest gets the attention which does absolutely nothing to bolster their arguments and just muddies the water for the rest of us.

Moving on

It's become plainly evident to me in retrospect that we won't be able to choose as wisely in the area of love when some intrinsic aspect about us remains unresolved. Our tendency will be to undervalue ourselves and think how fortunate we might be to find someone who even tolerates us. In fact, one of the reasons I am so happy for all young gender variant people, is that they live openly and proudly which will only help their self esteem. Thus hiding in any way will increasingly become a relic of the past if it hasn't already.

I write often about understanding our value and, although we can be as intelligent or as dimwitted as the general population, the metric of our worth should not involve gender variance. True, not everyone has to like it but then we are also not obliged to respect that opinion and we can move on.

"Was I ever really trans?"

Ray, who is clearly very introspective, detransitioned after 8 years on HRT and covers the age old question of whether he was ever really transgender at all. Being transgender was more appealing an idea than being, as he says, "just a crossdresser" which held much more social stigma for him. Today after detransitioning he identifies as a gender non-conforming male and explains his viewpoint, not only extremely eloquently, but he also gets to the crux of the dilemma for many.

Once again, it is about carefully understanding your core identity and your motivation and then proceeding in a way that brings you balance. Self descriptor be damned if it holds little actual significance...

Ignorance

 

Forbidden

There is a typology within the world of gender variance which is all about doing something just because it is taboo. Thus if clothing were suddenly to became more homogenous and "genderless", the allure of cross gender expression for these people would entirely be lost. For them, their expression isn't steeped in core identity but rather in being able to do something specifically because it has traditionally been forbidden thus becoming titillating.

Like I've said before, gender variance cuts a large swath and we need to be cautious with overly generic labeling because of it.

"All the light we cannot see"

"All the Light We Cannot See" could be accused of indulging at times in the melodramatic and yet for the most part it works. Backed by an interesting story and actors who know their craft, I was particularly impressed by the two young leads Louis Hoffman (of "Dark" fame) and newcomer Aria Mia Loberti as kindred spirit radiophiles who brought much pathos to their respective roles.

One quibble was the casting of Mark Ruffalo as Marie's father.  

He is a great actor and yet he seemed out of place here and even struggles with his attempts at a foreign accent. The other issue is this interpretation of the book would have benefitted from dialogue in each native language rather than stick to English which I think would have added more authenticity to the series. I can happily read subtitles to decode German.

Nevertheless, all four episodes were heartily digested as well as the odd tear shed. Kudos to director and fellow Canadian Shawn Levy.

Jordy

I watch Jordan Peterson being interviewed and am always struck with the same impression: haughty and pompous dissatisfaction peppered with a healthy use of the term "radical left". He's not naturally likeable and he isn't an expert in all fields and yet you wouldn't know that from the adulation of his fanboys. Yes, Peterson has written for disaffected lonely young men and told them to clean up their act, except he wants to apply that to what ails society as a whole which is a fair bit more complex issue wise. Ostensibly he wants the world to clean its room.

His grasp of geopolitics or philosophy is no better than any other person who has read just enough to appear knowledgeable and yet he is given far more credibility for the way he says things than for their actual weight and veracity largely because the right wing needs its own intelligentsia which is noticeably absent. Peterson will have to do except that speaking like a lecturer doesn't necessarily add more gravity to your talking points.

Conservatism as a philosophy has always turned me off because it's fundamentally about resisting change which is unstoppable especially if that change is for the public good. It also seems perennially on the wrong side of history as slave owners and robber barons and men who would deny women the vote would hate to admit. The way I see it, any societal change which helps the most people is fundamentally a good one.

Of course Peterson keeps caustic company with the likes of Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh and other fellow shrill malcontents whose daily mission appears to be forever unhappy without producing any ideas for the public good. As he enters his sixties he seems to be settling into a grouchy and increasingly mentally unwell grandpa with a penchant to ramble and occasionally weep uncontrollably.

Warms my heart

I see the young cosmetician at a downtown pharmacy I used to frequent is a transgender woman. Clearly under 30, she is just part of a generation of transgender people who are increasingly living openly and comfortably as themselves. This young woman is both attractive and self assured as she serves a customer with a smile.

It's a different world and I am seeing more of them every day. Some are different shades of gender variant and they won't be held back in the shadows any longer because their authenticity beckons.

As someone from a different generation who knows how it feels to long live in the shadows, it just warms my heart.

Now and then