PicoBlog

Some clichés exist because they’re true. There’s no denying that hanging about in cafés is a big part of Parisian life year-round. But especially in the summer. In the mornings, I might go to café to drink coffee *alone* and get my thoughts together, or for a business meeting; I’ll go to some cafés to write and some cafés to chitchat with a mate when we need to set the world to rights.

Opening Comments My last piece entitled, “Rosen Report Swag,” resulted in many requests for hats. Initially, they will go to my biggest contributors. Sounds like I need to order more. The most opened links were: 25-year-old tried 23 side hustles before launching a company that brings in $354,000 a month—his No. 1 piece of advice and the Fortune article, A recession might have been simpler than what awaits the U.S. economy.

“The L Word” ran from 2004 until 2009. I would say that it was pretty “radical” for 2004 considering it was a show that centered around the lives of queer women who all had different life goals, priorities, and socioeconomic statuses. However, I feel as though one of the main reasons it was so progressive for the time period was because of its centering of a Black lesbian. Bette Porter was one of the main characters on the show, if not the main character, and she was dynamic.

Betty Broadbent (November 1, 1909 – March 28, 1983) also known as the “Tattooed Venus” was born on November 1, 1909 in Philadelphia. Broadbent’s interest in tattooing began at the age of fourteen, when, while working as a nanny in Atlantic City, she met Jack Redcloud on the boardwalk. Redcloud was covered in tattoos, which fascinated Broadbent. This fascination would lead Redcloud to introduce Broadbent to his tattoo artist, Charlie Wagner. In 1927 Wagner, alongside several other tattoo artists, including Tony Rhineagear, Joe Van Hart and Red Gibbons, tattooed a bodysuit of over 565 tattoos on Broadbent.

NAPA VALLEY, Calif. — Betty Ruth Vaughn was born in Taft, California, in 1927 to Charles and Harriet Vaughn. Soon after her birth her family moved to Ventura County, where she lived for most of her life. After graduating from Fairfax High in Los Angeles, she attended Los Angeles City College and then returned to Ventura to attend Ventura Junior College. She met and married Thomas Rhodes in 1951 and reared four children.

I tweeted out an epic quote recently that received over 300 likes: The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools. I thought Thucydides wrote that, but apparently it was from Sir William F. Butler, a British Army officer from the nineteenth century.  Why is this quote so epic? Well, it seems pretty true for one thing, as it does seem like the characteristics and skills of the scholar and of the warrior do not intersect much.

We have a theocracy already. It is neither Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or any other traditional religion. Our theocracy preaches tolerance and inclusivity, but is mindlessly intolerant. The morality of our emerging theocracy has these pillars: 1. The feminization of men, including advocacy of castration and pegging. 2. Denial of biological reality, like male and female. 3. Hysteria over safety, including squelching of free speech. 4. Ever-expanding protected classes of people.

My friend Phillip Longman turned 65 last month. Longtime readers of Phil’s astute political journalism will find some irony in this, because Phil first achieved recognition in the 1980s predicting that the generational divide would soon become America’s most salient political battleground. At the time he was representing the younger generation; now he’s a card-carrying member of the older one (a circumstance he of course anticipated) In his influential 1985 Atlantic piece, “Justice Between Generations” (later expanded into a book, Born to Pay), Phil put it this way:

Can ‘eating at restaurants’ be considered a hobby? Or maybe a marketable skillset! Something I score as ‘proficient’ on my resume. Intermediate, at this point.  My palate is varied, oscillating between satisfying a weekly addiction for Jamaican oxtail, a consistent craving for Korean fried chicken to appreciating the reliable comfort of a simple carbonara. Despite this diversity, upon moving to America I have noticed that my favourite restaurants – regardless of their international dishes – are nested under the vague genre of ‘New American.