Shite Site Is Differently Shitty

Several years ago, I made some remarks about a site named Hawkeye Lounge.  Politically it's changed quite a bit since then.  While there are still some fascists floating around there (Coff, NLP, Coff, Serge, Coff, Rolo, Coff, Serb, Coff...), the bulk of them are gone.  In fact the folks over there refer to those days as Old Halo, as opposed to the current version, New Halo.  Unfortunately it's managed to adopt a different form of toxicity.

As late as the late 80s, Iowa was a very different place than it is now.  Perpetually locked in a race with Minnesota for best public school system in the country.  Iowa and Michigan were in another race for best university hospital.  Iowa State had a vet program to die for.  You couldn't throw a rock without hitting a first tier liberal arts college.  It was a conservative place, but there was a deep respect for research, education, and innovation.

That was then.  But the religio-fascists had been infiltrating since the 70s, and by the 90s the train started going off the tracks.  Most of the state descended into MAGAt madness, becoming an ugly, ignorant cesspool indistinguishable from Nebraska.

An example of the rot is the Iowa football program.  Kirk Ferentz, the head coach, was once a golden boy, leading Iowa to amazing heights.  But, all too predictably, the athletic department grew complacent, stopped supervising Ferentz, let him run the show any damned way he saw fit.  One of the ways he saw fit was hiring his son Brian as offensive coordinator (For those who don't know American football, a coaching staff can be quite extensive, but a head coach typically has three immediate subordinates: offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, and special teams coordinator.  So offensive coordinator is kind of a big deal.).  The problem is Brian has zero skills.  He's Tommy Boy without the redemption arc.  His offenses have never been good, and for the last several years they've been reduced to punchlines.  As a condition of his returning this year, he was supposed to average 25 points per game, which these days ain't that big a deal.  He hasn't come close.  My brain-damaged cat would be a better OC (And yes, I have a brain-damaged cat.  She was electrocuted as a kitten, and it fucked up her neurological system.).  If it weren't for Defensive Coordinator Phil Parker fielding a defense year after year that was forged in Asgard, Iowa's average record each season would have been 4-8.  Brian shouldn't have been hired in the first place, and he shouldn't have been allowed to keep his position.

But.  Everybody loves Kirk.  Kirk has given us SO much.  Kirk is going to be head coach only so much longer, and he deserves to have things happen the way he wants.  We OWE Kirk that.  Baa baa.  Wet cowflop hitting the pavement with a major splat.  And other evidence you have a Turdville brain.

By some miracle, Iowa recently hired a competent athletic director, Beth Goetz.  She has bigger swinging brass cajones than the rest of the university administration combined, because she sacked Brian.  She didn't have the political suck to chuck the fuck immediately, so he still gets to fuck up the rest of the season, but still, good on ya, Beth.

Which circles us back to Hawkeye Lounge.  A number of us have been saying for years that Brian needed to go.  Some of us have been saying it was time for Kirk to go as well.  Then came today's game against Illinois.  Home game.  Win this and you win the Big 10 Western Division and go to the conference championship game.  Lots of motivation to do a job here.  But once again the offense was a rancid raft of rat shit, and Iowa barely squeaked to a come-from-behind 15-13 victory.  And unfortunately there was much rejoicing by all, including Kirk and Brian.

And given all the fuckery of the last several years, and this year, and this game, I saw that as all sorts of wrong.  And I said so on Hawkeye Lounge.  And all those who so recently had been calling for Brian's and even Kirk's heads reared up on their self-righteous high horses and asked how I dared to say such things.  The defense was fantastic.  We'd just won the division championship and were heading for the conference championship (conveniently ignoring that if this offense sucked any harder, it would be a perfect vacuum, and that our opponent in the championship, either Michigan or Ohio State, is going to go in dry on us with a Husqvarna with a 72" titanium bar and a dull chain).

Jesus Titty-Fucking Christ.  Pro tip, kids: Any pustule on a warthog's ass can learn from losing; winners learn from winning.  What I'd learned was that we'd once again won by accident and in spite of ourselves, not a good thing, and we'd gotten away with it for the umpteenth time, also not a good thing.  But the fucktards at Hawkeye Lounge wanted to party rather than learn, something they probably had in common with everyone else attached to the Iowa football program.

So nothing will be learned.  And I shall now share my predictions for what happens next:

1) Nebraska played Wisconsin very tough in Madison tonight, so I expect Iowa to blow dead bears in Lincoln next week, although I really hope not because I FUCKING HATE Nebraska;

2) The conference championship will be a rape room with Iowa as the Catholic choir boy of honor;

3) Kirk will be allowed to coach until they take him out feet first because "he deserves to go out on his own terms" (fucking Turdville bullshit).  He may try to back door Brian back into the program, but I think that ship has already sailed.  He WILL hire an OC just as bad, so within two years it will be impossible to recruit offensive talent that has other opportunities more significant than Luther College (FYI: Luther is a Division III school and so has no scholarships, and it has a bad habit of going winless, such as this season.).

4) At some point in this one-star shit parade, Parker is going to say, "Fuck it, I'm tired of breaking my balls for nothing, I'm going to barbeque, golf, and play with my my grandkids."  And since by that point Kirk will be making the Crypt Keeper look like a beamish boy, he won't be able to get even remotely like a replacement and will have to settle for deli ham of the same brand as his OC.  Then the recruitment chain stops entirely, and Iowa football turns into what it was in the 1970s.

This was my threat'ning and my message.  But since the good brethren of the Lounge elected to be asses in the world, I bring this greeting too: scorn and defiance, slight regard, contempt, and any thing that may not misbecome those who fail to recognize the consequences of shitheadedness.

"Successful" Millennials

Just posted over on Tumblr about yet another article about a Millennial "making it on their own" when Mummy and Daddy are quite obviously propping them up.  It's ridiculously easy to demolish these propaganda puff pieces, and it's exasperating that no one bothers.

Today’s Episode of…

…Sorry Millennials, But There Are a Butt-Ton of us Boomers Who Know EXACTLY What You’re up Against.  I receive newsletters from a website called “Bon Appetit”.  It’s pretty chi-chi, but it has some fun recipes, and it’s free, so there it is.  “Bon Appetit” has a series called “The Receipt”, articles about what subscribers eat and how much it costs.  Today the newsletter contained an article titled “How a 24-year-old Waitress Eats on $18K/Yr”.  I thought, “Oh, this is going to be good.”  And by “good” I meant “ungood”.  It did not disappoint. Or it completely disappointed, depending on POV.  I’m not providing a link because: 1) the person who wrote this did so anonymously, so screw them; and 2) drivel like this does not deserve more of a platform than it already has.

The lady in question lives in Durham, North Carolina, and just received her masters in linguistics (Although she says she’s still working on her thesis.  There was a time when getting a masters before even finishing your thesis, let alone defending it, was a laughable proposition.  Further evidence of the crapification of US education, even at a place like Duke.). She is looking for a job in her field, and is supporting herself by waitressing and teaching pottery.

Then she lists her expenses, and the red flags become unmissable.  Her rent is $800.  In a college town.  How many people live in that apartment with her?  Or does she live with her parents, and this is the token rent they charge?  $76 for car insurance.  Which means she doesn’t have collision insurance, which means she doesn’t have a lender’s lien on her title, which means she paid cash for the car.  Or somebody did.  Or she’s just driving one of her parents’ cars, and she’s paying Daddy a little toward insurance.  I’m inclined toward this last option because her budget includes neither maintenance nor fuel.

Speaking of items omitted from her expenses, no health care.  No health insurance.  She’s 24 and just graduated.  Bets she’s still on Mummy and Daddy’s plan?  No student loan payments either, not even a projection for them when they kick in in a couple of months.  But she tips her hand here, admitting she has $15,000 in savings, the bulk of it being what’s left over from what her parents gave her for school.  JFC.  And let’s not forget her pottery teaching.  No expenses listed for that.  Not studio rental.  Not equipment and supplies.  Nothing.  Which in all probability means Mummy has a pottery hobby, and daughter is free-riding on it.

Which means she isn’t living on $18K.  She’s living on Mummy and Daddy, just like every other “successful” Millennial not engaged in overt criminal activity.

And now a message for my age cohort.  Just shut your pie holes with the “Well if she can make it, other Millennials should too” stuff.  Seriously, just STFU.  If you can’t see the parade of bullshit flags flying over articles like this, you don’t get to have an opinion.  You have no excuse.  You’re not as senile as the folks or as callow as the kids.  You should be seeing this propaganda for what it is.  Up your game.

Shite Site is Shitty

To placate certain family members, I keep more or less abreast of University of Iowa athletics.  At least I have, but it's become such a stupid, boring waste of time as the new administration leads the school into a hog wallow of mediocrity that I don't think being able to communicate with my relatives on these issues is worth it.  One of the places I would go to keep up with all this was a forum called The Hawkeye Lounge.  The place was always barely worth it, as it was overrun with the sort of mouth-breathing shit kickers who, if they lived in western Iowa, would be voting for Steve King.  Now even the "barely" is gone.

Texas Still Full of Christ

I hate to give the John Birch Society and a thorough Christ-felcher like Dave Bohon a link, but this article is a great example of what anyone with two brain cells is up against in this country.  A mob of Texas bimbos engage in an obvious First Amendment violation; the school, the Texas AG, and a Texas judge back them in the face of all legal precedent; and all the Christ-lickers applaud them for being so courageous.  So when mighty Kountze High gets its ass handed to it some Friday night, and the other side launches banners like "God Likes us and Hates You" or "Fuck Your God", are these defenders of liberty going to back these banners, or are they going to howl "Sacrilege!"?  And while we're defending The Word of God (TM) (because apparently God is too confused or lazy to do it himself), I doubt those Texas bimbos' clothing and behavior are biblically compliant.  Can we stone them?  And while we're on it, I wonder how much cleavage they flashed the "Honorable" Steve Thomas to get this ruling.