H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost
@harrysimmons3578.bsky.social
An account of satire, in the vein of literary critic Henry Louis Mencken. Polemicist at Verdigris, please send essays contact@vdgasjournal.com
Send all hate mail to harrysimmons3578@gmail.com
Send all hate mail to harrysimmons3578@gmail.com
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Word to the Wise: Cheap Music, Numb Brains, and Stupidity
I have been asked to write about stupidity. I cannot think of why. Perhaps it is that glowing sagacity that rises, like steam, off my hateful words? Or, perhaps, there is some desire for a voice of…
vdgasjournal.com
Hi everyone.
At long last, here is my promised essay on stupidity, with the title slightly changed: 'Word to the Wise: Cheap Music, Numbs Brains, and Stupidity'.
I hope you enjoy!
vdgasjournal.com/2025/06/21/w...
At long last, here is my promised essay on stupidity, with the title slightly changed: 'Word to the Wise: Cheap Music, Numbs Brains, and Stupidity'.
I hope you enjoy!
vdgasjournal.com/2025/06/21/w...
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost
In de VS werden vandaag 21 priesters en predikanten die hun christelijke roeping in de plaktijk brachten door vluchtelingen bij te willen staan, gearresteerd. www.huffpost.com/entry/nearly...
November 15, 2025 at 4:50 PM
In de VS werden vandaag 21 priesters en predikanten die hun christelijke roeping in de plaktijk brachten door vluchtelingen bij te willen staan, gearresteerd. www.huffpost.com/entry/nearly...
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost
What comes to mind as a historic analog is some clever person continuing to fret about the Social Democrats in Germany in the lead up to 1932. The very party whose treachery paved the way for the Nazis.
I'm struggling to understand why smart people keep being surprised, disappointed by or even interested in the Democratic party beyond nominal voting. There is no electoral strategy out of this situation which is not merely domestic but global. Mental and physical effort is needed elsewhere.
November 16, 2025 at 9:26 PM
What comes to mind as a historic analog is some clever person continuing to fret about the Social Democrats in Germany in the lead up to 1932. The very party whose treachery paved the way for the Nazis.
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost
I'm struggling to understand why smart people keep being surprised, disappointed by or even interested in the Democratic party beyond nominal voting. There is no electoral strategy out of this situation which is not merely domestic but global. Mental and physical effort is needed elsewhere.
November 16, 2025 at 9:20 PM
I'm struggling to understand why smart people keep being surprised, disappointed by or even interested in the Democratic party beyond nominal voting. There is no electoral strategy out of this situation which is not merely domestic but global. Mental and physical effort is needed elsewhere.
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost
As we reported previously at @zeteo.com, one of the things that made Trump so keen to deploy U.S. troops to Chicago when he did was because he kept seeing coverage of him bumping the brakes the previous time, and didn’t want to give Pritzker a “win” after Illinois Dems mounted heavy resistance
November 16, 2025 at 7:17 PM
As we reported previously at @zeteo.com, one of the things that made Trump so keen to deploy U.S. troops to Chicago when he did was because he kept seeing coverage of him bumping the brakes the previous time, and didn’t want to give Pritzker a “win” after Illinois Dems mounted heavy resistance
Very often, people talk about the sides of history: which side will you be on?
The tragic thing is most people don’t pick sides—not because they don’t care, but because they don’t have time. Most people don’t pick sides—most people end up being a statistic, usually as part of a body count.
The tragic thing is most people don’t pick sides—not because they don’t care, but because they don’t have time. Most people don’t pick sides—most people end up being a statistic, usually as part of a body count.
November 16, 2025 at 7:45 PM
Very often, people talk about the sides of history: which side will you be on?
The tragic thing is most people don’t pick sides—not because they don’t care, but because they don’t have time. Most people don’t pick sides—most people end up being a statistic, usually as part of a body count.
The tragic thing is most people don’t pick sides—not because they don’t care, but because they don’t have time. Most people don’t pick sides—most people end up being a statistic, usually as part of a body count.
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost
Remember the recent middle-of-the-night apartment building raid where children were dragged outside naked & zip-tied in the street while black & Latino residents were _sorted by race_ and piled into separate vans while their apartments were ransacked & robbed? That raid? So it resulted in 0 arrests.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem should resign and be criminally charged, according to critics who seized on a report revealing that zero people who were arrested in a high-profile raid were charged with a crime.
'Noem should resign over this': Fury over alleged DHS 'child kidnapping and trafficking'
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem should resign and be criminally charged, according to critics who seized on a report revealing that zero people who were arrested in a high-profile raid were charged with a crime.ProPublica recently reported on the DHS raid on an apartment building that was al...
bit.ly
November 16, 2025 at 5:38 PM
Remember the recent middle-of-the-night apartment building raid where children were dragged outside naked & zip-tied in the street while black & Latino residents were _sorted by race_ and piled into separate vans while their apartments were ransacked & robbed? That raid? So it resulted in 0 arrests.
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost
I share this fear. Too often, in the hands of a mob, moral injury become a gawdy spectacle
So many vulnerable people were hurt, harassed and raped by these ghouls and now—I’m worried—it’s gonna become hehe haha lurid internet circus instead of a long overdue moral reckoning. I’m scared of who we all are becoming. That man has brought us ALL low.
November 15, 2025 at 5:36 AM
I share this fear. Too often, in the hands of a mob, moral injury become a gawdy spectacle
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost
Justin Podeur and Cira Pasqual Marquina analyze the US' impending kinetic aggression against Venezuela, Columbia, Latin America and the Caribbean overall: youtu.be/48rEKseDeOg?...
VENEZUELA SIT REP NOV 15/25: The reason for struggle
YouTube video by The Anti-Empire Project
youtu.be
November 16, 2025 at 3:47 PM
Justin Podeur and Cira Pasqual Marquina analyze the US' impending kinetic aggression against Venezuela, Columbia, Latin America and the Caribbean overall: youtu.be/48rEKseDeOg?...
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost
sad way to be an academic if you think a world you might want (not the past; a better present) is impossible: it's basically an abdication of the duty of the academic, which inter alia is about creation of new knowledge to — yes, why not? — help us progress to a better world
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
![3.2 We do not have to ‘embrace the future’ & we can turn back the tide
It must be the sheer magnitude of [artificial neural networks’] incompetence that makes
them so popular.
Jerry A. Fodor (2000, p. 47)
Related to the rejection of expertise is the rejection of imagining a better future and the rejection
of self-determination free from industry forces (Hajer and Oomen 2025; Stengers 2018; van Rossum
2025). Not only AI enthusiasts, but even some scholars whose expertise concentrates on identifying
and critically interrogating ideologies and sociotechnical relationships — such as historians and gender scholars — unfortunately fall prey to the teleological belief that AI is an unstoppable force. They
embrace it because alternative responses seem too difficult, incompatible with industry developments,
or non-existent. Instead of falling for this, we should “refuse [AI] adoption in schools and colleges,
and reject the narrative of its inevitability.” (Reynoldson et al. 2025, n.p., also Benjamin 2016; Campolo and Crawford 2020; CDH Team and Ruddick 2025; Garcia et al. 2022; Kelly et al. 2025; Lysen
and Wyatt 2024; Sano-Franchini et al. 2024; Stengers 2018). Such rejection is possible and has historical precedent, to name just a few successful examples: Amsterdammers kicked out cars, rejecting
that cycling through the Dutch capital should be deadly. Organised workers died for the eight-hour
workday, the weekend and other workers’ rights, and governments banned chlorofluorocarbons from
fridges to mitigate ozone depletion in the atmosphere. And we know that even the tide itself famously
turns back. People can undo things; and we will (cf. Albanese 2025; Boztas 2025; Kohnstamm Instituut 2025; van Laarhoven and van Vugt 2025). Besides, there will be no future to embrace if we deskill
our students and selves, and allow the technology industry’s immense contributions to climate crisis](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:vsyj5jtayxcq5dw5mtja4xtb/bafkreic4ypelru3ajlx3k5afms62uouf7khpvvfkpgsqwn3sknifwlf2xe@jpeg)
November 16, 2025 at 1:10 PM
sad way to be an academic if you think a world you might want (not the past; a better present) is impossible: it's basically an abdication of the duty of the academic, which inter alia is about creation of new knowledge to — yes, why not? — help us progress to a better world
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost
There was always going to be a point where Trump was no longer useful, and eventually become more destructive (to the cause of our philistine rulers) than helpful. Now is that time, and the philistines will probably use MTG to institutionalize the chaos Trump has wrought.
The Trump regime is not the beginning of US fascism, it has always been oppressive, but the acceleration of a particular type. As @harrysimmons3578.bsky.social has proposed, MAGA's contradictions make space for other fascists to move. Enter Greene, who has crossed the Rubicon
November 16, 2025 at 12:57 PM
There was always going to be a point where Trump was no longer useful, and eventually become more destructive (to the cause of our philistine rulers) than helpful. Now is that time, and the philistines will probably use MTG to institutionalize the chaos Trump has wrought.
There was always going to be a point where Trump was no longer useful, and eventually become more destructive (to the cause of our philistine rulers) than helpful. Now is that time, and the philistines will probably use MTG to institutionalize the chaos Trump has wrought.
The Trump regime is not the beginning of US fascism, it has always been oppressive, but the acceleration of a particular type. As @harrysimmons3578.bsky.social has proposed, MAGA's contradictions make space for other fascists to move. Enter Greene, who has crossed the Rubicon
November 16, 2025 at 12:57 PM
There was always going to be a point where Trump was no longer useful, and eventually become more destructive (to the cause of our philistine rulers) than helpful. Now is that time, and the philistines will probably use MTG to institutionalize the chaos Trump has wrought.
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost
The guy from the "Hit it, Joe!" photoplayer meme is starting his own nonprofit to preserve silent cinema technology:
www.latimes.com/entertainmen...
www.latimes.com/entertainmen...
This instrument from the early cinema is disappearing. But not on Joe's watch
Joe Rinaudo is doing everything to ensure his passion for photoplayers, the self-playing pianos that scored silent movies, outlives him even as interest in the instrument has waned for a long time, wi...
www.latimes.com
November 14, 2025 at 11:15 PM
The guy from the "Hit it, Joe!" photoplayer meme is starting his own nonprofit to preserve silent cinema technology:
www.latimes.com/entertainmen...
www.latimes.com/entertainmen...
Now watching:
November 16, 2025 at 3:19 AM
Now watching:
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost
I'm not trying to be mean, but racists who believe Trump betrayed them by being a child molester are not going to embrace the Democratic Party without forcing that party to embrace racism. And the people gained would in no way make up for those lost.
November 16, 2025 at 2:36 AM
I'm not trying to be mean, but racists who believe Trump betrayed them by being a child molester are not going to embrace the Democratic Party without forcing that party to embrace racism. And the people gained would in no way make up for those lost.
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost
More than 20 million Americans are discovering their health insurance is going to be a lot more expensive next year. They disproportionately live in places like Florida, Arizona, and Kansas that voted for Trump in the last election.
Here Is How an Obamacare Deal Might Actually Work
A compromise on subsidies is possible—but not if Republicans are determined to resurrect their repeal agenda.
www.thebulwark.com
November 16, 2025 at 3:00 AM
More than 20 million Americans are discovering their health insurance is going to be a lot more expensive next year. They disproportionately live in places like Florida, Arizona, and Kansas that voted for Trump in the last election.
One of my favorite (and probably best known) part of Herman Melville's Moby Dick: Captain Ahab's speech at the end of chapter 132
November 16, 2025 at 3:06 AM
One of my favorite (and probably best known) part of Herman Melville's Moby Dick: Captain Ahab's speech at the end of chapter 132
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost
This should have been the end of Larry Summers.
Why women are poor at science, by Harvard president
The president of Harvard University has provoked a furore by arguing that men outperform women in maths and sciences because of biological difference, and discrimination is no longer a career barrier ...
www.theguardian.com
November 16, 2025 at 1:03 AM
This should have been the end of Larry Summers.
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost
Up until now, that which is called ‘left media’ has never been an alternative to mainstream media, it has always been an auxiliary to it. Where the right wing has securely taken control of the Fifth Estate, we get…Jacobin and its frivolous essays presenting liberalism as radicalism
An excellent conversation. Carlos is among the few (friend and colleague @harrysimmons3578.bsky.social is another) who ruthlessly critique what passes for left media in the US: mayonaise liberals. I'm inspired to burn Jacobin again
Why Are All the Social Democrats Liberal Zionists?
Deculturation Will Explain
Friday at 11 AM EST / 8 AM PST
www.youtube.com/live/YCOES4u...
Deculturation Will Explain
Friday at 11 AM EST / 8 AM PST
www.youtube.com/live/YCOES4u...
November 15, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Up until now, that which is called ‘left media’ has never been an alternative to mainstream media, it has always been an auxiliary to it. Where the right wing has securely taken control of the Fifth Estate, we get…Jacobin and its frivolous essays presenting liberalism as radicalism
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost
Something I wish got challenged more often in this “men in crisis” discourse is the blithe assumption (or sometimes outright assertion!) that everyone’s boss is a woman now. “Women now dominate white collar work and corporate management roles.” No they don’t. That just isn’t true.
Really thankful for this, from @winterjessica.bsky.social—a long-overdue corrective to an exhausting discourse. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
What Did Men Do to Deserve This?
Changes in the economy and in the culture seem to have hit them hard. Scott Galloway believes they need an “aspirational vision of masculinity.”
www.newyorker.com
November 15, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Something I wish got challenged more often in this “men in crisis” discourse is the blithe assumption (or sometimes outright assertion!) that everyone’s boss is a woman now. “Women now dominate white collar work and corporate management roles.” No they don’t. That just isn’t true.
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost
Please tell me we're not rehabilitating gollum just because it crossed the unfathomably low bar of being against the sexual abuse of children
November 15, 2025 at 5:19 PM
Please tell me we're not rehabilitating gollum just because it crossed the unfathomably low bar of being against the sexual abuse of children
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost
Zohran Mamdani won young men. Apparently that's not what they're looking for though
Tim Miller makes a plea for more straight, woke influencers: "This is a message for hot straight men with muscles who work out, and who are also woke. We just need you to just do a little bit of commentary."
November 15, 2025 at 2:38 PM
Zohran Mamdani won young men. Apparently that's not what they're looking for though