Reddest Of Them All

Some goodies from the Twitternet.

What occupation had the greatest percentage of Trump supporters?

This reinforces the data that the Democratic Party basically exists due to Single women and Working Moms (Feminists).

In the past, women didn’t need to vote. Their Men voted for them — either their Fathers, or, after marriage, their Husbands.

Fraction in US married by Age 38-42:

Higher incomes get more married, but have fewer children, until over $500K:

Conclusions:

Make some dough.

Get Married.

Stay at home Moms.

Lots of children.

Vote for politicians that share your values.

Not-Engaged Rings

If you are married, you wear a ring to show that you are not available or looking.

If you are engaged, you wear a ring to show that you are not available or looking.

If you weren’t engaged or married, you were available and looking. There were no “relationships.”

Unfortunately, things are a little more complicated now — needlessly complicated. Thus, some people have been experimenting with new rings that show you are available and looking.

https://pearring.co/en-us

There are also lavender rings to show that you are LGBTQ+++++. Kinda like: “I’m radioactive.” Works for me.

I don’t like the plasticky green look much, but one problem with other ring schemes (including “purity rings”) is that they can be hard to distinguish from regular wedding rings, and subtleties like “it’s on a different finger” are lost in real life.

Men Are Always Thinking About The Roman Empire

Men — OK, men over 40 — are always thinking about the Roman Empire.

This is because: Men are the builders of civilization.

Why is it that, for 500 years after the Renaissance, college education consisted of:

Learning Greek and Latin

Reading big books in the original Greek and Latin

???

Books like the histories of Polybius, Livy and Tacitus.

Books like The Commentaries of Julius Caesar, or the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.

Two of the greatest leaders of Rome actually wrote books, and you can read them!

Women never think about the Roman Empire.

This is because: Matriarchy Does Not Exist.

Women think about: Cats, Baby Yoda, and other things that resemble human infants.

Nothing wrong with that.

Stop Buying Diamonds

A wedding engagement is a big deal. We often mark this event with a ring. But, do we really need to make DeBeers wealthy by buying diamond rings? DeBeers created this tradition with the power of advertising, in the 1930s. After all, the appeal of diamonds is, in part, that the girl can go cash it in when the engagement/wedding/marriage goes south. “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.” If you are going to get married, and stay married, what do you need a diamond for?

Rich people can do whatever they want. But us normal, not-rich people, especially people in their twenties who might be rich in the future but not right now, should keep wedding expenses low. How about a silver engagement ring? It makes sense that, if we mark a wedding with a gold ring, then we might use cheaper but still precious silver to mark an engagement.

You can buy a Sterling Silver engagement ring, perfectly acceptable, on Amazon for $12.

Any decent sort of girl should be happy about this, since it is the marriage, not the diamond, that is the valuable part.

If your girlfriends give you shade for your cheap-ass future husband, tell them either:

A) At least I’m getting married, ha sucks to be you; or:

B) We took the money and bought a new car.

If your girl complains, maybe she always was a gold-digger — or, a diamond-digger.

Basic Housekeeping For Men

Unfortunately, young men are often not taught how to keep house properly. They tend to be very messy. Often, men pass Age 30 without learning to keep house at a decent standard. This is stupid. Housekeeping is not that hard. Learn how to do it, and do it right. Then, go off and do something fun, like snowboarding.

If you live somewhere, and your Mom isn’t taking care of it, then you have to do basic housekeeping. Mostly, young men do this very badly. Eventually, they learn how to do it. Over time, typically many years, men eventually learn that it is worth spending a little extra time per week doing basic household chores, so that you live in a nice clean place. You do not have to spend a lot of time at it. Maybe three hours per week is about right. Just pick one or two evenings per week, and get it done, and done properly.

Sometimes men learn this, at an early age, in the military. The military demands that men keep their living spaces clean. But, most men do not learn this from the military.

If you live apart from your Mother, let’s say at Age 18 as a college student, then you should begin, immediately, to learn basic housekeeping tasks. These include:

Do the Laundry. Do the laundry about once a week. Fold your clothes and put them away properly. Iron if you have to. Do not let dirty laundry pile up. Do not wear dirty laundry because you have no clean clothes. Do not dump your clean laundry in a corner, and just pick things out of the pile as you need them, instead of folding them and putting them away. Along with your clothes, wash other household linens such as towels, sheets and napkins once a week. Wash your sheets at least once a week, or maybe more often. Bath towels should be washed at least once a week. Hand towels, in the kitchen or bathroom, should be changed every day.

Make your bed. Make your bed each morning after you get up. Change the sheets at least once a week, or more (especially if you have guests). Have a nice bed — nice sheets, comforters, pillows etc. This stuff is cheap so there’s no reason to have crappy, ugly stuff. Go to a store like HomeGoods.

Take a shower. Take a shower at least once a day. Maybe more than once, especially if you have been doing dirty or sweaty work.

Clean the bathroom. Bathrooms should be cleaned at least once a week. Wipe down the sinks, counters, toilet, floors, mirrors etc. with a sponge. Use rubber gloves. Toilets should be cleaned every day, but at least once a week. Hand towels should be changed every day.

Clean the Kitchen. Kitchens should be cleaned every day. Every day, before going to bed, the kitchen should be ready for the next day. Dishes should be washed. Sinks, counters and tables should be wiped down. Use rubber gloves. Sweep and mop the floor at least once a week, or every day if you are cooking often. Wipe down the stove and stovetop at least once a week, or every day. Don’t let old/rotten food build up in the refrigerator.

Clean the other rooms. Living rooms, halls, bedrooms etc. should be vacuumed once a week. Don’t let clutter build up. Put things away. Dusting is actually a thing. Dust builds up on horizontal surfaces, such as the tops of dressers or bookshelves, lamp shades etc. Wipe off the dust with a damp cloth once a month, or more if necessary. Clean out “cobwebs” that can collect in corners. These are actually strings of dust, they are not made by spiders.

Take care of the yard. If you have a yard, you have to take care of it. If you really don’t want to spend your time dinking around in the yard, and would rather go fishing, then don’t have a yard. Look for an apartment or townhouse where you don’t have a yard to take care of. But, if you have a yard, then you have to do minimal care of it. This might be raking and mowing.

Do basic maintenance. Little things need to be taken care of all the time. Apparently, a lot of ill-disciplined people can’t even manage to change the batteries in their fire alarms, and they live for years with the “needs batteries” chirping. Replace light bulbs that go out. Do it right away. Don’t just leave burned-out light bulbs for weeks, months or years.

That’s it. Just learn how to do this right away, at the age of 18 or 20. It takes time and effort, but it is only about three hours a week. Purchase the necessary materials if you have to. Brooms, vacuum cleaners, buckets, sponges etc. are cheap so get something good that works well and is a joy to use. Use rubber gloves, while washing dishes or cleaning. We buy “kitchen rags” from Walmart. These are sold as cheap cotton washcloths, less than $1 each, but we use them as all-purpose cleaning rags. Just get into the habit of doing it, and doing it properly with no sloppiness or slacking off, and then go do what you really want to do.

Conservatives Take Aim At No-Fault Divorce Laws

Things are changing. After scoring a victory with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, conservatives are setting their sights at overturning no-fault divorce laws.

At-fault divorce laws, prior to 1970 and stretching centuries previous, looked something like this:

A married couple could divorce under mutually-agreed conditions.

If there was no mutual agreement, then the case went to court. There had to be proof of “fault,” typically abandonment, cruelty, incurable mental illness, or adultery. Wikipedia summarizes:

Prior to the latter decades of the 20th century, divorce was considered to be against the public interest, and civil courts refused to grant a divorce except if one party to the marriage had betrayed the “innocent spouse.” Thus, a spouse suing for divorce in most states had to show a “fault” such as abandonment, cruelty, incurable mental illness, or adultery. If an “innocent” husband and wife wished to separate, or if both were guilty, “neither would be allowed to escape the bonds of marriage.”[9] Divorce was barred if evidence revealed any hint of complicity between spouses to manufacture grounds for divorce, such as if the suing party engaged in procurement or connivance (contributing to the fault, such as by arranging for adultery), condonation (forgiving the fault either explicitly or by continuing to cohabit after knowing of it), or recrimination (the suing spouse also being guilty).

Unfortunately, this did lead to a lot of problems. Things would be tied up in court forever, and in the end, divorces were usually granted. (It is hard to imagine staying married to someone who ties you up in long legal cases.) Women who wanted to break up the family would inevitably claim that their husbands got drunk and beat them. I am sure this almost never happened, just as it almost never happens today. Nevertheless, about 25% of marriages ended in divorce in the 1960s, and probably there was a barrage of lies that went along with that. Some lawyers offered a “prostitute and photographer” package for women who wanted to frame their husbands for adultery.

Actually, three States today — Mississippi, South Dakota and Tennessee — require mutual consent for no-fault divorce.

What if the State just got out of it? Whether a man and a woman “were” or “were not” married, or divorced, simply was not a matter of the State’s concern. SigmaFrame had an interesting series about this history and concept.

This is not far from what we see in Scandinavian countries today, where men and women live together for a long time, and have children together, without ever getting “married.” Aren’t they married?

What would happen in the dissolution of one of these informal “common law marriages”? Probably, assets that were in an individuals’ name would be retained by the individual. Assets with formal joint ownership would probably have to be split somehow, likely with one side buying the other out, or just selling it and splitting the proceeds. Children would be distributed among parents, or even other relatives, as appropriate.

A step up from this is a private marriage contract, that is entirely a civil contract without State involvement. Basically it is a business contract, still enforceable by law.