“Things do not ‘happen.’ Things are made to happen.”  --John F. Kennedy

"Deformity is commonly hideous in its effects. It corrodes character, leading to deceit, treachery, malignity and false living; and as often as not vitiates those entangled in the sufferer’s life as much as the sufferer himself."  --Ashley Montagu

"One doesn't work for effects, and one doesn't set up in the artist business. One studies and learns and works and thinks to develop oneself as an intelligent, sensitive, and aware human being: and out of the always-increasing resources of intelligence, sensitivity, and awareness, the human being makes music."  --Leonard Bernstein

"When, years ago, I puzzled over the strange research for my book American Cosmic, I came to a recognition that Nietzsche had predicted a new form of something other than secular, Darwinian evolution. To open my book, I quoted Nietzsche’s proverbial question, posed in The Antichrist, to frame the issue: “Two thousand years have come and gone, and not a single new god!” I thought that the answer to Nietzsche’s question/observation was best stated by David Bowie’s statement, “The Internet is an alien life form.” Therefore, this new religion or order posited humanity as technologically transformed by non-human intelligence."  --D. W. Pasulka "2001: A Space Odyssey, Nietzsche, and the Nuclear Weapons-UFO Connection, Part Two of a Series."

https://dwpasulka.substack.com/p/2001-a-space-odyssey-nietzsche-and

Like the conservative movement more broadly, the [Heritage Foundation] organization wants young women to believe this is all being done for their benefit: that work is soulless and unfulfilling, that feminism has made women miserable, and that the real path to happiness is being a stay-at-home mom. The latest right-wing mantra for women? “Less burnout, more babies” 

...

This isn’t some fringe effort. From the tradwife explosion to MAHA disinformation about birth control, conservatives are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into convincing the next generation that the rapid erosion of their rights isn’t a political and moral crisis—but a lifestyle upgrade.They want our daughters and granddaughters to have zero information about their bodies and sex, no ability to protect themselves from pregnancy, limited choices for an intellectual and professional life, and—once our girls have been corralled into early marriages—few opportunities to leave.

Push them into the home, force them to get pregnant, rinse and repeat.

And while it’s certainly easier for the Heritage Foundation and their allies if American girls fall in line, conservatives in power are just as happy to force them onto that narrow path. As with all coercive men, the fact that young women don’t want this is part of the appeal.

The truth is that the next generation is as ambitious as ever. The futures they want for themselves are broad and bright. Sometimes that includes husbands and children, sometimes it doesn’t. The most recent studies show that young men are actually far more likely to name children as their top marker of personal success. (Women cite financial independence and their careers.) It’s young men who are having a hard time finding partners, and it’s young men who are lonely.

In other words, despite years of cultural messages to the contrary—it’s men, actually, who are desperate for marriage and babies.

I suppose that’s what Heritage’s roadmap and the conservative agenda is really about: building the world that men want, and forcing women to live inside it.

I’m far more interested in the big, bright life my daughter wants, and ensuring it stays her own.

Jessica Valenti "They're Coming for Our Daughters: The conservative plan to shrink girls’ futures"

https://jessica.substack.com/p/theyre-coming-for-our-daughters

 

"We’re watching a deliberate conservative cultural push designed to undermine women’s rights ... treating our [females'] humanity like a thought exercise makes it that much easier to legislate away ... But you know what actually makes women happy? Bank accounts. Voting rights. The ability to leave a bad marriage, and not have a miscarriage kill us."  --Jessica Valenti "Debating Away Our Humanity"

https://jessica.substack.com/p/cbs-news-feminism

"Music doesn't express any specific feelings. It only constitutes the formal framework in which, while listening, everyone experiences their own emotions according to their own personality."  --Witold Lutoslawski