cynicalclassicist

[cynicalclassicist]

Even from Britain we could see how bad Trump was on Covid.

[cynicalclassicist]

Our votes may not have worked this time, so make sure to show up every other time. If you sat out last time, then don't for every other occasion!

"if voting worked they'd make it illegal"

meanwhile, in the real world:

[cynicalclassicist]

Weirdly enough I think that I added all those things to Wikipedia on 14.11.2016. And now I think that it looks badly written!

happy fratricide friday here’s all the asoiaf fratricides listed in the wikipedia article “list of fratricides in fiction”

[cynicalclassicist]

And there's a little cat to! Which somehow makes it look even more like medieval art!

Ok so, I'm a bit stupid and decided to paint this slightly blasphemous version of that disturbing encounter between Sansa and The Hound during the Battle of the Blackwater.

(I basically ripped off an annunciation I saw in Urbino) (yes that green stuff is supposed to be wildfire, it looks like a bunch of plants).

Here's the print!

[cynicalclassicist]

We can't deny that this is Cersei Lannister!

I don't mean to be arrogant but I believe I captured her essence perfectly

[cynicalclassicist]

It's so weird to see 70s George.

ppl do laugh at the idea that the JB Harrenhal tub scene is maybe influenced by GRRM having met his own future wife in a sauna and like ok if that was the only instance but like. Jon and Ygritte?? weird that it’s happened twice

[cynicalclassicist]

By which logic Aegon VI will retroactively be the rightful heir to the throne! And you missed out that Blackfyre logic!

okay discourse over we’ve settled it now

[cynicalclassicist]

Now you know something! As was said in a Futurama PSA which had Nixon and Agnew.

Sorry you mean to tell me that there was a 19th century Maryland politician named David Agnew who has absolutely no relation to the other, much more infamous Agnew from Maryland (or the fictitious Doctor Who writer of the same name for that matter)?

I don't buy it.

[cynicalclassicist]

There's something so sweet about cats carrying things! Even if it's your food.

Did she want to catch mice?

Cheese thief

[cynicalclassicist]

This is the warped version of celebrity culture. They see a guy in the news a lot who never admits that he was wrong, and they feel that therefore whatever he says must be true.

Very much the Gove mentality of we've had enough of experts.

This post 2016 version of the United States has not been great!

[cynicalclassicist]

I unlocked the Repeat Contributor achievement on Reddit

[cynicalclassicist]

How I'm hoping that Bluesky will turn out.

Can we normalize this?

Like please please please??

[cynicalclassicist]

I've got to love Bret Devereaux.

Yes, Sparta has become a myth for people believed in these toxic ideas of masculinity. They see it as the ideal. It wasn't. It was a horrible place, worse than most of Greece in that period. It was pretty dreadful. But people go on about Thermopylae, this 'victory' of East vs. West... well, defeat classed as a victory. The Spartans ended up collapsing pretty soon after defeating Athens from Thebes doing their techniques better, defeating a larger Spartan force at the Battle of Tegyra. So this great Spartan power over Greece only lasted about a generation.

And yes, I know that other Greek cities weren't exactly great for a lot of the population. But that doesn't excuse Sparta being worse than them.

Despite Sparta’s reputation for superior fighting, Spartan armies were as likely to lose battles as to win them, especially against peer opponents such as other Greek city-states. Sparta defeated Athens in the Peloponnesian War—but only by accepting Persian money to do it, reopening the door to Persian influence in the Aegean, which Greek victories at Plataea and Salamis nearly a century early had closed. Famous Spartan victories at Plataea and Mantinea were matched by consequential defeats at Pylos, Arginusae, and ultimately Leuctra. That last defeat at Leuctra, delivered by Thebes a mere 33 years after Sparta’s triumph over Athens, broke the back of Spartan power permanently, reducing Sparta to the status of a second-class power from which it never recovered. Sparta was one of the largest Greek city-states in the classical period, yet it struggled to achieve meaningful political objectives; the result of Spartan arms abroad was mostly failure. Sparta was particularly poor at logistics; while Athens could maintain armies across the Eastern Mediterranean, Sparta repeatedly struggled to keep an army in the field even within Greece. Indeed, Sparta spent the entirety of the initial phase of the Peloponnesian War, the Archidamian War (431-421 B.C.), failing to solve the basic logistical problem of operating long term in Attica, less than 150 miles overland from Sparta and just a few days on foot from the nearest friendly major port and market, Corinth. The Spartans were at best tactically and strategically uncreative. Tactically, Sparta employed the phalanx, a close-order shield and spear formation. But while elements of the hoplite phalanx are often presented in popular culture as uniquely Spartan, the formation and its equipment were common among the Greeks from at least the early fifth century, if not earlier. And beyond the phalanx, the Spartans were not innovators, slow to experiment with new tactics, combined arms, and naval operations. Instead, Spartan leaders consistently tried to solve their military problems with pitched hoplite battles. Spartan efforts to compel friendship by hoplite battle were particularly unsuccessful, as with the failed Spartan efforts to compel Corinth to rejoin the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League by force during the Corinthian War. Sparta’s military mediocrity seems inexplicable given the city-state’s popular reputation as a highly militarized society, but modern scholarship has shown that this, too, is mostly a mirage. The agoge, Sparta’s rearing system for citizen boys, frequently represented in popular culture as akin to an intense military bootcamp, in fact included no arms training or military drills and was primarily designed to instill obedience and conformity rather than skill at arms or tactics. In order to instill that obedience, the older boys were encouraged to police the younger boys with violence, with the result that even in adulthood Spartan citizens were liable to settle disputes with their fists, a tendency that predictably made them poor diplomats. But while Sparta’s military performance was merely mediocre, no better or worse than its Greek neighbors, Spartan politics makes it an exceptionally bad example for citizens or soldiers in a modern free society. Modern scholars continue to debate the degree to which ancient Sparta exercised a unique tyranny of the state over the lives of individual Spartan citizens. However, the Spartan citizenry represented only a tiny minority of people in Sparta, likely never more than 15 percent, including women of citizen status (who could not vote or hold office). Instead, the vast majority of people in Sparta, between 65 and 85 percent, were enslaved helots. (The remainder of the population was confined to Sparta’s bewildering array of noncitizen underclasses.) The figure is staggering, far higher than any other ancient Mediterranean state or, for instance, the antebellum American South, rightly termed a slave society with a third of its people enslaved.

[cynicalclassicist]

At least this paper is saying... something. But papers like the New York Times didn't call it out enough. And it's scary seeing how many Americans will swallow Trump's lies, no matter how ludicrous they are. For them by definition Trump can do no wrong as it's him doing it. His awful behaviour is something that they take pride in. And it will keep going on to another generation. And you can't reach these people.

"Mr. Trump's election demonstrates how American tolerance for the unacceptable is nearly infinite. There are hundreds of absolutely mind-boggling things I could point to from the past decade...But three election in a row, Mr. Trump has been a viable Presidential candidate and our democracy has few guardrails to protect the country from the clear and present danger he and his political appointees will continue to confer upon us. Clearly, Mr. Trump is successful because of his faults, not despite them, because we do not live in a just world...And now Republicans will control the executive branch, the Senate and the House of Representatives. There will be few checks and balances...

...Mr. Trump's voters are granted a level of care and coddling that defies credulity and that is afforded to no other voting bloc. Many of them believe the most ludicrous things: babies being aborted after birth and children going to school as one gender and returning home surgically altered as another gender even though these things simply do not happen. Time and again, we hear the wild lies these voters believe and we act as if they are sharing the same reality as ours, as if they are making informed decisions about legitimate issues. We act as if they get to dictate the terms of political engagement on a foundation of fevered mendacity.

We must refuse to participate in a mass delusion. We must refuse to accept that the ignorance on display is a congenital condition rather than a choice. All of us should refuse to pretend that any of this is normal and that these voters are just woefully misunderstood and that if only the Democrats addressed their economic anxiety, they might vote differently. While they are numerous, that does not make them right.

These are adults, so let us treat them like adults. Let us acknowledge that they want to believe nonsense and conjecture. They want to believe anything that affirms their worldview. They want to celebrate a leader who allows them to nurture their basest beliefs about others. The biggest challenge of our lifetime will be figuring out how to combat the American willingness to embrace flagrant misinformation and bigotry.

As Mr. Trump assembles his cabinet of loyalists and outlines the alarming policies he means to enact, it's hard not to imagine the worst, not out of paranoia but as a means of preparation. The incoming President has clearly articulated that he may dismantle the Department of Education and appears to be giving the wealthiest man in the world unfettered access to the Oval Office. He plans to begin mass deportations immediately and has announced his pick of a Fox News host as the defense secretary -- the list goes on, each promise more appalling than the last.

We would like to believe that many of the ideas on Mr. Trump's demented wish list won't actually come to fruition and that our democracy can once more withstand the new President and the people with whom he surrounds himself. But that is just desperate, wishful thinking. As of yet, there is nothing that will break the iron grip Mr. Trump has on his base, and Vice President-elect JD Vance is young enough to carry the mantle going forward for political cycles to come.

Absolutely anything is possible, and we must acknowledge this, not out of surrender, but as a means of readying ourselves for the impossible fights ahead."

-- Roxane Gay, "Enough", The New York Times, November 17, 2024.

This is one of the best, most spot-on pieces about where we are and what we must prepare ourselves for in the aftermath of Donald Trump's re-election to the Presidency. These gift links will allow you to bypass the NYT paywall and read the entire article, and I urge you to share these links with as many people as you'd like.

[cynicalclassicist]

Love the bearded vulture!

and her child

I actually drew this for my mom, she likes the tarot stuff. I'm skeptical about it, but I can appreciate the good artistical aesthetic

and that's the bearded vulture of course, my beloved

[cynicalclassicist]

Sweet little cat!

[cynicalclassicist]

That's the Phantom for you!