Recently in Taste, or the lack thereof Category

Ir appears that PDS (Palin Derangement Syndrome) knows no bounds. When such Leftist pundits like Bill Maher must resort to stating Sarah Palin is a "dumb t**t" in order to get a laugh, you know it's gone too far. On the other hand Palin takes it in stride, knowing the source of the remark, and knowing the feminist Left has no problem with her being disparaged. As she says, "I need NOW's defense like a fish needs a bicycle," borrowing a line from ardent feminist Gloria Steinem to illustrate her disdain for the organization.

It never ceases to amaze me the level of vitriol leveled towards Palin, or at her family. It shows how far manners and adherence to the unwritten rules of politics have fallen among the Left. This may end up coming back to bite them in the ass, as it should.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, both the Democrats and their bought-and-paid-for media went after Sarah's family, a long standing taboo. Candidates were always considered fair game. Their families were not. The Dems crossed that line and now they may never be able to step back across it. Even now they continue to hammer her and her family as if they are deathly afraid of her. Maybe it's because they are.

Apparently quite a few others feel the same way about how Sarah and her family are being treated. Others miss the point, like this person:

For example, when Bristol Palin said winning Dancing with the Stars, would be a middle finger to her and her mom's critics.

Try as I might, I can't see Chelsea Clinton saying that about her parents' critics (in public).

If people had been criticizing just Sarah, that's one thing. But they went after Bristol, her baby, and her baby brother. No one did that to Chelsea Clinton when Bill was in office. It's an apple and oranges comparison.

But for a lot of those slamming Palin, it comes down to this: The problem with our society in this media-soaked age is that we equate glibness with intelligence and cynicism with wisdom.* It certainly explains Bill Maher, Joy Behar, Whoopi Goldberg, and the rest of the usual suspects.

*This is a composite of two different comments from Ann Althouse's post on the subject.

Will the intensity of PDS continue to increase as we approach the start of the 2012 presidential campaign season? Without a doubt. Will the invective aimed at Sarah Palin by the Left reach a level of hysteria not seen since Orson Welles' 1938 broadcast of War of the Worlds? Absolutely. Will any of it stop Sarah from moving forward, regardless of her plans or political ambitions. Absolutely not.

If nothing else, this action at Columbia University shows the rest of the nation what kind of scumbags are attending that bastion of hate-mongering leftist ideology.

Never mind the veteran they were jeering is just like the others that have gone before him and made it possible for these brainwashed, indoctrinated, self-important anti-American 'students' to express their disdain.

If you ever needed an excuse not to buy into all of the 'miracle' weight-loss or detox foods or dietary supplements, then this may be what you're looking for.

In an annual list of what it sees as the year's worst abuses against science, the Sense About Science (SAS) campaign group debunked diet and exercise suggestions made by actors, pop stars and others in the public eye in an effort "to help the celebrities realize where they are going wrong and to help the public make sense of celebrity claims."

--snip--

To try and counter the effects of some of the wildest health and fitness tips, SAS published its own "easy-to-remember pointers for celebrity commentators":

* Nothing is chemical-free: everything is made of chemicals, it's just a case of which ones.

* Detox is a marketing myth: our body does it without pricey potions and detox diets.

* There's no need to boost: bodily functions occur without boosting.

* Energy and fitness come from...food and exercise: there are no shortcuts.

Whenever I see some of these miracle products being hawked by celebrities I have to wonder just what they're thinking, assuming of course that they're thinking at all. Not that all celebrity endorsed products or programs are bunk, just those promising miraculous results without effort.

Stop acting like women, women. That seems the feeling of aged slut Erica Jong. It makes her feel guilty she was such an imperfect mother. Why can't you be slutty and narcissistic? She seems to be saying this when complaining about mothers who spend too much time with their young children.

Cool.

Hellenists v. Jews.

Go Jews!

HT: Marginal Revolution

There's also Chasidim (ultra Orthodox Jews) v. Franciscans. That's a tough one.

There are lots of topics I could cover this evening, this being the last post of 2008. I could list my New Year's resolutions, but that will wait until New Year's Day. I could write about 2008's biggest stories, but that topic has been beaten to death by the print and electronic media, so why go there?

Instead, I will go in a different direction and cover a subject near and dear to my heart: ugly houses.

Obviously this isn't an original subject, seeing as I linked to a post over at Sippican Cottage about the subject. But it is one that seriously needs to be addressed considering how many homes built over the past ten years or so I've seen that never should have seen the light of day. I'm not the only one.

Here's a house for sale in the town I grew up in.

Everyone looks around and sees houses like this. They pass unremarked now. After a while, if it doesn't look like this, people are going to think a house looks strange. And it's wrong, wrong, wrong. The situations where a house nailed on the ass end of a garage are appropriate are so few there's no use talking about them. Never do this.

There's Postmodern evil afoot here. Everything is boiled down to a pastiche, and you put all these disconnected totems into a blender and put the mixed up parts on a concrete rectangle. It's making us all crazy in a very subtle but profound way.

There has been a concerted effort to dismantle all standards of right and wrong and beauty and truth. If ever truthiness was put into sticks and bricks, this house is it. When you rebel against standard things, sooner or later you run out of ways to be original, and all that is left is to do the exact opposite of good. It's the only permutation of new that's left to you after a while. The American house is becoming that perfect distillation of bad ideas. Everything exactly at cross-purposes with its stated purpose.

Indeed. I have seen far too many homes built that look like they came out of the mind of a schizophrenic off their meds. There's little thought to the layout, no logic that dictates what the floorplan should look like. Such homes are soulless, having less character than a refrigerator box one of the homeless would use to shelter themselves from the cold. The exteriors look bland, almost sterile, even though they have the vague form of houses we call Cape, Victorian, Ranch, Saltbox, Colonial, Federal, and so on. They are boring. Those designing them, whether professional architects or the future homeowners themselves, prove the only taste they possess is in their mouths.

Even our Manse, a supposed Cape, suffers from this malady. The basic looks are there, but the details have been overlooked or ignored, making our home an ersatz Cape Cod at best.

First, the siding looks more like clapboards rather than shakes, and most Capes are sided with shakes. While I have no desire to pull off the vinyl siding and replace them with cedar shakes, I have seen siding that looks like shakes while maintaining the advantages of vinyl siding.

Second, our fireplace is in the wrong place. Capes have their fireplaces near the center of the house, allowing more even heating. Ours is located at the south end of The Manse. What's worse is that we don't even have a real chimney. Instead it's a chase covered with siding that hides the two vent pipes, one for the furnace and water heater and one for the fireplace/woodstove. So it's a chimney-looking construct without the brick or stonework.

Third, the front door doesn't really match the Cape décor. It has a large cut glass oval with brass highlights that fills half the door. No Cape worthy of the name I've ever seen has a door like that. Only ersatz Capes like ours bear doors like that.

Fourth, the front door to the mud room is solid, bearing not a single pane of glass. Not one. The back door has the proper lights in it, but not the front. That means we don't get much light in there until late in the day. That's poor design.

Fifth, our home has sliders opening out onto the rear decks. That's right, not one, but two sets of sliders on the rear of The Manse! Sliders are an abomination on a Cape.

Sixth, though not the last or least, our garage dominates the front rather than the house itself. It should have been set back 5 or 10 feet, making the house the focus of the front. Instead it is even with the front of the house, and because of the nature of Capes, the front of the garage looks larger than the rest of the house. That's plain wrong.

I could easily go on and on about the soulless design of The Manse. Whomever dealt with the details either got lazy or got a great deal on doors, sliders, and siding. It's ironic considering there's so much that's right with our home. Much of the interior finish is excellent, belying the blandness and poor layout of the exterior. The amenities are quite good, too. But still, the proportions aren't quite right due to the lack of attention to detail.

Since we live up here in the Lakes Region of central New Hampshire, we've seen more than our share of fine lake shore homes and cottages that have existed for generations being torn down and replaced with tasteless and bland monstrosities that look so out of place they should be made illegal and burned to the ground. The owners and the architects responsible for those eyesores should be ridiculed...or maybe flogged in the town square for the crime of poor taste.

Well, maybe not. Flogging might be too good for them.