Wednesday Overnight Open Thread (4/24/24

Quote I

‘It really is appalling behaviour. I am at a loss. Both of you talk about it as if it was a beloved family pet. What an example you are showing to your children about what love is.’ Judge Roy Bean Judge Christine Laing KC

Quote II

“That’s what you get for $68,000 a year at Columbia — an administration who cowers in the face of thugs and bullies, and a university president who would rather make your kids try to learn off campus, than take a truly hard line with those students calling for the murder of Jews,” Mike Rowe

The ONT Is Always Looking Out For You 'Ettes.^TM

STEP TO IT The 5 reasons wearing heels is GOOD for you and 4 fashion mistakes harming your health
A podiatrist shares how heels could benefit your health - and harm it

On the bright side The Fabulous married me to shorten her surname.

A while ago, following this display of progressive parenting, I wrote,

And yes, the family does live in Brooklyn. And no, they don’t share a surname. And yes, the adults have availed themselves of professional counselling services.
A quip that resulted in some rumblings on the topic of marriage and shared surnames, or the lack thereof. In the comments, Steve E noted,

[Not sharing a surname] creates complications for the most mundane of things, too. Pick up a pizza, whose name is it in? Loyalty account at retail store, whose name is it in? My wife kept her own surname because – feminism, the patriarchy, etc. – she now says if she’d known what a pain-in-the-ass it would be, she wouldn’t have done it. When she signs up for things now, she gives my surname.
And Ray added,

If father tries to board an airplane with a nine-year-old girl who doesn’t share his surname, the airline will hit the big red panic button.
As I said at the time, I don’t have strong feelings on the subject, but it occurs to me that not taking your husband’s surname, ostensibly as some Assertion Of Progress And Enlightenment – while retaining what is presumably your father’s surname – does create complications.

For instance, having different surnames can confuse people as to whether you’re married or not, and if so, to whom. And any children with hyphenated surnames – a fashionable statement of the aforementioned Progress And Enlightenment – will then face the issue of what to do when they get married, especially if it’s to someone whose own name is also modishly hyphenated. Do they ditch some of the accumulated names – and if so, which ones? Or do they go for multiply hyphenated surnames, which would very quickly become a bit much?

Say, if Derek Williams and Sarah Anderson get married but retain their own surnames, and their children’s surnames are hyphenated as Anderson-Williams, they may enjoy a sheen of modernity, and perhaps connotations of aristocracy and status. But what happens when little Annie Anderson-Williams grows up and wants to marry James Houghton-Clompington? Do we get a brood of Anderson-Williams-Houghton-Clompingtons?

I’m exaggerating for comic effect, of course. But only slightly.

As a new, supposedly more equitable tradition – at least outside of the Spanish-speaking world – it seems scarcely less prone to complication and trade-offs. When hyphenated offspring come to name their own children – and if they follow the same rules as their hyphenated parents – the whole thing rapidly becomes unworkable, and, at risk of causing offence, names will have to be cut. Lest each child sound like a law firm.

Though I suppose one could take it as a kind of unintended symbolism, a measure of modern progressivism. In that, the problem it allegedly addresses doesn’t seem to be much of a problem for most of those it supposedly oppresses, and the solution offered is somewhat short-sighted and soon results in something close to absurdity.

In the original thread, pst314 added,

I have heard of some writers, and others in careers where name recognition matters, keeping their names when they marry. But that’s a special case.
Also, among gay couples. Though gay couples tend not to result in children, thereby sidestepping the issue of escalating hyphenation and a society-wide overhaul of stationery, due to the need to enlarge the ‘print name’ and ‘signature’ boxes on every official form.

Somethings are just too perverted to become a Genius Award Winner. Man performed sex act on a corpse after breaking into hospital mortuary

I know for a fact that Buck Throckmorton is not our Genius Award Winner

A battery someone tossed in the trash caused an emergency in an Olathe neighborhood last week.

City leaders said someone tossed a lithium battery into the trash. A trash truck unknowingly started hauling it to the landfill. On the way the lithium battery caught fire and started burning the rest of the trash in the truck.

The driver quickly stopped the truck and dumped the burning load on the pavement to prevent extensive damage to the equipment according to the city. Firefighters then extinguished the fire.

Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by Grandchildren.

Notice: Posted with unenthusiastic permission by the Ace Media Empire & AceCorp, LLC. Morale with the hamsters is waning as well.

posted by Misanthropic Humanitarian at 09:46 PM

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