Totally Faboo

But in all the outrage about Neeleman, I haven't seen anyone compare her to the original tradwife liar, Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I'm not referring to the Little House on the Prairie children's book series, which were actually pretty open about how poor the Ingalls family was and how many times they almost died through illness/extreme weather/starvation on that homestead stolen from Native Americans. Those novels include plenty of nostalgia and manifest destiny and libertarianism, but Ma Ingalls clearly hates being out on the homestead isolated from their neighbors. That's not trad-wife content. Maybe trad-child content.

No, long before Wilder published her first children's book in 1932, she had a regular column in papers like the Missouri Ruralist and Farmer's Week in the 1910s/20s, where she would write 500-word pieces such as:

"The March of Progress"

"Classed as Illiterates"

"The Wanton Destruction of Trees"

"Kinfolks or Mere Relations?"

"Let's Not Depend on Experts"

"When Proverbs Quarrel"

"The Hidden Cost of Getting What We Want"

"Don't Call on The Government All of the Time"

"The Armor of a Smile"

Those are all real essay titles -- I've read them; you can too -- and the content is exactly what you'd expect: folksy, gently humorous, self-effacing, lite-Christian inspirational, suspicious of city life, glorifying backbreaking physical labor, full of housekeeping tips. Any single one of them could be easily repurposed into a Ballerina Farm IG caption or a TikTok voiceover with a quick edit: nothing new under the sun.

And just like Neeleman lies by omission about how their farm books are balanced, Wilder lied by omission about her own account books. Her husband Almanzo Wilder was partially paralyzed by diphtheria after their marriage and couldn't physically manage a farm alone. Caroline Fraser notes that Almanzo's parents (themselves wealthy farmers) had to pay off the mortgage on the Missouri farm or Laura and Almanzo would not have kept the property. Even with that financial help, they had a lot of rough years and it was Laura's side hustles -- selling eggs, clerking, writing columns lying about the rewarding joy of farming -- that kept them afloat. Eventually she started publishing full-length novels and their success finally put them in the black.

This wasn't a concern for the other astronauts chosen - they have families. But they weren't conscripted. She can live with conscripting Ryland Grace for the mission because he has no dependents or future dependents who would suffer.

She's so locked in she can't see that the reasons she's made herself okay with the necessity are not the reasons Ryland can get behind to accept it.

More of your students will wind up dead if we have to wait, political will for the project is diminishing and every horrid thing we have done to buy ourself time will be wasted because it will become less likely we can launch. These are the arguments that could win Ryland Grace over. She's setting herself up to fail because she's in a hurry, out of patience, and ultimately not really good at interpersonal communications.

Ryland has done a lot of the work for her in their friendly work relationship - which she knows she's betraying. But he can't do the work for her here.

I was thinking about this. The George W. Bush regime tended to justify torture by saying, essentially, yes this is a drastic step, but in a high stakes world it may be, regrettably, necessary.

Trump is currently threatening to kill as many Iranian civilians as he can if the government that was mowing them down in the streets a few weeks back doesn't do what he says, and... how can I put this?

This is presented not as a regrettable but necessary trade-off, but as not a trade-off at all.

It is wrong for a US President to care what happens to Iranian children and the question of how many babies we kill should not even be put in the "Con" catsgory when we put together the Pros and Cons of the war.

"A lot of Iranian civilians will die if we do this" is not a con, it's just... off the board. It doesn't belong as part of our thought process. It's not a con which is balanced out by some other pro, it's an irrelevance, not to be weighed at all.

You can find clips of JD Vance and Elon Musk very openly saying that their project is to narrow down the moral concerns of the nation, that the biggest threat we face is giving too much moral weight to certain people.

But I was also thinking about Venezuela.

Now, we absolutely are not allowed to question whether it is moral for us to demand that Venezuela use their oil reserves how we want them to under threat of violence.

But honestly you're kind of not even supposed to ask, "What benefit do I, the American tax payer, get from this?"

Whatever future savings from increased oil supply is being cancelled out by the pile of expenses Trump is throwing on us, but also... like... I don't get paid by Chevron? Various oil barons get to sell me somebody else's oil.

But the only metric you're supposed to use is "Did they get away with it?"

They wanted to kidnap Maduro and intimidate the Venezuelan government and they didn't suffer many bad consequences, therefore the operation was successful.

At least hit the shiny repost button if you're going to do nothing else. This should not stand.

“They have called this day the eleventh of March! And whomsoever of you gets through this day, unless you are shot in the head or somehow slain, you will stand at tiptoe when e'er you hear the name again.  And you will get excited at the name March the eleventh! We happy few, we few, we band of brothers… our names will be as like… household names!  And those who are not here… be they sleeping or doing something else, they will feel themselves sort of crappy!  Because they are not here to join the fight on this day the eleventh of March!

Move out.”

-Sgt. Buck Frobisher, March 11, 1999

As a rule people go into the military because they are poor, or disadvantaged, or lost, and it is the best socialist program in the country. All you need to do is be willing to kill people (or create/support the infrastructure to do so). And that recruiter really leans on the "you'll be creating infrastructure/getting on the job training that transfers to civilian life/money for college" angle.

Do I think the whole every day is thank a veteran day is over the top and wrong headed? Yes.

Do I think that our veteran worship wallpapers over the absolute fact that the average American is not served by our overseas wars - but several individual Americans and investor groups (hope to) get rich off the war/or their result. Yep.

Do I think we as a country actually disrespect veterans by fostering an economic system that further grinds people down that were ground down by their service? Yep.

Do I think the VA Hospitals are equipped to offer the best healthcare and supportive Mental Healthcare to our Veterans? Ha, ha, sob. No.

Because good people should stand in solidarity with workers who were lied to about what they would actually be doing/building and came out with nightmares and injuries that will surface years later in an MRI OR straight up lost limbs or their life.

Our stories tell all people (but especially young people) about the righteousness of the military of the country. In that atmosphere it is unsurprising that people choose the military when they need "to do something with their life" or find someplace to live because "when you are 18 you are out of the house" people do exist.

Good people can condemn war and support people who thought they were serving their country ( and/or get an education, support when they were kicked out of the house at 18, or lied to by a recruiter and pop culture).

You don't have to thank a Veteran, but spend your energy being an vocal anti-war advocate to your "rah, rah, the President can decide to kill people without an act of Congress" Congress Critters.

Leave the adult who was once a young man/woman trying to figure out how to leave the nest and thrive out of it.

I think a big portion of it is that a full colonoscopy was going to be logistically difficult, so I went with the compromise of ColoGuard. With this setup, they send you a little bucket and you poop in it and send it back, which is scientifically sound but objectively hilarious. The poop bucket people tell me I'm good!

But it is reassuring. My partner Hodag has a number of health issues that stem from having had mistreated colon cancer, so they're very relieved my screening is clear and very happy I took the screening seriously. I'm not super used to having someone care that much about preventative healthcare on my behalf, and it feels good to be able to reassure them.