My Little Pony has a male fanbase.

Makes some sense.  Supposedly the GI Joe was created by a man who feared little boys were secretly playing with their sister’s Barbie Dolls.

Let’s get this out of the way first: Bronies are not gay. One might be hard-pressed, sure, when seeing college-age guys wearing pink wigs and furry faux tails walking into a convention center—as this writer saw, outside what turned out to be BronyCon 2013 in Baltimore, an event that drew over 12,000 people—not to look for some LGBT connection. But the vast majority of them are indeed heterosexual, according to scientific studies of the fandom. (Yes, there are major Brony studies, but more on that later.)

The gay thing would be easier to take for… this, I suppose…

Some among the Internet mom squad reacted too, the mental juxtaposition of their six-year-olds sharing a giggly fondness for Princess Celestia—Alicorn pony and co-ruler of the kingdom of Equestria—with an equally arduous 22-year-old bearded man being too weird to take.

The Ponies?

“If you just stripped the ‘My Little’ off it and just called it ‘the Ponies,’ it would be even more successful,” he said. “It’s kind of like watching a Pixar movie, in that it’s got humor for adults, and morals in the stories that a kid can understand. And a lot of throwback to old movies like ‘Star Wars’.”

And three two one…

Some say it’s a trend toward “neo-sincerity,” he observes—a post-ironical appreciation for things because of their purity, even sentimentality, because it feels good. In 1993, author David Foster Wallace described the ethos in part as arising from those “who eschew self-consciousness and hip fatigue.” MLP provides life-lessons, humor, and great animation. So just enjoy it.

Can one ironically appreciate neo-sincerity?

The comments section gets us into the problem of stunted adolescence and how this is works with Obamacare and (oddly enough, considering the nature of the magazine’s isolationist Conservatism) a lack of a military draft.

Is the audience mostly male, or is it just that the hardcore interactive fandom is? I’m certain that there are plenty of fans in the target demographic (5-11 year old girls), it’s just that kids that age do not usually create cross-country organized communities.

Isn’t the Internet changing that?

This is about the most extreme indication of the decline of Western Civilization that I can think of. I can only hope that the devotee who claims to be a Naval Officer, and the devotee who claims a Drill Sergeant is a fellow devotee, are both lying. Another depressing thing is that there are so few dissenting voices in this thread; I think most of the few conservatives around here were so repulsed by this article that they didn’t want to associate with it to the extent of even clicking on it.n

And…

What is truly odd, troubling and creepy is the small-c conservative fandom surrounding Ayn Rand: a hateful shrew who was a militantly anti-Christian atheist, died a lonely woman, and was buried in a casket emblazoned with a dollar sign. Yet no so much fanlove for C.S. Lewis–a devout Christian and writer of many fine ‘children’s’ books, who penned these oft-misquoted words:

Yes.  My Little Pony is the new CS Lewis.

Chris Christie is someone I can never quite pull the lever on for “Never Going to Be President”.  Oh, I can list the reasons he can’t.  And we can see the way his political virtue will prove to be a double edged sword, and what his downfall will be.  It’s always been a question of when that will happen, and if there would be enough of it to fall out before an election.

“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”

And currently we see this classic image motif in the media.  The photograph of the politician.  Under Fire.  Close up at his press conference.  Lips tightly parsed.  In the middle of some serious shifting of speech.   This image is next to either a bullet point of various messages, a time line of events, or a pull quote.  And the pull quote that jumps out at me here is…

“Christie: ‘I Am Not A Bully”…

Memo to all politicians under fire: do not use this sentence construction.  You are evoking Richard Nixon.  You do not want to evoke Richard Nixon.  (Unless maybe you do?)

Leaf through the letters section of the major national papers.   Two classic tropes jump out… One:

The medium more interesting than the message.
Once again, a prominent political figure and his staff are undone by malfeasance revealed by email. It is unbelievable to me that in today’s sophisticated social media world, people still believe that they can safely communicate — especially when plotting mayhem — over the Internet. Perhaps the real scandal here is in the shared stupidity of the “Bridgegate” gang.

No, sorry.  Too clever by half.  The real scandal is the scandal.  If they were able to hide it better that would be a kind of “hm”.

And then there’s the “Equivalence” or “Realpolitik at work”:

Isn’t this the way of politics: reward friends and punish enemies? It’s old hat, whether it be a New Jersey governor or the president of the United States, who has been known to hand out plum ambassadorships and other goodies to top fund-raisers, while perhaps using the Internal Revenue Service as his bludgeon on political foes, as some Republican critics have charged. That’s how the world works. Are you shocked? Is anyone?

He hedges a bit here with the “IRS-gate”, perhaps not knowing if he should admit there was no there there.  The ambassadorships line is a little amusing.

Of course, the other two reasons Chris Christie might not be President — Henry Kissinger tried to push him to run in 2012, and since when is Henry Kissinger a King maker? … and … Republicans blame him for Obama winning because he was overly complimentary to him during Hurricane Sandy.

One text message sent to Wildstein on the day of the lane closures referenced mass school bus delays. “Is it wrong that I’m smiling?” the message read.
“No,” Wildstein wrote.
“I feel badly about the kids. I guess,” the person, who is unidentified, texted back.
Wildstein replied, “They are the children of Buono voters.”

Funny thing:  There weren’t all that many Buono voters.  Which is one of the ways this was an especially amazingly petty act.  (Not that a close race would make it psychologically more sensical.)  Then again… what the hell was Nixon doing with George McGovern with Watergate?

What went wrong in the Elizabeth Cheney for Senate campaign.

A strange request for Elizabeth Cheney to now take the Conservative Lead on Gay Marriage, and thus… ur… disassociate herself from Conservatism as it exists in the Wyoming Primary Candidacy she just attempted?

What does this mean?

It means about the only major Primary contest against an incumbent Republican Senator that’s bringing out some weird entertainment value is Steve Stockman taking on John Cornyn in Texas.  And here’s what we’re getting from that one.

“John Cornyn is using a shell group to spend amnesty cash to demonstrably lie about Steve Stockman,” said Ferguson. “It’s exactly the same thing they did to Ted Cruz.”

Item number five... PO Tour

Dateline Canton  In Canton, I twice accosted Lyndon LaRouche people outside of the post office after they shrieked some nonsense about Obama, and I told them they should be ashamed of themselves for having posters of the president doctored with a Hitler-like mustache. Freedom of speech is paramount—but so is human decency. Both times the young woman at the LaRouche table turned into a blubbering mess.

Interesting Question… Is there anything a hot woman can say that will make men not want to fuck her?  (If that’s too objectionable, go ahead and mentally prettify it in whatever way you want.)
“I don’t know why more people don’t listen to Lyndon LaRouche”

Free Republic discusses
LaRouche? Seriously? How can they spare time from pursuing the Queen of England’s drug racketeering?
I never knew that hatemonger was active outside the United States.

That review, which I just read, uncovered something I didn’t know “Spengler” aka David P. Goldman was at one time a Larouchie.

Larouche is another worshiper of the exponential growth equation…just another follower of the just think positive ignore negative algorithm.

The President is always simultaneously the most admired and hated man (so far all men) in America.  And the gallup poll shows us…

In a fill in the blank slotting, the previous administration of the other party retains a good deal of support.

And the previous administrations of the current party?  Apparently Bill Clinton doubles up Jimmy Carter.  Might not be enough numbers to dig into the demographics.  I assume the Carter supporters maybe weren’t around there, or maybe were around and ditto Clinton and whatever Republican support he’s getting in his two percent.

“Oh, I LOVE Tom Friedman.”

……………….

Say.  What’s 2008 Republican Presidential Candidate John Cox up to?

He wants the California legislator to have 12,000 elected officials.

Divided into different districts which vote on to the state house on different manners and…

Political pundits agree.  “Good way to get nothing done.”  Probably about Cox’s point.

John Cox is on his way to becoming the next Mike Gravel…