Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Whitney Houston's ballad, "The Greatest Love of All" has never received the parody it deserves.  I am not up to the job, but this first verse might suggest the parody-able to a greater artist than myself.  I believe cliches belong together -- String them up and let them lead the way Don’t force sense upon them like a ball and chaaaaain. Let your ears feel bromides to make it easier Empty words will lap up all our sense inside Everybody’s searching for their devo People need cha-os to revert to I never sunk quite so low as a raw cliche -- cannot depend on "darns" When I must hit the broad siiiide of barns.

I'm told there is a new documentary, "Predators," that takes a good look at Chris Hansen and the television program that made him famous, "To Catch a Predator" (2CaP).  For those of you who don't remember: "To Catch a Predator" was part of the development of the moral panic about child predators that would in time lead us to QAnon.  2CaP was a spin-off of DATELINE.  It Premiered in late 2004 and its run continued through 2007. The format was always the same. The key segments would take place in a sting home, which looked to the sting targets like an ordinary suburban house, although containing a critical hidden camera and lots of sound equipment. Typically, a man would show up at the front door of the home, in the belief that he had a 'date' with an underage girl.  He had acquired that belief by way of internet communication with adults impersonating underage girls in chat rooms.  The sting targets, then, would arrive at the home and a poli...

 An odd post is making its way around social media.  It purports to be a post from someone calling herself "Ann Lesby, Ph.D.". It reads: "Misgendering a pet can result in serious microsubconscious distress. Pay attention to clues. Your pet will let you know his/her/their/cir identity through things like body language, toy preferences, and reactions to gendered pet clothing."   Conservatives in general fall for it and re-post it with expressions of disdain for these insane liberals.  But the author is almost certainly ... one of their own.  A conservative seeking to parody 'those crazy liberals.'  Consider the name. Presumably "Ann Lesby" often ends up signing her name as "Lesby, Ann."  That possibility might give us a clue as to the parodic intent.  The term "microsubconscious" is evidently targeted at the cultural-leftists' all-too-common use of "microaggressions." This means, My action, X, will be taken as aggres...

Now people seem to be working to figure out the difference between Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal.  Caitlyn felt like a woman trapped in a man's body, and is now "out" as a woman, with the help of surgery, drugs, and a world-famous photographer. Rachel appears to have "felt" black, estranged from her Causasian family, and trapped in the body you see in this photo -- the carrot-haired and quite light-skinned woman in the center of the back row. Are the two cases similar or different in terms of what judgment (if any) rational observers can make about them? If they are different, is either of them to be judged to have done anything dishonest or even imprudent? Well, let me not weigh in on such matters. I argue about no one's identity except my own -- and not that either, if I can help it. I simply observe that the animated sitcom SOUTH PARK covered this ground long before it was news. The character Kyle Br...