Smartphone Generation

In case you think it's an exaggeration...some time ago I heard of an elderly man who became unwell and drove his car into a channel. It was a busy day, lots of people around. They all were filming with their smartphones and it took a young foreign hairdresser guy to jump into the water and save the old man's life.

Anyway, I posted this cartoon because I want to discuss a real problem. Many of my friends complain about their (teenage) children's cell phone addiction. At the age of 16 or 17 I could hardly sit still yet here we have guys and girls who do little but play with their phones, in the case of guys it's anime and computer games, by girls it's social media. They don't play sports, they don't like to go outside, they have no real life friends, they don't help at home. The only thing they do in their free time is to lock themselves up in a room with a darn phone in their hands.

Is there anyone among my readers who have encountered similar problems and how do you deal with it? Advice will be appreciated!

Would You Do It?

Would you marry a guy 30 years your senior?

Chelsea believes she was destined to be with an older man as she finds younger boys her age 'immature.

'I find boys my age so immature and with Bruce, it was easy, we are both car enthusiasts and have a love for travelling and animals,' explained Chelsea. 

'It has been two years and we have not argued once; we are in sync and our communication is nothing like I have ever experienced before.' 

She added: 'My family are very open-minded and they haven't got a problem with us, but it is people in the street or our town who stare and make comments.'

I don't know if this particular lady is a homemaker, but marrying an older, financially stable man could be a solution for those young women who would like to be housewives. He doesn't need to be in his fifties, tho:) By mid-thirties, most men are pretty well established in life and if not...then avoid them like a plague, unless you wish to be the primary breadwinner of the family.

 And btw, I'm not encouraging gold-digging here. A man doesn't need to be filthy rich, just work a good job and own a decent house. Since he already has a mortgage in his own name, and most women claim to work for a mortgage, you can quit right after wedding, that is if you don't think you are owed a villa in a nice neighbourhood or at least, a semi-detached and your income is needed to facilitate the move. 

BTW, speaking about women and tattoos...a guy will overlook a lot to be with a young pretty girl in her prime:) That's just a fact.

Feminism Is Making Men Lazy

Someone sent me the link to this great video:



I've seen it happen in real life, the wife goes back to work and the husband starts working less and less, develops pain in his back and quits. As with all negative society trends, the lower classes tend to be affected more, which is probably by design.

BTW, YouTube censoring continues. I simply couldn't find the video on YouTube but DuckDuckGo had no problem.

Slavery, Feminism And Household Appliances

I'd like to draw your attention to three excellent posts by my fellow Housewife Outdoors:

Sad Feminists And Their Careers

Household Appliances And Their Questionable Benefits

Dependent Slaves

Leaving Something Behind

Most of my readers have probably watched the video by Lydia Sherman called Homemaker Encouragement where among other things, she's talking about women engaging in creative hobbies like needlework or painting. She mentions that their works will live on after they are gone and even sometimes could end up in a museum.

Which reminded me of a true story I heard several years ago, about a lady in my country who was a childless homemaker and her hobby was quilting. Through the years, she made so many quilts that her husband had to hire a a storage place for them and she came on the news because of it. So when they asked her why she was doing it all, she said that since her husband and herself weren't able to have any children, she wanted something to leave behind, something which would survive them and quilting was the one thing she was really good in.

Lydia further mentions writing letters and poetry which was quite popular in the 1950s. When you think of it, there are books which consist of letters and diaries of famous people like politicians, for instance. Yet, like someone pointed out, when the current generation of celebrities dies, there will probably be nothing left behind. May be, they'll start publishing someone's tweets in a book form???

Another problem of modernity, I guess:)

The Woman Who Above All Desired Power

Note: this is a review of sorts and it contains spoilers.

And 9 rings were given to the race of men who above all else desire power

I think most of the readers will remember this quote from the screen adaptation of LOTR
(these words aren't in the book, btw). Through the ages, there have been a lot of men like this, but there also was one woman whose ambition, will to power and mental capacities were at least equal to the best (or worst, depending on how you look at it) of these men. Though her reign was many centuries ago, she is still so popular in that part of the world, that recently they made a whole TV series about her.

I'm talking about The Magnificent Century, the most famous of the Turkish TV series, which ran for 4 seasons, had 139 (!) episodes of about 1.5 hour each and was watched by approximately 200 million people all over the world. It's loosely based on the real events which took place during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, hence the name. I'm not really going to discuss the historical Suleiman or the lady who became his wife, but the rather the way they were presented in the series.

First about the plot, I'll try to be as brief as possible but keep in mind the length of the show:)

The story begins when 26 year old Suleiman learns about his father's death and that he is the next sultan. He has to leave the palace where he enjoyed a rather quiet existence with his consort and their young son, his only heir and moves to the capital where he meets a young Christian slave Alexandra whose family was killed by the slavers. Her slain parents come to her at night and make her promise she'll take revenge and thus her war with the whole dynasty starts.

She uses Suleiman and his feelings for her to raise to the heights of power previously thought impossible for one of her status and position. She bears him 4 sons (5 in reality, but the last one died in infancy) and 1 daughter and he frees her and makes her his lawful wedded wife. Still, Hurrem (Alexandra's new name after she converted to Islam) isn't happy because it's Mustafa, the sultan's eldest son who is the crown prince, and not one of her own. And the laws of the Ottoman Empire are harsh: there can be only one, the next sultan will kill his brothers to avoid strife. When the princes grow up, the real fight for power begins...

Sounds exciting, isn't it? And yet, I will admit: I haven't watched the whole show. I watched Season 1, parts of Season 2 and 3, and mostly read about Season 4. I have 2 reasons for it: first, did I tell you it was a soap? I simply have no patience for 139 episodes filled up with epic cat fights and deep drama:) My second reason is the fact that there are really no positive characters in the show, and if there are, they die prematurely of unnatural causes. Evil gets rewarded in the end and about the worst of Hurrem's sons gets the crown (chiefly due to the intrigues of his European convert wife who was always the brain behind his actions).

While it's historically correct, the producers of the show took already less-than-sterling characters and made them even worse. All the women are insufferable b*tches. Those who aren't in the first season, become so as the story progresses. Take the Sultan's first consort, for instance. Mahidevran actually inspires sympathy as she lost everything what was dear to her and was reduced to poverty and nearly begging, until Selim (the next sultan) came to power and restored her rights. And yet her nastiness in the show makes it difficult to feel any sort of pity for her.

Queen Mother in reality was quite friendly to Hurrem, but in the show she is the perfect evil mother-in-law who is so blinded by her hatred of her daughter-in-law that she is ready to sacrifice the lives of her own grandkids when she accuses her of adultery.

Hurrem herself is shown in a sympathetic light (and despite her obvious evilness one can't help rooting for her as we witness her fighting against the incredible odds) but in history this lady had a functioning brain and even ruled the Empire while her husband was busy fighting wars. The whole story of her relationship with painter Leo (who never really existed) is an example of an abysmal stupidity. Her daughter was more interested in political intrigues than in family life but she didn't kill her husband etc etc...

Not that the men are any better. Sultan Suleiman, the ruler of half the world, at home is totally under his wife's thumb and doesn't even realise it. Under her guidance, he alienates his whole family, causes his sister's death by his actions, kills his best friend and executes the most worthy of his sons. He also cheats on her despite all promises while in reality, all historians agree that his marriage was monogamous.

Mustafa is really good and noble, too good for this world actually; loves his brothers and promises not to kill them, loves his wife, loves his kids (probably loved his dog, too, if he had one) that's why he dies. Ibrahim, Suleiman's best friend was a corrupted, power hungry official, but the producers also made him a sadistic bully and an adulterer who broke his wife's heart and ruined the life of his mistress. There is really no historical evidence that he ever cheated on his wife and he wasn't even married to the same lady as in the show. Etc. etc...

Here you can watch a video which is a great example of what one can expect from the series: Hurrem beats up Suleiman's sister Hatice for using black magic on her to revenge the death of her husband Ibrahim. It has English subtitles, btw. Yet, my favourite moment is this one: Hurrem triumphs over her enemies in the end of the second season. Her monologue is like a summary of her whole character, where  lust for power and revenge combine perfectly. It's not enough for her to rule in the palace, she will rule the world, her enemies will kneel before her and those who stand in her way will die by fire.

Still, the show has much to offer to those who enjoy drama and the acting is very good. It also illustrates the nature of power in this world. One doesn't get power by being nice and good, one gets power by being ruthless, cruel and lacking conscience. Somewhere there is a lesson for all of us:) You can  currently watch the series on YouTube with English subtitles. If you are interested, here's the link to Episode 1.

The Problem Of Obesity

The new data on obesity was published by ZeroHedge a couple of days ago. It's becoming a real problem in a lot of countries, not just the USA, of course. A fairly recent study which they link to claims that:

 Adults with extreme obesity have increased risks of dying at a young age from cancer and many other causes including heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and kidney and liver diseases...

and even that extreme obesity is more dangerous than smoking:

...the researchers found that the number of years of life lost for class III obesity was equal or higher than that of current (versus never) cigarette smokers among normal-weight participants in the same study...

Being overweight and/or obese is often presented (in some corners of the internet) as a purely female issue, which is very far from the truth. For instance, in my country, approximately the same percent of males and females (50+%) is overweight. Men will often complain about their wives or girl-friends putting on weight and becoming unattractive, but the reverse is true, too. Overweight or obese men aren't attractive to women, either!

In fact, men suffering from obesity will also suffer from increased estrogen which in turn will decrease their testosterone, not only making them less masculine in the process, but also leading to all sorts of nasty diseases. (Another thing  which surprisingly increases estrogen in men is self-pleasuring. These Catholic Church fathers were right, after all!)

In short, we all of us should try to eat well and to be as physically fit as possible, not only with the objective of staying attractive for our marriage partner, but for your own health as well.

Ultima Thule

This is so breathtakingly beautiful, I simply had to share:

Science Discovers There Is No Climate Change

Or at least, the man-made one:

Scientists in Finland found "practically no anthropogenic [man-made] climate change" after a series of studies. 

“During the last hundred years the temperature increased about 0.1°C because of carbon dioxide. The human contribution was about 0.01°C”, the Finnish researchers bluntly state in one among a series of papers.

This has been collaborated by a team at Kobe University in Japan, which has furthered the Finnish researchers' theory: "New evidence suggests that high-energy particles from space known as galactic cosmic rays affect the Earth's climate by increasing cloud cover, causing an 'umbrella effect',"...

And here I was sitting doing penance for driving a car:)

Anyway, every cloud has a silver lining. The new climate agreement actually demands planting trees, which is a good thing and they are even making moves to restrict plastic use in EU. Anyway, as I have stated before, if they were really serious about fighting "climate change" they would restrict immigration, discourage high level of consumption (two income families) and subsidise public transportation. Instead, they are in the business of selling solar panels and electric cars (which are quite expensive). So it's really just about woke capital, and nothing else...