Buck Hardcastle
Bio
Viscount of Hyrkania and private cartographer to the house of Beifong.
Stories (102/0)
- Top Story - May 2023
Where are the Drag Kings?Top Story - May 2023
There's a lot of talk about drag queens, both celebration on shows like RuPaul's Drag Race and hysteria over drag queen story hours. It made me wonder, why you don't hear about drag kings? Women are out there dressing as men, but they don't seem to have anywhere close to the same cultural standing. (One thing I learned in doing research for this article is that who can be a drag king is a lot broader than just people assigned female at birth, but that is getting a bit beyond my scope here.) So here are some theories.
By Buck Hardcastle11 months ago in Pride
Staffing problems? Have you tried evil?
Ah the labor crisis, caused by lazy people not needing to work because of America's famously generous social benefits. At least that's the narrative pushed by owners of capital who were feeling squeezed by the working class having more options. I wrote an article in 2021 explaining how laziness wasn't a factor in regards to worker shortages. I concluded that business were going to have to offer more (i.e. higher wages) if they didn't want to lose workers to competition.
By Buck Hardcastleabout a year ago in Criminal
To deny Ukraine aid is to deny the humanity of Ukrainians
Professor of political science at Northeastern University and author of Rules for Rebels: The Science of Victory in Militant History, Max Abrahm wrote a piece for The Atlantic entitled I Teach International Relations. I Think We’re Making a Mistake in Ukraine. He argues for not arming Ukraine. His points are more coherent than the cranks who would rather support Russia, but are ultimately just as flawed.
By Buck Hardcastleabout a year ago in The Swamp
What do ya'll think defense budgets are for?
There's been increasing indignation about how much money is being sent to Ukraine. Part of the issue is that all the aid ends up getting announced twice: once when a funding bill passes congress and then again when each portion of that funding is actually sent, which can be spread out over many installments. This exacerbates American's long standing misconceptions about how much foreign aid we actually give. "Opinion polls consistently report that Americans believe foreign aid is about 25% of the federal budget, when it is actually less than 1%."
By Buck Hardcastleabout a year ago in The Swamp
This ice water hack is causing people to shed money, I mean pounds!
I've been getting YouTube ads constantly lately telling me how people having been losing weight with this incredible hack of drinking ice water before bed. It annoyed me immensely because it was very obviously a scam, but I didn't understand how it was a scam. Money is being spent on these YouTube ads, there must be an expectation of a return on investment, but how were they going to make money off just telling people to drink ice water? Eventually I just had to click on the ad.
By Buck Hardcastleabout a year ago in Longevity
6 Movies About Late Stage Capitalism
There are two wolves inside me, one wants to write about late stage capitalism and the other doesn't want to write a single sentence about Elon Musk, the poster child of late stage capitalism. The way forward is to write about movies.
By Buck Hardcastleabout a year ago in Geeks
Alien Cat Girls; A Serious Story About
The light boom was one of Helmi's earliest memories. She had been outside and seen it with her own eyes. Her family had been coming home from a dinner out. As they were walking into their home the sky changed from night to a kind of eerie twilight. There was a new star in the sky suddenly except it was far bigger than any star, but not as big as the sun. Helmi stared at it in awe, later it would be hard to accept that this astounding event had lasted only three seconds. Her mother had not been awed, she had been terrified. She'd grabbed Helmi and rushed to the basement, expecting the end of the world to follow shortly. Many other people had the same reaction. When the sun came up the next morning and the world kept turning unfazed, people emerged from their shelter and started trying to figure out what had happened. Various theories emerged, that it had been a supernova was one most people accepted. A distant oddity that didn't really affect their life. Never mind that the science behind that idea didn't really hold--most people couldn't understand why it didn't. Another theory was that it was somehow China, except for in China which blamed America. We wouldn't know it was a light boom until seven years later.
By Buck Hardcastleabout a year ago in Fiction
FINALLY a Gift Guide for GUYS!
Every holiday season comes and goes and I'm left wondering, why doesn't someone make a gift guide for guys? Don't shoppers need to be clued in where to find cool masculine tchotchkes? Well I'm done waiting, I took the initiative and made the first ever gift guide just for GUYS!
By Buck Hardcastleabout a year ago in Geeks
The Strange Zombie Existence of Pan Am
Pan Am was once the de facto American flag airline. Where as other countries had state owned airlines--known as flag airlines--running international routes, America did not. We had Pan Am. It was both the biggest and know for it's luxury, including comely stewardess.
By Buck Hardcastleabout a year ago in Journal
The most minor events can be news if they happen at Hooters
There was recently drama at a Hooters restaurant in Plano, Texas. A group of boys came in to try to sell chocolate bars and were escorted out by a manager. In response three adults came in and assaulted the manager.
By Buck Hardcastleabout a year ago in Geeks