Posted On: Tuesday - March 25th 2025 7:39PM MST
In Topics: Music Geography Science Female Stupidity
To continue our simple analysis of "what went wrong?" - when 9 S. Africans of mixed races and sexes spent many months in close quarters in hostile Antarctica and sexual harassment "happened" - we'll move from the race angle to the sex(ual) angle. I realize this post will offer nothing but common sense that should already be obvious to anyone, but then, note the title of this blog please.
One could forgive some people, not the South Africans arranging this mission that had to have known better, but some people, for not understanding the problems of race. "We're all green* down here in the SANAE-IV living and research quarters... so, just remember.. yeah, be careful about those dark green guys - they can be a little, errr, forward..."
The differences in the sexes, well, you've got to be purposefully stupid to not see the problems that will crop up, no matter what the races.
It may look "brutalist" architecturally and be damned brutal outside, but this SANAE-IV base in Queen Maud Land is a paradise compared to anything experienced by geographic and scientific explorers of a century ago. For one thing, one can stay warm. Food is there for the taking. Years of entertainment are there for the off times.
To go to the other extreme, I have been remiss in not posting anything so far about the truly amazing job Ernest Shackleton and his (White!) men did in just surviving and getting all the way home to civilization after their ship The Endurance got jammed and eventually destroyed by the ice in the Weddell Sea off Antarctica a century and a decade ago. This story is so amazing that Peak Stupidity will have to write a post on it.**
However, we can thing of any serious effort done before the modern age after which most of the difficult discovering has been done and see why there was NO FREAKING WAY any women would have been brought along. Life or death hangs on the decisions made and the hard work done and endurance of the (yes, ALL) men, and were women to be brought along:
1) As the fairer and weaker sex, they would simply not pull their weight. Everyone must get fed, conveyed, and kept from freezing (in these cases) - with limits to the resources - so you'd want the most capable people PERIOD. Those would all be men. Otherwise, people, men and women, will die.
2) Even among men with the most self-control possible, the women would be too much of a distraction, causing special efforts to protect them, jealousies, and various behaviors that occur when
3) Sex in the form of a verb. What else would you expect? What would ensue i not always hilarity.
These 9 South Africans, and other crews like them, might fancy themselves explorers doing dangerous work. Nah, read about the expeditions to the North and South Poles and other sea-faring expeditions of the old days.
Below is The Endurance before it succumbed to the pack ice.
Leader of the expedition Ernest Shackleton saved his 27 men after the crushing and swallowing of their beefy ship by the sea, the spending of 4 months on the ice in the Antarctic Summer - with still way below freezing temperature - a multi-day voyage in icy seas in 3 small boats to an uninhabited island, a mission of 5 of the crew in one small boat 800 miles followed by mountainous land crossing to civilization, leading to the rescue of all those left. It was amazing. Nobody involved would have EVER thought of bringing women with them, except in his dreams at night.
Back to modern reality in the comfortable S. African modules with the crew of 9, the only problems really are the long-term close quarters and the dealing with the usual unadulterated crap of 2025. Even without sea-faring being much involved in this story, Jimmy Buffett lyrics will appear a total of 3 times in these 2 posts (see footnote **** of the previous one).
The late would-be pirate (born 200 years too late) Jimmy Buffett sang in the song Landfall***:
It's not close quarters that would make me snap.I guess it's been a little of both down there. Finally, to get in the mood (well some weren't!) of the 9 folks on the current SANAE-IV mission, we bring up the 3rd Jimmy Buffett song, one titled Boat Drinks****. All Jimmy and his band had to deal with was being holed up in a hotel somewhere up north, as opposed to the people in this story. This is likely how they feel though:
It's just dealing with the daily unadulterated crap.
20 degrees and the hockey game's on.OK, Parrotheads, you're right. We've got to embed something. Too much writing is giving me cabin fever. I've got to fly to Saint Somewhere...
Nobody cares, they are way too far gone.
Screamin', "Boat drinks"
Somethin' to keep them all warm.
This morning,
I shot six holes in my freezer.
I think I got cabin fever.
Somebody sound the alarm.
I'd like to go where the pace of life's slow.Great lyrics! R.I.P. Jimmy Buffett.
Could you beam me somewhere, Mister Scott?
Any old place here on Earth or in Space,
you pick the century, and I'll pick the spot.
* Old Bill Cosby routine.
** I've read the book long ago and seen the movie a little less long ago.
*** That one is an obscure song from his well-known Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes album. The rest of the lyrics of this song are great too!
**** That one is from his less-well-known album Volcano.
Comments:
The Alarmist
Wednesday - March 26th 2025 5:08AM MST
PS
Consider bringing the chicks along as a necessary evil to prepare us for interplanetary or interstellar travel.
Beats hockey anyway.
🕉️
Consider bringing the chicks along as a necessary evil to prepare us for interplanetary or interstellar travel.
Beats hockey anyway.
🕉️
https://www.peakstupidity.com/index.php?post=2907
History Lesson: Bring your own women
Yes, it beats hockey. ;-}