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Beyoncê (real name Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter) is wildly popular, but it’s a popularity I find baffling. I have listened to a fair amount of her music, trying to understand the key to her musical fame—perhaps the use of catchy tunes or inventive lyrics—but I have come up dry. It is, as modern rock and pop tends to be, formulaic and trite. But most such music vanishes without a trace, yet forgettable songs like hers get Grammys. 35 of them!

Take, for example, song below, “Texas Hold Em”, the flagship song of her recent Grammy-winning album, “Cowboy Carter.”  As Wikipedia notes:

Music critics praised “Texas Hold ‘Em” for its playful tone, authentic sound, Beyoncé’s vocal performance, and its celebration of the Black roots of country music. Country artists and country radio managers also praised the song for elevating the accessibility of country music for a wider audience. It ignited discussions on Black musicians’ place within country music, boosted the listenership of Black country artists and country radio in general, and increased the popularity of Western wear and culture. It was nominated for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Country Song at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards.

I am stymied. The “playful tone” involves rhyming words like “Texas” and “Lexus”, and it is not in any sense authentic country music: it just uses country tropes and a country rhythm to convey essentially meaningless sentiments. I suspect the vocal performance is autotuned. The only part I like is the banjo introduction.

The song is a failed attempt to meld two genres, but the critics love. love, love it.  As for igniting interest in black country music, well, this is not black country music (see Charlie Pride for that); it is standard pop music striving to be countrified. It’s like putting a drop of Cointreau in a cocktail and calling it French.

But listen for yourself. Is this a song for the ages? I don’t think so.

Here are the lyrics, and—please forgive me—they seem so incompetent and ham-handed that I laughed when I read them. The first verse, with its risible rhyming of “Texas” and “Lexus”, is especially rich. Likewise rhyming “panic” and “dramatic.” I’ve put the dumbest lines in bold: Lyrics This ain’t Texas (woo), ain’t no hold ’em (hey)
So lay your cards down, down, down, down
So park your Lexus (woo) and throw your keys up (hey)
Stick around, ’round, ’round, ’round, ’round (stick around)
And I’ll be damned if I can’t slow dance with you
Come pour some sugar on me, honey too
It’s a real life boogie and a real life hoedown
Don’t be a bitch, come take it to the floor now, woo, huh (woo) There’s a tornado (there’s a tornado) in my city (in my city)
Hit the basement (hit the basement), that shit ain’t pretty (shit ain’t pretty)
Rugged whiskey (rugged whiskey) ’cause we survivin’ (’cause we survivin’)
Off red cup kisses, sweet redemption, passin’ time, yeah Ooh, one step to the right
We headin’ to the dive bar we always thought was nice
Ooh, run me to the left
Then spin me in the middle, boy, I can’t read your mind This ain’t Texas (woo), ain’t no hold ’em (hey)
So lay your cards down, down, down, down
So park your Lexus (woo) and throw your keys up (hey)
Stick around, ’round, ’round, ’round, ’round (stick around)
And I’ll be damned if I can’t slow dance with you
Come pour some sugar on me, honey too
It’s a real life boogie and a real life hoedown
Don’t be a bitch, come take it to the floor now (woo) And I’ll be damned if I cannot dance with you
Come pour some liquor on me, honey too
It’s a real life boogie and a real life hoedown
Don’t be a bitch, come take it to the floor now (woo) Woo-hoo
Woo-hoo
Woo-hoo There’s a heatwave (there’s a heatwave) coming at us (coming at us)
Too hot to think straight (too hot to think straight)
Too cold to panic (cold to panic)
All of the problems just feel dramatic (just feel dramatic)
And now we’re runnin’ to the first spot that we find, yeah Ooh, one step to the right
We headed to the dive bar we always thought was nice
Ooh, you run to the left
Just work me in the middle, boy, I can’t read your mind This ain’t Texas (woo), ain’t no hold ’em (hey)
So lay your cards down, down, down, down, oh
So park your Lexus (hey), throw your keys up (hey)
Stick around, ’round, ’round, ’round, ’round (stick around)
And I’ll be damned if I cannot dance with you
Come pour some sugar on me, honey, too
It’s a real life boogie and a real life hoedown
Don’t be a bitch, come take it to the floor now (woo) And I’ll be damned if I cannot dance with you
Come pour some liquor on me honey, too
It’s a real life boogie and a real life hoedown
Don’t be a-, come take it to the floor now, ooh Take it to the floor now, ooh
Hoops, spurs, boots
To the floor now, ooh
Tuck, back, oops (ooh, ooh, ooh)
Shoot
Come take it to the floor now, ooh
And I’ll be damned if I cannot dance with you
Baby, pour that sugar and liquor on me too
Furs, spurs, boots
Solargenic, photogenic, shoot Unlike some of the hard-to-understand songs of, say, Steely Dan, these are just a bunch of fragmentary thoughts strung together, and one sense there’s no message beneath them. Now some of her songs, like “Lemonade”, do tell a story (in that case, the unfaithfulness of her partner), but I find the music lame.  And while words can be lame in a song that’s nevertheless good, it is good because of the music.

But is there a greater meaning here?  A site purporting to give this “meaning” resorts almost completely to simply reiterating what Texas tropes appear in the lyrics. For example (lyrics in bold; dodo’s interpretation in plain text):

“There’s a tornado (There’s a tornado) in my city (In my city)
In the basement (In the basement), that shit ain’t pretty (Shit ain’t pretty)
Rugged whiskey (Rugged whiskey) ’cause we survivin’ (‘Cause we survivin’)
Off red cup kisses, sweet redemption, passin’ time, yeah”

Texas has more tornadoes passing through it than any other US state, and here, Beyoncé regales the listener with a tale of how a twister has forced her and her partner underground.

She subsequently paints a visceral picture of a crude, sparse setting, as they resolve to get through the violent weather with the help of country music’s No. 1 – or perhaps more accurately, No. 7 – painkiller: some good old Jack Daniels whiskey.

Beyoncé throws in another country trope by referencing the red solo cups that regularly pop up in Friday night anthems by the likes of Luke Combs, Morgan Wallen and more.

“Ooh, one step to the right
We headin’ to the dive bar we always thought was nice
Ooh, run me to the left
Then spin me in the middle, boy, I can’t read your mind”

Here, Beyoncé details some of the moves as she guides her hesitant partner through the dance in their local dive, putting him at ease. She again underlines her hopes that he’ll open up to her more, as she frustratedly highlights how she can’t read his mind.

Well, isn’t that special?  I wanted to listen to this song again, for the fourth or fifth time, before I posted this, but I find I can’t bear to hear it again. If any reader wants to tell me why this is such a great song, I’ll be glad to hear it—but I doubt I’ll agree.

I’m not alone in my criticism here; just read the Washington Post‘s article, “Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ isn’t a country album. It’s worse.”

This is an album that posits its lack of ideas as big ideas. Only in its final seconds, when Beyoncé sings about how “old ideas are buried here,” does “Cowboy Carter” start to feel less like an extravagant awards telecast, and more like a clear-eyed comment on the state of the nation — a grand, sprawling, overcrowded place with nowhere else to go.

Freddie deBoer  gives us what I think is the main reason why Beyoncé is so lauded (his piece is largely about Kendrick Lamar, but the lessons apply). The bolding is mine:

We’re left in this bizarre space where no one is willing to flourish, to succeed, without simultaneously calling themselves an underdog, their talents unrecognized and their tastes disrespected. This is planet “Nobody believed in me!,” and facts never get in the way.

Thus, to pick a paradigmatic example, we still get a thousand thinkpieces a year arguing that Beyonce is terribly mistreated and overlooked – Beyonce, a billionaire with the most Grammys in history, every other kind of award that humanity has to bestow, influence in every sphere of human achievement, multiple films and books about her genius, every material, social, artistic, and cultural laurel we as a society can give. Look how fucking long this list of awards is! The only human being on earth who enjoys a combination of celebration and wealth and access and privilege and power that equals that of Beyonce is Taylor Swift, and both are constantly referred to as disrespected and marginalized underdogs in our most prestigious publications. Beyonce has thirty-five Grammys. What would be enough? Seventy? Seven hundred? Honey, the whole point is that nothing could ever be good enough for her. Indeed, the evidence that Beyonce is an immensely lauded human being is so vast that this kind of talk inspires an admonition I get a lot in my career – you’re right, but we don’t talk about that.

. . . . The idea that your moral value is determined by what you do has given way to the assumption that your moral value is determined by what you like. If you’re an aging dad who likes Sabrina Carpenter, you must be an open-minded and discerning feminist. And if you’re a white person who likes Kendrick Lamar, well, you must have all the right attitudes about race.

And so it is with Beyoncé. Calling her mediocre, as I just did, is just asking for vilification.

 

h/t: Greg Mayer for the deBoer reference

If you think you’re beleaguered by political correctness in America, just thank your lucky stars that you’re not living in New Zealand.  There you are increasingly surrounded by demands that you abide by the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, but, worse, you can be demonized or fired simply because you think it’s outdated and there needs to be court-mandated interpretation of what it means, or, worse, adopt a New Zealand Constitution.

For in that country, which I love, virtually area of endeavor is subject to Equity Demands and Diktats that you respect indigenous “ways of knowing.” Today the subject of discussion is pharmacy, which is being rapidly colonized by this ideology. But note the bit about real estate at the bottom.

An anonymous New Zealander sent me this article from The Breaking News site in that lovely but increasingly benighted land.

You can verify Kennedy’s claims by going to the official pharmacy standards site (click on link to get pdf).

As you can see from the top headline, it’s a bit of a rant, but everything that Mr. Kennedy says about the pharmacy standards is true.

First, the aim of the Pharmacy Council is a general one: to help all New Zealanders. From pp. 3-4 of the second document:

Through skilled and safe practice, pharmacists contribute to better health outcomes for New Zealanders. We aspire to have pharmacists operate at the top of their scope of practice and to not only be competent and professional in their roles but to continually work towards being the best pharmacist they can be.

. . . . The purpose of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act (HPCAA) 2003 is to protect the health and safety of the public by providing mechanisms to ensure that health practitioners are competent and fit to practise their profession.

So consideration #1 should be merit: the quality of service provided by pharmacists.  However, if you look at the first three “domains” of competence (there are seven), you see this:

Yep, the very first thing in which you must be competent as a pharmacist is understanding the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi (“Te Tiriti o Waitangi”), which of course says nothing about pharmacy. The treaty simply guaranteed the indigenous Māori their lands, gives them all the rights of British citizens, and places governance of the indigenous people to England.  There are several versions of the treaty, not all Māori tribes signed onto it, and it’s used to justify all kinds of stuff which are not in any of the texts but fall under a recent interpretation “Māori are to get at least half of everything.” That includes having their ways of knowing taught in science classes.  And remember, just 17.8% of New Zealanders are Māori, while 17.3% are Asians (67.8% are of European descent.  Somehow the Asians got left out of the pharmacy standards.

So once again the most important aspect of “competence” you need as a New Zealand pharmacist is respect and understanding of the Treaty, along with deference to the indigenous people.  Extreme deference.  The first four paragraphs below are Kennedy’s take (and his bolding), while the rest are word-for-word from the second source above.

Unfortunately the Pharmacy Council NZ has gone all woke and racist and apparently now thinks that practicing safe, competent dispensing of medicine and advice depends on a deep knowledge of 27 different aspects of Maori customs, beliefs, traditions, practices, superstitions, intergenerational historical trauma, familiarity with mana whenua and kaumatua, the Treaty of Waitangi, structural racism and colonisation and many other alleged Maori-related issues – such is the depth of knowledge required by pharmacists of Maori culture, beliefs and Te Reo etc. etc., that it would seem that every pharmacist who achieves all these competencies that are totally, completely, categorically, undeniably and irrefutably unrelated to safe dispensing of medicines will have earned a Bachelor’s degree in Maori Studies!

This is racism on steroids, the woke, totally unnecessary, unwarranted imposition of irrelevant culture and beliefs on a professional group whose sole focus should be on the safe practice of pharmaceutical medicine!

The Minister of Health needs to stamp down immediately on this repugnant, racist, woke over-reach by the Pharmacy Council and weed out any of the incompetent and/or radical members of the Pharmacy Council!

Following is the list (from page 31) of the essential competency standards for all pharmacists, according to the Pharmacy Council: [JAC: as I say below, I’ve put in italics everything that seems to me completely irrelevant to competence as a pharmacist]

● being familiar with mana whenua (local hapū/iwi), mātāwaka (kinship group not mana whenua), hapū and iwi in your rohe (district) and their history,

● understanding the importance of kaumātua,

● being familiar with te Tiriti o Waitangi and He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nū Tīreni,

● advocating for giving effect to te Tiriti at all levels,

● understanding the intergenerational impact of historical trauma,

● understanding of the role of structural racism and colonisation and ongoing impacts on Māori, socioeconomic deprivation, restricted access to the determinants of health,

● being familiar with Māori health – leaders, history, and contemporary literature,

● being familiar with Māori aspirations in relation to health,

● developing authentic relationships with Māori organisations and health providers,

● having a positive collegial relationship with Māori colleagues in your profession/workplace,

● being proficient in building and maintaining mutually beneficial power-sharing relationships,

● tautoko (support) Māori leadership,

● prioritising Māori voices,

● trusting Māori intelligence,

● be clinically and culturally confident to work with Māori whānau, [JAC: family groups]

● understand one’s own whakapapa (genealogy and connections),

● have a basic/intermediate understanding of te reo Māori, [the language; and most Māori themselves don’t understand it]

● have a basic/intermediate understanding of the tikanga and the application of tapu (sacred) and noa (made ordinary),

● be familiar with Māori health models and concepts such as Te Pae Mahutonga9 and Te Ara Tika10,

● have a basic/intermediate understanding of marae (community meeting house) protocol,

● be confident to perform waiata tautoko (support song),

● be proficient in whakawhānaungatanga (active relationship building),

● integrate tika (correct), pono (truth), aroha and manaakitanga into practice,

● be open-hearted,

● be proficient in strengths-based practice,

● be proficient with equity analysis,

● practice cultural humility,

● critically monitor the effectiveness of own practice with Māori.

Only 1 out of 4 standards (7/28) seem to me at all relevant to competence in pharmacy, and I’m being generous.

Now I can understand that there should be a section in pharmacy school about “indigenous medicine” so that pharmacists can understand where a local is coming from if they want an herb rather than an antibiotic. But most of this statement It is simply irrelevant fealty to the indigenous people; a form of virtue signaling or “the sacralization of the oppressed.”

I needn’t go on, as you can see that most of the requirements for competence in this section are irrelevant to the aims of the Pharmacy Council.  Poor New Zealand!

But wait! There’s more!

Lagniappe: New Zealander loses realtor’s license for refusing to take Māori-centered DEI training. Click on the link to go to the New Zealand Herald article:

An excerpt:

Janet Dickson, the real estate agent facing a five-year ban for refusing to do a Māori tikanga course, has lost a court bid to block the threatened cancellation of her licence.

Today, the High Court turned down her request for a judicial review of decisions about agents’ professional development requirements, which required her to take a 90-minute course called Te Kākano (The Seed).

The module focused on Māori culture, language and the Treaty of Waitangi and was made compulsory for all real estate agents, branch managers and salespeople in 2023.

Agents who do not complete professional development requirements risk having their licences cancelled. People whose licences are cancelled cannot reapply for one for five years.

. . .She has called real estate work a vocation and a calling, citing her Presbyterian values. In her court case, she said the course’s references to Māori gods sat uncomfortably with her own monotheistic Christian belief.

She labelled the course “woke madness” in a Facebook post and vowed to fight “to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else”.

She told the court she considered the course would not add any value to the performance of her real estate agency work.

Poor New Zealand!

While thinking about about objections to the sex binary—usually discussed in humans but sometimes in other species—they all seem to come down to a single assertion:

“Sex is complicated in both development and expression, involving chromosomes, behavior, hormones, genitals and even psychology.  Therefore there are more than two sexes.”

One example of this is from the deeply misguided anthropologist Agustin Fuentes, who has a book coming out about why sex isn’t binary. On Twitter he says this:

It turns out that both Darwin and Bateman made assumptions that don’t always hold up across species. Plus, there is much biological research that challenges the assertion that diffs in gamete size (anisogamy) means the same thing, or has the same impact, across all animals.

So, at least some awareness of these important discussions is necessary before simply accepting that anisogamy, and gametes, tell you everything you need to know about sex for a species, and the individuals in it. Esp. if you are making laws based on this assumption.

But nobody has ever maintained that whether an individual falls under the definition of “male” or “female” tells you everything you need to know about sex for a species. You’d have to be a moron to accept that.  There is variation in how sex is determined, how biologists recognize sex, in secondary sexual characteristics and behavior (in seahorses, for example, the sperm-producing males actually incubate eggs from fertilized females, getting pregnant).

I keep pondering what kind of mentality would reject the male/female sex binary simply because there is variation in how sex is determined (not “defined”) and how sex is expressed in the bodies and behavior of different species.  When I sent the above to a colleague, she responded:

Is he then saying that a seahorse who produces sperm is a female?  I don’t even get the argument.

And that leads to the question posed to Fuentes on Twitter when he touted his book:

@Antrofuentes Since you are an expert, what would be the third or fourth sex, choose one of your choice that is not male or female and tell us what gametes it produces?

— Nemesi2024 (@Nemesi_Nemesi) February 19, 2025

It’s funny, but telling, that those who claim that sex is a spectrum or continuum never specify how many sexes there are, either in humans or other species.  I suspect that if they responded—based on their “multivariate, multidimensional” definition of sex—that “there are many, many sexes,” or “I can’t answer that”, they would be laughed out of the house.

But we all know that that the “spectrum” people are not dumb or willfully ignorant. They are simply imbued with a certain ideology.

For more on this, I defer to Richard Dawkins and his elegant explanation of the sex binary on one of his Substack posts.