September, 2010 archive
Public Discourse . . . 0
. . . is going to the dogs.
What Noz Said 0
I was at a function this morning where the commemoration took the form of a moment of silence after the invocation and before the breakfast meal. It was appropriate and adequate.
As I recall, when I was a young ‘un, that’s how we commemorated Pearl Harbor and Armistice Day (Armistice Day on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month) (and, yes, I’m old but it had already been rolled into Veterans’ Day by the time I started school–it was still Armistice Day for my teachers, who, for some reason, were older than I).
The Creator Plans His Day 0
This reminds me why I read newspaper columns.
On Walden Pond 1
Details here.
Light Bloggery 0
Out and about.
The HTML website upgrade continues on my test machine.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Defending her 75 cats:
The SPCA and animal control were called to the residence on Leighton Terrace around 1:00 p.m.
During the initial investigation of the house, officials say the female homeowner pointed a gun at Pennsylvania SPCA Law Enforcement Director George Bengal. Bengal was forced backed down the steps.
A Nude Twist on Gardening 1
From the BBC:
Leslie Howard, 70, put up fencing around his home in the West Yorkshire village of Steeton so he could tend to his garden in the nude.
But he now fears people will be able to see him from the houses, and is worried he could be arrested.
There is so much that could be said about this.
My first reaction is, “Just leave the poor man be. It’s a body. Everyone has one.”
Truth in Spending 0
Republican Economic Theory got us here. It won’t get us anywhere else.
Scott Lehigh in the Boston Globe:
But the idea that it’s somehow unpresidential for a chief executive to remind voters of the situation he inherited is silly.
Why, here’s Ronald Reagan, in June of 1982: “Some diehards are now declaring the present recession was caused by our program. May I just point out — we had the recession before we got the program.’’
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
Down from last week, but still high:
“Hardcore Pawn” 0
Deborah Orr, writing in the Guardian, takes a look at the growing respectability and visibility of pawnshops.
I suspect that much of what she has to say applies also to the States. Pawnshops appear to moving into the mainstream of commerce. Locally, there is one large pawnshop that is running a series of TV commercials touting its friendly service and attractive shop adjacent to a major mall.
And the ghastly truth is that the Telegraph is right. Pawnbrokers are these days a comparatively solid option. If you go to a pawnbroker, then monthly interest payments range from five per cent to 12%, with a loan of £100 over six months attracting an APR of 70% to 200%. If you have nothing to pawn, though, and you instead go to a pay-day loan company – otherwise known as a “legal loan shark” – you could find yourself faced quickly with an APR approaching a stratospheric 3,000%. The appalling truth is that these companies too have proliferated in recent years, offering loans over the internet or via the mobile phone, and filling the gap left as bank loans became harder to secure.
The bright side would be that, when you deal with a pawnshop, you are bargaining over real stuff, not over bags of air derivatives and other financial instrument of self-immolation.
But Lying Is What They Do 0
Eugene Robinson dissects Hayley Barbour’s fantastickal tale of growing up integrated. A nugget:
Equally wrong — and perhaps deliberately disingenuous — is his made-up narrative of how the South turned Republican. Barbour’s fairy tale doesn’t remotely resemble what really happened.
I am about the same age, perhaps a little older than Mr. Robinson, and a little younger than Mr. Barbour. All three of us grew up in the Jim Crow South, though by law Mr. Robinson and I could not have attended school together. We are old enough to remember . . . .
Barbour is lying. He’s lying to himself, or lying to the rest of us, or some combination thereof.
Whichever it be–whether he’s delusional or mendacious–he reveals himself to be untrustworthy and unqualified for public positions.
Voting Is Not a Right. It Is a Duty. 0
One of my friends voices his alienation from the current state of American politics. Read the whole thing; it’s short.
Here’s the heart of it:
I care little at this point that Obama was dealt a bad hand. Or that the Republicans have been archly obstructionist. Or that the Democratic base, so fired up a mere two years ago, is disillusioned. Or that the Republican message (sic) dominates the airwaves and much of what passes for political discourse.
I do indeed understand the frustration; I feel it also.
But, with all respect, no one is talking about taking to the hills and waging armed struggle for decades while living on roots and berries and maybe the occasional pic-a-nic basket.
All that is needed is to take out 15 minutes or maybe as much as an hour on November 2nd and vote for the Not-a-Republican.
Light Bloggery 0
I’m revising the older parts of the website this week.
Carrying on the Tradition 0
Glenn Beck channels Father Coughlin:
“There are a lot of parallels between Coughlin and Beck,” says Michael Kazin, a professor at Georgetown University in Washington who wrote a book about American populism of the left and right, including a section on the Catholic priest. “They both speak the language of rebellion against the establishment and to bring America back to God, citing a golden era of the past.”
Beck, 46, dismisses these comparisons, citing their differences. Yet substitute Coughlin’s animus for Jews, communists and Franklin Roosevelt for Beck’s toward Muslims, socialists and Barack Obama and the similarities seem greater.
QOTD 0
Queen Elizabeth I, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.
Aside: The internet had not been invented when she said that.
