March, 2013 archive
Chipset 0
One of the tactics of bigotry, in addition to the obvious over-the-top ones, is the little, repetitive chipping away at the dignity, even at the personhood and individuality, of others. Bill Maxwell poses the question:
Read the rest. Learn to recognize the vocabulary.
A Parable of the Polity 0
Read the story of Bob the Businessman.
QOTD 0
Mary Tyler Moore, as Peggy Regan, Hawaiian Eye, Season Three, Episode 11:
Sometimes lies sound more reasonable than the truth. Lies are planned . . . .
And Now for Something Completely Different 0
Warning: Some incidental language.
The Ask Date Con 0
We have all seen them.
Planes dragging banners with marriage proposals over sports palaces, elaborate invitations on AFV, and the like.
I probably would not have realized this, having been on the other side of the asking-girls-out divide, but Emily Hoeven raises an excellent point–there is a sadistic, manipulative element in the showiness. She writes of prom dates:
This is nothing but public humiliation in its purest form, and it leaves the girl with few options: say yes or be viewed as coldhearted. That is not really fair, because the girl should have the option to say no. The boy should have the right to be turned down without a crowd as a witness. And both of them should be able to go to a dance with someone who really wants to be with them instead of someone who said yes under pressure.
Many years ago, Second Son acted in community theatre. After the last performance of one of his plays, the director ostentatiously proposed to one of the actors, on stage, before the audience, after the curtain calls.
She accepted on stage.
Second Son told me that afterwards, in the green room, she ripped her now-ex fiance a new one.
They did, eventually, get married, but it took him six months to recover the ground that he lost with that one ostentatious gesture.
State Rape 0
Republican legislator claims to be unaware of the favorite fantasy of old white Republican men.
Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) declined to take a position last week during a town hall meeting on whether transvaginal ultrasounds should be mandatory for women seeking abortions, saying he has never heard of the practice and couldn’t weigh in on it because “I haven’t had one.”
(snip)
Duffy has described himself as “100 percent prolife without exceptions” (though he also said “To qualify, I believe that if we have the life of a mother as an issue, the mother’s life takes priority, but we must make every effort to save the life of the child.”) Asked about one of the main goals for the pro-life movement, however, Duffy said he had not heard of transvaginal ultrasounds at all.
Yeah.
Right.
Via TPM.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Teaching politeness:
The Tyler Morning Telegraph on Thursday reported that Van Independent School District school board member Leslie Goode confirmed that “there was an accident involving one of the employees today.”
Another one of those guns with a trigger finger of its own.
