May, 2013 archive
When I Was Growing Up, There Were No Eagles 2
Not where I grew up, at least.
Now they have come back, as my irregular posts of my brother’s eagle pictures indicates–he lives directly across the Bay* from where we grew up.
And someone has been killing them, untentionally, it seems. The current theory is that they were collateral damage in an attempt to get foxes or coyotes (coyotes? there weren’t any of them, either).
Dick Destiny has a nice write up on his best guess as to what was used and on why that is his best guess.
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*When you grow up on the Eastern Shore, the world is divided into two parts. “The Shore” and “across the Bay.”
Twits on Twitter 0
My local rag reports that area schools are starting to pay attention to their twittering twits’ twittery. (The story notes that one local high school–high school, mind you–player has over 800 “followers.” There’s a whole nother post lurking in that bit of trivia.)
Coaches, teachers, and administrators are concerned, in particular, that athletes might damage their standing and their scholarship pro$pect$. One of them contributed this gem:
Twister 0
Via the San Jose Mercury-News, footage of a tornado in Italy. It’s below the fold because it autoplays.
Twits on Twitter 0
Not the following, the fool-lowing.
The most common spam I receive to the email address for this website (see the “contact” link at the top of the page) contains offers to improve my SEO. SEO consultancies are inherently scams and frauds.
I do check my stats from time to time. Yesterday, I had 401 unique visitors and 4714 pageviews. The search terms that brought the most visitors were about “mushrooms, onions, and red wine sauce.” Most users were using WinXP or Win7, but iJunk was next (which I found mildly surprising). Mozilla browsers had the highest rank, outnumbering Windows Internet Destroyer in toto. And so on.
Nevertheless, since I’m not in it for the money, I don’t care that much about my SEO. I’m too lazy even to use tags on posts, even though tags are legit.
If you enjoy visiting this site (or visit it because it infuriates you), I welcome and value you. But I’m not going to use subterfuge to trick someone into thinking I’m something other than what I am: an opinionated nobody shooting his mouth off over the inner webs.
The Past Is Not Even Past 0
One of the most successful attempts to replace history with fiction was the creation of the legend of the Old South, the South of Gone with the Wind: Elegant, stately plantation homes; gracious, hospitable planters; legions of contented darkies singing happily as they labored, before returning to their shacks for the night.
It was a great flack job that enabled the South and Southerners, indeed, the entire country, to look away, look away, look away from the reality of exploitation, brutality, theft of labor, and rape hidden in the back yards of those picturesque estates and, later, remain blind to Jim Crow, which was little more than an attempt of recreate chattel slavery in disguise.
On a smaller scale, we can follow a similar effort right now, as the contemporary Republican Party, its dupes, fellow travelers, and symps attempt to purge the memory of George the Worst, so that voters will forget what governance by that party actually looks like.
In the Roanoke Times, Jason Husser argues eloquently the importance of remembering the past, the real past, not the one we wish had happened. A nugget.
Forgetting the bad parts of our past is appealing. Those who caution against “unburying a hatchet” are selling snake oil. Whatever short-term therapeutic value found in blocking a negative event from our minds is overwhelmingly outweighed by the long-term harm of losing the memory of public atrocity.
Read the whole thing.
Null Set (Updated) 6
Pro Publica has an interesting article on the new nullification movement.
You may have heard of the old nullification movement. It was created by the same persons who brought you secession and Civil War.
This one’s all about the right of gun nuts to worship their graven image in the Church of the Holy Heat.
Addendum:
Speaking of secession and Civil War . . . .
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Be polite to your neighbors.
Suddenly, there was a spray of gunfire, they said.
The suspect, 46, of Pontiac allegedly went to his van and returned with an AK-47-style assault rifle. The residents said he then released a salvo at them.
Implement Plan B 0
Doghouse Riley skillfully dissects Kathleen Parker’s squeamishness over admitting that teen-aged girls might actually, like, you know, do it.
Just read it.
Resilience 0
Dick Polman reports on the drummers of the war drums. A nugget:
This is the same guy who declared on the eve of war 10 years ago that Iraq would be a breeze, that the Bush invasion would pacify a warring people: “There is a certain amount of pop psychology in America that the Shia can’t get along with the Sunni….There’s almost no evidence of that at all.” Ten years later, in Iraq, the Shiites and the Sunnis are still blowing each other up; for most of those 10 years, American soldiers died in the crossfire. But in Washington, there’s no shame and no penalty for being dead wrong, which is why Kristol still reigns on Sunday morning TV.
As Driftglass often points out, in the punditocracy, there is no penalty for being wrong all the time.
Everybody Must Get Fracked 0
It’s a fracking mystery.
(snip)
“Is this the way the commission is going to work?” asked Commission Charlotte Mitchell, a Raleigh lawyer. “There seem to be conversations happening offline and not in public about this rule that has already come out of committee.”
Halliburton claims that revealing the ingredents in its soup will compromise trade secrets.
I wonder whether the potential compromise is more likely to benefit Halliburton’s competitors or the public health.
Football uber Alles 0
There is one God, and his name is JoePa. All others must bow before him.
Disgusting.
Aside:
Yes, it’s late when I write this.
Yes, I’ve had some Old Smuggler, one of the better cheap Scotches (any Scotch is better than every anything else).
No, I won’t regret it in the morning.
Sequestrian Dressage, Performed by Question Mark and the Austerians 0
Welfare for the rich, poverty for the rest of us.