May, 2015 archive
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Politeness must start young.
Just one of those things, one of those crazy things in NRA Paradise.
Speaking of “Them” . . . 0
. . . Marco Rubio is very, very afraid of “Them.”
“Them” 3
Back when spy movies were all the rage, James Bond was still played by Sean Connery, and the villains were always faceless underground organizations with names such as SPECTRE, SMERSH, and THRUSH, someone I forget who made a parody spy flick in which the bad guys represented a shadowy outfit called THEM. As I recall, the film’s silliness made anything by the Three Stooges look like high art (unfortunately, I can’t remember enough of it to find a citation).
Leonard Pitts, Jr., reminds me that the film may not have been as much parody as I thought at the time:
Us versus them.
As in, an implicit promise to defend the former against the latter. This was its mission when it pushed for immigration quotas in the 1920s, when it animated the Red Scare of the 1950s, when it defined civil rights as a clear and present danger in the 1960s, when hardhats rioted against hippies in 1970. It is its organizing principle even today, as red states pass legislation to protect themselves from Sharia law and some of us define religious persecution as baking a cake for a same-sex couple.
Us versus them.
Always, social conservatism defined “them” as something faceless and frightening against which the rest of “us” must struggle with everything we had, or else be overrun. It is an ideology that has contributed virtually nothing of value to the life of the nation — unless you count mindless panic as a good thing.
He goes on to wonder whether the appeal of such tactics may be waning.
I fear that he is wrong. Fear sells, and hate always finds buyers.
Your Tax Dollars at Work 0
Recycling:
In related news, it would seem that the Sea Dragon has problems much more serious than can be remedied by a few jalopy egg-beaters.
Meanwhile, Congress continues to push the F-35, which nobody wants except manufacturers of weaponry and their sycophants and lapdogs.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
Maintaining a positive trend:
Jobless claims increased by 7,000 to 282,000 in the week ended May 23, a Labor Department report showed Thursday in Washington.
(snip)
The four-week average of claims, a less-volatile measure than the weekly figure, climbed to 271,500 from a 15-year low of 266,500 the prior week.
The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits increased by 11,000 to 2.22 million in the week ended May 16. The unemployment rate among people eligible for benefits rose to 1.7 percent from 1.6 percent. These data are reported with a one-week lag.
. . . B-B-But It Was Only “Family Research” 0
Putting aside the culture warrior schadenfreude, I think it might be a bit strong to refer to a 14-year-old boy trying to navigate the teenager hormone zone while growing up in a clearly screwed-up family in the same phrases that one might use for a 50-year-old man (or woman, as recent headlines tell us seems quite possible) lurking in the bushes next to the jungle gym in the playground.
Let’s just stick with the incest thing, okay?
Via Raw Story.
Literate Cat 0
Fool cat’s holding the book (a Bennett Cerf collection) upside-down.
Stray Question (Updated) 0
It’s been a long time since I was a high school senior.
Just when did “senior pranks” become a thing?
Addendum, Later That Same Day:
According to The Guardian, high school seniors’ doing stupid stuff has graduated to a “tradition.”
Back in the olden days, when I was a young ‘un, we tried to hide our stupid, not broadcast it.
Furrfu.
Misty Water-Colored Memories 0
Reg Henry wants some truth served with his Memorial Day.
In fact, if you count the conflicts that really did represent life or death to the nation in recent generations, only World War II unambiguously qualifies (although the Korean War arguably has a claim).
As for the rest, they were undertaken for reasons ranging from the shabby to the reckless. American forces were too often committed in the service of some political notion later revealed to be crackpot or fanciful. This was not the fault of those who served so honorably.
Read it.
Stray Thought 0
No right-wing Bible-thumper will think to suggest from Sunday’s pulpit that the flooding of Texas may be a sign from the Almighty that the climates they are a-changing.
Not a single one.
GPS: Global Positioning Singularity 0
Gidget the Gadget takes the con.
There’s a reason I prefer maps–the old-fashioned kind that you can fold up.
