December, 2015 archive
Ideological Divide 0
Michael Smerconish is a professed conservative, but a rare one who does not do the Fox(News)-Trot.
In a column posted today, he tries to make sense of the conflict between the what he calls the purists and the pragmatists in the Republican party.
It’s interesting, but also kind of sad, reflecting as it does the contortions of a decent person trying to convince himself that a viable bit of decency remains in his party.
“Book ‘Em, Dano” 0
Dan Casey awards his seventh annual Dano awards for distinguished accomplishments in stupid. Here’s one (emphasis in the original); follow the link for more.
Now in bankruptcy, ANR earlier this month asked a federal court in Richmond to allow it to pay up to $14 million in executive bonuses. At the same time, it proposed eliminating workers’ 401K match, short-term disability benefits, curtailing paid vacation and more.
Here’s how the company justified it: “Successfully navigating Alpha’s restructuring process has been and continues to be the primary focus of our senior management team and maintaining that strong leadership throughout this process is viewed as essential in the eyes of both the board and Alpha’s constituencies.”
For that, they also win the Dano in Corporate Gobbledygook.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
You find politeness in unexpected places.
He showed it to him, and neither thought the gun was real.
According to the brother, there was no magazine in it, but the teen was playing with it and accidentally fired one shot, hitting his mother in the neck.
Scattering more guns about would no doubt have prevented this.
Dealing with Uncle Liberty* 0
There is a simple flaw in this presentation: Facts do not override prejudice. For every fact, there is an equal and opposite prejudice.
Via Raw Story.
_________________
*The term “Uncle Liberty” is used courtesy of Driftglass.
Plus Ca Change 0
China Hand points out an uncomfortable truth. A snippet:
T’aint so, unfortunately. It’s more like “this was us and, apparently, still is at least some of us and maybe a lot of us.”
And maybe “us” isn’t just anxious blue-collar xenophobes. Maybe “us” includes a big chunk of the political elite and the strategists who guide them.
Trump seizes upon the implicit and makes it explicit; that’s his offense. And his strength.
A history of the synergy between popular bigotry, political calculation, and institutionalized discrimination is enlightening.
The storyline isn’t “It Can’t Happen Here”; try “It Does Happen Here, and with Depressing Frequency”.
Follow the link for some of the real Murican history, the bits you won’t get taught in school.
They ain’t purty.
A Chimney Too Far 0
An Italian village is up in arms because a local priest spilled the beans:
(snip)
“Sooner or later all children bitterly discover that Father Christmas doesn’t exist and that gifts aren’t bought by a magic sleigh pulled by reindeer but by mum and dad,” a parent told La Stampa.
I find the quotation in the second paragraph to be rather interesting. I don’t remember any bitter discoveries, nor do I remember any kids going around gleefully bursting other kids’ bubbles back in the olden days, when I was a young ‘un.
When I was little, the closest I came to a “bitter discovery” was my older cousin’s replying, when I asked him what Santa Claus brought him, “I’m too old now. Santa doesn’t visit me any more.” I puzzled at the statement at the time, and then one day it made sense. When you reach the right age, somehow you just know.
In my own family, the youngest is fully nine years younger than his siblings. The older ones freely and wordlessly united to preserve the myth for their brother. If “bitterly discovering” were somehow a rite of Christmas passage, I rather doubt that they would have done so.
Indeed, if “bitterly discovering” were part of the package, the myth would have died long ago.
Aside:
Follow the link: there seem to be other, more compelling reasons to put this priest out to pasture.
Testing the Fail 0
In a longer article at Psychology Today Blogs–indeed, almost as an aside–Alfie Cohn indicts the reliance on standardized testing and its inimical effects on our school systems. A snippet:
(snip)
But the outrageous and incalculably damaging reality of testing students every single year — extraordinary from a worldwide perspective, in fact virtually unheard of for students below high school age — continues in ESSA (“Elementary and Secondary Education Act”–ed.). Annual testing is something we’ve been conditioned to accept and even to view as tolerable compared to the reality of multiple tests a year, what with benchmark exams in between the other exams, districts piling on with their own assessments, new Common Core tests, and so on.
Remember “cramming” for tests? Two weeks after the test, all the stuff you crammed was gone, whereas, had you studied through the semester/quarter/period, you did not have to cram because you had actually learned stuff.
The regime of standardized tests has institutionalized cramming as a pedagogical technique. The test is all; there is nothing else. Learning is irrelevant to the cram.
Qui bono?
The testing companies. Everyone else is losing.
There’s an App for That 2
If you use Firefox or Chrome, you might be interested in this.
The Ammosexual Impulse 0
Chauncey Devega, in a typically long and tightly reasoned post, traces the thread of ammosexuality through American history. Here’s a bit; follow the link for the rest.
There are many examples of this at present. Armed white people, mostly men, have been brandishing weapons to intimidate Muslims in Texas. White, mostly male, open carry advocates, march in public with guns, intimidating the general public and those who disagree with them. After mass shooting incidents, Republican politicians suggest that gun violence is somehow the price for the “freedom” and “liberty” of gun ownership in America. For them, a country awash with guns and gun violence is inseparable from American Exceptionalism. This is a macabre and sick understanding of what makes America “great.” That gun violence apologists on the American Right-wing cannot think of some greater motivation for their worship of “American Exceptionalism” is a devastating indictment of the country’s civic health.
“Carly Fiborina” 0
Dick Polman tries to inventory the many lies of Carly.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Shots don’t mix well with beers.
So, Farley said, Kugelman started choking a waitress, forcing others to break it up and separate the two.
A bouncer escorted her out of the bar, Farley continued. After kicking her out and as he turned around to walk back in, Kugelman shot him in the head, Farley said.
“All guns everywhere” is working out so very nicely, is it not?
A Quantum of Justice 0
Shaun Mullen points out that it’s about damned time.
It Wasn’t Supposed To Be a Prophecy 0
Franklin Roosevelt, 1932:
We have nothing to fear but fear itself.
Republican candidates, 2015:
