2015 archive
Anchor Babies Away! 0
Aside:
“Anchor babies” exist only in the fetid imaginations of racists and bigots.
If someone you know–including someone running for public office–starts to babble about “anchor babies,” back away, slowly. He or she is so taken with hate as to be beyond reason.
Copyrights and Copywrongs 0
In a magnificent example of f(l)ail, Ashley Madison has decided that its users’ information is copyright and is issuing DMCA take-down notices to try to scrub it from the web.
Afterthought:
As a money-making enterprise, Ashley Madison is toast, and soggy toast at that.
Droning On 0
Boys and their toys.
My brother sent me this link from a publication for the agricultural industry, which hopes to use small drones to monitor irrigation, crop growth and health, and the like.
UAVs can have important uses in agriculture, law enforcement and many industries, but Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials are worried about drones whizzing around airports and over high-security sites across the nation.
Patriot Games 0
Honest to Pete, you can’t make this stuff up.
American Taliban, Reprise 0
Chris Honore marvels at the appeal of Donald Trump and finds an alarming analogy. A snippet:
The answer may reside with ISIS. To explain, at least in part, the attraction of this group, Roger Cohen posited in the New York Times that what this caliphate offers is a release from the “burden of freedom” while offering purpose and meaning as well as strict moral boundaries and order. There is the promise of salvation and martyrdom framed by a code of behavior (sharia law) that is enforced with lethal finality while simultaneously surrounding the true believer with community and approbation.
Follow the link for the rest of his argument.
Second Childhood, Tennis Dept. 0
John McEnroe, aspiring Bobby Riggs (warning: language):
I remember watching Bobby Riggs’s matches against Margaret Court and Billy Jean King on the telly vision.
Win or lose, Riggs was a jerk, a fitting idol for John McEnroe.
Afterthought:
My second childhood includes a Mustang convertible. It does not include making a fool of myself in public. I can make a fool of myself right here quite nicely thank you.
Also, subscribe to TWIB. You might learn stuff.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Politeness: It’s just how you play the game.
Gamers, guns, and bloodlust–the American Dream.
We are beyond hope.
Ken Burning the Confederate Flag 0
Excerpt from Ken Burns’s statements:
The main American theme, I think, is freedom. But we also notice that race is always there. . . .
And we struggle with it. We try to ignore it. We pretend, with the election of Barack Obama, that we’re in some post-racial society. And what we have seen is a kind of reaction to this. The birther movement, of which Donald Trump is one of the authors of, is another politer way of saying the N word. It’s just more sophisticated and a little bit more clever. He’s ‘other.’
What’s actually ‘other’ and different about him? It turns out it’s the same old thing. It’s the color of his skin.
Via Raw Story.
Bears! 0
Pamela Druckerman remembers vacationing in the Smokies and her fear of bears, even though no bear ever threatened her. That leads her to wonder why so many Americans seem scared of everything all the time. Here’s a bit (emphasis added); follow the link for the rest.
Americans didn’t invent this narrative, but we’ve embraced it with a special fervor. Never mind that owning a gun makes you less safe; we like the story that says we’re protecting our families. Never mind the enormous drops in homicide, robbery and other violence. We cling to the story that the world has become more dangerous.
The hero story also seeps into American politics. Why are many Republican presidential candidates obsessed with undocumented immigrants? They’re inventing a monster that threatens America, then promising to rescue us. Donald J. Trump has Mexicans; I have bears.