2016 archive
Foiled! Curses Again! 2
Garrison Keillor wonders why the Trump supporters are still cursing him.
What the letter-writers don’t grasp is that cursing is highly effective in person – someone kicks his car in rage, forgetting he’s wearing flip-flops, and flames pour from his mouth, it’s impressive. But you see it in print and it’s just ugly. It makes you pity the writer’s wife.
Do please read the rest. As he did in his monologues on his radio show, he eventually wanders to a damned good point.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Defend yourself politely.
He woke up and got his gun, and then confronted the suspect. The homeowner said he was trying to shoot the burglar, but shot himself in the arm by accident.
Contrary to the John Wayne fantasies of the NRA gun marketing association, this is how “self-defense” commonly works out in NRA Paradise.
Averting the Eyes 0
Until the United States of America is willing to stare its racism in the face, it has no hope of redemption.
I read To Kill a Mockingbird once. It is a tale of the moral toll of racism.
I have read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn three times. Underneath the burlesque, it is a tale of redemption, of one boy’s decision to reject the racism his society has taught him. (If you have not read it, do so today.)
The Great Disillusionment 0
Some Trump voters seem surprised to find out that he is exactly who he has been for his whole public life.
Who woulda thunk?
Via Raw Story.
As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap 0
The Great Disillusionment begins (follow the link for more).
When Donald Trump named his Treasury secretary, Teena Colebrook felt her heart sink.
She had voted for the president-elect on the belief that he would knock the moneyed elites from their perch in Washington, D.C. And she knew Trump’s pick for Treasury_Steven Mnuchin_all too well.
OneWest, a bank formerly owned by a group of investors headed by Mnuchin, had foreclosed on her Los Angeles-area home in the aftermath of the Great Recession, stripping her of the two units she rented as a primary source of income.
“I just wish that I had not voted,” said Colebrook, 59. “I have no faith in our government anymore at all. They all promise you the world at the end of a stick and take it away once they get in.”
As Steven M. (q. v.), from whom I got the above link, posits, there will be many more sharing her disappointment as the Trump fairy dust clears and the Trump reality comes into view.
Dis Coarse Discourse 0
Bob Molinaro, sportswriter extraordinaire, contributes two example of dis coarse discourse in today’s column (emphasis in the original).
(snip)
Name game: My friend Mike added up all the Thanksgiving week men’s basketball tournaments that carried the grandiose title of “Classic.” The total came to 19. They included the Gildan Charleston Classic, Outrigger Hotels Rainbow Classic and High Point University Classic. Words just don’t mean what they used to.
Frankly, I doubt the coarseness of the discourse is any greater than ever. What’s changed is that there is no escape from the stupid, for there are no longer any filters either from or for it.
Aside:
You don’t have to be a sports fan to enjoy Molinaro’s writing. He often says in a sentence what others fail to say in a page. Follow the link and sign up for the RSS feed.
You’ll be glad you did.
The Return of Mitt the Flip, the Flippiest Flip of All 0
Frankly, nothing illustrates the hollowness at the heart of Republicanism, nor the dominance politics of Donald Trump, more than this.
Warning: Language
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
No doubt, had the driver been packing, this would not have happened.
Carter said a passenger in the car told deputies that a gun in his possession accidentally fired, striking the driver and causing the crash.
Just another day in NRA Paradise.
Cruel and Unusual 1
Stop them before it’s too late.
A Facebook post from the Kensington Police Department of Prince Edward Island warns would-be partiers in the Great White North to avoid getting behind the wheel tipsy, lest they be caught, booked and serenaded by the 21st century’s discount Bon Jovi.