From Pine View Farm

December, 2017 archive

A Look Back 0

Title:  2017, the Year in Review.  Image:  Uncle Sam as the

Via Job’s Anger.

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The Six Styles of Trump 0

Continuing in a numerical vein, I commend Steve Yetiv’s enumeration of six perspectives on Donald Trump to your attention. Here’s a couple:

Strategic Trump: The first perspective is that Trump makes strategic decisions aimed at promoting the national interest. Seen this way, the “Make America Great Again” motto is not a political tactic but actually drives his decisions. . . .

Loopy Trump: This perspective offers a different story. It is about Trump’s mentality. It asks us to see Trump as both insecure and overconfident (“I know more about ISIS than the generals do”), narcissistic (“I alone can fix it”), hyper-sensitive (tit-for-tat Twitter fights), sometimes crazy, and prone to ego-driven fiascos. His tweets and actions are more impetuous and infantile than strategic, suggesting that he may drag America down. . . .

Follow the link. Collect the complete set.

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The Five Legs of a Trumpled Stool 0

Bobby Azarian analyzes the news and suggests five psychological traits that characterize Donald Trump’s core supporters.

Note that these are technical terms and may not necessarily mean what they would in normal parlance. For example, “relative deprivation” does not mean that some is deprived; rather, it means that he or she thinks he or she is deprived relative to some other group (say, for example, black folks or millennials, whatever they are).

Here’s the thumbnail; follow the link for a discussion of each one.

      1. Authoritarian Personality Syndrome
      2. Social dominance orientation
      3. Prejudice
      4. Intergroup contact
      5. Relative deprivation

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The Hack Gap 0

Atrios.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Self-politeness is the politest kind.

A man could face charges of making a false report to a peace officer after he told officials in Taylor someone shot him during a road-rage incident.

Taylor police say the man recanted his story after further questioning, and said he actually shot himself while handling a handgun.

There is a lesson in this tale: When you decide to play with your auxiliary portable penis, proceed with caution.

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Mirror Image 0

Trump says,

Via Job’s Anger.

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No Place To Hide 0

Thom discusses our culture of institutionalized spying and the loss of privacy.

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QOTD 0

Bill Vaughan:

Youth is when you’re allowed to stay up late on New Year’s Eve. Middle age is when you’re forced to.

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No Laughing Matter 0

At Psychology Today Blogs, Scott Weems argues that Donald Trump can’t tell a joke. (Of course, he can’t take a joke, either, but that is an entirely other matter.)

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The Greatest Snow Job on Earth! 0

At The Hartford Courant, Jennifer Tucker assesses the similarities and differences between P. T. Barnum and Donald Trump. Here’s two differences (emphasis added):

There are differences, however, in their approach to fraud, for Barnum mocked the illusions that made him rich. He exposed the artifice behind his hoaxes, such as how spirit photography was done. His 1865 book “The Humbugs of the World,” an exposé of “deceits and deceivers, in All Ages,” displayed self-awareness and irony, as well as a talent for fraud and the creation of deceptive appearances. Moreover, Whalen (a biographer of Barnum–ed.) has noted, Barnum extended the tradition in Greek comedy in which an author’s building up illusion is punctured with self-conscious commentary about the difficulty of artistic creation.

Even more notably, Barnum cited truth-telling as a necessary condition for success in business: “Let your pledged word be sacred,” he wrote, since “Nothing is more valuable to a man in business than the name of always doing as he agrees.”

Follow the link for the similarities.

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The Rule of Lawless 0

PoliticalProf.

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Facebook Frolics 0

Hate-full frolics.

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Criminal Negligence 0

Headline: 3+ months after Maria, barely half of Puerto Rico has power

Frame One:  Man with son saying,

Click for the original image.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Surround your children with politeness.

District Attorney Michael Jackson told The Tuscaloosa News that the boy died Thursday night in Bibb County after suffering a gunshot wound to the face.

Jackson told the newspaper that it appears that the child found the gun in the house and accidently (sic) shot himself as he was handling it. Law enforcement has not released the name of the child.

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The Court Is in Sessions, “Useless Eaters” Dept. 0

This is a pile of vile.

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QOTD 0

Oliver Sacks:

I feel I should be trying to complete my life, whatever ‘completing a life’ means.

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QOTD 0

Rex Stout:

Few of us have enough enough wisdom for justice, or enough leisure for humanity.

Stout, Rex, Too Many Cooks (New York: Pyramid, 1963), p. 43

Read more »

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For Your Listening Pleasure . . . . 0

In case you haven’t noticed, I have added a link to the “Old Time Radio” item on the sidebar, over there ——>, to the “Old Radio Programs” website.

It has wonderful content and I commend it to your attention.

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Political Fallout 0

I have a brown leather vest that I truly like to wear in lieu of a jacket on mild days.

Now, thanks to “Judge” Roy Moore, I am ashamed to be seen in it.

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Stragety 0

Two RNC staffers talking.  One says,

Via Job’s Anger.

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