2018 archive
Suffer the Children 0
It’s not scripture. It’s Republicanism.
Russian Impulses 0
Shaun Mullen reads the back story.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Every time you think it can’t get any dumber . . . .
Police say a 20-year-old man had a gun under a mattress. The man told detectives he asked the victim to move from the bed to another location in the home. That’s when the gun accidentally went off, hitting the 14-year-old in the chest, police said.
Today’s Trends in the Trumpling 0
Brandy X. Lee, writing at Psychology Today Blogs, is not sanguine. A snippet:
As Trump gains experience in the White House, he increasingly casts aside any advice with which he disagrees. His confidants describe the president to reporters as newly emboldened and ready to ignore the cautions of those around him (Haberman, 2018). There is the false hope that giving him what he demands will help appease him, but the opposite is true . . . .
Split Those Hairs 0
Hairs of the dog, that is . . . .
Asked if he was drinking in the auto, Stevens replied, “No.” He then explained he was enjoying the bourbon at “Stop signs.” The deputy further noted Stevens’s distinction when it came to drinking while driving: “He further explained that he was not drinking while the car was moving and only when he stopped for stop signs and traffic signals.”
There Is No Right Turn for NASCAR 0
Today, yet another article appeared in my local rag wondering where, amid declining attendance and TV ratings,* NASCAR is heading.
Some persons blame the younger drivers for not having “star quality” (whatever that is), while those younger drivers charge the tracks with being outmoded and old-fashioned (whatever that means for an asphalt oval). Others argue that NASCAR should reach out to minorities, somehow not grasping that the sea of Confederate flags in a typical NASCAR track’s parking lot renders that notion somewhat beyond ludicrous. This particular article focused on the Commissioner, the grandson of NASCAR’s founder, and his seeming lack of interest in proselytizing for the sport.
No one, of course, mentions that NASCAR race cars long ceased to be “stock cars” in any sense of the word. And no one has mentioned the underlying cause.
Young folks these days are just not into cars. They don’t customize cars or models of cars; they don’t take them apart and repair them; they don’t buy broken down old heaps with a gleam in their eye to make them run and soup them up. I got a dollar to a doughnut that they don’t subscribe to Motor Trend or Sports Car Graphic (which I think is no longer with us), as I did when I was a teen.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Accidental politeness is the politest kind.
An unidentified 27-year-old man accidentally caused his handgun to discharge when pulling something out of his pocket, according to a press release.
Had the woman and child been packing, no doubt they could have arranged their own accident right back at him.
The stupid. It burns.
A Civil Tongue 0
Juanita Jean has a point.
Virginia Beach Drinking Liberally Thursday 0
When fellowship is needed, join us . . . .
When: Thursday, July 10, 6 p.
Where:
Croc’s 19 Street Bistro
620 19th Street (Map)
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The Path to Pariah 0
The Booman documents another step down the road.
Propagating Propaganda To Perpetuate Privilege 0
The Roanoke Times explores how the Commonwealth of Virginia slanted textbooks to whitewash–you will pardon the expression–slavery. A snippet:
Springston’s story says: “Lawmakers thought that requiring schoolteachers to promote the Byrd organization’s view of history would set students straight and keep teachers from spreading socialist or communist ideas.” Ironically, that’s no different than what the Bolsheviks did when they instituted communism in the Soviet Union — they taught students a different version of history.
(snip)
On the website Politichicks, Eichelman writes: “One former commission member admitted to me that the goal of the seventh grade book was to ‘make every seventh-grader aspire to the colonnaded mansion; and if he can’t get there, make him happy in the cabin.’
These were the textbooks I had when I was in school. I realized by the time I graduated high school that they were–er–slanted (perhaps that’s why I chose to get my degree in history with a focus on U. S. Southern–as a rebellion against the attempt to indoctrinate me in bigotry).