August, 2020 archive
Unpresidented 0
At the Idaho State Journal, Mike Murphy opines that Donald Trump’s comparing himself favorably to Teddy Roosevelt, like much of what Donald Trump says, flies in the face of fact. Here’s a bit of his article:
That is the second time this summer that someone has compared Donald Trump to Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States. Back in July, as South Dakota governor Kristi Noem introduced Trump prior to his speech at Mt. Rushmore, she likened him to Teddy Roosevelt as a man who “braves the dangers of the arena.”
I have recently read two Theodore Roosevelt biographies and, to paraphrase 1988 vice presidential candidate Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, “Mr. President, you’re no Teddy Roosevelt.”
Follow the link for his reasoning.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
A polite Trumpling.
Much more at the link.
“We’re All in the Same Boat” 0
And, at Psychology Today Blogs, Justine Mastin and Larissa Garski wonder whether said boat is the Titanic. A bit:
Similarly, the western world has considered itself to be an unsinkable ship. And we have ignored all the warnings issued to us about looming icebergs. We are unsinkable, we believe, and these warnings do not apply to us. There is no more time for debate about whether or not the ship is unsinkable. We are sinking. We are taking on the waters of climate change and plague, the waters of hate and totalitarianism, and the waters of frigid cold shock. We must confront our magical thinking and acknowledge that it was and is a cognitive distortion.
QOTD 0
Kerry Greenwood, who makes words dance:
(His) view was that, if you were going to break vows, you should break them hard and repent afterwards.
Greenwood, Kerry, The Castlemaine Murders (Scottsdale, AZ: Poisoned Pen Press, 2006), p. 180.
Facing (up to) History 0
At the Greensboro News and Record, Joanna Winston Foley, descended from a Revolutionary War hero who was also a slaveholder, struggles with a renewed awareness of her ancestry in the light of the death of George Floyd and the cascade of events it triggered. It is a sensitive and moving piece, well worth your while.
I have long believed that one of the elements that make the myth of the lost cause and of the land of gracious living so tenacious is a desire of many Southerners to avoid facing the reality of what their ancestors did so as to profit from stolen labor.
I can empathize. Both of us are Southerners, both of us had ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War and other ancestors who wore the grey. I think my turning point–not as regards my stand on civil rights or on treating other people like people, but as regards my view of my family’s history–came when, at the Harper’s Ferry Wax Museum, we were looking at an exhibit depicting one of my forebears defending slavery.
As we looked at it, one of my children said, “. . . he was on the wrong side?”
I had to agree.
Yes, he was.
In every possible way.
Here’s a bit from her article:
This blind spot, big as a boulder, remained in place until June 2020. The word “privilege” comes to mind — the white privilege of avoiding discomfort.
As those statues came crashing down, so did that blind spot that separated my feelings about my ancestor.
______________________
*Of course, that does not explain why those whose families did not participate in the war, indeed, whose families had not yet arrived here when the war was fought, bought into the lies. For that, look to a century and a half of one of the most successful propaganda campaigns in history, perhaps best represented by that over-the-top potboiler, Gone with the Wind.
Tales of the Trumpled Letter Office 0
At the Inky, Ellie Rushing describes her talk with a mail carrier; they discussed his job at the Trumpled Postal Service (he remains anonymous for fear of reprisals from higher-ups). An excerpt:
He stops in the shade and breathes. “They don’t understand how just holding one piece of mail can affect someone’s life,” he says, speaking of DeJoy and Trump.
The Fire This Time 0
Werner Herzog’s Bear is increasingly less sanguine (or should it be “decreasingly less sanguine? Oh, well).
Immunity Impunity
0
My local rag investigates how the “bad apples” manage to stay in the barrel. A snippet:
State law makes it impossible to strip an officer of their certification unless they have been convicted of a felony or certain misdemeanors. And even when officers’ conduct reaches those narrow criteria, many are not decertified by the state board with that responsibility.
