2021 archive
Ripping Off the Mask 0
The writer of a letter to the editor of The Roanoke Times explains his decision to stop wearing a mask.
No excerpt or summary can do it justice. Please just follow the link.
Recommended Listening 0
The Clock Struck One, by Fergus Hume.
It starts off slow, but, by fourth chapter, quickly picks up speed.
Unprincipled Nonprincipled
0
David delivers an epic rant about Republican hypocrisy. And he is correct on every count.
Afterthought:
I’m a Southern Boy. I grew up under Jim Crow and went to segregated schools. I took my degree in history, and, though my college did not recognize concentrations in awarding degrees (nor did it recognize minors, or I would have a minor in sociology), I concentrated in U. S. Southern.
I am descended from persons who, as the saying goes, held slaves; some of those ancestors wore the grey.
I know a racist when I see one.
As far as I can tell, the two unifying principles of today’s Republican Party are racism and greed.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
Michael in Norfolk points out that Richard Nixon’s loathsome “southern strategy” is alive and well in Virginia’s Republican Party.
The Motive behind the Madness 0
Mac Stipanovich attempts to understand Florida’s Governor Maskless Marauder Ron DeSantis. A nugget (emphasis added):
Follow the link for the play-by-play.
Those We Ignore History . . . 0
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Gene Collier reflects on the failure of the United States to learn from experience, whether it be the experience of Alexander the Great, the British Empire, the Soviet Union, or even itself. A snippet:
Could it?
Oh, sure.
We’re allergic to learning. See the virus. See the climate.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Yet more child’s play in the NRA’s Garden of Bleedin’.
“Staying Longer Won’t Solve Anything” 0
David takes what I find a sane and balanced look at events in Afghanistan. (Short commercial at the end.)
We could stay and keep failing, or we could leave.
It Is Seldom Wise To Tempt Fate . . . 0
. . . for Fate has notoriously little will power in the face of temptation.
Vaccine Nation 0
The coach of the Washington Football Team is fed up with vaccine disinformation and the anti-vaxx crowd. Here’s a bit from the report:
“And then one specific news agency, every time they have someone on, ‘I’m not a doctor, but vaccines don’t work,’ Or ‘I’m not an epidemiologist, but vaccines are going to give you a third nipple and make you sterile,’” Rivera continued. “Come on. That, to me? That should not be allowed.”
Hmmmmm. One wonders what “specific news agency” he has in mind. No, one doesn’t.
A Notion of Immigrants 0
The Arizona Republic’s Elvia Diaz highlights the hypocrisy of Republicans’ tears over the plight of Afghan asylum seekers, even as they separated the families and caged the children of those closer to our borders. A nugget:
But the Republicans’ hypocrisy have no limits. To them, the desperation of asylum seekers from anywhere is just another weapon to attack President Joe Biden.
Don’t forget these are the same Republicans who’ve been attacking the president over the Central American asylum seekers also fleeing all sorts of violence and extreme poverty.
Fly the Fiendly Skies 0
SFGate talked with some flight attendants. What they learned about the conduct of passengers in these viral times is not pretty. A snippet:
We are not a civil society.
But we are a society of stupid.
Afterthought:
I see persons every day in stores wearing masks pulled down below their noses. I can’t help but wonder, “What the bleeding hell do they think they are accomplishing?”
I note that, in the past weeks, stores that once posted notices that masks for vaccinated visitors are optional have changed that to masks requested (or required) for all.
I find wearing a mask a small inconvenience in the face of the threat of death.