2021 archive
Geeking Out 0
Debian Buster/Sid with the Plasma desktop on a Thinkpenguin laptop. The wallpaper is from my collection.
The Making Up of a Martyr 0
Michael in Norfolk considers the effort by Trump and the Trumpettes to turn an insurrectionist into an idol.
The Disinformation Superhighway,
It’s All about the Algorithm Dept.
0
David Neiwert explains. A snippet:
Follow the link for the full story.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Once again, someone left a young child in a car with a gun.
Thus ends another life in the NRA’s Garden of Bleedin’.
Irrationalization 0
Vaccine Nation 0
New York University’s Social Justice Lab tries to understand the right’s hostility to the COVID-19 vaccine and, more generally, its hostility to science.
They point out that there’s nothing new about it:
Elsewhere, Will Bunch explores the divide; you may find his conclusions germane:
I commend both articles to your attention.
The Fire This Time 0
Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! 0
Maskless Marauders have their day in court.
Misdirection Play, “Look Away, Look Away” Dept. 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Onnie Rogers discusses conservative’s current conniption over critical race theory; she argues that not talking about a problem, in this case, racism is not a way to deal it. The goes on to suggest that, at least to a degree, the conniption is a misdirection play. S snippet:
This move takes a giant step in the wrong direction.
(snip)
CRT does not teach children to be racist, nor does it teach them to hate themselves, each other, or their country. CRT meets children where they are, giving them the language and historical perspective to make sense of the racism they see today.
Nixon’s Southern Strategy Marches On 0
Thom examines the Republican Party’s strategy to flood the zone with excrement.
QOTD 0
Mary Roberts Rinehart, in the voice of Letitia Carberry:
You haven’t got much mind, or you wouldn’t change it so quickly.
Afterthought:
The more I listen to Mary Roberts Rinehart’s stories, the more impressed I am. She was an excellent writer who could turn a deft phrase.
Recommended Listening 0
The American Rivals of Sherlock Holmes.
This volume focuses on American mystery stories more or less contemporaneous with the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. Most of these stories are no longer remembered, but, if you are a mystery buff, like me, they are well worth a listen.
And Now for a Musical Interlude 0
This is a tour de force.
A Notion of Immigrants, “As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap” Dept. 0
There is much gnashing of teeth and flowering of fulminations over the desire of migrants from Central America to migrate northward, ultimately to the United States. Those who bemoan immigration, particularly immigration of persons with (ahem) darker skin and foreign accents, want them stopped, ofttimes forgetting that, a generation or two or three ago, persons who were already here wanted to forbid their own ancestors from arriving on these shores.
Aviva Chomsky reminds us that the United States is neither an innocent bystander nor a blameless victim in this current northward migration.
(snip)
In Nicaragua, the Sandinista revolution succeeded in overthrowing the U.S.-supported Somoza dictatorship in 1979. Somoza’s corruption and violence had alienated even Nicaragua’s business classes, and a broad popular front implemented a mixed economy promoting popular organization, land reform and the socialization of basic services. But the Reagan administration saw this and similar revolutionary projects in El Salvador and Guatemala as stalking horses for communism. It helped Central American elites and militaries to overthrow governments and crush popular movements.
Aside:
Last night, at our DL gathering, we were discussing how persons once derided as “not white,” such as Irish and Italians, have been assimilated into whiteness. We wondered what group will be next.