September, 2022 archive
Clouds of Witless* 0
The stupid. It burns.
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*With apologies to Dorothy L. Sayers.
If you haven’t read Dorothy Sayers, today would be a good time to start. Murder Must Advertise is my favorite.
Twits on Twitter 0
Yet more hate-full twits.
“Social” media isn’t. Rather, it compounds the coarseness of dis coarse discourse.
Projection 0
Methinks Juanita Jean has a point.
Establishmentarians 0
Sam and his guest discuss the threat posed by Christian nationalist establishmentarianism.
Associationism 0
Here in Virginia Beach, local elections are by city charter non-partisan. In other words, candidates are not supposed to display their party affiliation (though I can attest that at lesast one candidate this year has displayed his party affiliation on a campaign sign, ensuring that I would not vote for him on a bet, but that’s another story) and candidates are not identified by party on ballots.
In a time of shrinking newspapers and superficial coverage of local elections in broadcast news, finding information about local candidates’ positions and policy has become increasingly difficult. Indeed, when candidates knock on your door, they sometimes become very vague when asked specific questions about their positions. (The particular candidate of whom I heard a first-hand account of such behavior turned out, natch, to be a right-wing nutjob.)
At our recent DL gathering, one of our attendees said that he practices what I would call “associationism” in trying to figure out who to support and, perhaps, more importantly, who to shun.
He looks at campaign signs in persons’ yards. If one of the signs endorses a candidate he finds repugnant, he considers that an indication he should look askance at the others represented by signs are in that yard.
Methinks he is onto something.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Yet more responsible gun owners . . . .
Guns and stupid, guns and stupid.
They go together like love and Cupid.
Let me tell you brother,
You can’t have one without the other.
Dis Coarse Discourse 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Dennis Clausen explores the toxic effects of violent rhetoric. Here’s how he starts his article; follow the link for the rest.
“The Politics of Pouting” 0
Daniel Ruth returns to the pages of the Tampa Bay Times to protest the pettiness and puerility of Florida’s junior Senator and Medicare fraudster. A snippet:
What an inspiration, Scott was, managing to find the time to pull himself away from the poop deck on a luxury yacht he happened to be vacationing on off the coast of Italy to castigate Biden for going to Delaware, which is a mere 111 miles from Washington.
Courting Disaster 0
Al Franken calls out the sophistry of Alice Stewart, who has served in the campaigns of numerous right-wing politicians such as Ted Cruz and Michele Bachman.
Via C&L.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Once again, we are reminded that politeness is a family value.
If One Standard Is Good, Two Must Be Better 0
Solomon Jones is fed up with the rule of flaw.
Stray Thought 0
What I remember most about this date is not so much what happened 21 years ago. I was at work and, well, though we got some updates and the television stayed on in the break room, I had work to do.
No, what I remember most is the silence of the following days, when we stepped out in the smoking area and no longer heard airplanes, either approaching Philadelphia International right across the river from us or making their way to other destinations as higher altitudes.
That silence stays with me.