Author's archive
How Low Can Trump Go? 0
Why, all the way to debasement, of course.
Abdicating the Common Good 0
There’s an excellent and entertaining science fiction book series called “Traders Tales” set in a future in which corporations own everything, including planets. (You can find the audio books at Scribl.)
It starts when the narrator’s mother, a college professor employed by the corporation that owns her planet, dies in an accident. As he no longer has a tie the planet, the owning corporation tells him he has to leave, thus starting his journey through space and the experiences that form the series. Refreshingly, the story focuses on day-to-day life aboard a space freighter, not on Star Wars-like war and adventure.
It is not a dystopian tale, as were Brave New World or 1984, but I always found premise to be creepy. Under corporate ownership, as under Republican governance, there is no such thing as the common good; there is only mammon.
Will Bunch suggests those days may be closer than you think.
“Sit Down and Shut Up” 0
The Portland Press-Herald’s Bill Nemitz comments on the gyrations of one Maine school district to justify banning students from participating in any protest against school shootings. A snippet:
(snip)
My guess is those kids would not consider gun violence political at all. To them, and to their still-grieving families and friends, it’s literally a matter of life or gruesome death.
Yet here we have Superintendent Rebar, following a hastily called meeting with the SAD 13 school board on Tuesday, twisting and torturing everything from the First Amendment to basic logic.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Be polite to the love of your life.
According to the man, after loading the gun he removed the magazine and went to pull back the gun’s slide to remove the live bullet. That is when the gun suddenly went off and the bullet traveled through the wall into the adjoining room where his wife was seated.
Had the wife been packing, no doubt she could have prevented this.
Just ask the NRA.
Afterthought:
The whole damn country is suffering from lead poisoning.
Bot Nut 0
Reg Henry waxes poetic.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Surprise your neighbor with politeness.
She says the gunshot turns out to have been accidentally fired by a neighbor, who was cleaning their assault rifle.
“There Are Lies, Damned Lies, and Then There’s the Trump Administration” 0
Warning: Language, and lots of it.
Profiteers of Misery 0
Part One.
Part Two:
Aside:
Brodock is quite correct about doctors’ not knowing how much health care costs. When I told my doctor how much one prescription he gave me cost, he nearly fell off his chair. It was almost 10 times the cost of an equivalent over-the-counter nutritional supplement. He okayed my using the OTC product.
Delta of Venal, Reprise 0
Jay Bookman calls BS on Georgia Republicans and their attempt to punish Delta Airlines by taking away an (unneeded–Delta is quite profitable) tax break. A snippet (emphasis in the original):
(Georgia Lt. Gov.–ed.) Cagle also writes:
“Being a conservative in America today means being ridiculed and belittled by many elements of the news media, Hollywood, and – increasingly – corporations who feel the need to take positions on social issues.”
Cry me a river, snowflake.