Culture Warriors category archive
Thoughtlessness 0
If there is one thing the United States of America has done well, from internment camps for Americans of Japanese descent to HUAC to demonizing ladies named after an ancient Egyptian goddess to cowering at the sight of a child, it is to violate its stated ideals when it’s a-skeert, even when what it’s a-skeert of is based on a hoax.
Just look around. It’s the Land of the Fee and the Home of the Knave.
I am ashamed of my country.
American Taliban 0
Warning: Language.
Plus Ca Change 0
When I was a young ‘un, back in the olden days, my school district finally gave in to Brown v. Board of Education, a decision rendered eleven years earlier. (My county had not participated in “massive resistance”; its resistance had been quite passive.)
We “integrated” (this was in 1965) which meant that one very brave black girl (who I am certain was carefully chosen for toughness and resilience) from the black high school joined the white high school’s senior class; no white students moved to the black high school.* The next year, a few more black students joined a few more classes at the white high school.
This was known as “gradual integration.”
Proms and school dances for that and I-don’t-know-how-many subsequent years were then cancelled because one of them and one of us might dance together.
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*Many white students, though, were pulled out of the white high school to attend the new seg academy all-white “private” school.
By the by, whenever I hear anyone complain of “forced busing,” I will remember that I was forced-bused right by the black high school to the white one.
The Sounds of Silenced (Updated) 0
I have mentioned before that I believe that, generally,* complaints about “political correctness” are code for “I want to do and say offensive things without penalty.”
Addendum, a Bit Later:
Here’s another perspective.
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*Sure, there are occasional outbreaks of silliness; silliness is part of the human condition. Those, though, are insignificant compared to the daily blare of hatred, bigotry, misogyny, and prejudice.
The Blowback Strategy 0
I won’t pretend to understand the logic, if there is any, behind the attacks at Paris, but I am taken aback by the number of persons who do pretend to do so. At Gin and Tacos, Ed takes a stab at it, and, sadly, his theory has a sort of logic to it. I don’t know whether he is correct, but I do think it’s worth a read.
A snippet:
She’s Had Enough 0
Ronnie Polaneczky is fed up.
“People of the Book” 0
In the Guardian, Gayatri Devi suggests that persons who pound the Bible should take a break and read a bit of it. A snippet:
(snip)
Do fundamentalist readers hear the hope and humanity of the ark myth and connect it to the specter of poverty, suffering and degradation in the wastelands of our great nation? Or do they, like Bobby Jindal and Rick Perry, read natural disasters such as hurricane Katrina and the tornado in Joplin, Missouri, as God giving them the green signal for the Christian Right to take control of our government?
Intermediaries 0
Have you ever noticed that persons who claim that God has spoken to them always hear exactly what they want to hear?
Huckster on the Hustings 0
I must disagree with the commentator’s conclusion, to this extent.
I do not think Huckabee is out of touch. I think he’s in touch . . . with the Republican base.