2013 archive
His Name in Vain 0
Any fool can call himself a “Christian.”
Many fools do, even as they know not of what they speak.
It’s late. I’m tired. I’m old, and my outrage meter red-lined more years ago than I care to remember.
As my two or three regular readers know, I was raised Christian, Southern Baptist before Texans took over* and turned the Southern Baptist Convention into something I do not recognize.
This is no Christianity that I know.
I shall shut up now. I do not trust myself to still my rage.
________________
*Texas is one messed-up place.
“The ‘Knockout’ Game” 2
I’ve had an uneasy feeling about reports of the “knockout game” since I first heard them.
They sound too much like the “wilding” hoax of a generation ago, which led to a lynch mob-like conviction of five kids for something that they did not do. I see that Will Bunch also has qualms.
Chauncey Devega sees the stories of the “knockout game” as yet another in a long tradition of attempts to dehumanize Not White persons and dress them in menace.
I will not try to rewrite what he has expressed so well. Here’s a nugget:
(By the way, both as a trained historian and as a Southern boy who knows bigotry when he sees it, Devega is quite right–when nothing else works, or even when everything else works, bigots foment fear. Fear is their friend, their tool, their go-to weapon against good will. And now back to the nugget, already in progress . . . .)
Moreover, the way that the knockout game moral panic has been circulated by the news media is a very chilling echo of how race and rumor were historically used to incite white racial pogroms, spectacular lynchings, and other types of terrorism against African-Americans. Of course, there is an important distinction: the knockout game is an example of wanton street thuggery by criminals; the lynching tree and racial terrorism were rituals of mass white violence against innocent black Americans.
Follow the links–both of them. Read the rest(s).
Twits on Twitter 0
Reminder: Once the stupid is on the internet, it stays on the internet.
Black(hearted) Fridays 0
You Ain’t Seen N-N-Nothing Yet 0
In the Las Vegas Sun, Dan Thomasson wonders just how low television can go.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Be polite in Sunday service.
Flowood Police Department Lt. Ricky McMillian told the paper that the bullet lodged in the concrete floor and a woman was hit by the shell. WAPT also reported that “[f]ragments from the bullet shell grazed a woman nearby.” WJTV’s report said that the shell “barely broke skin.”
Jesus must be so proud.
Wars and Rumors of War 0
Tony Norman wonders why, amongst all the fuss about the phony “war on Christmas,” no one seems to care about the war on Thanksgiving.
If you’re looking for ways to engage your Tea Party-loving brother-in-law in an argument that actually means something, ask him what he thinks of the fact that several relatives and quite a few friends aren’t having dinner with their families because they have to work Thanksgiving shifts at Kmart, Target, Sears and Wal-Mart.
The last place you will find me on Thanksgiving is at a big box store, or any store, for that matter.
We are going to have a quiet dinner and take a nap, while being thankful we are not fighting crazed shoppers bent on acquiring this year’s must-have, next year’s must-donate.
Afterthought:
Perhaps the lack of uproar reveals what Americans truly revere.
Cooch and the Cuckoos, the Final Countdown (Updated) 0
The board confirmed that Herring won by a slim 165-vote margin, beating Sen. Mark Obenshain, the Republican candidate in the race.
In Virginia, there is no such thing as an automatic recount, but I expect that Obenshain will request one before the 10-day time limit expires.
Just imagine what would have happened if the Republican Party had gutted out just a few more votes.
Addendum, the next evening:
The forces of reaction and patriarchy never give up.
Finger-Pointers 0
Juliana Breines wonders why we blame victims and concludes that it’s selfish self-protection. A nugget.
Read the rest.
It Never Stops 2
A letter to the editor in my local rag calls out another liar.