July, 2014 archive
You Have These Thoughts 0
If you are white, you do. I do–not nearly so often as I used to, but still occasionally–and I kick myself when I do because I know it’s my Virginia heritage and not my humanity talking.
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s Peggy Schultz has the guts to admit it. Do you?
After all, nothing is more American than racism.
Follow the link; read the rest.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Be polite at Mickey D’s.
The gun accidentally discharged, Phillips said, striking the man in the right leg.
Bordering on Vacuity 0
Jonathan Martin wants persons to say what they mean when they say stuff.
I asked candidate after candidate to define “secure,” and got more vacuous rhetoric. Why is that so hard?
Find out his theory at the link.
Facebook Frolics, Under the Dome Dept. 0
The Zuckerborg continues to assimilate.
The story goes on to explain that Nielson and Facebook say your privacy will be respected, you have nothing to worry about, oh, not at all, oh no indeedy-not.
All That Was Old Is New Again 0
Ruminating about a novel he read that included scenes from the War in Viet Nam, Dan Simpson concludes that the United States of America seems incapable of learning. A nugget:
(snip)
We should have learned a lot from the Vietnam War. It showed how ill-suited we are to engineer “regime change.” We signed on with a very corrupt, French-speaking Catholic minority government. When we tried to change horses to a series of generals, things got worse, not better. Vietnam also made it clear that pouring U.S. troops into a place like that doesn’t change the situation on the ground, and it eventually fractured our own society and wore out our own military.
“Compassionate Conservatism” . . . 2
. . . is an oxymoron, as Colbert points out (video below the fold because it autoplays).
Hate sells. Conservatism sells hate, and conservatives eagerly buy it.
For the life of me, I do not understand how hate became a “Republican family value.”
QOTD 0
Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
No mind is thoroughly well organized that is deficient in a sense of humor.
Stray Thought 0
If you don’t think that “Redskins” is a slur, consider the reaction if Dan Snyder decided to rename his team the “Washington Whiteskins.”
H/T Susan for the thought.
Glass Seeings 0
Michigan Republican operatives make spectacles of themselves.
. . . and persons who wander about wearing Google Glass wonder why they are greeted acrimoniously . . . .
Dis Coarse Discourse 0
Reg Henry considers the current state of American political discourse. His observations worth a read, though they are flawed by a gesture towards “both sides do it.”
Volume matters. Comparing a roar from one side to a whisper from the other is blatant false equivalence. When what is mainstream on one side is rare and isolated on the other, both sides are not doing it.
A nugget:
How many times are we told that “liberalism is a mental disorder”? The ones who email me this clearly think they are being so darned witty. Of course, they would never have come up with this, if talk show host Michael Savage hadn’t written a book with the same name as his contribution to the debasement of humanity.
Suffer the Children 0
In related news, Steven M. tracks down those responsible for spreading rumors that the immigrant children are a bunch of Typhoid Marys. It’s the usual bunch of wingnut bigots and fear-mongers.
Image via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.
Some Hope 0
From the Inky:
“Currently, the negotiations that are most promising would place the ship in New York,” Susan Gibbs, executive chair of the SS United States Conservancy and the granddaughter of the ship’s designer, Philadelphia native William Francis Gibbs, said in an e-mail. “We do expect that the ship will survive, but only if we continue to galvanize further support and build on the powerful momentum now underway.”
