September, 2014 archive
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Politeness is requisite around the family table.
If One Standard Is Good, Two Must Be Better 0
Keith Boykin considers gunnuttery, as second-amended. A nugget:
But when a 22-year-old black kid named John Crawford picked up a mere BB gun in a Walmart store in Dayton, Ohio last week, customers called the police, who then shot and killed him.
Here lies a racial disparity that’s difficult for honest people to ignore. How can black people openly carry a real gun when we can’t even pick up a BB gun in a store without arousing suspicion? The answer in America is that the Second Amendment doesn’t really apply to black people.
Via the Progressive Populist.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
The hunt for politeness.
While attempting to get across a fallen tree, Helvey accidentally discharged his .22-caliber rifle into his shoulder, authorities said.
I’m Old Enough To Remember When “Wolf Whistles” Were Acceptable 0
Recently, a kerfuffle broke out about men “cat-calling” women, with persons clearly incapable of thought defending the behavior.
Here’s some thought: Gina Barreca discusses the all-too-routine public harassment of girls and women for being. This nugget sums it up:
It can’t look like you’re twirling a strand of your hair or something like that, because that might be seen as cute and then you couldn’t expect anybody’s sympathy even if you were abducted and forced to live on a farm with Todd Akin.
Edu-Fads 4
Thoreau tries to understand the reason for the fascination with STEM (I think that means science, technology, engineering, and math). He poses several possibilities. Here’s just one:
Drinking Liberally Norfolk Tomorrow 0
Drinking Liberally is a gathering place for liberals. Socialize and laugh in a friendly atmosphere.
When: 6 p., Tuesday, September 9.
Where:
Uno Chicago Grill
5900 Virginia Beach Blvd
(Janaf Shopping Center) (map)
Tuesdays for Norfolk, Thursdays for Virginia Beach to make it easier for persons with commitments on either day to catch at least one per month.
Gunnuttery Would Have Dismayed Krafft-Ebing 0
Jim Wright delivers another gem of a post, this one on ammosexuals. A nugget:
Read it. Read it all the way through.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
No-fault politeness.
“After extensive interviews and in consultation with the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office, detectives have determined this incident to be a tragic accident,” police spokesman Gene Lepley said Saturday of the death of Geonna Bradley.
Picture This 2
Leonard Pitts, Jr., tackles the recent theft of pictures of well-known actresses and models. I have a few quibbles with some of what he say, but he speaks reasonably.
He starts by considering that men like pretty pictures–that’s biology. Then he moves on to the theft.
Which is precisely what’s wrong, creepy, slimy and profoundly distasteful about the hacking of those files and the posting of those pictures. Jennifer Lawrence didn’t make that choice. Nor did Kate Upton, Kirsten Dunst or any of the other women whose unclothed images were stolen by unknown hackers and splashed across the Internet on Labor Day weekend by celebrity gossip Perez Hilton (he’s since apologized) and two popular message boards.
Let no one argue the women never should have taken the photos in the first place or entrusted them to digital lockboxes. To do so would come perilously close to blaming the victim for her own misfortune, something with which women who were raped were once (he should have “are,” not “were once”–ed.) all too familiar.
The Stay-Out-of-Jail-Free Card 0
The resident curmudgeon at my local rag, in the light of the Regent’s fall from grace, offers hints to help pols stay out of jail.
Every one is a gem. Here’s one:
Rule No. 4: Remember you’re not royalty.
This is especially important for governors. You’re not the King of Virginia, and your daughters are not princesses. If they’re planning to marry while you’re in office, give them the wedding you can afford without begging favors and freebies. Virginia’s taxpayers provide their chief executive and family with a stately mansion. Everything that happens there looks classy. If money is tight, toss some folding chairs on the well-manicured lawn and serve barbecue. Guests won’t care if they eat off paper plates. They’ll be able to tell everyone they were invited to the governor’s daughter’s wedding.
Nor Any Drop To Drink . . . . 0
Collateral damage:
At least there’s enough water left for skinny-dipping.
Barely.
Lupin Lodge, the clothing-optional resort in the parched wooded hills above Los Gatos, is perilously close to running out of water. So close that it’s landed on California’s official drought-watch list as one of five community water districts forced to haul in weekly truckloads of H2O.
Bare facts at the link.
Working Stiffs 0
The Tampa Bay Times’s John Romano considers the minimum wage. A nugget:
The minimum wage debate is not a simple one. Neither side has a monopoly on the facts.
Supporters of raising the minimum wage could cite studies from California-Berkeley and MIT that suggest higher pay means a healthier economy. Critics could produce their own studies that warn a higher minimum wage could result in a smaller workforce.
Meanwhile, a generation of workers tries to decide whether it’s better to skip the electric or water bill this month.
Moore, 27, has been working at a Burger King in Hillsborough County for nearly a year. He took classes to get necessary food service certifications and was promoted to a shift manager two months ago. He gets up at 4 a.m. six days a week to catch a 4:30 a.m. bus in his slacks and tie so he can reach Burger King by 5:15 to begin setting up for the day.
His hourly pay?
It is Florida’s minimum wage of $7.93 an hour, he said, the same pay he was getting when he was hired.
Meanwhile . . . .
Boys Being Boys? 0
Werner Herzog’s Bear posts another in his continuing and only slightly tongue-in-cheek series exploring white pathology. It’s his effort to debunk what he describes as “the false narrative that the pathologies of black people are what’s to blame for their economic and social inequality in American life, not systemic racism.”
A nugget (emphasis added):
Please do read the rest.
