2014 archive
Rugged Individualists 2
Teabaggery in a nutshell: Handouts for me, but not for thee.
Missing the Target 0
Ernest Hooper is optimistic.
A gun emboldens, so we end up with murders in movie theaters instead of an annoyed attendee changing seats.
He misses the point. There is an industry devoted to creating that mentality.
Gunnuttery has nothing to do with protection or rights. “Self-defense” is a smokescreen. The NRA (aka the “Firearms Marketing Group”) fosters the gun nut mentality, which is a weird combination of bone-chilling fear of Everyone in the World with a dash of High Noon, a hint of ED, and, in some cases, a dollop of sadism, so as to sell guns. Scaredy-cats are easy marks.
In gun nut world, fear is a marketing strategy.
Misnomers 0
If it has turkey instead of corned beef, it may be a thing, but it’s not a Reuben.
You won’t find me at that dive.
I’ll be at Elias, where a “Philly cheese steak” is a cheese steak and a gyro is a gyro.
Officers and Gentlemen 0
Tendaji Ganges has always known he had an unusual name.
Tendaji is a Swahili word meaning “hardworking.” But for many years, Mr. Ganges didn’t have any idea where his last name came from. Traveling around the country and checking phone books, he knew only that there weren’t many other African-American families with that name.
Then, a few years ago, he and his younger twin brothers, Kelly and Larry, were contacted by Kenneth Finkel, former executive at WHYY-TV in Philadelphia. That’s when they learned that they are likely descended from slaves who were captured off the coast of Cuba in 1800 by a Navy warship, the USS Ganges.
The captain of the Ganges sent the captured “cargo” to Philadelphia, where a judge decided that they had been illegally captured, and gave them into the care of the Philadelphia Abolition Society to place as indentured servants. Indentured servants were indentured for a fixed period of time (commonly seven years–my degree is in history, remember) at the expiration of which they were released from servitude. Many early immigrants came as indentured servants, working off the cost of their passage in a fixed period of servitude–not in servitude for the duration of their lives and of the lives of their issue.
The story points out that, as officers and gentlemen,
Most naval captains who captured slave ships would take them to ports such as Charleston, S.C., where they could make a handsome sum from selling the slaves as “salvage,” he (Marcus Rediker, a distinguished professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh–ed.) said.
Read the rest. Learn more about America’s original sin, chattel slavery and (the continuing sin) theft of labor.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Be polite in the “Shot Time II Bar.”
Their injuries are not considered life-threatening.
Sgt. Hunt said the man who had the gun has a concealed carry handgun (CCH) license and admitted to having several drinks while in possession of the firearm.
He also refused to cooperate with law enforcement, Hunt said. He was arrested for aggravated battery.
Drunk and armed–a combination which guarantees politeness.
“The Weed of Crime Bears Bitcoin Fruit”* 2
In a long and closely reasoned article, McGill University’s Reuven Brenner sees one possible redeeming aspect to BitCoins.
Follow the link for the full discussion. Summary cannot do it justice, especially as no one really understands how bitcoins work. Nevertheless, like any other fiat currency, bitcoins have value because (some) persons believe bitcoins have value.
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*With apologies to The Shadow.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Duck and cover.
Everybody Must Get Fracked 0
It’s the hot new thing.
“Hopefully by the middle of next week the fires will be out and if our plans go as expected, the wells [will be] capped shortly thereafter,” said Blake Loke, incident commander with Chevron Corp., which owns the wells.
Q. When Is Murder Not Murder? 0
A. When it takes place in Florida, where, if you are a white guy who kills a black kid, murder is only attempted murder.
“Vile” does not begin to characterize this.
To be clear, the problem is not the jury. The problem is Florida and its laws and the culture they reflect, a culture that exists not only in Florida, but in much of the rest of the country.
It is the culture of the “Lost Cause” (tell me again, exactly what cause was lost?), the culture of “black lives don’t matter,” the culture of white racism and white racists, the culture of Judge Lynch.
My words may be harsh, but no harsher than the reality.
It lives among us still, white racism, the legacy of chattel slavery and its rationalizations, of theft of labor, America’s original and continuing sin.
Downfield Coverage 0
The always excellent Bob Molinaro notes that the fuss itself is part of the fuss:
Chris-Crossed 0
Joan Walsh struggles to understand where Chris Christie got a reputation as a “moderate.” A nugget:
I think something baser is at work.
The media, particularly the Washington media, loves the horse race; they don’t care about the outcome. IF they report the truth–that the Republican Party has devolved into a coalition of the New Secesh and the American Taliban funded by robber barons–the spectators might leave the stands.
Like old-style horse-fixers, they disguise one of the horses so they can jack up the betting and have their photo finish.
The Write Stuff 0
Betsy Biesenbach does not regret the disappearance of “cursive.” A nugget:
Unfortunately, neither can I.
Afterthought:
When I was in first and second grades, printing was called “printing” and what today is called “cursive” was called simply “writing” and was just what literate persons did.* I wonder what effect giving “writing” a special fancy-sounding name has had in turning it into something mysterious and foreign.
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*The capital “D” gave me a fit for two years.
