January, 2016 archive
The Candidates Debate 0
Elon James White, Imani Ghandi, and Aaron James Freeman comment on the Democratic debate and the superficial discussion of #blacklivesmatter.
A Stock of Laughing 0
Josh Marshall suggests that the Feds’ hands-off approach to the Bundy Bund is slowly revealing itself to have been prescient. A snippet:
In the last week alone, the militiamen have made headlines–not for forcing the government’s hand on federal lands or helping free the Hammonds–but for throwing boxes of dildos on the floor in protest against the mocking mail they have been receiving, for getting arrested after allegedly driving an official refuge vehicle into town to get groceries, for ransacking government files and for using government computers.
With each odd incident, the media and the public gets more insight into the individuals holed up at the wildlife preserve and their puzzling and incongruent motivations.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Politeness: It’s just one of those things, one of those crazy things . . . .”
Detectives with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office are working to answer how did this happen.
Maybe it was another of those magical guns that fires itself? The cops ain’t saying.
Dis Coarse Discourse, He’s a President, Not a Dictator Dept. 0
Have you noticed that folks who talk about what President Obama hasn’t done almost never mention what Republicans have been doing?
Chris-Crossed 0
Mike Kelly considers Chris Christie’s State of the State quite revealing–not about New Jersey, but about Christie. A snippet:
Some people return, carrying old burdens and wounded memories. Others return to revel in some measure of glory.
Still others return with a re-invented narrative – a view of their past that is not even remotely grounded in reality and, of course, a view of their future that seems equally misguided.
This is Chris Christie.
Follow the link for the bill of particulars.
There’s an App for That 0
Let the snaring economy automate your life. (Warning: In questionable taste.)
Light on Lumos 0
At Science 2.0, Brandon T. Bisceglia tries to shed some light on Lumosity. Reacting to the FTC’s levying a significant penalty against Lumos Labs, Inc, Lumosity’s owner, for false advertising clams, he takes a critical look at that advertising.
He is not impressed.
A snippet:
The company has long used scientific terms in a dubious manner to increase its cred among potential customers.
(snip)
But Lumosity’s pitch goes beyond this (that is, in the vernacular, that practice makes perfect–ed.). Its central argument is that its regimen of simple games is broadly transferable to other skills, and that those games are better than other forms of activity.
Seen in this light, the company has a tougher row to hoe. In real life, we don’t suggest that learning to ride a bike will make you better at driving a car.
If you want to learn to drive a car, you drive a car.
Full Disclosure: I got no dog in this hunt.
TPPing the Economy’s Front Yard 0
The president of the Maine Nurses Association speaks out against the TPP and it’s protection of the corporacracy. A snippet:
Monopoly pricing protections for giant pharmaceutical firms in the Trans-Pacific Partnership could be a death sentence for countless patients in need of affordable medications around the world.
(snip)
This agreement is an all out assault on not only health and safety but also on the democratic rights of the American people to pass public protections. It’s another reminder that the pharmaceutical industry and other corporate lobbyists, who wrote many of these provisions, continue to dominate and corrupt our political system.
An Arresting Tribute 0
Life imitates art and gets punished for it.
“A Nation of Immigrants” 0
Leonard Pitts, Jr., speaking of Nikki Haley’s delusional response to the State of the Union address, in which she said, “When you’ve got immigrants who are coming here legally, we’ve never in the history of this country passed any laws or done anything based on race or religion.” Here’s a list from his article:
The Naturalization Act of 1790, which extended citizenship to “any alien, being a free white person … “?
Or the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, whose title and intent are self-explanatory?
Or the Immigration Act of 1917, which banned immigrants from East Asia and the Pacific?
Or Ozawa v. U.S., the 1922 Supreme Court decision which declared that Japanese immigrants could not be naturalized?
Or U.S. v. Bhagat Singh Thind, the 1923 high court ruling which said people from India – like Haley’s parents – could not become naturalized citizens?
One more time: The history of American immigration laws is a narrative of canonizing racism, and the lies Americans tell themselves does not change that. The willingness of Americans to gainsay their history, though, says much about the human desire capacity for denying reality.
