December, 2016 archive
And Now for Something Completely Different 0
A little Ernie Kovacs seems a fitting end this screwy year.
Festival of Frights 0
This is your country on Trump.
There are dark days ahead, my friends.
Afterthought:
The local rag had before and after pictures. Someone went to a lot of effort to be hate-full.
“It Was Joke, Son, a Joke” 0
Tony Norman marvels at the ability of those who get called out for racist remarks to discover suddenly that they were just trying to make a funny.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
The hunt for politeness continues . . .
. . . as yet another gun fires itself.
The gunnularity approaches apace.
Twits on Twitter 0
Trudy Rubin, who is currently touring the Far East, notes that twitting twits cannot be equated with diplomatic diplomats. A snippet:
Nor do tweets convey toughness to the Chinese.
Indeed, Trump’s modus operandi is more likely to provoke Chinese retaliation than produce a great deal.
Do read the rest.
Afterthought:
The inherent weakness of relying on the Bully’s Pulpit as one’s go-to strategy is that, when you meet someone who won’t be bullied, just what the heck do you do next?
Flagging Interests 0
Writing at The Roanoke Times, Halford Ryan wonders what would be the results were the Sons of Confederate Veterans and similar groups admit to themselves, as well as to others, what the Confederate Battle Ensign, to which they vow such fealty, stood for. (Oh, they know all right. They know also that admitting that they know would be really bad PR.)
In a related story, Badtux muses on how the South never stopped rising again.
QOTD 0
Studs Terkel:
Afterthought:
He died almost a decade ago. One wonders what he would say today.
Twits on Twitter 0
Afterthought:
I find it amusing when persons try to explain that events clearly founded in racism really aren’t racist after all because, well, they won’t believe their lyin’ eyes..
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
Still nicely under 300k.
(snip)
The four-week average of claims, a less-volatile measure than the weekly figure, fell to 263,000 from 263,750 the prior week.
The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits climbed by 63,000 to 2.1 million in the week ended Dec. 17, the highest since Sept. 10.
Light Bloggery 0
I got me a case of the miseries (as my South Carolina grandmother would have said).
Posting will be sporadic for their miserable duration.
Echoes of That Thing You Did 0
Elie Mystal explains that you can have no expectation of privacy from your Amazon echo. A snippet:
