May, 2017 archive
Brain Drain 0
Words fail me.
Robin Attas, an assistant professor of music at the school near Burlington, says her husband, Nicolás Narváez Soza, who is from Nicaragua, and their children have endured a number of incidents that made her family feel threatened and unwelcome.
More at the link.
Wall of Lies 0
Trump’s is a reality show presidency in which unrelated clips are edited together in an arbitrary manner so as to create an appearance of things that are not. For example:
I sometimes wonder to what extent NBC and its various “Apprentice” series should be held responsible for creating an appearance of this thing that is not: that Donald Trump is competent, capable, and coherent.
Via C&L.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
As Rogers and Hammerstein remind us, gun nuts have to be carefully taught.
A 39-year-old Detroit man in another classroom was struck in both legs.
The Missing Piece (Updated) 0
The reason Republicans are so determined to repeal the ACA, which they chose to dub “Obamacare,” is quite simple.
They cannot stand that the Black Guy did it.
Via Job’s Anger.
Addendum, Later That Same Day:
Josh Marshall comments on ACA repeal passing the House (emphasis added):
That’s the Iron Law: the ‘GOP moderates’ will always cave.
More at the link.
Afterthought:
In order to have a “crisis of conscience,” you must first have a conscience.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
A polite society is a clean society.
He told deputies he had cleaned his gun, then turned off the lights and placed the gun on the night stand when it went off, striking him in the leg.
47 Years Ago . . . 0
. . . American soldiers turned their guns on American citizens exercising their First Amendment rights to protest one of America’s wars for a lie–not for the first nor for the last time.
I learned about it when one of my friends came into the Campus Center (aka Student Union) at my college and said, “They’re killing us.”
The Art of the Con, Free Market Fantasies Dept. 0
At the San Francisco Chronicle, Kristin Luker skewers some of the “free market” fantasies with which Republican dress up their attempts to deny health care to the citizenry.
Here’s the list; follow the link for the discussion (emphasis in the original):
- Fantasy No. 1
is the idea that people shop for health insurance just as they shop for peas.
- Fantasy No. 2 is the idea that the patient is the consumer. No. The physician is the consumer . . . .
- Fantasy No. 3 is that health care is an individual matter. This is nonsense — all health is public health.
Denial Is Not Just a River in Egypt 0
Paul Krugman tries to understand Trump voters, who, so far at least, still support him and, indeed, according polls, think he’s doing a hunky-dory job. A snippet:
Now think about what it means to have voted for Trump. The news media spent much of the campaign indulging in an orgy of false equivalence; nonetheless, most voters probably got the message that the political/media establishment considered Trump ignorant and temperamentally unqualified to be president. So the Trump vote had a strong element of: “Ha! You elites think you’re so smart? We’ll show you!”
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Be polite at home.
I do not wish to sound like a quibbling old pedant (even though I am all three), but, as a handgun does not have consciousness, everything it does, it does “unintentionally.”
Without consciousness, there is no “intent.”
Methinks the wording of these reports should more accurately cast responsibility.
Facebook Frolics 0
You, too, will be assimilated by the Zuckerborg.