July, 2017 archive
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
There’s no politeness like inadvertent politeness.
It might be wise for gun nuts to learn about how guns work.
The stupid. It burns.
Still Rising Again after All These Years, Self-Talk Dept. 0
In the midst of a longer article about Saturday’s KKK demonstration in Charlottesville, Va., Tony Norman points out, almost in passing, how the majority of racists and bigots lie to themselves. Only a minority vocally and publicly embrace their racism:
Tinsel Town Then 0
Part One:
Part Two:
Via Classic Arts Showcase. Visit the website to see whether Classic Arts Showcase is offered in your area. In our part of the world, it’s on one of the public service channels and is not shown in the TV listings.
It’s a delightful potpourri of music, dance, discussion, animation, art, and film. We don’t watch it every week, but we watch it frequently enough.
Life Imitates Art 0
Will Bunch looks at the latest evidence of the Trump family’s Russian impulses–the report by the New York Times that Donald Trump, Jr., colluded with Russian sources in the search for material to use against Hillary Clinton. Here’s how he starts his piece:
In related news, Josh Marshall muses . . . .
Crazy Uncles 0
Alan Caron likens Republicans to crazy uncles who find themselves suddenly in power. He draws an analogy:
The movement reminds me of that dog, in the neighborhood, that chases the bus every day, but never catches it. This year, they caught the bus, and they’ve clamped onto the bumper, but they haven’t the faintest idea what to do next. They’d rather go back to the chasing part.
Follow the link for the rest.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Show a polite hand.
When they arrived, police found Dotson with a single gunshot wound to his left hand.
If he had had another gun, perhaps he could have shot back at himself in self defense.
Still Rising Again after All Those Years 0
The Guardian covers Saturday’s KKK rally in Charlottesville. Here’s a snippet:
While not part of the group, he said he would be open to the Klan’s perspective they if spoke mainly in support of the Confederacy and expressed views “partial to the south”.
Read the chilling rest.
As Faulkner said, “The past is always with us. In fact, it’s not even past.”
QOTD 0
Jason Hughes (as DS Ben Jones): You’ve gone off gossip?
Neil Dudgeon (as Inspector John Barnaby): I think it should occasionally be seasoned with hard facts.
Personal Observation, Midsomer Murders, Season 14, Episode 2, Dark Secrets
Test Fire 0
Rekha Basu recently took the Iowa “concealed carry” test and qualified for a permit, even though she has never touched a firearm. She wrote of her experience in the Des Moines Register. Here’s a bit:
An Economic Perrytale 0
Rick Perry rewrites the law of supply and demand.
We are doomed.
Both Sides Not 0
Leonard Pitts, Jr., points out the “political polarization” in the United States has but one author. A snippet:
No, we are divided because one party did. And it wasn’t the Democrats.
Our political thinking being as fixedly bipolar as it is, many people will read the foregoing as an endorsement of the Democratic Party. It emphatically is not. Democrats are very often disorderly, disputatious, and downright dumb, not to mention stunningly bad at deciding and conveying what they stand for.
In other words, they are pretty much what they were 30 years ago. The same cannot be said of the GOP.
Follow the link for his reasoning.
Dude-Bros, Reprise 0
One of the most powerful weapons of rape culture for centuries has been indoctrinating victims, particularly women, to believe that, if they are abused, it’s somehow their fault, rather than the fault of the abusers. As our society has gotten more open about sex and sexual behavior (and, some would say, cruder), that may be changing. According the San Jose Mercury-News, women in tech have become more willing to expose the misconduct of tech dude-bros. Here’s a bit from a much longer article:
Sixty percent of those women report experiencing sexual harassment, according to “Elephant in the Valley,” a 2015 survey by venture capitalist Trae Vassallo and others of more than 200 female tech executives, founders and investors.
“It’s reached epidemic proportions in Silicon Valley, and there’s so much more that needs to be done,” said San Francisco-based angel investor Karen Bairley Kruger, who founded Wingpact to support female entrepreneurs and investors.