August, 2017 archive
Droning On 0
Boys and their toys . . . .
The pilot landed the plane safely without needing to take evasive action, according to a newly released Federal Aviation Administration report. But the Jan. 23 incident, one of at least 27 pilot-reported drone sightings so far this year near Bay Area airports, highlights the growing problem drones pose to airports.
Follow the link for the full article; the problem is much greater than one would think. Over the past two years, there have been 3,000 such incidents in the U. S.
Southern Heritage and Southern Hypocrisy 0
My local rag looks at a monumental concomitance (more at the link):
Up to 25 people were auctioned at a time. The Norfolk crowd was usually a small group of traders with offices down the street, looking to buy slaves they could ship down to New Orleans at a big mark-up.
Once in a line, their clothes were stripped off so they could be inspected. Families were often split up.
These slave auctions were held steps away from where the city’s Confederate monument now stands, and a stone’s throw from jails where slaves were kept, historians say.
It’s largely the same story for two other prominent Confederate monuments in South Hampton Roads, although experts say the extent of the region’s role in the slave trade has been largely forgotten.
Shush.
Listen very carefully.
You won’t hear the folks who glorify gracious living in the Old South talk about this, even though it was the foundation thereof.
Ugly Americans 0
Leonard Pitts, Jr., points out the uncomfortable truth: “No, we are not ‘better than this.'”
Recruiting Posers 0
Addendum:
As of today, there are conflicting reports as to the web location of The Daily Stormer. TPM reports that it has moved to the Dark Web. My attempt to connect to several variants of its name at a dot-ru address yielded a 404.
As I said earlier, I wouldn’t explore the Dark Web on a bet. It’s not that the Dark Web is all bad–it isn’t–but it’s not worth it to me to learn what’s safe and what’s not.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Show politeness to the children.
The man allegedly walked toward the boy in the middle of the street and said, “Hello.”
The boy said, “hello” in return, reports say.
The man then lifted his left hand from behind his hip, exposing a black handgun, and pointed the weapon at the boy, according to Novak’s account.
The boy said the man pointed the gun at him from about three feet away and that he feared for his life and peddled away as quickly as he could, the incident report says.
The police have picked up the polite pointer.
All That Was Old Is New Again (or Is It?) 0
In an interesting counterpoint, the Bangor Daily News includes two syndicated articles from the Washington Post. One looks at parallels between today’s American fascists and those of the 1930s, while the other argues that there’s something different about today’s American fascists.
I think they are both correct, because the authors are coming at the issue from two different perspectives. One is focusing on the genesis of the fascist resurgence, whereas the other focuses on its essence.
Check them out and see what you think.
Tales of the Trumpling: Snapshots of Trickle-Down Trumpery 0
This is your country on Trump.
“It was just something stupid that we thought would be funny, but it didn’t turn out to be funny at all,” the boy told Fox 13 Memphis. “It wasn’t supposed to be racist.”
Limitations of Statues 0
Thom talks with a caller who asks, if Confederate statues come down, is Mt. Rushmore next. Listen to Thom’s response.
Cloudflareup (Updated) 0
Cloudfare pulls its services from the Neo-Nazi website, The Daily Stormer, even as the Cloudfare CEO expresses qualms about his power to do so. A snippet:
“The Daily Stormer site was bragging on their bulletin boards about how Cloudflare was one of them and that is the opposite of everything we believe,” (Cloudflare CEO Matthew–ed.) Prince said. “That was the tipping point for me.”
Still, Prince said he was not comfortable with the way he exercised his power, describing his choice to withdraw services from the Daily Stormer as arbitrary.
“It was a decision I could make because I’m the CEO of a major internet infrastructure company,” he said. “Having made that decision we now need to talk about why it is so dangerous. No one should have that power.”
Follow the link for more details and for the rest of Prince’s quite thoughtful musings on his own action.
This action makes The Daily Stormer vulnerable to DDoS attacks, which can knock it off the internet. (There is nothing particularly sophisticated about DDoS attacks; they work by overwhelming a site with so many hits that the site eventually becomes unable to respond. In other words, they knock on so many doors so rapidly that the website can’t answer them all and runs away to hide under the bed.)
Addendum, the Next Morning:
In a larger article about the pushback against America’s Neo-Nazis, TPM reports that The Daily Stormer has moved to the Dark Web because it can’t find a hosting provider.
Addendum, Later That Day:
There are other reports that The Daily Stormer now has a dot-ru (for Russia) domain. I have been unable to verify this, and I’m damned sure not exploring the Dark Web.
All the News that Fits 0
Mike muses on Trumpled TV. (Warning: Language.)
Playing to Base Desires, One More Time 0
Alfred Doblin savages Donald Trump’s response to events in Charlottesville, Virginia, noting that he demonstrated that he values his rabid, bigoted base more than his country. Here’s a bit:
No mention of white supremacists. Later, during a press conference held at his golf club in Bedminster, the president said, “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides.”
Many sides? There aren’t many sides to hatred, bigotry and violence, only one side: the wrong one.
Afterthought:
It appears that the resurgent racist right is receiving a reaction that it did not expect.
They are certainly not gaining new followers, and I suspect the push-back has taken them aback. If not for them, Confederate monuments that have been or are being removed in many cities the past week would likely still be standing and still be relatively uncontroversial, by which I mean, images in the background of day-to-day life, not issues in the foreground.
This is in no way to downplay racist right’s danger to the polity. Stupid, hate-full, angry men (and it’s mostly men) with guns (and nuclear codes) are inherently dangerous. Rather, it is to point out a tiny little ray of sunshine peeking through the thunderclouds.
Whether the clouds will break is a whole nother issue. So long as the Southern Strategy Republican Party maintains dominance via voter suppression, gerrymandering, and other dirty tricks, optimism escapes me.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
. . . and a polite society is a clean society.
Police responded to the 1300 block of Bush Street around 11 p.m. after a man called and said he was cleaning his 9mm Glock handgun and accidentally shot through the floor of his apartment, Oceanside police spokesman Tom Bussey said.
Guns and stupid, guns and stupid,
They go together like love and Cupid.
This I tell you, brother,
You can’t have one without the other.
The Inherent Violence of Supremacist Ideology 0
In the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Chris Johnson argues forcefully that the recent violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, traces back directly to the influence of white Southern culture and the racism in which is was conceived and which still undergirds far too much of it. Indeed, he goes so far as to posit that white supremacy (and, by extension, any ideology of supremacy), is inherently violent. Here’s a bit (emphasis added):
Such an ideology is inherently violent, because someone who thinks that way is not going to tolerate “just getting along” with those he views as inferior if they are granted equal treatment under the law. Supremacists view that as a source of grave injustice. And a sense of injustice has always been a motivator for violent acts.
Victimhood 0
Aaaah, did ooo’s ittle for profit law school go bust?
Afterthought:
My brother and I agreed yesterday that, if all you have to support your self-esteem is the color of your skin, you don’t have much.