2017 archive
Translating Trumpery 0
Dick Polman tries to make sense of the language of Trumpery.
No excerpt or summary can do his article justice. Just read it.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
There’s a strange alchemy that seems to work only in the presence of copper.
Newton Fire/EMS confirmed treatment of a gunshot wound that night. The gun went off, inflicting a gunshot wound on one of the children.
Add lead, and “children” become “juveniles.”
Denial Is Not Just a River in Egypt 0
At Philly dot com, Professor David Livingstone Smith reminds us that Faulkner was correct when he said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
Silence Speaks 0
In related news, Josh Marshall points out that
The Shafts and the Spears 0
Elie Mystal explains the dangers of the enablers of evil, those self-styled “intellectuals” and pundits who provide the rationales for hatred and bigotry. A snippet:
The law can confiscate and incarcerate all the spear points in the world, but it’s powerless to do anything about the shafts. The shafts are protected, not by the Second Amendment, but by the First. And the white supremacists hiding in plain sight know that and celebrate that and dare you to challenge them. When you do, they slither up their Free Speech crosses and claim the “high ground.”
Ugly Americans 0
Drunk as a skunk, stupid as a rock:
The 41-year-old American, who was lightly injured in the attack, is now under investigation for violating the law against the use of symbols from banned organisations, Dresden police said in a statement.
(snip)
Public displays of Nazi symbols like the swastika or gestures like the “Heil Hitler” salute have been banned in Germany since the end of World War II.
The polizei are looking for the assailant, who faces assault charges.
Deconstruction 0
In the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Tony Norman argues that the upcoming HBO series, Confederate, has morphed from a what-if to a documentary. He maintains that current events make it clear that the South won the war.
I must quibble. The South did indeed lose the war.
The South won the peace with the deconstruction of Reconstruction and with the deployment of the myth (today it would be called a “P. R. campaign”) of the nobility of the Lost Cause.
Hood and Winked 0
Petula Dvorak puts the blame where it belongs. A snippet (emphasis added):
Except today, there are no hoods.
Donald Trump gave everyone permission to take those hoods off with his winks, nods and refusal to take a moral stand on racial hatred and intimidation during his campaign and during the first six months of his presidency.
In a related article, Austin Gonzalez, who was present in Charlottesville, calls out Donald Trump’s “many-siderism,” which, I reckon, is sort of like both-siderism on siderism growth hormones.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Gather ye politeness where ye may.
Police say the young man and a friend found the gun unattended in a city park. They took it home, and one of them accidentally shot the other.
Out, Out, Trumpled Spot 0
Dick Polman considers Donald Trump’s weaselly reaction to the racist terrorism by vehicle in Charlottesville, Virginia, yesterday. A snippet:
Of course, denying responsibility would’ve made him look even worse, because the sheer weight of the evidence renders him guilty as charged. Yesterday’s spilt blood is on his hands.
Read the rest.