Culture Warriors category archive
Feel the Draft 0
Somewhere, I still have my draft card.
People of the Book 0
No, no, no. That other book.
Card-Carrying 0
Alexandra Petri plays Trump with her “woman card.”
I have been carrying one of these for years, proudly.
It is great. It entitles you to a sizable discount on your earnings everywhere you go (average 21 percent, but can be anywhere from 9 percent to 37 percent, depending on what study you’re reading and what edition of the Woman Card you have.) If you shop with the Woman Card at the grocery, you will get to pay 11 percent more for all the same products as men, but now they are pink.
Read the rest. Collect the full deck.
But wait! The card pays strange dividends.
States’ Rights . . . 0
. . . are a sometime thing.
Without taking a stand on the specific legal issue at at stake, I can still point out that some states clearly think that they are more equal than others.
The Politics of Peep Shows 0
Facing South examines businesses’ reaction to Mississippi’s “It’s Okay To Hate the Gay” Law and finds that they brought onto themselves.
But many of the companies objecting to the law had a hand in helping elect its sponsors and the governor who signed it.
In all, 24 companies publicly opposing HB 1523 either directly supported Bryant and state House sponsors via campaign donations, indirectly helped them by making donations to outside political spending groups that funneled money back into state elections, or both. In all, the anti-HB 1523 companies donated almost $14.6 million to help elect pro-HB 1523 politicians.
As you recall, Facing South found the same thing in North Carolina.
These businesses voted their pocketbooks with their pocketbooks and ended up sanctioning peep shows for pervy pols.
I Read It on the Internet . . . 0
. . . so it must be true.
The Pervy Party 0
In related news, there is no truth to the rumor that North Carolina and Mississippi are considering mandates that all private residences henceforth have separate male and female restrooms.
Meanwhile, Bob Cesca leads us to wonder whether Republicans are looking in the bathroom mirror and seeing their own reflection.
Image via Juanita Jean.
American Taliban, Making America a Pariah One State at a Time 3
The government of the United Kingdom warns LGBT persons to take care when visiting the United States. Here’s the story from The Independent:
“LGBT travellers may be affected by legislations passed recently in the states of North Carolina and Mississippi.”
“Before travelling please read our general travel advice for the LGBT community.
You can read the full warning at the UK government website.
This is the sort of stuff that, when I was a young ‘un back in the olden days, the United States Department of State would say about visiting, say, eastern Europe or Rhodesia.
Jesus.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
Shorter John Cole: General Sherman was correct.
“Because the Bible Tells Me So” 2
Tony Norman looks into his spam folder and explores emails from those who exhort him to base his voted on “Christian values.” What he finds troubles him.
Here’s a bit:
On the other hand, American Christians have the unambiguous example of a penniless, itinerant rabbi who exalted the poor, denounced the rich, healed the sick, embraced society’s outcasts and modeled a new way of relating to women, tax collectors, children, foreigners, religious authorities, lepers and those in prison.
None of these biblical values, as far as I can tell, is supported in the rhetoric of either Mr. Cruz or Mr. Trump. Both candidates embrace the politics of fear, the demonization of undocumented immigrants, rabid suspicion of foreigners, the expansion of the military for the sake of national pride, an unregulated economy that allows market forces to determine what’s best, a society where being armed with as many guns as one’s pride allows is the norm, a denial of environmental responsibility and a social ethic that exalts the rich while brutalizing the poor.
It has been my experience that those who most loudly proclaim their “Christianity” are the least to be trusted with anything. Trust them, and you end up hoisted on their Elmer Gantry.