“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Politeness just too big for one room . . . .
Guns and stupid, guns and stupid,
They go together like love and Cupid.
Let me tell you, brother,
You can’t have one without the other.
“Otherization” 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Pamela Paresky, explores the language of dehumanization and how it fosters an “us vs. them” mentality. A snippet:
(snip)
President Trump uses similar dehumanizing language. New York Times Correspondent Maggie Haberman noted that Trump’s terminology of “infestation” makes immigrants into insects. Using metaphors such as insects, vermin, parasites, garbage, and such elicits the feelings of disgust one has for those things and connects that emotion of disgust with the person or group of people described.
Suffer the Children 0
The cruelty just keeps getting more overt . . . .
Legacy 0
Faye Flam notes that some would call the current geological epoch the “Anthropocene”; she argues that they have a point. A nugget:
That’s no brag, because most of the changes we’re making to our planet are embarrassing.
We’ve caused huge shifts in the plants and animals sharing the planet with us, driven many species to extinction, left a layer of radioactive fallout from exploding nuclear bombs, accidentally changed the composition of our atmosphere, and left a layer of plastic that will in all likelihood still be around in a million years.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Exercise politeness upon the nation’s byways.
“Mad Men Doing Mad Men Things” 0
Mike discusses the fires in the Amazon rain forest. (Warning: Mike’s upset. There’s more language than usual. I don’t agree with everything Mike says, but I think his tirade is worth a fair hearing.)
“Soft Authoritarianism” 0
Werner Herzog’s Bear explains what that is.
Please follow the link to read his post. No excerpt or summary can do it justice.