From Pine View Farm

“History Does Not Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes”* 0

Der Spiegel talks with Harvard Professor Steven Levitsky, who hears disturbing rhymes from the recent past. A snippet from Levitsky’s remarks:

What is striking about the first two months of the Trump administration is not that it reminds me of Viktor Orbán in Hungary, the Law and Justice (PiS) party in Poland, Narendra Modi in India or Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. It’s worse. Trump and his allies have been much more openly authoritarian than any of these figures. They are eagerly embracing authoritarianism. See, for example, the apparent enthusiasm with which they are refusing to comply with court orders and attacking justices.

I commend the entire article to your attention.
__________________

*Mark Twain.

Share

“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society’ 0

Yet another osymoronic “responsible gun owner” performs random acts of politeness.

Share

The Unwelcome Mat 0

Per truthout, foreign governments are responding to Donald Trump’s regime of mean for the sake of mean. A snippet:

“We have seen too many stories of citizens being pulled out of airport lines, and being fingerprinted and deported, as if they were criminals. Citizens being kidnapped to illegal detention by ICE…this is not the actions of a Democratic nation,” said Charlie Angus, leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party.

Share

QOTD 0

Henry George:

There are people into whose heads it never enters to conceive of any better state of society than that which now exists.

Share

Easter Yeggs 0

Mr. Newberger imagines what the White House Easter Egg Roll will be look like now that Donald Trump has put it up for sale.

Share

This New Gilded Age 0

At the Washington Monthly, Diana Moss explains that the trusts–the ones Teddy Roosevelt tried to bust–are back. A snippet:

In the markets where consumers spend most of their budgets, for example, single companies or tight cliques of just a few firms command outsized market shares and so are able to impose anticompetitively high prices, lower quality, and slow down innovation. For example, four or fewer firms have 70 percent market share or more in sectors ranging from warehouse clubs and supercenters to passenger car rental, passenger airline service, kidney dialysis centers, and breakfast cereals. Tight cabals of large food manufacturers control markets ranging from sugar to baby formula.

Share

The Cover Story 0

Title:  The Department of Gaslighting Efficiency.  Image:  Two guards on the rampars of a castle look down on invading army equipped with a battering ram.  Leader of the invaders says,

Click to view the original image.

Share

What You Don’t Know Can’t Hurt Them, Reprise 0

The Trump maladministration has decided that we don’t need no stinking library books.

Who needs books if you’ve got “social” media influencers?

Finish reading this post »

Share

Russian Impulses 0

At the Bangor Daily News, Dave Witham looks at Donald Trump’s behavior toward Ukraine and has a wonder:

Could one imagine the reaction of Americans if, after Pearl Harbor, Winston Churchill had urged President Franklin Roosevelt to negotiate with the Japanese rather than welcome the U.S. to the battle for democracy’s survival?

Follow the link for the rest.

Share

The Privatization Scam 0

And it is a scam.

You can voucher on it.

Share

This New Gilded Age 0

This dude has clearly never worried about where his next meal was coming from.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

Share

QOTD 0

Hector Berlioz:

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.

Share

And Now for a Musical Interlude 0

Share

A Notion of Immigrants 0

Texas A&M professor Andrew Dessler dissects the misdirection play.

Share

What You Don’t Know Can’t Hurt Them 0

Title:  New Mission Statement.  Image: Linda McMahon stands before the seal of the Department of Education saying,

Click to view the original image.

Share

Still Rising Again after All These Years 0

David decodes de code. (Warning: Short promo at the six-minute mark.)

Share

“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Another case of self-politeness.

There is one recurring common denominator in all these events.

The presence of a gun.

Share

“History Does Not Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes”* 0

Writing at The Philadelphia Inquirer, Andrew Sillen tells of hearing a most disturbing rhyme echoing from time spent teaching in apartheid South Africa. A nugget:

GOP rhetoric now incorporates the tool kit of despots: mythology, dissembling, demonization, hysteria, and loyalty tests. All are familiar, and the result of the same calculation made by much of South Africa’s white population: that democracy itself was an existential threat, and therefore in defense of familiar prerogatives, anything was fair game.

_______________

*Mark Twain.

Share

Vaccine Nation 0

The stupid.

It metastasizes.

Share

QOTD 0

Dick Francis:

Some are born weird, some achieve it, others have weirdness thrust upon them.

Share
From Pine View Farm
Privacy Policy

This website does not track you.

It contains no private information. It does not drop persistent cookies, does not collect data other than incoming ip addresses and page views (the internet is a public place), and certainly does not collect and sell your information to others.

Some sites that I link to may try to track you, but that's between you and them, not you and me.

I do collect statistics, but I use a simple stand-alone Wordpress plugin, not third-party services such as Google Analitics over which I have no control.

Finally, this is website is a hobby. It's a hobby in which I am deeply invested, about which I care deeply, and which has enabled me to learn a lot about computers and computing, but it is still ultimately an avocation, not a vocation; it is certainly not a money-making enterprise (unless you click the "Donate" button--go ahead, you can be the first!).

I appreciate your visiting this site, and I desire not to violate your trust.