What’s Up? 07/17/10

Tags

critical thinking, dogs, gay rights, GOP, homesteading, Johnny Depp, media wackos, off the grid, reading, right wing

It’s getting insufferably hot again today. It was tolerable yesterday, but today, is gonna be worse. Not as bad as Wednesday, but bad enough. We seem to get nothing but either rain or heat and humidity.

I’ve eaten more pasta salad than the state of pasta contains. Assuming that there is a state of pasta. Which you can or cannot assume depending on your state of mental acuity.

I’ve a late night treat in store for myself tonight. Johnny Depp was on Dave Letterman. The Contrarian taped it. Lucky me. Only fair. He got that chick Harmon the other night on some new cop show. He ogled. I saw him.

The Harmon chick (she was on Law and Order many years ago) is a self professed Republican. That is a strike against her in my book, but the Contrarian makes excuses. Men always do. When it comes to their nether regions that is. He taunts me by claiming that Depp is probably a closet teabagger. How stupid is that. He couldn’t be. I am not making excuses for my nether regions.

Anyway, I am willing to grant that there are a couple of actually decent Republican conservatives. I may not agree with them, David Brooks, and George will are good examples, but they aren’t flaming idiots either. She might be one like that. I don’t know.

But, granting that she might be rational in her conservatism, as much as that can be possible, given that conservatism is indefensible really, I wonder at her public admission of same.

I mean, given that with no effort I can list a good 35-40 over the top, crazy, certifiable, looney toon baffoonish examples of GOPism, wouldn’t you kinda keep it quiet if you actually worshiped at the foot of Alexander Hamilton? Who would voluntarily subject themselves to ridicule by being associated in the same party with the likes of Sarah, Rush, Sean, Michelle (2), Sowell, Sharron, Carly, John (2), Tom, David, ad nauseum?

These people are not right wing, they are batwing nutsos. Beyond the pale, not sane, blatantly racist hate mongers who all have no doubt still saved their white sheets far back in the closet. They are dispensationalistic, Armageddon welcoming, wild-eyed beasties of demon spawn. Yes they are.

Rational people liberal, middle of the road or conservative move carefully to the other side of the street when they pass. We frantically make the sign of the cross, toss salt, or invoke the spirit of Carl Sagan to ward off the evil eye that they represent.

So I just wonder about Harmon and people like her. It makes me suspicious that there is more to her and them than meets the eye. More like, maybe they are only cover, engaged in covert operations to infiltrate and make us feel at ease while their knuckle-dragging minions subvert the very fabric of space, time, and our way of life. It’s OUR WAY OF LIFE too your miscreant teasippers.

Something to think about.

Dusting myself off, and going on.

Speaking of reading. The Contrarian is an odd reader. When he gets his teeth into something, he almost grinds to a halt. The thing is, he rereads and ponders a couple of pages, sometimes for days. He may reread a chapter three or four times. I guess he would appreciate this link, to the wonders of slow reading.

The Contrarian live in the outback so to speak. It worked fine for a while. We are both 60 now, and it ain’t so fun any more. Going “off the grid” is I think, a young person’s gig. Unless you are wealthy enough to have all the accoutrements to make up for not having paved roads and flat yards, cable,  and all that rot. The LATimes gives you a slue of books about how to do it if you are so inclined. I do agree with the author, somehow, this is all Thoreau’s fault for making us think that this was sublime. It’s also called homesteading and “living beyond the sidewalks.”  Even if you don’t want to go full bore, these kinds of books often offer useful tips to save money and energy. And that’s always a good thing. As one of the featured books says, “it’s more about intent than location.”

Scientific American raises a challenging question: Are stray dogs vastly different in cognitive social functioning? A study suggests that they are not like your average pet. Also so quite interesting explanation of the human trait of finger pointing.

The right wing continues to aver that it is neither racist nor homophobic. That of course is not true. WorldNetDaily proves once again that it makes no pretence to “loving the sinner, hating the sin” in its anti-Christian hate mongering in the form of verbal assault on gays. RightWing Watch has the story, about the “comedienne” DJ Dolce and her rant of hate, featured in the “Christian” news site, WND.

And that’s enuf for now.