Tags
Barack Obama, Calvin and Hobbes, Christopher Hitchens, Donald Trump, Entertainment, Extreme right-wing, GOP, Halley Barbour, Literature, racism, teabaggers, wacko right-wing media
“It’s hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” [Calvin & Hobbes]
Believe me, there are days I think like that.
Most of the time, I’m a mild-mannered pleasant enough woman, the one you meet here everyday. But some people and some things get my dander up, and I seriously wonder if the planet would not be a better place should they depart it. It’s then that I secretly almost wish that Hell existed.
I figure most people have their list. You know, the list of those who most certainly deserve hell and damnation.
I also figure that no two lists are probably identical.
That signal fact convinces me that I best leave the whole thing up to God.
My revenge then lies in witticisms, snarks, and acid-dripping sarcasm.
I tend to bow to those who do this well, even when I sometimes, mostly, or even always dislike their point of view on just about everything. Christopher Hitchens is one of those types. William F. Buckley was one. Gore Vidal is one.
Vladimir Nabokov famously said that he thought as a genius, wrote as a distinguished author, and spoke as a child. He was awful as an interview in other words. Martin Amis, writing for the Guardian UK, suggests that Hitchens is just the opposite. And for me, that is exactly true. His ideas are simply awful and knee jerk, he writes wonderfully, and he oratory is captivating and brilliant.
“The measure of an education, is that you acquire some idea of the extent of your ignorance.”
“A melancholy lesson of advancing years is the realisation that you can’t make old friends.”
Just a couple little gems.
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We groused here often about why so much of the working class in this country votes against its own economic interests in voting for the GOP. Up through 2010, the Rethuglicans have been successful in painting President Obama as “other” meaning other than a white man. They have called him a socialist, a communist, a dictator, they have challenged his birth, his patriotism, his religious affiliation–all this in an attempt appeal to the deep-seated and hotly denied latent racism present in America. PoliticusUSA has a fine piece on the topic.
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Oh by the by, we are 1-1 on our predictions so far. Halley Barbour has opted out of running for the Oval. I’m not sure more than three people took note.
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Oh, if you want a fun site with tons of Calvin and Hobbes quotes, I found this today. I am an unabashed lover of all things C & H, even named the ginger twins after ’em.
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It comes as no revelation to me that air traffic controllers are constantly falling asleep at the switch. Have you looked at those radar screens? What is there that would not put you to sleep? Which reminds me of what I thought was probably the most boring job yet created. A man who comes to work each morning, weighs himself on the company scales next to the assembly line, and then steps on a platform. As each set of bathroom scales comes down the line, he steps down on to it, checks its accuracy, and steps, back. He does this all day. ALL DAY!
I once applied for a summer job in a large building in downtown Flint, Michigan. The lady gave me a set of about 25 3-x5 cards and ushered me into a very very very very very large room where there were aisles and aisles and aisles and aisles of tiny file cabinets just the right size for 3-x5 cards. She told me to file the 25 in alphabetical order, and return to her when I was finished. (This was my “test”). I stood there, I looked at the first series of cabinets that rain A’s the entire length of the room. I turned, walked out, placed the 25 cards on her desk, and walked out without saying a word.
Got a “most boring job”? Let us hear about it.
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Trumpy is upping the ante, now wondering how a relatively poor and relatively stooopid little black kid ever got into Columbia and Harvard. The Trumpster ignores all the evidence to the contrary, merrily making evidence-lacking assertions that sound good to the airheads on the extreme right. No, they don’t sound good, it’s the stuff they desperately want to hear to justify what they really want to do, which is hate Obama without being accused of that pesky racism they do deeply harbor in their cold shriveled hearts.
Like his baseless assertions that the President might not be a citizen, again here, he’s “heard” it from someone that Obama was a terrible student, and he knows “lots” of kids with great grades and boards who can’t get in, so, well, it smells, The Donald alleges. And well, you hair smells too Donald, shall we conclude it came from another country?
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You may have heard that the Prez went to Sunday services on Easter. Well, the wackos on the extreme right had something to say about that too. Of course it was a “racist” church, where there were only “black” people and well, you get the drift. Chauncey De Vega gives his take on the “conservative media’s” assessment.
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What’s on the stove? Shrimp pasta with a lemon/wine Alfredo sauce, and coleslaw.
Existential Ennui 