Oh No She Di’nt. Oh Yes She Did

Tags

children, Entertainment, Individual Rights, Media, sex, violence

One thing you cannot call me is a prude. I grew up in the 60’s where it was sex, drugs and rock and roll for goodness sakes. We reveled in turning on and tuning out. We dabbled on the edges, at least most of us, and a few sadly jumped off the mountain and died young.

So, don’t say, oh go back to your knitting old woman, this is the new generation. We were all the new generation at one time, and the roaring twenties had nothing kiddies to do with lions.

But even I have to come up short once in a while, and ask. . . . “Really? Haven’t you gone just a bit too far here?”

And I’m not even talking about the occasional “over the top” display of boobs, vaginas, or exploding heads with sprays of blood in every direction. I can even buy that some of this is “necessary” to convey the true horror of the event, time, or business as usual attitude.

I’m talking about the constant one-up-man-ship that seems increasingly necessary in order to capture and keep the attention of the average person.

The danger is never that one single act of viewing will so warp the mind that it will forever impact the life of the viewer. It is so much more than that. It is numbing if the mind to the point that we are becoming more and more desensitized. What used to shock no longer does.

And it happens rapidly.

Just last evening I was bemoaning once again that we have started to watch Breaking Bad when it first started and then for some reason, bailed after a couple of episodes. The Contrarian gently reminded me that the reason was “the violence”. Wow. We had stopped watching Breaking Bad for the same reason we ceased watching the Sopranos?

Yet here we were watching Hell on Wheels and Copper, and The Following. We had avoided Dexter, but were watching  The Bridge which treated us to bodies sawed in half and side nudity and some good simulated sex to say nothing of the same in Copper.

We had, in a word, become desensitized.

And we are technically now “old people”. We have some ability, one would assume, to separate real from simulated, and reality from fantasy. How does one attribute such abilities to tweens?

When three young fellows decide to kill a person because “they are bored”, we have probably reached the point where reality is no longer recognized as much different from the latest edition of Grand Theft Auto.

I will be the first to admit that the jury seems still out on how much all this has to do with changing the minds of our youth. Reasonable psychologists do disagree, but it cannot be a good thing that we treat violence and the ugliness of exploding bodies a good thing. It cannot make us a kinder, gentler people. Certainly we can agree on that.

It seems to me one thing to blow up star ships even though we ignore that they are filled with hundreds of living beings, and quite another to blow off two-thirds of the face of a man as they recently did in an episode of The Bridge. The fact that it’s not “real” is hardly comforting to young minds. Hell it’s not comforting to me.

It’s now the norm in my household to avert one’s eyes, yelp in shock, and yell out, “they could have warned me!” at the gore that is de rigueur for most cable shows these days. Have you learned to turn away as the crazy person raises the gun to their own head yet? We sure have.

Now, you can argue that we are just watching lousy crap, and that may be true enough. Still, some of these shows are compelling in showing us a bad side of our own history. Hell on Wheels may be often too too graphic in its portrayal of blood and gore, but we do learn that how freed slaves were treated in the real world in the Old West, and how women used their bodies to make a living, and how everybody used and abused the Native people as needed. The were alternatively “saved” and massacred as time allowed.

Which all brings us to Miley Cyrus and her “act” at the MTV Awards the other night. First I did not watch it, but I have seen the video. Anybody who breathes has heard of it no doubt and the jury is split into “what a slut” and “who the hell cares?”

Women seem to care more than men, since it’s still true that women bear the major burden of raising children, and this shit scares them. Little girls, sadly, love these pop stars, want to dress like them and act like them.  Anybody who has seen Toddlers and Tiaras, knows only too well of what I speak.

One can speculate about Ms. Cyrus’s upbringing, her mental state,  and a host of other psychologically related issues regarding her and her idea of what is appropriate to do in front of cameras, but most of us would rather not have our children witness this behavior as something to emulate. Much as Ms. Cyrus may disagree, this is not the way you “prove you’ve grown up”. Rather it proves that you have a very very long way to go to reach that destination.

I’m the first to admit here that I have no answers to any of this. As you know by now, I don’t specialize in answers so much. I prefer to rant about what is wrong. You find the answer. I’m busy rooting out the problems. And this is a growing one it seems to me.

The business of simulated sex is just not necessary it seem to me. I find it impossible to almost ever conclude that it is “necessary” to a faithful honest portrayal of the character of incident. We can all figure it out without all the grunts and groans and the “yeah baby, now” crap.

The violence? That has a better argument in some cases. I do think it’s important to see the ugliness of our history. Saying that people owned slaves didn’t have much effect until Roots showed us (graphically for its time) what it was to be a slave. The same for things like Amistad. As I have said, Hell on Wheels insofar as it shows the misery of life in the West while building a railroad, gives us a new appreciation for those that built this country. Not the Rockefellers and Carnegies, but the average people who lived out short mean lives doing the business of building.

But where to draw the line? Oh gosh, I don’t know where to begin to set the standards. And perhaps that is the reason we have so little in the way of standards. Where is free speech, art, and individual freedom in all this? All I know is that we have gone too far it seems to me.

Related articles

• Not Just a Whorehouse: Female Representation in Hell On Wheels (rookerville.com)
• Miley Cyrus: White Trash Never Looked This Bad (thoughtcatalog.com)
• Breaking Bad is brilliant (catherinecrilly.wordpress.com)
• Breaking Bad Contest: The First Three to Die? (thomaspluck.com)
• Top 10 most bad ass TV characters (angelomedici.com)

 

What Would Jesus Do?–Apply Only When Convenient

Tags

Christians, death penalty, fundamentalists, human rights, Individual Rights

I try not to go all Jesus on you, at least on this blog. And truthfully, I’m not really. I’m just trying to illustrate a point. Today’s discussion revolves around the death penalty.

The reason it came to mind today for me, is that Maryland’s governor, Martin O’Malley, recently signed a repeal of the death penalty bill, ending that state’s long association with murder by government, and becoming the 18th state to move to the side of life.

What is perhaps most interesting, or draconian, as you see it, is that at the same time, Florida moves to make the killing of its citizens more easy for the state to accomplish. Florida wishes all those on death row executed within 180 days of “a warrant being signed”–presumably from a valid conviction and sentence. This awaits the governor’s signature at a time that Florida ranks first in overturned death penalty cases, a stunning 24 people having been exonerated, since 1970.

When you look at a map of the country, it is easy to see that the 18 states who have abolished the death penalty, almost all reside in the north and east,  my own state of New Mexico being a happy exception. More and more, the killing is confined to the deep South, Ohio being the only exception to that rule. You can check out all the statistics in your state here.

In 2012, 140 countries had abolished the death penalty, 39 more have de facto eliminated it by not using it for a number of years. Fifty-eight still impose it, the US of course among them. Of the fifty-eight, there is not one single what we would call “modern” country, save Japan that does so. We are in the company of Syria, North Korea, the Congo, Cuba, Pakistan and Afghanistan with our penchant for murdering our own citizens. Only Iran and Saudi Arabia beat us in the numbers killed each year (China refuses to divulge such information and the numbers for them is thought to be in the thousands)

It confounds rational beings in this country that we continue this barbarism. In many countries, vigils are held at US embassies when an execution is imminent. Many countries will not extradite prisoners to this country because of its death penalty. Our claims about human rights violations are laughed at across the globe when we so viciously execute our own in the face of growing numbers of those later found innocent.

Yet we continue to do so, and it begs the question why? Why is the deep South, home of the Bible Belt, people by so many who advocate the death of their fellow citizens? Why do so-called Evangelical Christians, or Born Agains stand so steadfast for this legalized murder? How do they square all this with their manual of life, the Bible?

We can’t answer that question, because it is in fact unanswerable. These same people will argue that it is both right and proper for state legislatures to impose all kinds of controls on women to make sure that any fertilized egg is produced as a live birth. In fact, taking their arguments and legislation to its logical extension, absolutely nothing is “too far” when it comes to a fetus. They would allow for women to be imprisoned to insure that she is eating properly. They would allow for an investigation into the circumstances of any “miscarriage” to determine whether there was either deliberate or negligent causation of the loss.

They tell us that life is sacred, given by God. They say this of course, while we know that their interest begins and ends there. They are not generally willing to support that child once born. Many of them later will label that same child a “taker”, a 48%’er, a lazy, or other such appellation suggesting that they are unworthy of their charitable largess. And indeed they wish to reserve that right of “charity” to those persons deemed “worthy” as defined by them.

They engage in this ying-yang dichotomy of what God demands. God demands we preserve life at conception. God is ignored when in the guise of Jesus, He demands compassion and care for the least of God’s children. In the biggest effrontery of all, they accomplish this by proclaiming that God made his manual understandable to everyone, and therefore their self-serving interpretation is sacrosanct. They even have the gall to point to scripture for this proposition–beware of false prophets–everyone who tells them differently are of course the false prophets. It’s all neat and tidy.

However, the facts tend to get in the way. I offer the story of the adulterous woman from the Gospel of John, from Chapter 8.

The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. 5 Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, sir.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”

Note how the Scribes correctly state that the penalty for adultery is death. Stoning was never a punishment of pain, it was a death sentence. Yet Jesus precludes the use of the penalty, telling the woman to “go forth and sin no more”–an impossibility of course to any mortal human being. He forgives her. He in a real sense rehabilitates her. He sends her forth to resume her life, hopefully with a new outlook and a better approach to community living.

Yet these fundamentalists who insist that there is but one way to read the bible, and that is literally, seem able, as is always the case with them, to manage to avoid the obvious literalness of this passage.

They are quite happy to merrily go on judging others and condemning them to death. They continue to usurp the right of God (from their previous logic) to control matters of life and death.

It is why they forever deserve not only our ridicule, but our condemnation as Christians. They are simply users of scripture to accomplish their own personal desires. As such their opinions carry no weight.

So just jump in and rant away good readers!

Are You Ready?

Tags

2nd Amendment, budget, cartoons, corporate America, CPAC, economy, filibuster, gay rights, GOP, Humor, Individual Rights, minimum wage

Have you been keeping up on CPAC, the GOP answer to absolutely nothing? It’s been a “business as usual” kinda thing so far. Trump gets up there and trashes Jindal, and babbles about himself and how great he is. Rick Perry says they have to reach out to Latinos and is booed. Rubio says just because he supports traditional marriage doesn’t make him a bigot. (yeah actually it does).

My favorite was a clip from a “workshop” wherein a younger type white dude talked about being proud of his “demographic” (code for white supremacist) and claiming that the federal government was disenfranchising same, and that he thought his “demographic” had a great culture to be preserved.

When the moderator who was black, noted that Frederick Douglass sent a letter to his “owner” many years after he had escaped, and forgave him, the young man piped up and said, “for what? For receiving food and a home?” This was met with a couple audible gasps, but far too much applause. He was heard to utter under his breath, “we just need to go back to segregation.”

Yes, that’s the state of the GOP.

You have all heard the stories in the press. As the President and rational folks in the Democratic Party responded to the upswell of opinion that favored background checks for gun buyers and at least some restrictions on the types of guns available and large capacity clips, the gun stores have been doing a booming business.

It is now an undeniable fact that a significant majority of our fellow citizens are building up arsenals for the coming Armageddon that they are sure is on the way.

Given that these people are mentally unstable and delusional, it should come as no surprise that they actually think they can fend off the American military with their pretend assault weapons. They are so effectual against tanks and drones. What they do is pose a significant danger to the poor neighbors who unbeknownst, live near them.

No doubt you noted that the Dow has hit an all-time high. That is certainly cause for much celebration.

Business feels good about itself apparently. Business is good. During the recession they spent their money on ways to improve productivity with a smaller work force.

They were successful.

They aren’t hiring much because they don’t have to.

The fools believed that they were “job creators.”

They are profit creators dummy. Always were. The last thing they want to do is hire workers. Workers are much more expensive to keep than a robot riveter.

Yet the Right continues the mantra, and the kool-aid drinkers keep repeating it.

Need I say more?

The mantra for this one is that it depresses employment because business lays off workers rather than pay them a living wage.

Yeah, business is usually known for cutting of its nose to spite its face. I can just hear them now.

“Sorry Ms Customer, you will have to wait an extra 45 minutes for service. If you don’t like it leave. I’m not going to hire another worker at $10 an hour. So take your $150 dress and rehang it. I have principles you know.”

Yeah, I’m sure that’s what they will do.

Actual studies show they do lay off workers, for a hot minute, and then hire them back when, you know, they have more customers than their current work force can handle.

And guess what? That happens across the country. And guess what? All that extra cash earned by workers? It’s SPENT for goods and services, and that causes more demand, and more hiring. Amazing how that happens.

We’ve been hearing this whine for a long time from the Right.

And under rational and normal circumstances, it might just have some validity.

Of course it doesn’t have any validity today and everybody who bothers to be alive knows that.

Why?

Because Mitch McConnell will prevent any budget bill offered by the Democrats from reaching the floor of the Senate for actual debate.

He will filibuster.

He promised he wouldn’t do that.

He lied.

What’s new?

Forgive me if I’m not suitably impressed.

Rob Portman was against it before he was for it.

Seems his personal situation, impressed him enough to consider a change of mind.

Now, I’m glad that Portman has seen the light. I really am.

But as I said, forgive me if it’s just a bit too self-serving.

As a few have said, perhaps it would help if Portman woke up with a poor son, or a senior son. Maybe then he would be in favor of SNAP, and Pell grants, and Medicare, and well, you get the idea.

His hopes of being nominated are shall we say, in trouble?

It’s a glorious day here, with the high going into the mid 80’s. Sun is shining. Time to get busy in the yard with clean up. Diego is a messy boy. He has pieces of wood and bits of things he’s torn up scattered everywhere. To day nothing of poo. Saturday is poo clean up day.

I’m cooking my corned beef today in a slow-cooker kinda way, bathed in beer. I made a couple of loaves of soda bread. I made a white cake that I will trim with green lime frosting. Tomorrow when I get home from church I can make the colcannon. It’s a St. Paddy’s Day kinda meal!

Have a great one yourselves.

 

 

Yeah It’s Good For Some

Tags

corporations, drones, economy, Individual Rights, North Korea, Scalia, SCOTUS, wealthy

The Stock Market hit a new high.

Corporate profits are probably at all-time highs as well.

The people who do the work? Not so much.

Between 1979 and 2007 59.9% of gains in income went to the top 1%, 36.7% alone going to the top 0.1%. During that period, gains by the 90%? A mere 8.6%.

Productivity has increased since 1950 by 254%. During that same period, wages went up 113%, and most of that increase occurred by 1975. Productivity, on the other hand, has risen steadily and continues to rise.

The response of the corporate board room to the recession has been to find more efficient ways to accomplish their target goals. They devote their R and D to the purpose of creating a cheaper way to make their product. Cheaper never involves hiring workers. They would make their products devoid of human workers if that were possible. Machines don’t require health care benefits and pensions. They don’t need money devoted to safe working conditions and lunch breaks.

Don’t tell me, please that corporations are job creators. They are profit creators, and hiring is now the last resort to accomplishing that goal. That’s why Wall Street is doing so well, and yet the unemployment figures are still so high. It’s got zero to do with regulations or very little. It’s got very little to do with “uncertainty” about what the buffoons in Congress are going to do. It’s got to do with profit. There is no morality here. It’s not part of the capitalistic model.

Meanwhile, there was this farcical drama in North Korea.

The pity is that the media thought any of this worthy to report upon. Dennis Rodman is a delightful entertainer. As an intellectual, well, he leaves a great deal to be desired.

His “opinion” is about as useful as that of a three-year-old. And I like the dude. He’s had a tough life as a kid, and he’s managed to make a good life for himself. I give him credit.

Kim? Oh good lord, he never got spanked as a child, that is certain. And I’m not much for corporal punishment either.

But he definitely needed spanking. In fact he needs spanking now. He’s always in the middle of a tantrum.

And dude, find a new barber. That haircut is silly. Seriously.

It’s hard to judge this Supreme Court. I’m not sure if we haven’t had this kind of horror before, when the Court was filled with really nutty people who make a mockery of the Constitution.

The Dred Scot Court comes to mind. That must have been an awful one.

But it would be hard to argue that this one is close to the top of the list of really awful benches.

Scalia is an intellectual joke, playing word games about original intent of the Framers, when all it comes down to is his personal disgusting beliefs.

Calling the right to vote a “racial entitlement”. And then suggesting that instead of testing a law against the Constitution, he has a new job–doing the dirty work for Congress, meaning that Congress is too beholden to special interests and can’t do the “right” thing because it might cost them an election.

So Scalia to the rescue. Doing the “right” thing. What a douche.

Let me get this straight.

Some Republicans are all upset at the use of drones against US citizens.

Got that.

No Republicans ever raised this issue when Bush starting using them.

Don’t get that.

In American courts, EVERYone, citizen or not, is gets the same rights.

Got that.

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith is arrested in Turkey. He is moved from Turkey to Jordan (Turkey prohibits the extradition of prisoners to those few countries that still practice the use of the death penalty and we are one of THOSE countries) and then transported from Jordan to the US for trial.

Got that.

Republicans are incensed because he can’t be interrogated properly except at Guantanamo (he was interrogated by an elite force of experts in Turkey and talked to the tune of some 20 pages), and because he is a bad dude and has no right to the rights granted him in our civilian courts.

Don’t get that.

Morality sure winds a crooked course in the Republican mind. And incidentally, in a good many Democratic ones as well.

Just a word about something I care about.

I am now the Sunday morning cat adoption “cleaner” for Pet Smart. I do this through a local adoption group in my area called A.W.A.R.E. What I learned is that Pet Smart joins with local animal groups across the country to adopt out animals. That’s a good thing.

My job is to clean the cages, feed and water where these cats live, and to play with them as much as I wish while I’m there. This is done twice a day, seven days a week, all serviced by volunteers.

My only point here, is that if you are interested in adopting a kitten, think of them as a source. You are not getting a “kitten” mill animal, but one that has been rescued and needs a good home. Prices are typically $50, and all animals are already spayed or neutered and have all their shots. In some cases the animals may come from the local shelter. You will probably get a bit better animal, since these kittens get more socialization than those typically housed in shelters.

I have no agreements of any kind with Pet Smart or A.W.A.R.E. in return for these statements. It’s only because I care about the animals. Perhaps other pet stores do the same. I haven’t inquired.

 

Related articles

• Scalia Calls Voting Rights Act ‘Perpetual Racial Entitlement’ (crooksandliars.com)
• Why Scalia’s ‘Racial Entitlement’ Quote Is Even Scarier Than You Think (thinkprogress.org)
• Voting is no ‘racial entitlement,’ Justice Scalia (tv.msnbc.com)
• Dennis Rodman Puts The New Abnormal Into Absurd Perspective (zerohedge.com)

 

And They Don’t Even Know They are Crazy

Tags

Bryan Fischer, budget, economy, environment, Eric Cantor, global warming, Individual Rights, Islamophobia, Michele Bachmann, teabaggers

Imagine what THAT must be like? Being crazy as the proverbial loon, and having nary a clue.

I feel, in the name of good consciousness, I should have to tell ’em. I really do. It’s a moral thing. A person has a right to know they are not playing with a full deck.

Case in point.

Bryan Fischer, that homophobic/Islamophobic, all around provider of hate. He’s crazy. Batshit, Wonka, nutzo, drooling and showing us his nasty privates kinda crazy.

You don’t believe me?

Well, okay, I’ll prove it to ya.

In his radio broadcast of only yesterday, picklebrain Bryan talked about a Pew poll that said that half of all Muslims think of themselves as Muslim first and Americans second. Being no dummy in his empty skull, he fully admitted that Christians pretty much do the same thing, think of themselves as Christian first and Americans second.

Okay.

But when you are crazy as a 42-year-old male in Louisiana claiming that he is Napoleon Bonaparte returned from the dead, well then that gets interpreted this way:

 It’s not a problem when a Christian says that. For the Christian to say “I am a Christian first and an American second,” that’s what we all ought to say. Our ultimate allegiance is not to country, not to the Constitution, it’s to God and the Scripture. If you have to make a choice between the two, we must obey God rather than man.

But when a Christian says “I’m a Christian first and an American second,” the fact that he is a Christian first, he’s got devotion and allegiance to Jesus Christ means he’s going to be a better American. He’s going to be an asset to his country, he’s going to love his country, he’s going to become more fervent in his patriotism. His love for his country and for its traditions are going to deepen because those traditions are rooted in the soil of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Now if you have a Muslim, on the other hand, that says that – “I am a Muslim first and an American second” – look out! Because that indicates his ultimate devotion is to the Quran, it’s to Allah, it’s to Muhammad. It’s not to Jesus Christ, it’s not to the Judeo-Christian tradition, it is not to American values and American tradition and American history and American heroes – it is to Allah and Allah tells him to slay the idolaters wherever you find them.

So the more devout a Muslim gets, the more of a threat he becomes to America’s national security.

 And that dear friends, qualifies Mr. Fischer as being crazier than 95% of the patients in Bellevue.

♦

Case in point 2:

In 2004, Eric Cantor asked for federal funds to help his hurricane ravaged state. Some time after than, Eric (I am more important than John) Cantor, forget what little he ever knew. Sharing the common TeaNutz® drool cup, Eric the crazy CANNOT sing that tune in 2011. So it comes out, we want aid, if we can offset it with cutting something somewhere.

Cantor you can’t become Speaker that way. I think your constituency is already lookin’ about for a new representative. You’re not playing with even half a deck there Eric the Cant.

♦

Case in point 3:

Michele Bachmann. Oh hell, why bother. She’s too obvious, and let it not be said that I have no compassion for the crazy among us. It was God. . .No it was only a joke. . .No it was God. I’m lying, or I’m not.

♦

Case in point 4:

The TeaNutz®. They are most all of ’em crazy as seals at a polar bear party. I mean it. And if you don’t believe me on that one, than please go read wearerespectablenegroes interview with “Whiteness.”

It will all sound so eerily familiar to ya. And you will whisper for the men in white jackets with the funny jacket that has the strings attached to the sleeves, and the refrain, “they’re coming to take me away haha, heehee, ho-ho. . .”

♦

Case in point 5:

There is a squirrelly fellow by the name of Dr. E. Calvin Beisner, and he runs a “Christian environmental think tank”. Read anti-global warming. He claims that the folks protesting at the White House against the Canadian pipeline are “violating scripture” and are just publicity seekers.

How so you ask?

Why, scripture is quite clear:

“They profess to believe the Bible,” he points out. “Well, the Bible tells them that they’re supposed to obey the governing authorities unless those governing authorities either require them to do what God forbids or forbids them to do what God requires — and that has not happened. So they are actually disobeying scripture by doing this.”

Sumpin’ tells me that old Cal wouldn’t be singing that tune when it comes to go old “American” teabagger protestin’ now would he?

♦

And Case in Point, 6 and last but never the least of the crazies:

The US Congress, except for a few Dems here and there:

From Joe.My.God.

Whatever He said. . . .I Say the Opposite

Tags

1st Amendment, Bryan Fischer, creationism, David Barton, economy, God, GOP, Individual Rights, Iowa, Libya, Muslims, Newt Gingrich, revisionist history, taxes, teabaggers, theology, unions, US Constitution, Wisconsin

This is the GOP mantra, and has been since the day after the 2008 election. Whatever the President says or does or doesn’t do, they immediately say the opposite. It’s the last part that keeps getting them in trouble.

Latest case in point:

Newty (the garden slug) Gingrich just can’t make up his mind on what to do about Libya. When we were doing nothing, he was for the US to step in. When we did, he was against it.

He said we could take care of the whole problem with air-power. Until we used air-power then he said it was a typical politician’s error to think that air power solves all problems.

In the end, Newt admits that his answers to these questions are simply “responses to what the President does.”

Ya see Newt, when the president doesn’t do something, and you say he should, it’s really bad form to then say he shouldn’t have. And then before he has done something, don’t tell him how he should do it, because when he does it, and does it that way, you end up saying he should know better not to do it that way.

Is this an Alzheimer’s moment Newt? Or are you just the hateful vindictive, wannabe that we really think you are?

♦

Help! Infection alert!

Decontamination areas are being set up all over Iowa in anticipation of the likely bacterial infection set to enter the state.

Tomorrow gadzillions (make that a few dozen) really creepy and crazy people are set to have a day-long conference in Des Moines about who should be the GOP candidate. All manner of sleaze is attending, including M. Bachmann (crazy eyes), H. Barbour (racism is behind me), H. Cain (uncle Tom’s cousin), N. Gingrich (garden slug), R. Santorum (wontcha love me again?), J. Bolton (the stash is my cash), and well others.

All rational humans are urged to get a shower and take the recommended dosage of Tylenol to forestall bouts of insanity. Symptoms include itchy skin, double vision and the uncanny feeling that you’ve been hijacked by aliens. See a veterinarian immediately if you have any of the above.

♦

I just love ‘strict constructionists. You know who I mean, those folks that want our country returned to its Founding Father principles, the C O N S T I T U T I O N. Now what they actually mean by this is something you might not quite get, if you ain’t one of them.

Cases in point:

Bryan Fischer, AFA leader and all around hater of everything not white and fundamentalist, claims that the 1st Amendment right to freedom of religion, does not include any rights for Muslims, since the FF could not have had them in mind. Why we don’t know, but he says that we give them rights as a “courtesy” only.

David Barton, pseudo-historian and all around wacko nutjob who shleps for the GOP and it’s business elites, has explained that the Declaration of Independence is “nothing more than a list of sermons” which might surprise Thomas Jefferson. Further the Constitution was written directly out of the Bible, and that all leads up to the fact that Jesus was and IS against the minimum wage and well anything that corporate America doesn’t find conducive to racking up profits.

Sadly, people actually get in their cars, travel to auditoriums, sit their skinny butts in chairs, and listen to this drivel, rather than say, pop popcorn and watch Monty Python’s Holy Grail. I kid you not.

♦

Texas has been in the business of late in revising the history of the US of A, to reflect whatever it wants to be the truth. This is not news. Bill Zedler, Texas Rethuglian legislator, introduces a bill to make it “illegal to discriminate against creationists.” Yes, and next he plans to introduce one that makes it illegal to discriminate against stupid people. In both cases that would be him.  [h/t to Crooks and Liars]

♦

Discover Magazine has an interesting article, entitled “Does the Universe Need God?” This is an excerpt from a larger article, and there is a link to that. This is a thoughtful reasoned argument, not the usual atheistic meanness that we’ve come to see from to many. I don’t agree with the argument, but I find it cogent and worth considering.

♦

Ever heard of William Cronon? I hadn’t. No reason I should. He’s a university professor at Wisconsin, and well-respected by his peers in his area of expertise, that being history. He recently did an op-ed piece in the NYTimes on the recent union issues in Wisconsin, and was critical of the Governor and Republicans who would try to take away long-standing collective bargaining rights of Wisconsin citizens.

Well, that pissed off the GOP, and it, the state GOP that is, has launched a legal action to get to his e-mails to uncover whether they can prove that he’s been active in protests. This all aimed to of course intimidate and discredit him. This is what I guess the GOP calls democracy. We call it Joe McCarthyism. How low can you limbo Wisconsin GOP? [h/t to Daily Dish]

♦

I know you all read Moe at Whatever Works, and I’m stealing this “entire” post, but she posts usually several a day, so please don’t miss her stuff. She does a great job of keeping us all aware of all the nefarious goings on, everywhere. But this is precious and so true:

“Other than telling us how to live, think, marry, pray, vote, invest, educate our children and, now, die, Republicans have done a fine job of getting government out of our personal lives.”
                                                         – Editorial Page, Portland Oregonian 

 ♦

It’s leftovers today!

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Get out Your Scarlet Letters!

Tags

Aid, GOP, Individual Rights, Minnesota, poverty, religious right, welfare

Americans have a long history of trying to set people apart and identify them as transgressors. In other words, the majority seems to enjoy segregating the “others” in some identifiable way.

We started off this fine tradition in the early colonies when people who erred in some fashion were pilloried, put in stocks, or ridden out of town on a rail. “Tarring and feathering”, public execution, and the like exposed and humiliated in the most certain terms those who dared to speak or act outside accepted norms.

In the South, branding of humans was done, much as we brand cattle today to define whom they belong to. After the outlaw of slavery, race specific laws were enacted to do “define” (as if color weren’t good enough) the places where some members of the American community could go, eat, rest, live, and be buried.

We continued the practice when these “laws” were outlawed, but an invention called, “defacto”, which simply means that we all agree (nod, nod, wink, wink) to not sell homes in certain places to people not like us, to not serve them, to shun them in a sense.

We liked doing this so much we extended the practice to brown and yellow-skinned people at various times too. Of course, we had learned all about this segregating practice early on in our history as we had systematically pushed and cowered Native Peoples into small tracts of land, always worthless to us.

This is not to say that other countries haven’t done similar things. Germany under Adolph Hitler found it prudent to make the Jewish people in their land wear a sewn Star of David, to identify them to all the “Aryan” masses.

In virtually every town and city, there are the people who live on “the other side of the tracks”. We like to know where they are, and low-income housing is often kept in “communities” of similarly situated individuals. It’s a way of being able to tell “who is who” you know.

Children when they misbehave are put into the “corner” in a class room, and in some cases made to wear “dunces hats” to further identify them as malcontents. Bullying is a fine time-honored practice instituted by young children to publicly identify to each other, those who don’t “fit the bill.” I guess they learn it from cartoons or something.

Interesting this practice is so enjoyed by some, that they become bullying bosses, bullying husbands and wives, and bullying parents. It makes a person feel just grand to go to sleep at night knowing they’ve put those who by size, position, or temperament are victimizable.

One thing some Americans don’t like is welfare. Republicans and the religious right have been against it for years. Words like lazy, and no-account are used. Republicans don’t like it because they are blatant in their desire to keep every dang penny they have ever made. “Mine, mine, my pretty!” they disclaim.

The religious right is just about as greedy, but they slyly look for a better excuse, because they know that the bible says that money is just filthy lucre. So they twist them scriptures up real perdy, until it means that Jesus was no socialist, and God only wants justice. Justice is of course, that people who are hard up through no fault of their own, should get a helping hand, and the rest, well they should just sit on the curb until dead and the garbage man can cart them to the landfill.

The other thing that Republicans say a lot, is that they purely hate “guvtment interfering in our lives.” Why it’s an awful thing that  Michelle Obama is trying to tell parents how to feed their kids, by pushing for healthier food in our  school cafeterias and such. Pure socialistic parenting. It’s downright offensive.

But, now when it comes to those lazy no good welfare mamas, well, the guvment better damn well interfere. Those people are takin’ that money and using it for things they have no right to have. Why, they buy drugs, and cheap wine, and cigarettes. They buy CHEETOS! And that is OUR money they are spendin’ and we’ll have none of it.

MinneSO-TA has got this fine bill designed to do just that. While there is some dispute about the “criminality” aspect, it seeks to disallow any recipient of “aid” from either getting the money in cash, or having it deposited to their checking account. They are gonna get debit cards, which can be used only in “acceptable” establishments, and they can’t get more than $20 more than the purchase, ever.

So they have to work out something with the landlord (most of whom want cash only), and some way to pay electric and phone bills. That’s their problem.

Dammit, why can’t they just die or go away or something. Or better yet, maybe they should wear a scarlet P for Poor, so everybody knows who they are, and can just say NO for ’em when they try to act like human beings and buy what they want, but what we don’t think they deserve or need. Yeah, yeah, that’s the ticket.

Crap, this country sucks sometimes.

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