Here’s Yawning at You

Tags

budget, corporate America, economy, fundamentalism, History, Middle East, slavery, space travel

It’s Saturday. Did you know that?

It’s cloudy, and gonna get really warm and not too much chance of any rainstorms. I’ve been up since the crack of dawn.

Crack of dawn. What exactly is a crack of dawn? Does that mean when the first itsy bitsy sliver of the sun crosses the horizon? If so, then I wasn’t. I have a hill to the east of me, so at best I can say that it was grey outside, lightening.

Okay, that doesn’t matter. I got a lot done already. Did a load of wash, folded and put away, changed the sheets, did dishes, and made 23 ( i do hate uneven numbers) crab rangoons which are freezing in the freezer (what else?).

I’ll let you know about the recipe when I fry up some in a week or so for some stir-fry. If they are good that is. I’m thinking I might try spring rolls next. The problem is, there are tons of this stuff in the freezer section of the supermarket, but so far the crab rangoon in every variety just sucks, and the spring rolls aren’t much better. So thus, the doing them at home. I shall, keep you posted.

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I was going to link up with a number of stories from Infidel753, but after reading down his roundup list, heck just go see them all. There are at least about eight that I would like to go read in full. He does an excellent job and you should have him on your reader anyway. He covers an extraordinary amount of material of all persuasions.

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Don’t know if you saw it, but Jon Stewart had Mikey the Huck on the other night, and grilled him rather well on his endorsement of pseudo-historian David Barton. According  to the Huckster, Barton, documents all his claims, so of course they must be true. Huck apparently isn’t aware that most any thing in the world can be documented. The trick is in how much validity you can give the source, and moreover whether you are taking sentences out of context (something that Barton does to excess).

Barton is all about the business of justifying a theocratic rule in this country, and at least PoliticusUSA suggests that he wouldn’t be opposed to a return to slavery. Barton’s colleagues endorse a form of slavery known as biblical slavery, and it is just as vicious as that perpetrated in this country pre-Civil War. A good read.

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Everybody’s got an opinion on the deal struck by the Congress over the budget. Most think the Dems got the worst, but I’m not sure. Others suggest that Obama masterfully got the better of the deal, protecting the EPA and PPH and NPR from proposed cuts. I’m not sure where I come out on all this yet.

I’m similarly distressed with the Middle East. We must agree, it seems to me, that we have failed in Iraq, failed in Afghanistan and frankly, we aren’t doing anything much right in the rest. Bahrain and Syrian continue to kill protestors, Egypt is in turmoil as the military tries to control the revolution. There is no end in sight in Yemen or Libya. Some days I think we should just come home and realize that whatever these people want to do, they must do it.

But then I reflect, that we may well not be us, had not the French helped us out in the Revolution.

I’m just so tired of strife and war and some days I just want to lament: “Can’t we all just get along?”

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A very interesting post at Eurozine about Yuri Gargarin, the first human to enter outer space. Believe it or not, on April 12, it will be fifty-years since that momentous event. This article traces Gargarin’s life and death, and how the Russian space mission has changed over the years, and how Gargarin has faded from memory.

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Roger Ebert weighs in on the one-percenters, those lucky few in America who have all the money, while the middle class merges into the working class, and those in the poverty column continue to grow. Worth a look at for sure.

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What’s on the stove: hamburgers, french fries, and coleslaw. It’s Saturday!

Related Articles

• Correcting the (historical) record: Jon Stewart debunks Huckabee/Barton ‘Christian Nation’ mythology (secularnewsdaily.com)
• Huckabee: ‘All Americans Should Be Forced at Gunpoint to Listen to David Barton’ (littlegreenfootballs.com)
• “Mike Huckabee believes that all Americans should “be forced at gunpoint no less” to listen to the lies and distortions of David Barton.” and related posts (theimmoralminority.blogspot.com)

I’ve Found My First Alien!

Tags

3/5 clause, David Barton, founding fathers, Glenn Beck, GOP, History, Michele Bachmann, Obama, Paul Ryan, revisionism, slavery, SOTU, teabaggers

If you see this woman (boy I know it’s a stretch), run, run, run for the hills. Michele (you like me, you really like me!) Bachmann is an alien. The TV show “V” is no lie.

Suddenly a pall came over Iowa, and I knew it had reached us. The dingbat from Minna-SO-ta, arrived in Iowa and ‘splained to us heathens the real news about our hiss-tor-ee.

You see, contrary to what you might have learned in high school, or perchance in undergrad school, slavery ended with the Founding Fathers. Yes, yes, surprised aren’t you? Wondering about that 3/5 clause? Trying to figure out what that dang Civil War was all about?

Michele, my ding-dong bell, tells us that the “founding fathers worked tirelessly, until slavery was no more”.

“It didn’t matter whether they descended from known royalty or are of a higher class or a lower class. It made no difference. Once you got here, we were all the same. Isn’t that remarkable? It is absolutely remarkable.”

Yes, and did you know this:

John Quincy Adams worked tirelessly, until slavery was no more too.” Except that JQA died like 15 years before the Emancipation Proclamation. Of which there was no need in the first place, since the FF had already eradicated it.

Yes. Silly old us. Dumb us.

Ms. Bachmann, while missing some of the finer points about black history in this country, also missed a few points about the early colonies. Last time I checked, Catholics, Jews, and Quakers, among others who were not of the Puritan persuasion, were not allowed to own property, run for office, and were often run out of the colony, if not hung. But “we were all the same.”

What is even more frightening, is that tons of the extremist right have risen up on their haunches to defend her, claiming her take is correct. Yes, these history and constitutional experts are just plain tired of black folk trying to gain all the sympathy. When will they stop complaining?

I guess Washington and Jefferson, just “sorta owned slaves” for their own good. There is a claim that Washington’s false teeth were taken from his slaves, and worse yet that James Monroe had 30 of his slaves executed for attempted escape.

I rather suspect that Ms. Nuttery has gotten her history from David (historian is a pretty word, I think I’ll call myself one) Barton, the religious ed teacher who now claims to know more about the history of our foundation than do legitimate scholars.

Barton is noted for quote mining letters written by various people in the original colonies all to prove that the country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, with a presumption that we were a Christian nation. What Barton does is take a scrap of truth and try to create an entire garment from it.

That’s where Glenn Beck got his novel and utterly disgusting “defense of the 3/5 clause.” Beck ingeniously claims that the 3/5 clause was a brilliant “first move to end slavery”

“. . .unless you know why they put that in there. They put that in there because if slaves in the South were counted as full human beings, they could never abolish slavery. They would never be able to do it. It was a time bomb.”

Except this is totally wrong. If the founders had wanted to end slavery, then giving them no value would have been the best they could do. The South wanted them counted 100% so they would have greater representation in Congress. Giving them 3/5 only encouraged them to import more slaves, thus to up their control, and thus ensuring that the institution would be retained.

This is revisionist history at it’s best/worst depending on which side you are on. Sadly, one has only to go to The Blaze.com to see the fruits. I have quoted here, commentors there who said exactly what is quoted here by Bachmann and Beck. These people find what they want to hear, they are never going to study any deeper, and frankly, they’ve been taught by Beck et al to distrust “real” scholars as nothing but eastern  liberal elites.

Of course it does no good to try to explain any different. Beck and company play to fear and gin up their troops to hate all the appropriate people: elites, liberals, blacks, Muslims, immigrants, and Democrats in mass.

Meanwhile Beck whistles a happy tune on his way to the bank to deposit more of his newly gained fortune.

Bachmann? It’s always hard to tell. Is she willing a willing shill or a duped dope? I’m not sure we will ever know.

Back at the ranch: The GOP is none too pleased with bobble head’s “tea party” reply to the SOTU. It was, so I’m told, BORING. Worse it conflicted with their boy Ryan’s equally boring response. You can get a fact check of her “facts” here, if you wish, but you can be assured she didn’t get many fact right. One might conclude that she knowingly falsified her claims.

If you missed it, Ryan basically hoped you had a short memory by claiming that “we are all responsible for the state of our deficit” since both sides did awful things. Forgetting I guess that under Clinton we had a surplus and after tax cuts for the rich, two wars unfunded, and a patient’s prescription bill that costs billions and was also not paid for, added to no regulation of banking, we tanked.

He then went on to basically say Obama was destroying America, and Republicans would set things right, without any specifics at all. Just a lot of veiled threats that if we don’t give the power to them, bad things will happen to your kids.

So much for “GOP Policy.”

And the beat goes on.

Related Articles

• Michelle Bachmann Founding Fathers Ended Slavery Speech (video) (nowpublic.com)
• Michele Bachmann Erroneously Gives Our Founders Credit For Ending Slavery (alan.com)
• Say What? Michele Bachmann’s Revisionist Musings (theroot.com)
• The skewering of Sal Russo (salon.com)
• Michele Bachmann Rewrites History, Says Founders Fought Tirelessly Against Slavery (towleroad.com)

What’s Up? 06/22/10

Tags

blogging, cake, dessert, History, hoarding, Marcus Aurelius, McChrystal, Military, Obama, online posting, paleontology, philosophy, Photography, psychology, racism, Recipes, slavery, teabaggers

If ya read upside down like Chimpy here, then you better go elsewhere. But I know you read just fine, so continue we will to  the bestest stuff I have found today in my wanderings through the Intertubes of information.

We have managed to have most of two days of no rain, and though threatening earlier, it’s sunning now. Not sure how long that will last.

Things are alleged to be getting all fired up again as evening comes on, when I shall be heading home from a meeting at church.

So without further ado, scan the following for anything that strikes your fancy. Where you fancy might be, I have no idea, and don’t mean to say anything untoward or sexually provocative or anything. As Vodka says, children read this blog. Keep that in mind. I believe in dressing appropriately at the computer. No skivvies if you are so enrobed. Get dressed before proceeding.

We start with a nice recipe for dessert, Mystery Mocha from Pioneer Woman. I’ve cut through all the pictures and gone straight to the recipe. It’s kinda like a lava cake, chocolaty and coffeey.

There is an interesting review of a biography of Marcus Aurelius at In Character. That might interest one person I know, but I thought it posed an interesting dilemma today. We all want so many answers to life’s questions, but we seldom seek the answers in philosophy, certainly not ancient Stoicism at least. We are more prone to the quick fix of self-help books. Perhaps a post might grow from this. . .who knows.

The Boston Globe has a really good article on the mind of the anonymous commenter online. The hard core make up about 1% of all online users.  Should people be required to use their names? What is happening as a result of the anonymity generally allowed? Are comments even a good thing at all? Read on and see.

In case you didn’t know, Blisterina does some outstanding photography, usually in black and white which I just love. Please visit.

Religious Dispatches has a good piece on the Tea Party and how it attempts to re-write history. Now we are to understand that racism really played no part in slavery. No, it was a conspiracy is all. Do read on. Providing “proof” that racists don’t have to feel guilty about their racism. Takes the cake doesn’t it?

It appears we may have been walking longer than we thought. Kin of Lucy the most famous of our ancestors, is older than she apparently. Lucy’s ancestor is called “big man” because he was between 5 and 5’6″  compared to Lucy who was a mere 3’6″ tall. As you would expect, not all agree, and that’s the fun of science isn’t it?

We hear about it more and more. It seems to be the new “in” thing to suffer from. I’m talking about hoarding. I think there is even a TV show that features interventions. Anyway, I don’t get people like this, but I find it all quite fascinating as well. There is a book out about it, and it is featured  at Huff Po. In our consumer obsessed lives, I can only guess it is on the rise.  It’s a sad and complex disease. The book looks interesting for sure.

Will or will not President Obama fire Gen. Stanley McChrystal? Most think he will, but David Quigg has a very different take, and one that is worth thinking about. Obama is smarter than the average President  after all.

And dat oughta keep you outa trouble today.

Republicans Must be So Proud

Tags

Congress, gay rights, GOP, immigration, Iowa, Latinos, racism, religious right, slavery, Steven King

No doubt there are rational Republicans around the United States. And no doubt those who are just wish Steven King would fade into the woodwork and blink into a black hole. He is an embarrassment to humans, let alone the Republican center, if there still be such a thing.

King it seems, thinks it best to alienate black voters much as he has gone out of his way to alienate immigrants, Latinos to be exact, and certainly gays.

You’ve heard me rant about him before, the sad excuse we have for an elected representative in the 5th district of Iowa, (far north west to be exact.). I’m finding it hard to understand how there could be enough deluded people in Iowa to vote for the jerk, but sad to say there is. Since we know that such things occur in other parts of the country, Iowa surely doesn’t stand alone, but it still is embarrassing to think one of your own political representatives is the laughing stock of the rational world. He is featured quite often on Keith Olbermann, “worst person of the week.”

The downward spiral of the GOP continues apace with King’s latest outrage. He stands alone as the sole person to vote against the House resolution recognizing that the Capital building was constructed in large part by slaves. Steve thought it “unbalanced.” Later he amended his defense somewhat. Somehow the civil war dead didn’t get enough coverage to suit him. And he assured Larry King that he had read nearly everything written by Martin L. King, and “agreed with almost every word.”

Yeah, sure, I believe that, and I’m sure you do too. This from a man who scores 100% from both the NRA and the various “family value” institutes around the country.

Whatever, the cipher on the butt of Iowa went just a bit too far with this latest ugly rant, and I decided that even though thankfully I don’t live in the 5th district, I’d send the Congressman a piece of my mind. I have included the e-mail I sent to him from his own little site. If you care to, send your own greetings. Just google his name with Rep. in front, and the first hit will be his congressional website.

 

Representative King:

Once again you have seen fit to embarrass the state of Iowa with your lowbrow politics. Refusing to vote to honor the work of slaves on the Capital is but the latest of your awful and ugly rhetoric. Your defense is as usual devoid of reason.

This is of course a pattern with you. Your racism is well known from the recent election in which you consistently referred to President Obama as Barack “Hussein” in an attempt to prejudice voters, to your unseemly depiction of immigrants as drug dealers, murderers and drunk drivers.

Your recent attempt to vilify our Supreme Court as people who should resign simply because you are unable to understand the basic legal rights of our GLBT communities, is just another of many such rants at everyone who doesn’t perceive the world in the strange and fundamentalistic manner that you do.

You claim to defend the unborn, yet support any and all treatment of prisoners held without trial or charge in this country.

You sir, are not only operating with insufficient brain power, but you have the sensitivity of a snake.

You can be assured that I will do all that I can to convince others to vote against you in your next election, through my blog. You are an embarrassment to the fine State of Iowa which has a fine record of supporting individual rights long before the rest of the country catches on.

I can only thank the good Lord that you do not represent me. I seriously would have to think about moving. I hear Alaska has need of a Governor. Why don’t you try up there. You’ve become the laughingstock of Washington and the media. Do us a favor and slink out of town.

By the way, I’m not some college liberal, but a 59 year old married woman in rural Iowa.

This letter will be posted on my blog.

Sherry Peyton

Amazing Grace

Tags

Amazing Grace, Great Britain, slavery, William Pitt, William Wilberforce

I guess the right thing comes along at just the right time. God is like that, popping up when you least expect him. Mired in my own black creation of life, I have been scratching frantically at habit and ritual to pull me back from the abyss that is depression. How little did I know. A movie made all the difference in the world.

We have basic cable and I’m not complaining. We find that most of the premiere movie channels rotate the same three movies all month anyway. The upside is that, in order to entice us to order, they periodically have a free weekend.  The Contrarian scours the channels and arranges to tape every movie we might enjoy. Sometimes there are a couple, sometimes a bonanza. We watched one of those captures last night, and I would like to tell you about it, and encourage you to watch it.

Made in 2006, it stars Ioan Gruffudd as William Wilberforce, known as Wilber to his friends. And his friends were powerful indeed. William Pitt, the youngest Prime Minister in British history was one of his closest friends.

Wilberforce lost his father at age 9 and inherited great wealth. He enjoyed himself for many years, and was generally an unbeliever, at least in Christ. Traveling Europe with a friend, twice, he finally came to believe. For a time, he felt that he should follow the religious life, but Pitt talked him out of it, as did his good friend and parson, John Newton.  He became an MP and looked for a cause.

Slavery became that cause. The movie is the history of how he and  a band of committed Englishmen over a long period of time finally rid Britain of that awful practice.

A couple of important facts I learned. One was that William Pitt was very much on his side in this, and eventually found a way for the anti-slavery group to prevail. The second, was that John Newton, Wilberforce’s great friend, was an ex-sailor and slave trader. He would do penance for his sin the rest of his life. Among his accomplishments was the penning of some 300 hymns, among them the famous “Amazing Grace.”

Watching the efforts of these men and women to rid their part of the world of this infamous practice really puts one’s own troubles in prospective. If you are unfamiliar with Ioan Gruffudd, you may remember him from Black Hawk Down or the mini series Horatio Hornblower which we very much enjoyed a couple of years ago. Albert Finney is also in the cast.

It’s a great movie, one worth watching. I’m sure you can find it at your neighborhood movie rental or Netflix.
If you would like to learn more about the extraordinary people represented in this film, please check out “Brits at their Best” a terrific site which has a marvelous essay on the entire fight to abolish slavery in the British Isles. It looks to be a terrific resource site on British history period, so do take a look.