Month: December 2023

Little girl and her furry friend going for a ride..🐶🐾👧😍 pic.twitter.com/0uOcpZh1V3

— 𝕐o̴g̴ (@Yoda4ever) December 29, 2023

• Nan’s Notebook borrows a moral picture of Gaza: Who isn’t who.
   
• Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit suggests that, before we get righteous about Israel’s reaction to the savage Hamas attack of October 7, we remember our own post 9/11 invasions.
   
• News Corpse wonders about the newest impeachment charge floated by Republicans.
   
  Key skepticism:
  WTF? This charge boils down to the GOP asserting that Biden can be impeached for the high crime of talking to his son.
   
• tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors compares a current President and a once-upon-a-President, as both issue inspiring Christmas messages.
   
• Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged figured out what mr Trump wanted for Christmas.
   
  Seems he didn’t get it:
  
• CalicoJack in The Psy of Life introduces research into Status Quo Bias, how it helps mr Trump, and why there is still considerable hope for 2024.
   
• Max’s Dad reviews Republican nods to mr Trump’s Third Reichy poisoning-the-blood comments about immigration.
   
• Actually, mr Trump is not anti-immigrant. He is only against some immigrants. If you are from the right racial/ethnic regions, you’re okay. He’s been telling us that explicitly for a long, long time:

  Now, I say to myself, why aren’t we letting people in from Europe? I have many friends, many, many friends–and nobody wants to talk this, nobody wants to say it–but I have many friends from Europe. They want to come in. People I know. Tremendous people. Hard-working people. They can’t come in.

  Donald Trump at CPAC, March 15, 2013

  My grandparents came from Ukraine, so I suppose my mom’s side of the family might be relatively unpoisoned.

• The Palmer Report sees indications that Jack Smith’s case against mr Trump involves charges deeper and wider than previously thought.
   
• At The Moderate Voice, editor Joe Gandelman reviews the latest Nikki fumble, as she tries to think of what may have caused the Civil War, and rounds up internet reaction.
   
  Key insight from a well known historian:

  Any chance the Civil War had something to do with slavery?

  — Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) December 28, 2023

  
  My thought:
  

• Dave Columbo takes a look at Nikki’s look at how the base might look at the Civil War: It doesn’t matter what’s true, it’s how it makes us feel.
   
  

Continue reading “Gaza, Impeach, Merry Messages, Hitleresque, Nikki Civil, Tennessee 3”

In 1969, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency created Arpanet, which became the Internet.
 
God responded with Dave Dubya.
 
My loved one spent part of Christmas morning laughing at this exchange.
I spent the time repeating OUCH!.
 
On the Eve of Christmas Eve, I had posted my reaction to a Dave Dubya proposition:

Dave Dubya defends the term Democratic Socialism.
 
Key meaning:
It is defined by the ideal and application of a democratic republic based on fair elections and fair representation for its citizens.
 
Key exclusion:
It is NOT “Marxism, communism or fascism”.
 
I dunno. Although this entire blog loves Dave, his thought does remind me of arguments on how Defund the Police may sound like abolishing police but really means something different.
 
If a label or slogan means something different than it sounds to ordinary non-political folks, it may be wise to adopt a more accurate self-description.

Dave then committed vivisection on that post without anesthetic:

Burr,
 
After reading your remarks, I have reached an epiphany.
 
Appended at the post:
 
It would seem “democratic socialism” is too complex and scary as a concept for Americans.
 
Maybe it should be called “Liberalism”, or “progressivism”. Oh, but those terms have been demonized out of political discourse by the radical Right too.
 
I got it! “Universal Socially Applied Capitalism” or “USA Capitalism”. How does that sound?
 
Merry Christmas! And a healthy happy new year to you.

Key Question:
Is Dave even capable of non-entertaining thought?

Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson brings us this holiday cheer:
A commercial that is entirely truthful.

“It may damage your liver and your well-being” 😂 #DutchBarn pic.twitter.com/42VmZyizvB

— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) December 14, 2023

• Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara is an atheist who has no problem celebrating Christmas as a secular holiday.
   
  Key principle:
  The secular meaning of the Christmas holiday is wider than the tenets of any particular religion: it is good will toward men—a frame of mind which is not the exclusive property… of the Christian religion.
   
  Seems fair.
   
  Let’s include values, not restricted to, but central to, Christianity:
   
  Love for all humanity, care for the migrant, help for the homeless, those less fortunate.
   
  Values some of us in the faith seem too willing to forget.
   
  Our friend Infidel753 has a parallel contribution:

  

• In Happiness Between Tails da-AL shares a photo essay in praise of diverse Christmas figurines.
   
• PZ Myers suggests that maybe Japan does not yet understand Christmas.
   
• I missed this during the post-assault surgeries and recovery that still continues.
   
  North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz notices that when conservative public figures boast about their Christian values, they never seem to mention Jesus.
   
  I have a thought:
  
• Mark Waulberg (No, not Mark Wahlberg, the other Mark) offers wisdom on money and life:
   
  
• Vincent at A Wayfarer’s Notes finds inspiration in a bath towel, and translates for us the Book of Hebrews in praise of God and human potential.
   
• Nan’s Notebook has a gentle correction for us religious types with our negative stereotypes about atheists.
   
  Key theme:
  From my perspective, I tend to think this happens because those who believe in god(s) are simply unable to understand/accept that there are individuals who view life … As It Is.
   
• Disaffected and it Feels So Good plunges right into the legalities and reactions to Colorado bumping mr Trump off the ballot.
   
• Cato’s own Julian Sanchez knocks down a couple of reactions to the Colorado court decision keeping mr Trump off the ballot.
   
  One, from folks like me, is moral:

  Yup
  I don't like restrictions on voter choices.
  Not even that the Constitution restricts by age and birthplace.

  As a non-lawyer, I don't see a logical flaw in the Colorado decision, either in fact or in law.

  Trump did what he did.
  The 14th Amendment Section C says what it says.

  — Burr Deming – @BurrLand01@mastodon.world (@BurrLand01) December 22, 2023

  
  Julian clobbers that view:

  It’s like telling a business owner whose mobbed-up competitor keeps firebombing his stores “just beat him in the market.” No! The market is constituted by legal mechanisms designed to punish and exclude people who don’t play by the rules.

  — Julian Sanchez (@normative) December 21, 2023

  
  Second, also from folks like me, is practical:
  It’s a fool’s errand. The Supreme Court is stacked for Trump.

  If you want to say it’s unrealistic to hope the Supreme Court as currently constituted will do the right thing, by all means, that’s probably true. But don’t sneer at those who quaintly think our institutional checks against abuse ought to function properly.

  — Julian Sanchez (@normative) December 21, 2023

  
  It’s tough sledding to oppose Mr. Sanchez.

Continue reading “Merry Xmas, Pesky Jesus, Colorado Ballot, Michigan Tapes, Poison, Hitler”

I am profoundly encouraged after seeing the surgeon yesterday.

My right arm is still too weak for some tasks, but I can go without the cast and the sling.
AND I can begin doing a few of the things I couldn’t do before.

One problem with doing nothing is that you never know when you’re finished.

Typing is still a little difficult.

Here are a few links I simply could not list before.

• Green Eagle reviews the increasingly famous Colorado ruling that holds Donald Trump ineligible to become President Donald Trump.
   
  Section C of the 14^th Amendment says an elected state or federal office holder who swears an oath to support the Constitution then conducts or supports an insurrection, can’t hold federal office again.
   
  Included are a few dissenting arguments by Trump lawyers:
  • The 14^th Amendment does not say what it says.
  • The 14^th Amendment does not really mean what it says.
  • The President is not a federal office holder.
     

  Key reason the Supreme Court must listen to, and seriously consider, bad arguments:
  I know, hard cases make bad law and all that, but maybe dealing properly with this hard case is somewhat preferable to seeing a replay of Nazi Germany in our own country.
   

• Hackwhackers reviews social media reaction to mr Trump’s warning that immigrants who do not originate from Europe are poisoning the blood of our country.
   
  Apparently, word-for-word similarities to Hitler’s represent supremacist coincidence, not outright Nazi plagiarism.
   
• Max’s Dad reviews mr Trump’s neo-Hitler “poisoning the blood” words and the tepid response from Republicans.
   
  Is milquetoast a common description anymore?
   
• CalicoJack in The Psy of Life gets impatient with young Democrats who are impatient enough with Biden to stay home and, once more, let Trump become President.
   
• MadMikesAmerica documents the military takeover of New York Times.
   
  Yeah, yeah, it’s fiction.
  (Just seems more realistic each day)
   
• The Propaganda Professor covers the new trend in right-wing attacks on education: replace all this woke stuff about equality and rights with videos from a right-wing blog.
   
• Successful executives know it is important to let each member of an organization know they are important. At The Onion, a CEO prides himself on laying off every employee by name.
   
• Someone asks how capitalism concentrates wealth in the hands of the few.
   
  Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara has an answer: it doesn’t.
   
  He knows because he has driven through downtown areas and seen happy shoppers everywhere.
   
• Andy Borowitz finds an upside for the former Congressional member as George Santos is now able to spend more time with his imaginary family.
   
• Scotties Playtime brings the LGBTQ+ Holiday message we need to see.
   
• Frances Langum says it’s a huge deal as Pope Francis okays blessings of same-sex-marriage.
   
  Key moral imperative:
  …people seeking God’s love and mercy shouldn’t be subject to “an exhaustive moral analysis” to receive it.
   
• North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz appreciates the Pope’s inclusive language regarding LGBTQ people. He says it’s a step in the right direction, but also says it is not necessary.
   
  Key spiritual observation:
  Religion doesn’t get to decide what is sacred.
   
• YellowDog Granny has a few ideas on how to talk with Jesus and what to say to Satan.
   
• In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, Bruce examines the claim that the Southern Baptist Convention is growing by leaps and bounds. He discovers the opposite.
   
  Apparently, not everything we Christians say should be taken as Gospel.
   
• SilverAppleQueen is tired of, and done with, Biden, politics, and those of us who blog about politics. We will, of course, miss her.
   
• John Scalzi at Whatever remembers two movies based on the television series The Addams Family, and ponders why the second one, the less successfully popular, was better in so, so many ways.
   
  Has to do with letting loose (in a good way) a single scriptwriter.
   

[Note: Updated and revised since 2018.
As Christians, we should still be ashamed.]

 

The message seems so clear.

Why are so many fervent believers in the Christmas message unable to apply it to today’s world and much of the leadership of our own nation?

Continue reading “Herod, the Christ Child, a President, and Brothers and Sisters in Christ”

A few more blog posts that caught my interest.
 
Personal progress:
My medical condition continues to improve. My twice-a-week physical therapist pushes and measures and offers encouragement.
 
I’m meeting the surgeon again tomorrow.

• My long time personal friend, the very conservative Darrell Michaels back (Yay!) at Unabashedly American, makes a cogent case for abandoning the goal of a two-state solution in the Middle East.
   
  Darrell does tend toward rhetorical excess:
  • Palestinians become “Palestinians” with scare quotes
  • Protestors are now “protestors”
  • Michael uncritically accepts the stated Israeli government goal of destroying Hamas from the top down to the ground.
     

  Says my friend:
  Current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is correct and thoroughly justified in destroying every last Hamas militant still alive.
   
  While useful as an aspirational slogan, it is unlikely as a practical matter. Destroying every vestige of Hamas leadership is a more realistic necessity.
   
  Those of us who have not given up on a two-state solution should acknowledge that Oct. 7 pushed much further into the future that eventual hope for a secure peace.
   
  Darrell’s argument is worth the investment of a click and a read.
   
  A couple of my own thoughts:
  

  1/2
  I think unnecessary exaggeration obscures an important part of the legitimate case you can make.

  Israel is not committing genocide, unless we change the definition, and is not targeting civilians and children, but rather Hamas hiding behind them.

  We can accuse Israel of

  — Burr Deming – @BurrLand01@mastodon.world (@BurrLand01) December 1, 2023

  2/2
  We can accuse Israel of indifference to the suffering and death of innocents as they target Hamas.

  That is the case you ought to want to make.

  We should go on to condemn Hamas, who really do deliberately target innocent civilians, children, and infants then gloat about it.

  — Burr Deming – @BurrLand01@mastodon.world (@BurrLand01) December 1, 2023

  
  

  • The Palmer Report has a plausible theory on why mr Trump so frequently encounters breathlessly uncritical media coverage.
     
  • Rudy Giuliani triumphantly bullied two unsuspecting good citizen type election workers in Georgia, making their lives miserable for three years.
     
    Now Rudy is paying a high price.
     
    PZ Myers seems notably unsympathetic.
     
  • Disaffected and it Feels So Good goes to abortion rights, celebrating two women who declined to be victims, taking on the entire Republican Party.
     
  • Clickbait satirist Reductress warns that making fun of your millennial sibling may be all fun and games until you need help writing an email.
     
  • Mark Waulberg > No, not Mark Wahlberg, the other Mark, brings us Jim Carrey as a graduate of the William Shatner School of Overacting:
     
    
  • Sorry I missed this, although I have a great excuse. Margaret and Helen are back, with Helen inviting the family to a wonderful Thanksgiving, seasoned with a stern warning.
     
    Key warning:
    We might have had our differences in the past, but intolerance won’t be tolerated.

Still a little painful, but the physical therapist says I’m good to type with the replaced arm until it hurts enough to stop.
 
Main ethic:
It would be unfriendly to wake the neighbors with screams of agony.
 
So here are a few, too few, of the many insights I have enjoyed since the assault. I’ll try for more later.

• It’s always just below the surface, isn’t it?
   
  Tommy Christopher reports as Trump gets sandblasted for attacking “liberal Jews” for not supporting him.
   
  My reaction:
  

• Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged, is incandescently brilliant in her scathing reviews. Please read as she takes on NBC for the soft interview of mr Trump, with the faint gesture of a little after-the-fact fact-checking. The headline is a good intro: NBC Cleaning the Augean Stables with a Squirt Gun.
   
  Key free sample:
  He is a man I’m almost certain who watches himself with the sound turned off because the bare fact of his fame is enough for him. What he says hardly matters. He doesn’t want to be loved so much as he wants to be inescapable. Omnipresent.
   
  If I ever become a public figure and manage to tick off Vixen Strangely,
  all I want is a chance to apologize.
   
  Is that too much to ask?
   
• At The Moderate Voice, Donald Trump acknowledges that he intends to become a dictator, but only for one day. Retired U.S. Air Force Major Dorian de Wind says Hold on a damn minute, Sparky. Okay, those are my words, summarizing his message.
   
• When you’ve lost Newsmax…
   
  News Corpse watches and reports as Republican Impeachment chair James Comer barely survives the CNN interview as Jake Tapper makes fun of his logic. Then Newsmax (Newsmax?) tells him his investigation looks like a joke.
   
  
• Dave Columbo has a suggestion for news media, especially when interviewing Donald Trump: good old boring on air FACT checking, with a highly entertaining, high ratings follow up:
   
  
• The back and forth goes on. Lauren Boebert goes to sex acts, of a sort, during a family theatre production, and gets caught on tape.
   
  Shock jock radio personality Howard Stern criticizes her as a disgrace to this country
   
  Conservative writer Joseph Massey isn’t having it. He makes an interesting point on hypocrisy: applying a different standard to someone else than to yourself.
   
  I’m old enough to remember when Howard Stern sent an intoxicated dwarf to urinate on a large block of ice in Times Square that contained the magician David Blaine. The dwarf exposed himself in public. But Lauren Boebert is a “disgrace.”
   
  Sadly, Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez deconstructs Joseph’s entire point in just a few words:
   
  Almost like different standards apply to a radio shock jock and and a member of Congress. So weird.
   
• Immigration and border control are current hot topics, especially for conservatives. driftglass helpfully reviews recent Republican votes on actual funding.
   
• Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit notes that, along with widespread starvation in North Korea, there has been a marked increase in suicide. So Dear Leader is secretly warning suicide will be regarded as treason.
   
• Senator J.D. Vance has a plan for peace with Russia. Just have Ukraine negotiate away whatever part of itself Putin wants. M. Bouffant at Web of Evil considers the plan for peace in our time, seems skeptical.
   
  Sometimes it’s useful to point out the obvious:
  
• tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors has news from Florida as voters put abortion rights on the ballot.
   
  Well, maybe.
  The Florida Supreme Court could still take it away from voters.
   
• Katie Cox, the hopeful mother suddenly faced with the near certainty of a stillborn pregnancy, finally fled Texas to some location where she can get a legal abortion. Infidel753 writes about the danger to her, the escape, and the moral and political dilemma now faced by Republicans.
   
  Key take:
  If Cox had stayed, she would have ended up as a human sacrifice offered up by ignorant barbarians lost in the darkness of medieval taboo and superstition.
   
• Most of those who read Nan’s Notebook are, as she points out, non-believers/atheists. When Nan asks those readers for “their personal ‘deconversion’ experiences”, many are thoughtful and provocative. Worth a look for those of us in the faith.
   
• Vagabond Scholar considers the original name and meaning Armistice Day and how it applies to a recent US war-not-war.
   

Reductio:

Antonio Stradivari
In 2009, Barack Obama had just become President. My loved one and I were excited about the televised ceremony. The new President had specifically invited Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman to play after the oath. Perlman famously was to play his Stradivarius violin.

I had to leave the room. Itzhak Perlman is one of the most acclaimed violinists in the world, and the few surviving Stradivarius violins are considered by many to be the absolute finest.

But Perlman’s violin was carefully constructed in 1737. Antonio Stradivari was born in 1644. See the problem?

Antonio was 93 when he made that violin. No matter how wonderful the final product, he was too damn old.

Keith Richards
The Rolling Stones broke every Rock and Roll mold. The energy was everlasting. They could do no musical wrong.

But now I refuse to listen to any of the songs I love.

You see, Keith Richards was born in 1943, which makes him too old.

Joe Biden
As President, Joe Biden has managed a host of accomplishments that are hard to argue with. The economy has revived and roared. Unemployment is at 3.9%. Prices are too damn high, but inflation has at least stalled. Child poverty has dropped.

International respect for Biden helped him rally a unified world to back Ukraine against Putin aggression.

Important steps are in effect to slow climate catastrophe, while boosting employment.

President Biden is making all the right moves.
He represents us well, better than anyone expected.

But if history has taught us anything, it is that performance doesn’t matter.
All that should matter to us is his age.

Healing seems to be going well.

My new physical therapist is a young man. His wheelchair has a sticker “Don’t Stare”. He’s been there just 4 months, right out of graduate school. So he’s super diligent.

He laughs at my lame jokes.
A gentleman.

A couple of visits so far.
He put me through several tests and precisely measured range of motion.
Told me progress looks good.

We have scheduled 2 sessions a week through December.

Best news, I can take the sling off in the house during waking hours as long as I don’t do anything strenuous with that arm.

I have limited use of my wrist and fingers. I have begun some interaction with social media. I am up to expressing occasional opinions here.

In a few weeks, I hope to be able to resume reviews of the blogs I admire and enjoy.

Life is good and improving.

To catch up with this adventure:

• Attacked – Burr is a Victim of Violence 10/26
  and
• More Details on Parking Lot Attack 11/1
  and
• Recovering from Random Violence 11/13
  and
• Post-Attack Recovery 11/18