Month: March 2018

 
From nojo at Stinque:

It was fun at first. One day you were alone, and the next day you weren’t. One day the only people you knew were the people you met, and the next day you knew people you would never meet. It was fun. It was fun not being alone any more.

It wasn’t just that you knew people you would never meet, it was that you shared something with them, something important, something you couldn’t share with the people you knew. You shared your spirit. Sharing your spirit is fun.

And it was fun knowing that other people were sharing their spirits as well, people you never knew and would never meet, people who had also been alone and now who weren’t. It was fun knowing people were doing that while you were, all having fun, all sharing their spirits, all finding kindred spirits to share them with, all those spirits swirling around in a place that didn’t exist, a place that couldn’t exist, a space that could only be filled with imagination, a space full of spirit.

It was like that for awhile.

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Wondering why a few conservative friends fail to be impressed.

• This week’s note in Trumpian ‘Alternative Facts’ comes from conservative Max Boot. President Trump’s attempt to deceive Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about a non-existent trade deficit is an example of a pattern: the Big Lie.
   
• Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post connects Trump dishonesty with generally thuggish behavior.
   
• At Stinque, nojo goes deep into the mind of little boy Trump to discover why chaos seems always to find him.
   
• Green Eagle says the appointments of Joseph DiGenova, John Bolton and Larry Kudlow have little to do with DiGenova, Bolton and Kudlow.
   
• David P. Green at MadMikesAmerica tells us what Donald Trump and OJ have in common.
   
• Decades ago, during a discussion about an election that was still months away, Mark Shields suggested the entire speculation was pointless. “If the election was held today, the overwhelming majority of voters would be surprised. They think it will be in November.” Tommy Christopher reports that even Donald Trump has lost faith in the ability of Republicans to avoid defeat. With more than half a year to go, my President is already making excuses.
   
• Yellow Dog at Blue in the Bluegrass is irritated. The Kentucky legislature neglects to pass a budget, or gun safety laws, or a much needed pension fix, or tax reform. They have, however, mandated a day of prayer for students.
   
• Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara says it’s immoral to prohibit paying women less for substantially the same work because free association.
   
• John Scalzi at Whatever explains why nobody should write for free. Fortunately, he excludes blog writing. Whew.
   
• MyCue reappears (Yay!!), briefly, at Random Thoughts watched the Academy Awards a couple weeks back. He suspected something and did the research. Now he knows. Beginning in 2003, something off happened to academy trajectory.
   
• M. Bouffant at Web of Evil notices one of the dumbest instances of domestic violence.
   

 
On Wednesday, we linked to The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser where Bruce headlined his observations:

Dear Salesman, Don’t Assume Every Prospective Customer is a Christian:

Had you been paying attention, you never would have repeatedly referenced the Evangelical God in your conversation with us. You wouldn’t have told us that God has a plan for everyone’s life or that the Christian God is in control of everything. You also wouldn’t have mentioned how my wife’s employer — for whom she has worked twenty years — has gone downhill since its Evangelical founder died; that the third-generation now running the company is only concerned with profits and the bottom line. What was it about how we lived, dressed, or carried ourselves that said to you we are Christians? There’s nothing in our home that even remotely suggests that we are Christian; no Jesus Junk®, no Bibles lying around, no Evangelical books in our bookcase; nothing that suggests that we are Jesus-loving, church-going Christians. I suspect you wrongly assume that everyone in rural Northwest Ohio believes in God, so you thought it safe to use God to warm us up and entice us to say yes. Little did you know we are atheists. I wonder how uncomfortable that fact might have made you feel had you known.

There is more, of course, in much the same vein. As is typical of Bruce Gerencser, the remainder of the piece is entertaining, pointed, yet curiously humane.

Dave Dubya writes with passionate eloquence at his own site. He begins his response by quoting Bruce.

Dave Dubya:

“Grade-A biped manure spreader.”

I’m stealing this!

“There’s something dirty and shallow about trying to hook prospects with Jesus talk.”

Absolutely. But it works for Republicans all the time. “Jesus sent us Trump” is why it will always be a tactic.

While charity and love for God and our fellow man are central to the core message, tribal fear, resentment, exploitation, and self-righteousness also go hand-in-hand with Christianity. The latter are the easiest human emotions to manipulate. As long as those emotions are dominant, there is very little Christ left in their Christianity.

Let’s have a responsible, safe weekend, respectful of those who profoundly disagree with even our deepest beliefs.

 
From The Onion:

SAN FRANCISCO—Saying his stubborn unwillingness to take responsibility for his life had done far more to distance him from friends and family than the extreme heat, sources confirmed Thursday that local man Bryce Galloway continues to insist that his problems stem from his entire body being engulfed in intense flames.

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From Frances Langum:

So Lou Dobbs pitches a fit about the Supreme Court refusing to hear a case where Arizona wants to deny DACA recipients driver’s licenses because “illegals.”

And one more time, let’s say it together: DACA is an immigration status, just like a Green Card. It allows people who qualify for it to stay in the United States legally. If you want more LEGAL immigration, you love DACA.

Except if you’re an effing racist.

And so Arizona wants to deny DACA recipents drivers licenses because then DACA recipients can steal our stuff!!! 9/11! Chemtrails!

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From Professor PZ Myers:

Uh-oh. Gad Saad is polluting the discourse again, this time in a vain attempt to discredit the concept of toxic masculinity. It’s embarrassingly bad. I would say that you need to first understand the concept if you hope to debunk it, and Saad does not; if you do not, then all your floundering about will simply reinforce the idea and lead you to use examples that actually demonstrate the phenomenon.

Toxic masculinity is actually not that hard to understand. It’s not a rejection of masculinity itself; it’s a problem that arises when men are socialized to conform to a cultural stereotype that doesn’t actually match their nature.

bell hooks wrote this quote in her chapter called Comrades in Struggle: “…Yet the poor or working class man who has been socialized via sexist ideology to believe that there are privileges and powers he should possess solely because he is male often finds that few if any of these benefits are automatically bestowed him in life.” One of the “powers” that men are socialized to believe that they have to embody is masculinity. Masculinity seems to be the running force of patriarchy, but this term has a very specific definition under patriarchy that is not inclusive of all forms of masculinity. This phenomenon is called toxic masculinity. Toxic masculinity “refers to the socially-constructed attitudes that describe the masculine gender role as violent, unemotional, sexually aggressive, and so forth.”

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? It’s the stereotype of the steely-eyed muscular man who compels women to obey his will. The True Man is sexually aggressive. And what does Gad Saad do? He opens with examples of animals that engage in aggressive competition for mates!

Female fiddler crabs and hens prefer males with extravagantly large claws and tails respectively. Ewes (female rams) will mate with the ram that wins the brutal intrasexual head-butting contest. They reward targeted aggression by granting sexual access. Needless to say, there are innumerable other examples of sexual selection that I might describe, but I suspect that you get the general gist. Are rams exhibiting toxic masculinity? Are female fiddler crabs succumbing to antiquated notions of masculinity as promulgated by the crab patriarchy?

We are not crabs or rams.

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From driftglass:

It today’s episode of “Which Trump Administration Douchbag Is The Douchiest?” Donald Trump’s pet grifting superjesus fanboy, Ben Carson, jumps into the lead by feeding his wife to the wolves.

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Pete Souza: “Excoriate is a big word. Energy isn’t—some people have it, and others just say they have it.”

Wondering why a few conservative friends fail to be impressed.