Quote of the Day

Written in the 1930s, but could be describing today's 1%:

For these men were all the victims of an occupational disease--a kind of mass hypnosis that denied to them the evidence of their senses.  It was a monstrous and ironic fact that the very men who had created this world in which every value was false and theatrical saw themselves, not as creatures tranced by fatal illusions, but rather as the most knowing, practical, and hard-headed men alive.  They did not see themselves as gamblers, obsessed by their own fictions of speculation, but as brilliant executives of great affairs who at every moment of the day "had their fingers on the pulse of the nation."  So when they looked about them and saw nothing but the myriad shapes of privilege, dishonesty, and self-interest, they were convinced that this was inevitably "the way things are."

Thomas Wolfe,  You Can't Go Home Again

Comfortable with Our Prejudices

Sometime back in the 80s, Rosalynn Carter made a statement to the effect that Ronald Reagan makes us comfortable with our prejudices.  Of course, the Rush Limbaughs and other Reagan worshippers derided it as some sort of mortal sin, but I thought it was rather prescient and insightful.  I pretty much agreed with her then, and I believe that history has shown it to be true today.  The casual way in which some people justify the profiling of the Zimmerman case and New York's stop-and-frisk program (to name only two examples), shows how comfortable some have become with their prejudices.  So comfortable that they don't see the insidious racism that's involved.

The Cheneys Just Won't Go Away

I see today that Liz Cheney is going to run for the (Republican) senate seat in Wyoming.  She is anxious to carry on the Chickenhawk legacy of the Cheney clan.

Texas Tampon Massacre

The Texas Department of Public Safety confiscated tampons and maxi-pads outside the Texas Senate gallery last week because they were afraid they would be used as some sort of projectile weaponry.  (Guns were allowed in the gallery, of course)  Now just wait a dag-gone minute!!  If those tampons are really dangerous weapons, aren't they protected by the Second Amendment?  This is Texas after all....

Christian Life Resources Half Truths

Headline in the Christian Life Resources (CLR) website:  "Huffington Post Poll: Americans Ban (sic)  20-Week Abortion Ban by 2-1 Margin".  (I assume they meant to say "Americans Support....)  Sounds pretty cut-and-dry, huh?  But if you read the actual Huff Post article, it is much more nuanced.  For example, in another part of the same poll, 63% of respondent said "Decisions on abortion should be made by [a] woman and her doctor".  Not quite what the headline suggests is it?  That part of the poll isn't reported in the CLR article.  In fact, none of the nuances of the "conflicted" respondents is really addressed.

This is just one more example of CLR's willingness to report with deception and half-truth.  In their astonishing moral relativism, such deception is justified if it serves their political agenda.

Quote of the Day

Thanks to Mahablog (www.mahablog.com) for putting me onto this quote from Mike Konczal, a blogger at The Washington Post.  This quote is from his July 6 blog post, which is worth a read:

The specifics of a libertarian populist agenda are often lacking, but advocates sometimes point to to things like Rand Paul’s budget plan. This is a plan that calls for flat taxes, cutting discretionary spending through a balanced budget and removing the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate to promote low inflation and high employment.

This brings to mind Eugene Mirman’s joke about bears, where he notes that the common notion that you should play dead if you see a bear “is a rumor that bears spread.” Similarly, the idea that reducing the tax burden on the rich while calling for tighter money and deregulation counts as “populism” sure seems like a rumor spread by the 1 percent.