Lawmaker Opposes Education Funding Because It Would Go To ‘Blacks’ Who Get ‘Welfare Crazy Checks’

From Think Progress:

A Mississippi state lawmaker said he opposed putting more money into elementary schools because he came from a town where “all the blacks are getting food stamps and what I call ‘welfare crazy checks.’ They don’t work.”

In an interview with the Clarion-Ledger regarding education funding, state Rep. Gene Alday (R) stated his opposition to a push to increase funding to improve elementary school reading scores. Alday implied that increasing education funding for children in black families would be pointless.

More here.

The big story with this isn't the story itself.

Well, okay, it's a story definitely worth mentioning--an elected Republican official is spewing crazy racist crap. But the BIG story is that it's YET ANOTHER elected Republican official spewing crazy racist crap. How many of these do we need to get before people acknowledge that there's a problem?

I'm getting kind of tired of being told that these people are outliers, or "isolated incidents," or that they're "not representative" of the GOP. I mean, to some undeniable extent, these people are, in fact, representative of the GOP, in that they have been elected to be representatives in various legislative bodies around the country. But I'm supposed to keep on imagining that being elected to represent doesn't really mean that they represent any point of view but their own. It's starting to get confusing stringing all these bizarre and contradictory defenses and refutations together into a coherent idea.

If the Republican voters electing these people to office aren't racist, and don't endorse the racist views of these foot-in-mouth Republicans, how on earth are they elected to office in the first place? What kind of voters vote for people with whom they disagree?

No, I'm not calling Republicans racist, but this is getting pretty sinister and weird.

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ECONOMISTS AREN'T REALLY MUCH SMARTER THAN YOU OR ME

"To analyze the world in this way requires, in effect, the redefinition of human experience into a special language. That language must have a vocabulary limited to those concepts that can be dealt with inside the model. To accept these restrictions is to be an economist. Any refusal to shed the larger perspective--a stubborn insistence on bringing a broader set of facts or a different range of theory to bear--identifies one as 'not an economist.' In this way, the economists need only talk to one another. Enclosed carefully in their monastery, they can speak their code, establish their status, rankings, and hierarchies, and persuade themselves and one another of their intellectual and professional merit.

A community and a line of argument constructed in such a manner are unlikely to be well prepared for an event like the Great Financial Crisis."

-James K. Galbraith, "The End of Normal," 2014 p64

"Economists using mathematical expressions to decorate arguments about the perfection of market systems may believe that their work is beautiful. Outsiders see instantly that it isn't. Quite apart from the messy problems and ugly realities of the economic world (capitalist or otherwise), no one with a sense of aesthetics would take the clumsy algebra of a typical professional economics article as a work of beauty. The main purpose of the math is not to clarify, or to charm, but to intimidate. And the tactic is effective. An idea that would come across as simpleminded in English can be made 'impressive looking' with a sufficient string of Greek symbols. A complaint about the argument can be deflected, most easily, on the ground the complainer must not understand the math."

-ibid, p67

This is not to say that the field of economics is without value. It, like the press, has GREAT value. The real problem, to regular people like you and me, is figuring out which economic theories, which economists, are intellectually honest and reasonable, and which aren't. This isn't an easy task, especially when considering that economists, like journalists, tend to think in packs, and may be both right and wrong in the same paragraph they've written--economists, also like journalists, tend to be employed by corporations and the very, very wealthy, which makes the tendency toward bias all the more acute.

The upside is that a whole lot of economics doesn't even come close to rocket science, and is penetrable by most people who are willing to do some reading. But you've got to do the reading.

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Abbott: Parents should be able to opt out of vaccine mandates

From the Houston Chronicle:

Weighing in on a national debate, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott made clear this week that he supports laws that include exemptions to requirements that parents vaccinate their children.

"Abbott recognizes the public health benefits of vaccines and encourages all parents to have their children vaccinated, as he and the First Lady did with their daughter," spokeswoman Amelia Chasse said, but the governor "supports current Texas law that he believes strikes the right balance of requiring vaccinations while still allowing parents to opt out under certain circumstances."

More here.

This is something of a misleading headline. It makes Abbott out to be a fringe kook. I mean, okay, Abbott may very well be a fringe kook, but when you dig into the article just a little bit, it turns out that he's simply endorsing Texas law that's already on the books.

Still, though. Given that the current cultural climate across the nation is such that the anti-vax movement may very well be having a detrimental effect on pubic health, I wonder how good an idea it is to keep this "personal objection" opt-out available. As the article observes, there has been a massive uptick, more than tenfold, in the number of parents taking the exemption over the last decade. You've just got to wonder what, exactly, all these "personal objections" are.

At any rate, I wouldn't be surprised to discover that Abbott is pandering to a potential Texas anti-vax constituency with this. Indeed, it strikes me as a clever move, if that's what he's doing, supporting the science, but sort of also endorsing a kind of "libertarian" and "freedom" oriented stance. I mean, Republicans are the KINGS of nudge-wink politics, so why not? Support vaccines and attack vaccines at the same time. Best of all worlds.

Really, it's pretty sleazy if that's the case.

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Alabama Marriage Mess Shows Dangers Of Distorted 'Religious Liberty' Claims

From Right Wing Watch:

So what would America look like if we allowed such massive holes to be poked in laws that are supposed to protect everyone? What if lesbian and gay couples were legally treated as outsiders in their home communities, had fewer legal rights than anyone else in those communities, and had to travel anywhere from another neighborhood to another county to find a bakery willing to make a cake for them, a hotel willing to rent them a room for the night, or an employer willing to grant them spousal employment benefits? What if a woman's ability to find adequate healthcare depended on finding an employer and a pharmacist with compatible religious beliefs? What if people's basic rights varied depending on where they were, and upon the prevailing religious beliefs of people in the area? What would such a religiously balkanized nation look like?

It would look a lot like Alabama does today. And it would be ugly.

More here.

"And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." Romans 12:2 KJV

You know, all this resistance to gay marriage, especially when it's more and more starting to look like a done deal, strikes me as doing the absolute opposite of what the apostle Paul asserts in the verse above. Instead of avoiding conforming to the world, instead of transforming the mind, these people seek to transform the world so that their minds don't have to do anything at all but sit around being pleased that the filthy sodomites can't get married.

That is, it seems to me that the New Testament, being forged within the pagan Roman Empire as it was, makes a clear distinction between Christians and the prevalent secular social reality. They're just not the same thing, the Bible tells us, and Christians ought to focus on themselves as Christians, and on their relationship with God. At least, that's how I understand it. But the anti-equality crowd seemingly wants to make the prevalent secular society conform to their idea of how things would work if God was in charge.

Never mind the fact that, if you're a believer, God is already in charge. The point is that this is plain weird.

For that matter, from a Christian perspective, what's the ultimate goal for making civilization "Christian"? Does it lead people to become Christians? Does it save souls? Does it make people closer to God? Here is one thing of which I am certain: mandating Christian behavior doesn't make anybody a Christian; rather, it just creates a lot of lip service. And very likely a lot of resentment.

This is all very misguided.

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MY GOOD DEED TODAY

A canvasser for the Texas Campaign for the Environment just got me to write letters to a couple of state officials:

Dear Representative Jessica Farrar (I also sent this to Texas State Senator John Whitmire),

A canvasser for the Texas Campaign for the Environment recently made me aware of some issues with which you are dealing in the legislature which are important to me.

The big one is the disposal of toxic household products such as batteries.  My understanding is that there is great potential for leakage into surrounding areas from landfills.  Having lived in Austin during the Save Our Spring days, I have a keen awareness of how easy it is to contaminate water tables, but it's not simply water that is running a risk here.

I would very much like to see some legislation making disposal the responsibility of the manufacturers of toxic household products, rather than subsidizing these businesses with taxpayer funded cleanup after the fact.  It only seems reasonable and fair to do this; let businesses pay the full cost of their profit-seeking activities, without socializing the downside.

I am also concerned that there may be a movement afoot to override local ordinances about this issue, which establish a higher burden of responsibility for manufacturers, by replacing it with less restrictive state law.  That's got sleazy lobbying written all over it.

Related, but different, is the ability of state citizens to challenge nearby polluting businesses.  My understanding is that this might be in danger, too.

Thank you for listening to my concerns.

Your constituent

RR

Excelsior!

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The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered and It Is Not What You Think

From AlterNet:

The street addict is like a rat in the first cage: isolated and alone, with only one source of solace to turn to. The medical patient is like a rat in the second cage: going home to a life where she is surrounded by the people she loves. The drug is the same, but the environment is different.

This gives us an insight that goes much deeper than the need to understand addicts. Professor Peter Cohen argues that human beings have a deep need to bond and form connections. If we can't connect with each other, we will connect with anything we can find—the whirr of a roulette wheel or the prick of a syringe. He says we should stop talking about 'addiction' altogether and instead call it 'bonding.' A heroin addict has bonded with heroin because she couldn't bond as fully with anything else.

So the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. It is human connection.

More here.

Unfortunately, American twenty first century capitalism is all about destroying social bonds, rather than creating and enhancing them. So I guess we continue to be screwed.  Besides, people are making big money dealing with addiction under the assumptions we have now.  Like that's going to ever change.

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UNICORNS...IN THE BIBLE?!?

From AlterNet:

An article posted at Answers in Genesis – a creationist apologetics website dedicated to substantiating the infallible truths found in the Bible — an author cautions that dismissing the one-horned horse known as the unicorn as a mythical beast “is to demean God’s Word.”

Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell, citing several references in the Bible to the fantastical animal that is a favorite of children and fantasy fans, warns that the unicorn did indeed exist writing, “The Bible is clearly describing a real animal.”

More here.

I must admit that until I read this article, I didn't realize that unicorns are in the Bible.  Apparently they are, however, which means that if you think of yourself as a fundamentalist Christian who believes that the Bible is the literal word of God, then you must also necessarily believe in unicorns.

But guess what?  I'd be willing to wager a hundred bucks that the vast majority of self-described fundamentalists DON'T believe in unicorns.

And that presents a fascinating problem: fundamentalists really do not believe that the Bible is the literal word of God.  I mean, okay, maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe the vast majority of fundamentalists really do believe in unicorns.  But I don't think so.  Instead, it strikes me as highly likely that fundamentalists pick and choose what they think is factually correct in the Bible, just like everybody else, and only use the "literal word" shtick when they're pushing ideas that they like but others don't.  You know, "well, if God said it, then it MUST be true."  So death to homosexuals, and so on.

An important ramification of this observation is that fundamentalists pick and choose which parts of the Bible to believe based on preexisting but unexamined personal biases.  That is, if you think men are superior to women, you're going to find Biblical support for that, and too bad, suffragettes, God says it so it's true!  But unicorns?  Not even worth a mention.  Even though the Bible says they're real.

I guess it's not the crazy beliefs that bug me so much as the inconsistency and hypocrisy with how such "beliefs" are established.

Also, evolution and global warming.

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"THE MARKET" GETS US TO WASH OUR HANDS

Of course, that's bullshit, but some dumbass libertarian type actually tried to argue this with me on facebook after the post I made about the topic a couple of days ago.  Here's what I told her:

Susan, I have no doubt that all restaurants, in this hypothetical reality with no public health code, because health codes are "burdensome regulations," would definitely want to have the public perception that they are shining spotless clean. But there is a difference between public perception, needless to say, and reality, and businesses, as a matter of course, are always trying to shape public perception.

But here's the reality: restaurants are ALWAYS on the verge of being filthy pits. Just always. And lots of them, which LOOK clean, get nailed by public health inspectors on a fairly regular basis. That is, restaurants break the law routinely. There is absolutely no reason to believe that the "market" would do better than the law. I mean, when these restaurants get busted, they have to clean up or shut down. So you either comply or lose your business.

It is extraordinarily naive to think that the "market" would assure that employees wash their hands after going to the bathroom. This is a recipe for a hepatitis outbreak. You clearly have no idea what you're talking about.

I mean, this guy always had something to report.

'Nuff said.

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All That Jazz: People Who Listen To Jazz Are Smarter And More Creative

From Elite Daily:

Yet, with jazz music, there’s something about the lack of words (even though Miles Davis’ trumpet, Harmon mute and all, does all the speaking necessary), which has always enabled me to focus better on my studies – despite the “background noise.”

As it appears, science supports my impression of the improv-based music form. According to Dr. William Klemm, of Psychology Today, there are a multitude of different cognitive benefits that enrich your mind while listening to jazz music.

Click here for more.

This probably explains how, over the years, I feel like I've gotten smarter than I used to be. Okay, there's all the Chomsky, economics, and mass media criticism reading I've done since college, too. But it's hard to disagree with this guy's conclusion that listening to jazz sort of trains the brain for creativity and intelligence. Maybe the jazz made me more open to dissenting and alternative ideas, more able to follow lines of thinking that are unconventional. I don't know. But I do know that listening to jazz is a wildly different experience for me compared to listening to other kinds of music.

So here, have some jazz:


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GOP senator: Let restaurants ‘opt out’ of handwashing after toilet to ‘reduce regulatory burden’

From Raw Story:

Tillis said that at about that time, a Starbucks employee came out of one of the restrooms.

“Don’t you believe that this regulation that requires this gentlemen to wash his hands before he serves your food is important?” Tillis was asked by the person at his table. 

“I think it’s one I can illustrate the point,” Tillis told the women. “I said, I don’t have any problem with Starbucks if they choose to opt out of this policy as long as the post a sign that says ‘We don’t require our employees to wash their hands after leaving the restrooms.’ The market will take care of that.”

More here.

This guy's notion that restaurants would have to put up a sign saying that their employees don't wash their hands is sort of weirdly inconsistent with his overall idea. That is, such a sign is just another "onerous regulation." The way the real "free market" theorists would have it is that restaurants would advertise that they do, rather than don't, require employee hand washing. And that's how the "free market" really functions. In theory, anyway.

On the other hand, I would hate to have to file a lawsuit just because of false advertising about hand washing. I mean, I'd have to get typhoid or something just to have standing. And even then, conservatives would call my lawsuit "frivolous."

It's all Alice in Wonderland with these maroons.

At any rate, everything that's wrong with modern conservatism is right here. I mean, this says it all. This is why conservatism is totally f'd up. This philosophical point of view, and I'm using the word "philosophical" in an extremely ironic way, is why this country is going to hell in a hand basket. An unregulated hand basket.

Why anybody, anybody at all, takes conservatism seriously these days is absolutely beyond me. I wonder if all these people get brain parasites or something because they don't wash their hands after going to the bathroom.

I'm willing to entertain any theory about it now because it really has come to a point of incomprehensibility.

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"CHRISTIANPHOBIA"?

From Talking Points Memo:

Fox News host Tucker Carlson decried the "educated" people who perpetuate "Christianphobia" -- the fear of Christians -- during Sunday's "Fox & Friends."
 
"It's appalling and it's, it's super common among educated people," Carlson said. "The people I live around, they all kind of have contempt for Christianity."

More here, with video!

Tucker Carlson is a great big idiot, but this is definitely worth a response, especially because I'm educated, myself, in and out of academia a few times, and have definite and clear attitudes about Christianity in America.

So here's the deal.  Christianity is so vast, so multifaceted, so diverse, that it's really a sort of absurd statement to say "I have disdain for Christianity."  I mean, who are we talking about here?  Catholics?  Orthodox?  Protestants?  And when we talk about Protestants, are we talking about the Southern Baptists?  Methodists? Presbyterians?  The so-called "Bible churches"?  Lutherans?  And even then, we're still talking about fairly well segregated congregations in terms of ethnicity.  Are we talking about charismatic Hispanic churches?  Black Protestant churches?  White Episcopalian churches?

Christianity means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.  It's simply not reasonable to lump it all together for the purposes of condemnation.  And frankly, I seriously doubt this actually happens in the way these Fox Newsers describe.  I mean, okay, there are probably a handful of proselytizing atheist professors and grad students out there who, in fact, do lump all of Christianity together in this way, but even these types are pretty rare relative to all of academia.

And where the hell do Unitarians fit into this?

Here's where I stand.  I'm extraordinarily fond of the varieties of Christianity strongly emphasizing that you ought to "love your neighbor as yourself."  On the other hand, I have, to use the word from the Fox and Friends piece, disdain for the varieties of Christianity which only give lip service to the second greatest commandment.

And that's that.  Pretty easy stuff.  And I imagine most of academia is in agreement with me.  Why not?

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What It Was, Was Football

Pete and Bill are both cheaters and I have no respect for either of them. I don't care who wins. I just want to see a good game. Anyway, here you go:


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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Frankie

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Texas Muslim Capitol Day marred by anti-Islam protesters

From the Houston Chronicle:

They came out by the hundreds from Dallas, San Antonio and Houston, mostly women and children, girls with silver-bowed shoes and pink owl backpacks. They sang the national anthem and prayed.

But less than 20 feet from where the group of Texas Muslims gathered on the steps of the state Capitol in Austin, a small handful of protesters told them exactly how they felt about their visit.

And

Christine Weick, who said she was originally from Michigan but now is "on the road," at one point stormed the succession of speakers, grabbing the microphone and yelling, "Islam will not dominate the United States, and by the grace of God, it will not dominate Texas."

She was carted back to her spot with the other 12 to 15 protesters holding vigil behind a wall of law enforcement officers. "Muhammad is dead!" she and other chanted, referring to the Muslim prophet.

More here.

Trashy. Just straight up trashy. I mean, these are the same kind of jerks who trip out if you don't salute the Christmas tree in the right way, who insist they're being persecuted if you don't give extra special respect, extra special privileges to their religion. Clearly, this isn't a two way street for them. Going off on Islam is just fine. Participating in the oppression of a religious minority is just fine.

And it wasn't just Islamophobic protesters getting in on the act, either. One legislator wanted them to come to her office, where she displayed an Israeli flag just for the occasion, in order to take, get this, a loyalty oath. Can these people possibly be bigger dicks?

I fear we will never learn to get along, and, very sadly, it appears a number of my fellow Texans are doing as much as they can to make sure we never learn to get along.

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Intelligence Study Links Low I.Q. To Prejudice, Racism, Conservatism

From the Huffington Post:

"'Reality is complicated and messy,' he told The Huffington Post in an email. 'Ideologies get rid of the messiness and impose a simpler solution. So, it may not be surprising that people with less cognitive capacity will be attracted to simplifying ideologies.'"

More here.

It is important to note that this works both ways. That is, I think a pushy and doctrinaire Marxist is as big of an idiot-dick as the most drooling and raving Tea Party extremist. Of course, there are lots more of the latter than the former running around the country these days.

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A COUPLE OF PHOTO MEMES FROM FACEBOOK...

...along with the comments I attached when I shared them.

It's not whether you're pro-life or pro-choice. It's whether we want the government to extend its power and influence literally inside your body. I mean, we really trust Big Government to poke around and set up camp inside our innards? Crazy.

No, they don't invest it. No, it doesn't cause tax revenue to increase because it doesn't stimulate the economy. It's just a scam, and you're a fool if you believe it.

Excelsior!

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Huckabee: America Needs To Know Laws 'Come From God,' Not Man

From Talking Points Memo:

"We cannot survive as a republic if we do not become, once again, a God-centered nation that understands that our laws do not come from man, they come from God," he said on the show "Life Today." 

When Huckabee added that he wasn't demanding a theocracy, host James Robison said, "We have a theocracy right now. It's a secular theocracy."

"That's it!" Huckabee said, describing the current political order as "humanistic, secular, atheistic, even antagonistic toward Christian faith."

Watch it here.

Given that there is such profound disagreement about what God actually tells us, I mean, even within Christianity, even within Protestantism, it strikes me as an extraordinarily bad idea to assert that "laws come from God." You know, maybe they do, but there's just absolutely no way to establish that here on earth, one way or the other, for sure. So we really need to keep the slippery, vague, and subjective notions about what God tells us out of government. It's an invitation for total national disaster.

Actually, this is a very old idea, that there ought to be a "wall of separation between church and state," an idea our founding fathers saw fit to enshrine in the US Constitution. But some people are just too freaking stupid to understand what being an American is all about.

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CHARLIE HEBDO: WHAT'S THE POINT, ANYWAY?

A comment I left in a long, long facebook discussion thread about "Je suis Charlie":

If the Charlie Hebdo Mohammed cartoon is for an audience of non-Muslims, then what's the point? It's highly likely that everyone is already in agreement with the artist that it's just fine and dandy to make a Mohammed cartoon. So it's just one big circle jerk of agreement and masturbatory love for free speech.

Well, okay. Art can be anything. But such art strikes me as nothing more than self-congratulatory jingoism, and, worse, it also ridicules a dispossessed minority, for reasons unknown. So under these circumstances, assuming your audience is already in agreement with you about Mohammed, and where offending millions of Muslims is just sort of a byproduct, either intentionally or not, I assert that this is bad and somewhat pointless art. It's certainly not well thought out.

Now assume that Muslims are your audience. Again, what's the point? Are you trying to convince them that it's actually a good thing to depict Mohammed as a cartoon? Well, offending them is, at least, counterproductive. That is, you stand no chance at all of convincing Muslims that visually portraying their prophet is a good idea when they're all pissed off at you. So, like the circumstances I described above, this is bad and pointless art, in that it can't possibly accomplish what it's presumed to be trying to accomplish.

Either way, with a sympathetic audience or a hostile audience, the Charlie Hebdo Mohammed cartoons are just senseless. And that's why I call them what they are: bullying, a hypermasculine pissing match about what ought to offend people. And I think that also makes it bad art.

This is criticism, not censorship. I'm not saying they can't do it because it's offensive; I'm saying they shouldn't do it because it's badly planned, badly executed, confused, and intellectually dishonest art. If you don't really need to offend millions of people to get your message across, but do so anyway, or if doing so destroys your message, or it's a message that doesn't really need to be gotten across, all these things make for bad art.

And this particular art, the Charlie Hebdo Mohammed cartoons, does nothing but make the world a worse place. And I think that makes for bad art, too.

Excelsior!

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Stella

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Republicans Post Doctored Version Of State Of The Union, Censor Facts On Climate Change

From Think Progress:

The official website for House Republicans has posted on YouTube a version of President Obama’s State of the Union address which cuts out comments where the President was critical of Republican rhetoric on climate change, ThinkProgress has learned.

In the website’s “enhanced webcast” of the State of the Union speech, President Obama’s comments criticizing Republicans for saying they are “not scientists” when it comes to climate change are erased. 

More here.

A buddy of mine posted the above linked article on facebook.  Here's my comment:

I can pinpoint the moment when I found out for sure that a lot of Republican rhetorical strategy involves straight up lying: it was that first Obama/Romney debate, the moment when Obama referred to something or other Romney had said countless times during the Republican primary, which was then immediately denied by his opponent.

I was, like, okay, that's it, that's how you emerge from the psycho-circus of Tea Party hate called the GOP primary without having to pay a price for all the crazy shit you said in order to make it to the general election. You just lie. You straight up lie, which is exactly what Romney did. It was an obvious lie, a transparent lie, one that anybody who had been following the campaign even casually would spot. And the prick totally got away with it.

Republicans learned long ago that "the liberal media," cowed as they have been by years of conservative hissy fits, ROUTINELY lets Republicans get away with the craziest fucking lies imaginable, you know, "Shape of the Earth: Opinions Differ," all because of being fair and balanced. It's gotten so bad that the GOP just depends on it for political strategy.

The truth, facts, all this, one really can make a persuasive case these days that they're in danger of just not mattering at all.

Excelsior!

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2014 Breaks Heat Record, Challenging Global Warming Skeptics

From the New York Times:

Last year was the hottest on earth since record-keeping began in 1880, scientists reported on Friday, underscoring warnings about the risks of runaway greenhouse gas emissions and undermining claims by climate change contrarians that global warming had somehow stopped.

More here.

So...tonight's low temperature trumps this, right? Sometimes I wish we really did live in the right wing's fun-house version of reality. We could all do whatever we want without consequence, and everything would work out just fine for people who are hard-working and honest. But I don't believe in Santa Claus, either.

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Mark Wahlberg's victims divided over his pardon request

From the AP via AOL:

Victims of one of Mark Wahlberg's racially motivated attacks as a teenage delinquent in segregated Boston in the 1980s are divided over whether he should be granted a pardon for his crimes.

Kristyn Atwood was among a group of mostly black fourth-grade students on a field trip to the beach in 1986 when Wahlberg and his white friends began hurling rocks and shouting racial epithets as they chased them down the street.

"I don't think he should get a pardon," Atwood, now 38 and living in Decatur, Georgia, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

More here.

A friend of mine posted the above linked article on my facebook page, and asked me what I think.  Here's what I said:

I'm all for forgiveness, generally speaking. And Wahlberg really does seem to have turned his life around. So there's that.

But there's also the question of what it means "to be a racist." I'm of the opinion that there is a massive component of psychological/social conditioning as far as racism goes, which means I've got racism down deep inside of me, too, in spite of the fact that I have consciously chosen to reject racism as a point of view. That is, you can't just decide to end your own personal racism. It's much more complicated than that. You can only make an effort to be vigilant about what might pop into your mind at any minute given the circumstances.

However, I would guess that Wahlberg's doing at least as well as I am in that respect. So give him a break.

Of course, there are thousands of black guys convicted as teens for doing stupid shit who will definitely never get a pardon for their stupid shit. Why does Marky Mark get this privilege when they don't?

Really, like I said, I'm all for forgiveness, and we should offer pardons to black guys, too, who were stupid when they were teenagers. That would be fair.

Excelsior!

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French Rein in Speech Backing Acts of Terror

From the New York Times:

34-year-old man who on Saturday hit a car while drunk, injured the other driver and subsequently praised the acts of the gunmen when the police detained him was sentenced Monday to four years in prison.

More here.

Vive la France! The greatest defender of free speech in the entire universe, throughout all history going back to the Big Bang! Je suis France! Vive la République!

The hypocrisy underneath this whole "Je suis Charlie" thing is just nothing short of astonishing.  I mean, in France, Holocaust denial is a crime.  As deplorable as denying the Holocaust is, if you throw someone in jail for it, you are NOT a defender of free speech.

The West is once again on a narcissistic kick of self-righteousness.  Look out world.  When that happens, historically, people get killed.

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I AM NOT CHARLIE

I am NOT Charlie. Charlie is an asshole. Charlie got into a hyper-masculine rhetorical pissing match over what people think ought to be offensive, and feels it's just fine to deeply offend millions and millions of people all to make the point that it can make a point. Charlie's also cool with the notion of ridiculing what is an oppressed minority in his own country. Because free speech is great.

Well, free speech is great. And murdering someone for something he said is beyond the pale. I condemn the attack on Charlie Hebdo unequivocally. It was an act of evil.

But I'll be damned if I'm going to publicly identify myself with ethnocentric bullying asshole practitioners of bad and mean spirited art in order to express my absolute disapproval of the way they died.

I'm not Charlie. I'm Ron, and I hate violence and murder. I also hate people picking on dispossessed minorities out of a sense of cultural arrogance. There is no contradiction in those two positions. I will not glorify Charlie Hebdo, and my refusal to do so is in no way an endorsement of terrorism.

ALSO, if you really do believe that the freedom of speech means celebrating assholes who bully others, then you ought to have no problem at all with what I'm saying here, no matter how offensive you might think it is. If Charlie Hebdo is your model, then I can say what I'm saying in this post, and you have to love it.

Because free speech.

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FRANK ZAPPA FRIDAY AND 70S POP MONDAY ON SATURDAY

Two of my facebook features exported to Real Art.




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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Sammy

Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

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Most of America’s rich think the poor have it easy

From the Washington Post's Wonkblog:

There is little empathy at the top.

Most of America's richest think poor people have it easy in this country, according to a new report released by the Pew Research Center. The center surveyed a nationally representative group of people this past fall, and found that the majority of the country's most financially secure citizens (54 percent at the very top, and 57 percent just below) believe the "poor have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything in return." America's least financially secure, meanwhile, vehemently disagree — nearly 70 percent say the poor have hard lives because the benefits "don't go far enough." Nationally, the population is almost evenly split.

More here.

One of the big reasons this country is so f'd up: apparently, having lots of money interferes with the brain's synaptic pathways. And people with lots of money own and operate the country. So we're screwed.

Actually, it's interesting that half the population thinks this way.  I don't know what to make of it other than as a result of conservative anti-poor mass propaganda going back to the Reagan era.  You know, if you're poor it's because you're a lazy, mooching asshole, regardless of the facts.  Needless to say, a lot of this propaganda effort has been funded by the rich, who actually believe their own bullshit, probably so they can look at themselves in the mirror without self-loathing.

And they've taken about half the country down the path of hateful narcissism with them.  The people have been made callous and wicked.

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George Zimmerman arrested on aggravated assault charge

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Florida authorities say George Zimmerman, whose acquittal of murdering an unarmed black teen sparked a national debate on race and self-defense laws, has been arrested for allegedly throwing a wine bottle at his girlfriend.

The Seminole County Sheriff's Office says the 31-year-old Zimmerman was arrested for aggravated assault at his home in Lake Mary about 10 p.m. Friday.

Zimmerman was released on a $5,000 bond Saturday afternoon. At a court appearance earlier Saturday, he was ordered to avoid contact with the woman, who was not identified.

More here.

Just your typical upstanding citizen patrolling the neighborhood for typically upstanding reasons of citizenship. Not violently natured at all. Just ready to do his solemn duty as an American.

Either that, or he's a maniac who is fated to kill again. One of those two.

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Dissecting Obamacare

From CBS's 60 Minutes:

"Obamacare is a government takeover of health care, that's what the Republicans say. Obamacare is the OPPOSITE of a government takeover of health care. Obamacare is the taxpayers intervening to pay the private sector for their already inflated prices that they charge for health care."

Watch or read the rest here.

This is why I hate the ACA, in spite of the fact that I have personally benefited from it: it's one of the worst examples of crony capitalism I could ever possibly imagine, exceeding, just in terms of balls, the bank bailouts and the notion of "too big to fail." That is, you, the taxpayer, are paying for most of my health insurance, and it's like buying a McDonald's hamburger for five hundred dollars.

People who call Obama a "socialist" are among the most flibgibberty idiots in human history. Instead, our President is one of corporate capitalism's biggest whores. You conservatives would love him if you weren't so blinded by your own weird psychological issues.

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Sia’s video: let’s be wary of seeing paedophilia everywhere

From the Guardian:

Australian musician Sia has apologised to anyone “triggered” by her video for Elastic Heart, featuring Shia LaBeouf and 12-year-old dance prodigy Maggie Ziegler, dancing together, in flesh-coloured outfits (Ziegler sporting a platinum Sia wig), in a cage. The video has caused uproar in some quarters. Fame-averse Sia (who generally performs with her face hidden) tweeted: “I anticipated some ‘paedophilia!!!’ cries for this video. All I can say is Maddie and Shia are two of the only actors I felt could play these two warring ‘Sia self states’”, adding that her intention was to “create some emotional content, not to upset anybody”.

More here.

One of my facebook friends posted the above linked article on my page, sort of in response to comments another facebook friend had made in another discussion about how she thinks all child molesters should be executed within minutes of being charged.  Of course, I championed due process, myself, but it opened up a can of worms that seems impossible to discuss.  Because it is impossible to discuss.

Here's what I wrote in response to my first friend posting the Guardian piece:

It's a really sad state of affairs. So bad, in fact, that I generally avoid the topic altogether, simply because it's impossible to have a frank and honest discussion about it. I also stay away from children, and keep whatever dealings I do have with them brief and superficial. When I was teaching high school, I just assumed people were going to make assumptions if I didn't go out of my way to appear innocent, even while I was and am innocent.

For at least twenty five years, our culture has been in a state of irrational hysteria about not only molestation, but also the concept of child sexuality itself. We're at a Salem witch trials level of paranoia on this. It's bad, and I don't think I can personally do anything about it, except try to stay out of the way.

You remember the whole Woody Allen thing last spring. It was horrible, and I lost a couple of high school friends because of it. Calling out Israel about Palestine is a tiptoe through the tulips compared to talking in any way at all about children and sex.

So I remain silent for the most part. It's bad.

Also, this book is great.

'Nuff said.

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Saudi blogger receives first 50 lashes of sentence for 'insulting Islam'

From the Guardian:

Badawi was sentenced last May to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes. He had criticized Saudi Arabia’s powerful clerics on a liberal blog he founded. The blog has since been shut down. He was also ordered to pay a fine of 1m riyals or about $266,600.

Rights activists say Saudi authorities are using Badawi’s case as a warning to others who think to criticise the kingdom’s powerful religious establishment from which the ruling family partly derives its authority.

London-based Amnesty International said he would receive 50 lashes once a week for 20 weeks. The US, a close ally of Saudi Arabia, has called on authorities to cancel the punishment.

More here.

So...why is the US so cozy with the Saudis again? I always need reminding, especially when everybody's nose is rubbed in the fact that, you know, the Saudi government totally sucks. Oh yeah, the oil, that's right. And who cares about lashing when Americans apparently love torture? No wonder they hate our freedom.

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FRANK ZAPPA FRIDAY AND 70S POP MONDAY ON SATURDAY

Two of my facebook features exported to Real Art.



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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING: SPECIAL CANINE EDITION

Lola

Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

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Video demonstrates how mind-numbingly formulaic and shitty Country pop music has become

From Dangerous Minds:

If you need any proof of how much Country pop music sucks nowadays, look no further than this video which dissects and mashes-up six Country songs. All of them sound alike. There ain’t nothin’ “original” added to the mix. “Original” never got anywhere close to the these songs to begin with!

Click here to check this out.

Some fifteen years ago, when I was in my early thirties, I had a conversation with an old college buddy about the state of what was then today's pop music.  Of course, I was asserting that it sucks.  He shot back with the standard assertion that older people never understand the kids' new music.  I conceded that, to an extent, but observed that there have also been massive changes with how the music industry is structured as a business: music has become corporatized, and the big boys consequently now offer bland consumer product, simply because that's how massive corporations sell stuff.  You see the same thing with Hollywood, too.

My buddy was not convinced.  But I haven't heard anything in the last fifteen years that would change my mind, either.  That is, I've heard SHITLOADS of great new music over the years, but the vast majority of it isn't coming down from the mass market mega music biz--it's coming from people playing in bars, or garages, or mixing stuff in their bedrooms.  Big time pop music, in stark contrast, is now seemingly indistinguishable from Christian contemporary music.  It's also increasingly indistinguishable from country and western music.  It's all starting to sound alike.

Maybe I'm just too old.  But big businesses really did start buying up medium sized record companies back in the eighties and gradually applied a corporate business model to everything.  Changes really did happen with how these entertainment products are developed and marketed.  And any sense of artistry once accompanying pop music necessarily took a back seat to the new way of doing business.  Surely, that's had some effect.

It can't just be me becoming culturally oblivious, can it?  I have a master of fine arts for god's sake!

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THE PARIS ATTACK

Some notes about the horrible terrorist attack today in Paris.

1.  Killing is almost always wrong.  In almost every case, "justifications" for killing never really justify the killing.  Typically, they're bullshit rhetoric.

2.  Free speech, for a democracy, must be near absolute.  There can be no playing around with this.  People must be able to express themselves however they want, with only a bare minimum of restrictions--yelling "fire" in a crowded theater comes to mind here.

But...

3.  Free speech is not a license to be a dick, either.  There are consequences, whether you think there should be or not, for being a dick with your free speech.  I'm not saying the terrorist attack was in any way justified, but when your goal is seemingly nothing more than pissing people off just because you can, then it's very likely you will succeed.

I wonder why this French satire publication, as well as other publications throughout the West, feel so compelled to piss off Muslims.  What's the point?

But...

4.  Religion does not get a free pass from criticism just because it's religion.  We should be respectful towards people's religions because not only is religion something extraordinarily near and dear to people's hearts, but also to people's very sense of identity.  When one criticizes religion, it is very easily misconstrued to be a personal attack.  So we shouldn't be dicks.  HOWEVER, religion is also ideology, specific ideas about how people should live, how society ought to be structured. It would be crazy NOT to criticize religion.  Because that's what citizens in a democracy should do with all ideologies.

5. While the US and the West should not and cannot be held responsible for any individual act of extremist Islamic terrorism, there are some very real and reasonable grievances the Muslim world has toward the West.  We support repressive regimes there, all for oil.  Indeed, the entire Middle East regional map was drawn by the West for the express purpose of imperial exploitation.  We benefit economically because Muslims are suffering.

And then there's Palestine.  While Europe has been generally more supportive of the Palestinians than the US has, it cannot be denied that the longstanding double-dealing of Israel toward the nation it has occupied for decades is the main driver of tension between the West and the Muslim world.  We here in the US praise Israel for pretty much anything that nation does to the Palestinians.  And we pay much of the bill for it, too.

It is not unreasonable to say that if the US decided to lead the way in condemning Israel's brutal treatment of Palestine, if we ended all financial support, if we allowed various resolutions to get through the UN Security Council, the Israelis would very quickly reconsider the nature of their occupation of Palestine.

End the repression, and things will quickly get much better for both the West and the Middle East.  

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First planned Republican Obamacare vote: Taking insurance away from 1.5 million workers

From Daily Kos:

The Republican Obamacare repeal assault will begin this week, when both chambers are expected to vote to exploit workers and take employer-sponsored insurance away from as many as 1.5 million people. What Republicans say they are doing is restoring full-time work, what they're really doing is giving incentive to employers to make people work an almost 40-week without health insurance benefits. The employer mandate in Obamacare kicks in this year. It requires companies that have 50 or more employees either provide insurance to 95 percent of their full-time employees or pay a fine, and defines full-time work as 30 hours per week. Republicans want to change that definition to 40 hours.

More here.

I'm not sure if this bill would affect me personally or not; at the moment, the corporate chain restaurant for which I work has me going to the government exchange for my health insurance, which leaves my hours unaltered.  But the employer mandate does, indeed, kick in soon, and my employer has not yet announced how it will be reacting.  Fortunately, this latest GOP attack is not likely to make it past Obama's veto pen, so I probably won't get the chance to find out.

But the real deal on this is that what the Republicans REALLY want is to just end Obamacare completely.  This newest legislative swipe is just part of what appears to be a death-by-a-thousand-cuts approach. 

Now, I'm no big fan of Obamacare, myself.  It's a horrid plan that allows medical industry blood suckers to feast and feast and feast on both tax dollars and a captive customer base with relatively little governmental oversight.  It almost totally sucks.  But it has gotten me and millions of others such as myself access to health care.  So there's that.  And given that health care is a basic human need, I'll take it, warts, skinny legs, and all.

Here's what I want to know.  Why do conservatives think I shouldn't have access to health care?  Why do conservatives think I should go deeply into debt the moment I have a health crisis?  Why must I die of a preventable disease simply because I get my hands dirty for a living?

If the answer is along the lines of "market, yadda yadda, get a better job, yadda, capitalism is great, yadda," then I have only one response: fuck you, conservatives, you hate me, so I hate you.  You want me to die in the street.  So just go to hell.  You are a blight on this country, and we will not be a great nation until every last one of you is gone.

I mean, maybe there's another answer to why I should die in the street, one I'm not considering, a good answer perhaps.  But I seriously doubt it.

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TORTURE AND "CHILD KILLING"

I think I've recently gotten a glimpse into what it must be like to be a pro-lifer.  Well, let me qualify that statement.  I mean, what it must be like to be a very specific kind of pro-lifer.

For starters, I'll just straight up say that I really don't buy that most pro-lifers are motivated because they think abortion is "child killing."  I get this from conversations I've had with these types.  Actually, I've gotten this from MOST people identifying themselves as pro-life with whom I've spoken about the topic.

It's not something they just come right out and say.  You've got to sort of read between the lines.  Sure, "child killing" is always part of the official rhetoric, but most of the emotional bombast associated with the issue seems to come from outrage about women having sex they shouldn't be having, you know, anything outside of the fundamentalist Christian understanding of sexual morality, that is, pre or extra marital sex.  It's, like, "child killing, yadda, yadda, bad, yadda," but when the talk inevitably turns to sex, which it almost always does, that's when the pro-lifer becomes really animated, really emotionally engaged.

That's how you know the "child killing" thing is bullshit for these people.  Instead, it's all about the sluts.  Sluts, sluts, sluts.  Make the sluts pay.  You had wrong sex, so now you've gotta have a baby, to pay for your wrong sex.  Wicked slut.

Never mind the insane level of misogyny here for a moment.  Since when is having a baby to be construed as God's punishment?  But I digress.  I'm not talking about those people, who are very likely the vast majority of pro-lifers.  Rather, I'm talking about a distinct subset of pro-lifers who genuinely believe that we are currently living in an era of masses of mass murder, an era when killing babies is encouraged and common, something on the level of Sodom and Gomorrah.  An era of near total moral corruption among the people.

That's how the recent news about more than half the American population supporting torture makes me feel.  I feel like we are in severe decay as a nation.  Like the people have turned callous and wicked.  Like we don't deserve to think of ourselves as being good anymore.

Indeed, torture is, without a doubt, one of the most evil things one human being can do to another.  To support torture, as official national policy, is certainly an evil, too.  And most Americans support torture.  That makes us an evil nation.

And here I sit at my computer typing this.  In my evil nation.  A place where the people crave vile and unspeakable acts against human beings they don't even know.  A place where good is only something to which the people give lip service.  Needless to say, this is very weird and surreal.  America the Wicked.  I can barely comprehend it.  This is how that minority of pro-lifers must feel.  Like everything's gone totally to hell.

So we've got some common ground now.  Of course, let's not get too crazy with this: it is entirely likely that the pro-lifers I'm talking about here, the ones who really do think abortion is "child killing," are torture supporters themselves.  But still.  I feel like I'm getting an emotional sense of what they're about with this.

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Houston ranked among the most stressed cities

From the Houston Chronicle:

But, some people in certain places have a bit more to deal with than people in other places. Case and point: one ZIP code in Houston was ranked among the most stressed out in the country.

Real Estate company Movoto recently compiled  the data from nearly 30,000 ZIP codes nationwide. Economic factors such as poverty levels, commuting, unemployment, and the population without health insurance determined the ranking. 

Click here for more.

Not surprising for a state as red as Texas is--for that matter, I don't think that Mayor Parker, presumably a Democrat, and a longtime oil industry professional before entering politics, is too terribly friendly to working people herself. That is, this is what you get when you fully embrace pro-big business attitudes and allow corporations to run rampant.

I mean, man, up to forty percent of certain zip codes in this town live life below the poverty level. Forty percent. That's a total shame.

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FRANK ZAPPA FRIDAY AND 70S POP MONDAY ON SATURDAY

Two of my facebook features exported to Real Art.





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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Winkie and Frankie

Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

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WATCH ONE OF MY FAVORITE WRITERS INTERVIEW ANOTHER OF MY FAVORITE WRITERS

I'm still in holiday mode, especially what with my birthday coming up on Saturday.  So instead of dazzling you with my clever thought or facebook debate skills, I give you Chris Hedges interviewing Noam Chomsky.  Good stuff, to be sure.


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HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy New Year!


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REPUBLICANS: THE PARTY OF ANAL RAPE

I just had to post a couple more comments from my fb thread about the NY Times editorial calling for the prosecution of Bush officials for torture.  Context should be obvious:

Okay, but David K, this is torture we're talking about, as horrible, at least, as child molestation. Can you really see yourself being okay with someone who supports molesting children as a political point of view? And I'm not even really exaggerating, either: anal rape, and lots of it, is apparently something the CIA was doing pretty regularly to detainees. That's what supporters of torture are supporting. Anal rape.

You really think that's a "political position"? I think supporting torture is beyond the pale, not at all a legitimate political position. I mean, seriously. They support anal rape. That's totally fucked up. Definitely a sin, if you're a Christian, regardless of what whack theology to which one subscribes. And it's definitely evil.

I can't back down on this. That's how evil succeeds, when good people do nothing.

Richard, David C, it is not "whining" to decry and condemn official anal rape of prisoners. You guys support anal rape? That's how it sounds to me.

'Nuff said.

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'I Can't Breathe' T-shirts see high-school basketball team disinvited from event

From the Guardian:

A high school basketball tournament on the Northern California coast has become the latest flashpoint in nationwide protests over police killings of unarmed black men.

The boys and girls varsity basketball teams from Mendocino High School were disinvited from a tournament that starts on Monday at nearby Fort Bragg High, because of concerns players would wear T-shirts with the words “I Can’t Breathe” printed on them while warming up.

More here.

This makes no sense. Teenagers, being citizens, have, like all citizens, the freedom to express themselves, guaranteed by the first amendment.

And this is just straight up BS: "Principal Rebecca Walker issued a written statement on Friday saying school administrators respected the Mendocino teams 'for paying attention to what is going on in the world around them' and that the T-shirts were being prohibited as a security precaution."

A security precaution? My ass. More like they don't want to deal with any flak.

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New York Times calls for Cheney, Bush officials to be investigated and prosecuted for torture

From Raw Story:

The board concludes, 'Starting a criminal investigation is not about payback; it is about ensuring that this never happens again and regaining the moral credibility to rebuke torture by other governments. Because of the Senate’s report, we now know the distance officials in the executive branch went to rationalize, and conceal, the crimes they wanted to commit. The question is whether the nation will stand by and allow the perpetrators of torture to have perpetual immunity for their actions.'

More here.

I posted this on facebook with the statement, "If we don't do this, prosecute the torturers, we're a joke."

Then I got a little commentary action.

Zach Interestingly this is impossible for the same set of reasons/pathologies that make it impossible for us to prosecute police officers for murder.

Ron Okay, true to a great extent, but I would argue that super-elites, such as administration insiders, are far less subject to criminal prosecution than low level rank and file government officials. That is, we've already prosecuted some of the Abu Ghraib soldiers, and from time to time we do, in fact, prosecute crooked cops. We've also prosecuted a few very low level bankers, and even Martha Stewart. But the big boys? No way. Even when they got Scooter Libby, Bush pardoned him.

They will sacrifice the grunts from time to time, but there's just no accountability if you're wealthy and/or powerful. None at all. That, too, makes us a joke nation.

'Nuff said.

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FRANK ZAPPA FRIDAY AND 70S POP MONDAY ON SATURDAY

Two of my facebook features exported to Real Art.





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BOXING DAY CAT BLOGGING

Winkie

Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

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MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Listen to this after midnight, when the Christmas magic is at its strongest:



Happy Christmas!  I'll be back Friday.

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"BAD TEACHERS, BAD SCHOOLS," BAD EDUCATION DISCOURSE

A buddy of mine posted a link to this essay about how totally messed up the public discourse on education has become in recent years.  It's a good piece; you should read it.

Here's what I commented to my friend:

You know, I have this long, interesting, and engaging critique about the structure of American schooling, how we conceptualize it, and how its authoritarian nature is hopelessly at odds with education's ostensible holy grail, critical thinking. It's a good critique, I think, and something about which we should all be thinking.

But I don't even talk about it anymore. The public discourse on education has gotten so bad, so outside reality, so amazingly absurd, so destructive, that it has become, by far, the more pressing issue. A much more pressing issue. Indeed, the flawed approach we have had in this country, the one lambasted by my critique, is INFINITELY superior to what these horrible people who call themselves "reformers" would have us adopt.

It's all so extraordinarily depressing that I try not to think about it too much.

Excelsior!

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