These troubled times call for potty mouths.

A facebook friend scolded me a bit for yesterday's post wherein I used, as she said, my "potty mouth."  I responded that these times call for potty mouths.  Then I thought it was so funny that I posted as a standalone status the title of this post I'm making right now here on Real Art.  That inspired another friend to ask me why I use dirty words sometimes.

So I told him.

Words are entirely arbitrary in that they're ultimately just sounds to which culture, various cultures really, have assigned meaning, which makes a dirty word in one language gibberish in another. That is, they're just words, man, having as much or as little weight as the individual assigns them.

Having said that, though, I have to observe that so-called "dirty words" ONLY have the weight they do because of the way that some people try to police or condemn them. So for that, I thank you. Your problem with dirty words makes them all the more effective and meaningful in the mainstream. I really probably wouldn't ever use any dirty words if nobody had a problem with them. So really, thanks. I need you for this to work.

But a briefer answer to your question is that I use dirty words very specifically. I never put them on facebook without having thought about it first. And I use them to show that I'm very serious about what I'm saying, serious in a visceral and instinctive way.

I just couldn't imagine living my life without them. They are important tools in my overall lexicon.

'Nuff said.

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Texas Police Officer On Administrative Leave After Pulling Weapon On Teens During Pool Party

From BuzzFeed:

However, video later emerged of one officer aggressively handcuffing and detaining teens who described themselves as bystanders, before wrestling a girl in a bathing suit to the ground and drawing his weapon on others who came to her aid.

More here, with video.

Black people put up with this shit EVERY FREAKING DAY. And a whole lot of white people, perhaps a majority, always think that black people have it coming. Fortunately, no one died in this instance, but it is certain that the usual white suspects will explain to any and everybody, until they're blue in the face, that these black kids had it coming.

"Oh, well, you know, that fourteen year old girl probably smoked marijuana" or "they weren't from that neighborhood, so they had no right to be there in the first place." As if black people can't go to pools in white neighborhoods, like that's a good thing. Or "they were wearing gangster clothes" or "when I was a teenager, I always let cops do whatever they wanted and always acted in a very respectful way."

Yeah. Whatever. When you're treated like this your entire life, when your parents were treated this way, and their parents before, and your children, and their children, it's not likely you're going to want to always be "respectful" to law enforcement, who seem to exist to do nothing but harass you. But like I said, whatever. Disrespect isn't a crime. Disrespect doesn't warrant being thrown to the ground or having a gun pointed at you.

This is the flip side of Ferguson, of Baltimore, of New York, and thousands and thousands of other stories about cops killing black people. There's not always a killing. But this sort of shit always precedes the killing.

I'm sick of it. And I'm sick of white people self-righteously defending it. We will never be a just nation until we put an end to it all.

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Bill Maher pummels right-wing Republicans for their phony Christian persecution complex

From Raw Story:

Sharing an assortment of stills of conservative Republicans complaining that Christianity is under attack, Maher said that credit for all of the attacks on Christianity should go to himself.

“This idea that everybody on the left is plotting against Christianity and wants to wipe out religion is offensive. — to me,” he exclaimed. “I’m the only media figure with a show, week in and week out, that says that. I’ll be damned if the credit goes to the left when I’m doing all the heavy lifting.”

Click here for the video.

Maher really nails it here. I'm not his biggest fan, but when he's on, he's definitely on, and he's definitely on in this clip.

The "persecution of Christians" in this country is nothing but a line of false propaganda used by fundamentalist leaders and right-wing demagogues to outrage and galvanize conservatives against the non-existent anti-Christian liberal oppressor. It is a complete lie, and if you believe it, you're a fool.

No, really. I'm a big liberal, and some of my best friends are Christians.

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FRANK ZAPPA FRIDAY AND 70S POP MONDAY ON SATURDAY

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Frankie

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Scott Walker Shocker: Rape Pregnancies Only an Issue in 'Initial Months'

From AlterNet:

Turns out the Wisconsin gov, presidential aspirant is able to channel the consciousness of a rape or incest survivor. He knows, because he just does, that rape and incest survivors are only concerned about having an abortion  "in the initial months" of pregnancy, television station WKOW reported. After that, they're apparently overjoyed.

Walker was explaining why he is willing to sign a 20-week abortion ban without exceptions for rape or incest.

More here.

Walker doesn't know a damned thing about being raped, and his callous attitudes about it make him clearly a total misogynistic scum bag. There is a special place in Hell for him.

But you've got to give him credit for his consistency.

If I understand correctly, among pro-lifers the majority position is to ban all abortions except for cases of rape or incest. Well, isn't that nice of them? They assert that abortion is murder, which is why it should be banned, but they're just fine with murder if the pregnant woman behaved in what they consider to be a sexually virtuous way.

That's why I don't take most of the pro-life movement seriously. That's why I think they don't give a rat's ass about "murder." No, what deeply concerns them is sluts. It's all about the sluts. Sluts, sluts, sluts. They're so into sticking it to the sluts that they're just fine with abortion for women who aren't sluts. I mean, screw the "murdered babies." That's not the problem. The problem is women having sex of which the "pro-life" movement doesn't approve.

Otherwise, they'd take Walker's position. No abortion, no exceptions. Because a fetus is a "baby," a real live "human being." Regardless of the pregnant woman's sexual behavior.

Of course, I don't buy any of that shit at all, myself. Abortion isn't murder. And the only real issue about this is who gets to decide what happens inside one's own body, the government or the individual.

I take scum bags like Walker, however, more seriously. At least, his position is consistent with his stated view. I mean, he really is a total piece of woman-hating shit. But he's putting his money where his "pro-life" mouth is.

Unlike most of the rest of his movement, who are totally full of it.

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Capitalism, like fire, is useful, but also extraordinarily dangerous.

Yesterday's post about the importance of business regulation, in which I compared capitalism to fire, meaning that the two have both creative and destructive aspects, brought out a couple of conservatives to hassle me when I cross-posted on facebook.  Missing the point entirely, they went to town on my fire comparison, bending over backwards to find situations making it just fine to let fire do its destructive thing, in order to show that sometimes regulations are bad.

They just went on and on, each scenario becoming increasingly ridiculous.  I kept telling them that, in the end, with firefighters' "controlled burns," or whatever, somebody, somewhere, was making sure fire wasn't destroying everything in its path.  But they refused to let go.

I finally had to address their bullshit more directly:

You're talking as though America is not currently in an era when an enormous percentage of the political class is straight up hostile to all business regulation. This is the context in which I offer my metaphor, a context where it is widespread "good sense" to deregulate as much as possible, and when not possible, to do some regulatory capture, staffing agencies with people friendly to the industries these agencies are supposed to regulate.

I get your point. You want to make sure that I understand some regulations don't do what they're supposed to do and have needless bad effects. But I already agree with that. I've agreed the whole time. I've even said so on this comment thread.

Right now, however, I think pushing the notion that we need regulation, and that a lot of regulation actually helps rather than hinders the economy, is far more urgent than telling everybody what we already know, that some regulation is bad.

I mean, after all, conservatives have spent the last four decades citing examples of regulation-gone-wrong to falsely "prove" that all regulation is bad. We've got a big huge conceptual mess to clean up here as far as how the public understands regulation. 

'Nuff said.

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25 Images of Markets "Regulating Themselves"

From Daily Kos:

When economists talk about how a market "regulates itself," what they mean is that markets reach an equilibrium between supply and demand.

This says nothing about whether or not this equilibrium will be a good thing for society. It simply states that if consumers choose what to buy and producers choose what to sell and how to produce it, the market settles on a product distribution and prices.

Lately, many people I know have argued that "free markets" mean something more. They see markets as ethically right or ethically moral, meaning pursuit of profit always somehow leads to a greater good.

Unfortunately, morality isn't built into markets.

More here.

Capitalism, like fire, is useful, but also extraordinarily dangerous.

When we work with fire, we understand that only fools do not take safety precautions. I mean, we don't want to burn down the whole forest, after all. Same thing with capitalism. Only fools, which, in this case, means "libertarians," believe we should not take safety precautions, which, in this case, means "regulations." Frighteningly, these libertarian fools have the dominant voice in national affairs.

Which, in this case, means that the whole forest is burning down.

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Why Did We Ever Make the Duggars Famous in the First Place?

From Cosmopolitan.  Yes, I'm posting from Cosmo now.

We are a society so schizophrenic about sex that we use images of half-naked girls barely out of their teens to sell everything from Internet service to hamburgers while we also spend millions on abstinence-only sex education. We have one of the highest unintended pregnancy rates in the developed world but fight legal battles over whether bosses should be able to decide what forms of birth control their employees can access. We live in a country where 1 in 5 women will be raped and where we also have politicians who see fit to publicly philosophize over what makes a rape "legitimate."

More here.

That, in a nutshell, explains why American attitudes about sex are downright insane. Essentially, our public discourse on sex is bipolar. I mean, literally bipolar. We have on one end of the spectrum the religious fundamentalists who offer sexual morality designed for paranoid and primitive Bronze Age people barely surviving the harsh desert environment in which they wandered endlessly. Needless to say, such situationally specific "morality" is, at the very least, harmful in the current era. On the other end of the spectrum are the amoral capitalist exploiters who would sell their own grandmothers into sexual slavery if they could get away with it and if it was profitable enough. For them, anything goes, any humiliating oppressive depiction, no matter how divorced from the real world, no matter how many kids see it online, or everywhere, really, as de facto sex education, as de facto education on what it means to be a man or woman.

In between, there is nothing. I mean, okay sure, there is in fact quite a good discourse on sexuality out there, one looking at sex realistically, where the aim is to empower individuals in a healthy and uplifting way. But it is a discourse which is totally marginalized. A discourse you have to find on your own. It is NOT part of the public discourse on sexuality. Consequently, the public discourse we have is utterly dominated by people who really ought just to shut their fucking mouths.

The Duggars, with or without the child molestation scandal, are a part of this. It's good that their show has been cancelled. One less voice for sexual insanity is a good thing.

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Sam Harris & Noam Chomsky Trade Nasty Emails Until A Winner Emerges...

Here, from The Young Turks:



Chomsky says this all the time in his writings: it is an elementary moral truism that one is responsible for the foreseeable consequences of his actions. "Intent" is totally meaningless when you KNOW FOR A FACT that you're going to kill lots of people in the course of trying to do something else. You're killing lots of people, and you know you're killing lots of people, which makes you responsible.

That seems pretty irrefutable, pretty rock solid. Why don't many Americans seem to understand that?

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FRANK ZAPPA FRIDAY AND 70S POP MONDAY ON SATURDAY

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Stella

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Al Sharpton: Callers believe Texas floods were God's punishment

From the Houston Chronicle:

On his syndicated radio show "Keepin' It Real," Sharpton said Tuesday that many of his callers interpreted the Texas downpours that swamped cities across the state this week, flooding homes and killing at least 13, as divine rebuke.

"Some people said that they felt that the world had lost its morals, that homosexuality and same-sex marriage, which I support, caused it," Sharpton said in an interview. "Many called and said they thought that was absurd, that it was science. My position is that science is right."

More here.

You know, Sharpton really hasn't been an idiot, at least not publicly, for an extremely long time, since the 90s, I think, when he supported the woman making that false rape allegation. I mean, he's not my favorite MSNBC personality, but he's a legitimate commentator these days, who often makes good observations and assertions. He's really succeeded with his self-reinvention over the years, and I, for one, take him very seriously.

But he also continues to be one of the right wing's favorite jokes. "Oh, Sharpton this, and Jackson that, yuk, yuk, yuk!" Whatever. He's not the guy he was a quarter century ago. And he's CERTAINLY not the guy who said this about 9/11:

"[T]he pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America...I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"

No, that wasn't Sharpton. Rather, is was the late conservative Christian leader Jerry Falwell. And his remark was immediately seconded by conservative Christian leader Pat Robertson.

That is, when Sharpton was given a chance, thrown a slow moving baseball just hanging over the plate, really, to blame these floods in Texas on God's anger because of the state's cruel and barbaric right-wing attitudes, he didn't do it. Instead, he talked about science.

This really begs the question: which side of the aisle has the joke ministers? I think the answer to that's pretty obvious.

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Southern Baptists Change Policy on Speaking in Tongues

From Charisma News:

After decade-long resistance, the Southern Baptist Convention will admit missionary candidates who speak in tongues, a practice associated with Pentecostal and charismatic churches.

The new policy, approved by the denomination's International Mission Board on Wednesday (May 13), reverses a policy that was put in place 10 years ago.

Speaking in tongues is an ancient Christian practice recorded in the New Testament in which people pray in a language they do not know, understand or control. The practice died out until Pentecostalism emerged around the turn of the 20th century. In Pentecostal churches it is considered one of many "gifts" of the Holy Spirit, including healing and the ability to prophesy.

Allowing Southern Baptist missionaries to speak in tongues, or have what some SBC leaders call a "private prayer language," speaks to the growing strength of Pentecostal churches in Africa, Asia and South America, where Southern Baptists are competing for converts and where energized new Christians are enthusiastically embracing the practice.

More here.

I haven't thought of myself as a Southern Baptist for over two decades. That's why it came as a complete surprise that I would be so disturbed by this. I mean, none of my business, really, but c'mon, you're speaking in tongues now? Are you even Baptists anymore?

And the shift has more to do with missionary work, trying to attract people to be Baptists in geographic locations where speaking in tongues is common. Needless to say, such a motivation has absolutely nothing to do with theology or spirituality. Seems pretty damned cynical to me.

But like I said, not really my business.  Still, the old Baptist in my is outraged.

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At least 2 dead as heavy rains flood freeways, close schools

From the Houston Chronicle:

As the flood waters recded Tuesday, HFD and HPD teams searched waterways to make sure other people are not in danger. The crews also searched abandoned vehicles to determine if anyone is inside them. 

Throughout the city motorists woke Tuesday morning to flooded freeways and streets, making the morning commute dangerous and even impossible for most.

The 610 Loop as well as Katy, North and South freeways were underwater in spots throughout the area. Other major roads blocked by high water include Memorial Drive and Allen Parkway near downtown.

Dozens of vehicles were stranded in high water throughout the city. In many cases, the water came up to to the driver's side windows of the abandoned cars, Other vehicles are almost submerged.

More here.

Fortunately, I was barely inconvenienced by this, mostly because I live in the aptly named Heights neighborhood.  I mean, for a while there it had me concerned.  The entire yard, street, and yard across the street became a flowing river for a while.  But once it stopped raining so heavily that all started to recede.  My drive to work was uneventful.  I had to go through an underpass that was covered by some eight feet of water ten hours earlier; by the time I was there, though, it was just muddy.

But really, I was lucky.  This Chronicle article says two dead, but New York Times coverage says five.  This was a significant weather event.  You know, the kind I had hoped I wouldn't be seeing so much since I left New Orleans.

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Black Man Vs. White Man Open Carrying AR-15 Legally

Here:



Not at all surprising in the abstract, but pretty shocking, anyway, to see it happening on video like this. This is what it's all about. This is the central point to the debate that's been raging in this country since George Zimmerman gunned down Trayvon Martin in cold blood: there is an assumption in law enforcement, and among much of the white community, and even among others who buy into the lies and myths perpetuated by white supremacy, that blacks are criminals and whites are law abiding citizens. And this video shows that assumption being played out in the real world.

For that matter, this video also touches on the elephant in the middle of the room among these "open carry" advocates. A lot of these people harbor fantasies that they're going to kill a "black criminal" some day, and that's the sole purpose for their packing heat. So "open carry" is for whites only. So they can kill black people. Thus, "open carry" for black people is an absurdity.

Sick, twisted stuff.

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THE DUGGARS

I posted the video below on facebook yesterday with this accompanying text:

This is what conservatives defending Josh Duggar look like.



In the comment thread, a friend suggested that the family deserves their privacy in this issue. Of course, I have problems with that. My response:

These people aren't simply public figures, though. They actively push harmful ideas to which, apparently, they do not adhere themselves. The Duggars are anti-gay--indeed, Josh's mother was only recently trashing transgendered people in Arkansas because they, she implied, molest children, and she said this fully aware of the fact that her son is a child molester. They're also "purity" people: if you have sex before marriage, you're "impure," like a bite of food passed from mouth to mouth, or some such, the kind of imagery "purity" people teach about sex.

Does this mean that Josh and his sisters are now filthy sluts because they gave it up before marriage? That's the kind of shit they push on the nation.

If they were private citizens, not leaders telling everybody how they ought to live their lives, yeah sure, I'd probably agree with you. But that's just not the case. When you put yourself out there as "people of God," you'd better damned well act like a person of God, or you're just a sleazy snake oil salesman, who needs to be tarred and feathered.

And speaking of Josh, you know that until this scandal broke, he was a really big deal in the Family Research Council, a major fundamentalist political organization, which is why there are so many pictures of him with GOP presidential hopefuls. But he's a child molester. One who was "punished" by the "lecture" of a convicted collector of child pornography. This is totally fucked up.

For that matter, have his sisters/victims even gotten any therapy? How are they doing? Are they cool with the whole thing? How the hell could they be cool with the whole thing? They were betrayed by their family in the most horrible way. And nobody seems to give a shit.

'Nuff said.

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING: YET ANOTHER CANINE EDITION!

Lola

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Obama’s Twitter Debut, @POTUS, Attracts Hate-Filled Posts

From the New York Times:

The @POTUS account — named for the in-house acronym derived from “President of the United States” — would “serve as a new way for President Obama to engage directly with the American people, with tweets coming exclusively from him,” a White House aide wrote that day.

But it took only a few minutes for Mr. Obama’s account to attract racist, hate-filled posts and replies. Posts addressed him with racial slurs, called him a monkey, and one had an image of the president’s neck in a noose.

More here.

Republicans, you have a racism problem. As always, I must point out that I am not saying Republicans are racist. But many individual Republicans ARE. This means your party has a problem with racism. A BIG ONE. And you desperately need to do something about it. But all you do is deny the obvious truth. Doing nothing under such circumstances is essentially the same thing as condoning it.

This racism problem you have will continue until you put an end to it, and purge these vile racists from your ranks. It's up to you. These are your people. Are you up to the task?

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