Avenge! Mmm....
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Olympian
I'm transfixed as ever by the Olympics. I love the Olympics. So, I might as well throw productivity out the window for the next 14 days or so, because I'm gonna be all over the Olympics, as I always am. I might comment on things like, I dunno, the Women's Synchro Diving (wtf was with Canada getting the silver? They weren't fully synched! They stole it from Italy! Avenge Tania Cagnotto!)
Avenge! Mmm....
Avenge! Mmm....
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Wrong Wing
I'm tired of the endless obstructionism and shrill posturing of the Right in this country. It's ridiculous, and has kept the country from moving forward (that is, progressing) on any number of issues. It's why we're lagging on a host of things while our First World cousins in Europe and elsewhere are leaving us behind. Now, I know the exceptionalist propaganda line where we blow smoke up our own asses is well in place, the whole "envy of the world" bullshit (as much bullshit as the idea that this is somehow a classless society that is highly socially mobile), I know that's all going like gangbusters as usual.
But the thing is, when has the Right actually been RIGHT about anything? When have conservatives been on the mark? Their blend of rigid thinking, dogmatism, and closed mindedness has never, ever been a path to progress. Quite the opposite, really. And how far back should we go to demonstrate this?
The trend toward Know-Nothingism is so bad in today's GOP that people who absolutely are/were Republicans 20 years ago are afraid to call themselves Republicans today, because they're embarrassed by this trend. They tend to call themselves "Libertarians" today, which is really just a smokescreen for saying that you're a Republican who realizes that the GOP has gone off the deep end -- it's no accident that the long demise of so-called "moderate Republicans" that began in the 60s paralleled the emergence of so-called "Libertarians" -- it became a shelter for those folks who found themselves exiled from the GOP.
Anyway, the conservatives are nearly always wrong -- and I just threw the "nearly" in there to be nice (a problem we liberals tend to have). The trend toward Know-Nothingism is staggering -- their ideology has ballooned up around them and colors their view to the extent that they're willing to go after science, itself, because it's challenging their political reality? Is that how bad it's gotten? Good fucking lord. It's like having somebody's crazy uncle at the steering wheel, refusing to let anybody else drive.
The reactionary response is this: if reality doesn't fit the theory, change reality. THAT is their approach, in a nutshell. And that's how an entire ideological industry has sprung up to ensure that Right-thinking people don't go "wrong" -- which is to say, that they are protected from their lying eyes by ideological bullshit.
Pick an issue, and lay out the reactionary position on it, versus the liberal, and you'll see what I mean.
Evolution: The Right doesn't believe in it, supports creationism/intelligent design. The scientific community has found the evidence for evolution increasingly persuasive going back to the 19th Century!!
Global Warming: The Right doesn't believe in it. The scientific community overwhelmingly finds evidence supporting it.
Gays: The Right thinks it's a choice, born out of temptation by Satan, no doubt. Again, the science is increasingly showing that homosexuality is genetically derived. (Posting that one because they're afraid to do this kind of research in the US, given that Gay is to the American Reactionary what Jew is to Nazi.
Taxes: The Right still peddles supply side theory and accompanying snake oil, even though the economic evidence overwhelmingly points to the utter failure of this as an engine of robust, meaningful, long-term growth.
Vaccination: The Right increasingly fears and resents public health programs that have been demonstrated to work. Because of the nonsense about vaccination, we're seeing resurgences of whooping cough and measles. Cause and effect, you fucktards.
Universal Suffrage: Reactionaries are uncomfortable with democracy, especially when it leads to outcomes that stand in their way, so they throw in for voter suppression as a way of countering it, because they don't want everybody to get a vote, whether it's minorities or women. The Right's view on this is very clear -- whether it's voter ID laws, poll taxes, fire hoses, or throwing elections -- they are hostile to democracy. And they're wrong to be that way (and that fear goes back to the pre-Enlightenment era).
Slavery: The reactionary view of slavery was that is was a-okay, ordained by the Bible. The progressive/liberal view was that all people were created equal, and that slavery was an unconscionable evil. The Right was a-okay with slavery.
I could go on and on and on. The conservative view was that Earth was the center of the universe. THAT was the conservative view, until Copernicus and Galileo were like "Uh, wait, dudes, you know what..?" On and on. An unobstructed path of wrongness.
This is why the GOP is going after science, itself. There is, in the back of their dogmatic brains, this fear that they're wrong, and the only way they can combat this is to attack science, itself. With what, exactly? Oh, that's right: ideology, rhetoric, and religion. Those are their weapons, delivered with characteristic zeal and anger. Again, the Crazy Uncle hypothesis, drowning out everybody else in the room with his braying.
Enough is enough. Liberals screw themselves over by trying to be ecumenical, trying to be tolerant, and being uncomfortable with, well, dogmatism. But they need to be willing to call bullshit on the bullshit when they see it, and to act on it. If nothing else, to leave the Know-Nothings behind in their ideological hog wallow, and move forward (again, the p-word, progress, comes into play, here).
Countries that don't have their heads up their asses are progressing; our country is being held captive by the least-rational, least-tolerant, least-informed, least-reasonable reactionaries who pander to the very worst impulses in people for the sake of momentary political gain. Enough, already. Americans are becoming a laughingstock as we stagger down this ideological dead-end, captive to a policy elite who actually have no good answers for ANYTHING, because they're simply dead wrong -- they are informed not by evidence or science, but by ideology, which is the bathtub gin of philosophy.
Enough, already. Let's move forward, America, and stop walking backwards with our eyes closed, going "la la la la I can't hear you" with reality. Keep doing that and we're going to go right off a cliff.
But the thing is, when has the Right actually been RIGHT about anything? When have conservatives been on the mark? Their blend of rigid thinking, dogmatism, and closed mindedness has never, ever been a path to progress. Quite the opposite, really. And how far back should we go to demonstrate this?
The trend toward Know-Nothingism is so bad in today's GOP that people who absolutely are/were Republicans 20 years ago are afraid to call themselves Republicans today, because they're embarrassed by this trend. They tend to call themselves "Libertarians" today, which is really just a smokescreen for saying that you're a Republican who realizes that the GOP has gone off the deep end -- it's no accident that the long demise of so-called "moderate Republicans" that began in the 60s paralleled the emergence of so-called "Libertarians" -- it became a shelter for those folks who found themselves exiled from the GOP.
Anyway, the conservatives are nearly always wrong -- and I just threw the "nearly" in there to be nice (a problem we liberals tend to have). The trend toward Know-Nothingism is staggering -- their ideology has ballooned up around them and colors their view to the extent that they're willing to go after science, itself, because it's challenging their political reality? Is that how bad it's gotten? Good fucking lord. It's like having somebody's crazy uncle at the steering wheel, refusing to let anybody else drive.
The reactionary response is this: if reality doesn't fit the theory, change reality. THAT is their approach, in a nutshell. And that's how an entire ideological industry has sprung up to ensure that Right-thinking people don't go "wrong" -- which is to say, that they are protected from their lying eyes by ideological bullshit.
Pick an issue, and lay out the reactionary position on it, versus the liberal, and you'll see what I mean.
Evolution: The Right doesn't believe in it, supports creationism/intelligent design. The scientific community has found the evidence for evolution increasingly persuasive going back to the 19th Century!!
Global Warming: The Right doesn't believe in it. The scientific community overwhelmingly finds evidence supporting it.
Gays: The Right thinks it's a choice, born out of temptation by Satan, no doubt. Again, the science is increasingly showing that homosexuality is genetically derived. (Posting that one because they're afraid to do this kind of research in the US, given that Gay is to the American Reactionary what Jew is to Nazi.
Taxes: The Right still peddles supply side theory and accompanying snake oil, even though the economic evidence overwhelmingly points to the utter failure of this as an engine of robust, meaningful, long-term growth.
Vaccination: The Right increasingly fears and resents public health programs that have been demonstrated to work. Because of the nonsense about vaccination, we're seeing resurgences of whooping cough and measles. Cause and effect, you fucktards.
Universal Suffrage: Reactionaries are uncomfortable with democracy, especially when it leads to outcomes that stand in their way, so they throw in for voter suppression as a way of countering it, because they don't want everybody to get a vote, whether it's minorities or women. The Right's view on this is very clear -- whether it's voter ID laws, poll taxes, fire hoses, or throwing elections -- they are hostile to democracy. And they're wrong to be that way (and that fear goes back to the pre-Enlightenment era).
Slavery: The reactionary view of slavery was that is was a-okay, ordained by the Bible. The progressive/liberal view was that all people were created equal, and that slavery was an unconscionable evil. The Right was a-okay with slavery.
I could go on and on and on. The conservative view was that Earth was the center of the universe. THAT was the conservative view, until Copernicus and Galileo were like "Uh, wait, dudes, you know what..?" On and on. An unobstructed path of wrongness.
This is why the GOP is going after science, itself. There is, in the back of their dogmatic brains, this fear that they're wrong, and the only way they can combat this is to attack science, itself. With what, exactly? Oh, that's right: ideology, rhetoric, and religion. Those are their weapons, delivered with characteristic zeal and anger. Again, the Crazy Uncle hypothesis, drowning out everybody else in the room with his braying.
Enough is enough. Liberals screw themselves over by trying to be ecumenical, trying to be tolerant, and being uncomfortable with, well, dogmatism. But they need to be willing to call bullshit on the bullshit when they see it, and to act on it. If nothing else, to leave the Know-Nothings behind in their ideological hog wallow, and move forward (again, the p-word, progress, comes into play, here).
Countries that don't have their heads up their asses are progressing; our country is being held captive by the least-rational, least-tolerant, least-informed, least-reasonable reactionaries who pander to the very worst impulses in people for the sake of momentary political gain. Enough, already. Americans are becoming a laughingstock as we stagger down this ideological dead-end, captive to a policy elite who actually have no good answers for ANYTHING, because they're simply dead wrong -- they are informed not by evidence or science, but by ideology, which is the bathtub gin of philosophy.
Enough, already. Let's move forward, America, and stop walking backwards with our eyes closed, going "la la la la I can't hear you" with reality. Keep doing that and we're going to go right off a cliff.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Trippin'
The boys still talk about the trip we took the other week -- B1 talks about different things he saw, B2 talks about the hotels we visited and the animals we saw, and they both tell me how they "miss the trip." It's cute. I was pleased how smoothly it went, without any hitches along the way. It was a resounding success; everybody had a blast, and the boys didn't once mention Exene -- not the entire time. I would periodically call her so she could talk to the boys, and they could tell her what they'd been up to, but they were content to be on the trip with me, even going solo. And the weird thing for me is that, since Exene never drove on any of our trips (she refuses to drive), there was no qualitative difference between this trip for me and any other, in terms of driving, since, had she been there, I'd STILL be the one driving over 3700 miles by myself! Baha!
Friday, July 6, 2012
Higgs
I'm amused by this clip of Brooklynites (some hipsters, some just New Yorkers) trying to guess what the Higgs Boson is. I think only one of them actually knows. My 10-year-old knows more about it, thanks to me talking to him about it a few years ago, when it came up!
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Stormy
Man, we had some trippy weather today -- this fierce storm blasted through Chicago literally out of the blue today, around midday. Fiercest storm I've seen in the city in years. The wind picked up and it blasted through. It didn't last long, but it came on really quickly, and the wind was amazingly strong, felt like it was nearing microburst levels. Nothing like what creamed the Mid-Atlantic states, for sure, but still, pretty impressive. It's almost like this wild weather, supercharged by rampant, I dunno, elevated heat levels by a, hmm, changing climate, is becoming the "new normal" for the world these days. I wonder how many wildfires, derechos, droughts and what-not will have to be endured before American politicians embrace the scientific community's evidence-based findings about climate change. Clearly we're not there, yet. Maybe if the South and Southwest all burn down and their coasts flood (as their inland areas dry up), maybe then they'll stop chugging the Kool-Aid pimped out by the oil industry about global warming. Or maybe they'll just think it's End Times(tm) and will get even more loopy.
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