Archive for 2017
May 1, 2017
IN MY EXPERIENCE, THE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO BE NAKED IN PUBLIC ARE SELDOM THE PEOPLE I WANT TO SEE NAKED IN PUBLIC: 13th annual World Naked Gardening Day (Sat. May 6th, 2017)!
AT AMAZON, 70% off or more on Nail Clippers.
FIGHTING WORDS: Kate Upton Might Not Be Perfect.
SHELBY STEELE: The Exhaustion of American Liberalism.
The recent flurry of marches, demonstrations and even riots, along with the Democratic Party’s spiteful reaction to the Trump presidency, exposes what modern liberalism has become: a politics shrouded in pathos. Unlike the civil-rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s, when protesters wore their Sunday best and carried themselves with heroic dignity, today’s liberal marches are marked by incoherence and downright lunacy—hats designed to evoke sexual organs, poems that scream in anger yet have no point to make, and an hysterical anti-Americanism.
All this suggests lostness, the end of something rather than the beginning. What is ending?
America, since the ’60s, has lived through what might be called an age of white guilt. We may still be in this age, but the Trump election suggests an exhaustion with the idea of white guilt, and with the drama of culpability, innocence and correctness in which it mires us.
White guilt is not actual guilt. Surely most whites are not assailed in the night by feelings of responsibility for America’s historical mistreatment of minorities. Moreover, all the actual guilt in the world would never be enough to support the hegemonic power that the mere pretense of guilt has exercised in American life for the last half-century.
White guilt is not angst over injustices suffered by others; it is the terror of being stigmatized with America’s old bigotries—racism, sexism, homophobia and xenophobia. To be stigmatized as a fellow traveler with any of these bigotries is to be utterly stripped of moral authority and made into a pariah. The terror of this, of having “no name in the street” as the Bible puts it, pressures whites to act guiltily even when they feel no actual guilt. White guilt is a mock guilt, a pretense of real guilt, a shallow etiquette of empathy, pity and regret.
It is also the heart and soul of contemporary liberalism.
It’s about unearned power and moral authority for people who should have neither.
THE TENNESSEE STAR HAS BEEN ALL OVER THIS ISSUE AND NO OTHER TENNESSEE MEDIA OUTLETS HAVE BEEN: GOP Gubernatorial Candidate Randy Boyd and Nashville Mayor Megan Barry Both Want Refugees But Remain Silent on Female Genital Mutilation Threat.
TRUE: Almost Every Speed Limit Is Too Low. “Traffic engineers believe that the 85th percentile speed is the ideal speed limit because it leads to the least variability between driving speeds and therefore safer roads. When the speed limit is correctly set at the 85th percentile speed, the minority of drivers that do conscientiously follow speed limits are no longer driving much slower than the speed of traffic. The choice of the 85th percentile speed is a data-driven conclusion—as noted lieutenant Megge and speed limit resources like the Michigan State Police’s guide—that has been established by the consistent findings of years of traffic studies. Yet most speed limits are set below the 85th percentile speed.”
SAD: Girl, 12, forced to withdraw from chess tournament for wearing ‘seductive’ dress.
The photo at the link shows an adorable and age-appropriate dress.
VICTORY GIRLS: Is ‘Stealthing’ really a new sex trend? Is it ‘rape’? Should we care? “Let me know when Switzerland convicts a woman of rape because a man wouldn’t have consented to sex with her if he knew she wasn’t on The Pill.”
THAT MEANS IT’S WORKING: Oregon lawmakers consider ending Medicaid expansion to shore up budget.
MASS STABBING ATTACK AT UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, AUSTIN: Eyewitness says stabber used a machete, cops have him in custody but no other information available.
PROCUREMENT: The Air Force Plans to Fly 100-Year-Old Planes.
A hundred years ago, one state-of-the-air warplane was Standard Aircraft Corporation’s Standard J with a top speed of 106 miles per hour. Although to be fair, its wooden frame and small size probably made it quite stealthy.
“ACADEMIC FREEDOM” IS NOT A SYNONYM FOR “PROFESSORS GETTING WHAT THEY WANT:” Study suggests professors widely oppose campus carry as inimical to academic freedom, but fewer would alter their teaching habits under the law. Like a lot of bigots, they don’t like some people, but they will have to put up with it.
FLASHBACK: Stop Worrying About Guns in the Classroom. They’re Already Here.
WE’VE LOST OUR DAMN MINDS: Study Says Breastfeeding Should Not Be Called ‘Natural’ “Coupling nature with motherhood … is ethically inappropriate.”
This one could also be filed under “This Is How You Get More Trump.”
STEVE RATTNER: Trump’s Tax Cuts May Be More Damaging Than Reagan’s.
I’m willing to take that risk.
Of course, what Rattner failed to address — and what Trump and the GOP Congress seem comfortable ignoring, too — is that we don’t have a revenue problem. What we have is a spending problem.
I DON’T TRUST THE INTERNET OF THINGS: Why You Should Buy the Dumbest Appliances You Can Find.
LEON TROTSKY, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Ice pick headaches: Symptoms, causes, and treatment.
CNN PRESIDENT JEFF ZUCKER: ‘Fox is state-run TV’
Asked for his assessment of the cable news landscape in the era of President Trump, Zucker began his reply by saying: “Obviously Fox News is, uh,” then paused for more than 11 seconds. “So, look, there’s three cable news networks. Certainly in primetime and in the morning, Fox is state-run TV and is extolling the line out of the White House.”
A spokeswoman for Fox did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Zucker said MSNBC “has become the opposition” and CNN “is seeking the truth.”
“Do you think the other two networks are not broadcasting the truth?” the New Yorker’s David Remnick asked.
“Well, I think that there are clear agendas at work at the other cable news networks depending on their political points of view,” Zucker replied.
Physician, heal thyself.
SHUT UP, THEY EXPLAINED: Reaction To Bret Stephens’ Global Warming Column Shows Left Isn’t Interested In Debate.
David Harsanyi:
For his debut New York Times column, Bret Stephens penned a tepid article in which he made the completely rational suggestion that both sides of the climate-change debate might fare better if they were open to hearing out the opposition’s arguments. Perhaps then, he argues, they could better work toward some sort of solution. It’s the type of platitude the Left is always pretending they want to hear from conservatives.
They don’t. The overwhelming reaction, as usual, was “Burn the witch!” If you challenge climate change alarmism, you’re a denier of science. If you believe Obamacare is flawed policy, you support killing poor Americans. If you support tax cuts, you’re a pawn of the plutocracy. There is a perfunctory reaction for every issue; a prefabricated smear devised just for the occasion. Every one is meant to circumvent debate while imbuing the Left’s position with a (fake) patina of morality and “science.”
Within this world, there’s no space left for any conversation that doesn’t begin with “You’re right. What can I do to help?”
“Thank you, sir. May I have another?” might have been more apt.
READER BOOK PLUG: From Randolph Beck, One Thousand Years. Beck writes: “It’s got time traveling Nazis and a Tuskegee airman.”
TRUMP DECLARES “LOYALTY DAY,” critics go crazy, don’t realize it’s been around for longer than they’ve been alive.