Sunday morning reading - November 9, 2008

Jeff Goldstein tees off on the importance of not using graciousness or high-mindedness as an excuse for avoiding truth:

...something classical liberals need to put at the top of their priority list: namely, a refusal to allow that tactics of progressives to pass unchallenged or even to be celebrated.

In an political environment wherein the left has managed to turn the introduction of inconvenient facts into “smears” or “racism,” this willingness, on the part of some conservatives, to believe themselves capable of seizing the moral high ground by essentially giving cover to the demonstrably bad by allowing that it is merely “misguided,” is yet another step toward the very kind of partisan pragmatism that has cost Republicans so dearly, and that, even more troubling, has served to devalue language and further institutionalize a dangerous idea of how interpretation works.

And Bill Quick mulls the consequence of words that might be offensive also being accurate:

A few days ago, nemo took exception to my use of the phrase “Black man on a white horse” to denote Barack Obama. nemo’s reasoning was straightforward - while the cheap play on words was attractive, it could too easily be taken as scurrilous racism by those who don’t know me.

I’ve been thinking about that ever since.

Dismal science:   First, go grab a beer.  Or pour a glass of wine.  Or something stronger.  I don’t care if it’s not noon yet!  Drink it!  Now, sit down.  Done?  Then read MaxedOutMama:

I am adjusting my forecast to 75% moderate US depression by 2010, lasting for perhaps two years.

In short, there are some dominos yet to fall.  The key domino-pusher will be Democratic stupidity about energy.  And as Dr. Sanity (who it seems is taking the rest of the year off) reminds us, the left will remain dysfunctional:

The beginning of the 21st century will surely be looked back on as a golden age of paranoia.  The headlines of today fairly ooze with the delusions and vast conspiracies dreamed of in the mind of the paranoid left.., as they attempt to keep the holes in their ideology plugged; thus preventing any reality from washing over them or flooding their cognitive processes.

Every time a leak in that ideological dike appears, the paranoid brand chewing gum is brought out to stop it up.  The TNG memos were a clever plot by Karl Rove.  The Bush Administration was behind 9/11.  Katrina was allowed to destroy New Orleans because Bush hates blacks.  George Bush is about to impose a theocracy on the unsuspecting U.S.  Pat Tillman was murdered because he wanted to meet with anti-war activist Norm Chomsky.  The list of the paranoid delusions goes on and on and on.
...
[Such] mental gymnastics allow the paranoid person to externalize blame and avoid responsibility for his situation in life, as well as his own feelings.  It is always someone else’s fault and not his.

Depressing, huh?

Oh well, there’s always Neccos:

A whole roll takes about 40 minutes to eat.

Beg pardon?  By whom?  Doing what?  I suppose if a person had the extreme forbearance to suck rather than chew every single wafer in the pack, it might take forty minutes.  But such iron control cannot possibly be a healthy sign.

Posted by: Old Grouch in Linkage at 03:46:14 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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