The ornery ramblings and occasional fiction of a former political science professor turned author
I am enjoying my first Christmas with family in four years. I’d almost forgotten how much driving between houses there is, but it’s still fun. We spent last weekend with my cousins doing Christmas and today, some are doing a second Christmas with some of the same people, while others are with the other side of the family. We are splitting our time between my husband’s parents and siblings.
Continue reading “Merry Christmas!”
Earlier today I saw something about Elon Musk and one of the first comments was something to the effect that it was obscene that Musk was worth as much as he is. Combined with the release of the Twitter files and other things, this got me thinking again. It’s not news to anybody who’s been paying attention that a huge number of people who consider themselves “liberal” or on the left, absolutely hate money. And as the saying goes – we hate what we fear. They hate people who make money, people who try to make money, people who want to keep their own money, people who build wealth, people whose parents are wealthy, people who spend more than they do… whatever. If money is involved, they hate it.
Continue reading “Fear of Money”
This time last year (well, the equivalent weekend, if not the date), we were having Thanksgiving dinner with one of my best friends and her family. We were only three days away from the moving truck arriving and taking all our worldly goods down to Texas. We spent the next three days frantically trying to finish up packing and figuring out what was going in the car, what was going in the truck, and what was going in the trash. It was a bit frenetic to say the least. And we were still packing when the moving truck arrived.
Continue reading “Thanksgiving 2022”
What happened? We were promised an almost unstoppable red wave in yesterday’s election. What we got was one or two upset races and it was business as usual for the rest. Fetterman – Fetterman! – won in Pennsylvania for God’s sake. The corrupt, criminal-loving, now cognitively impaired candidate won over a TV famous medical doc who actually had some good ideas. In Georgia, it looks like the corrupt, racist slum lord will win over the former football player, who yes, has some gaffe issues, but far less than Biden. In other races (check out Real Clear Politics for more results) what should have been clear Republican wins became nail biters and I don’t think it was all fraud.
Continue reading “Why No Red Wave? Or A Labor of Love”
It’s a thing among hard-core political partisans to demonize and “other” (to use the language of the left… ostracize, unperson) their opponents and anyone who even hesitates to go along with their ideas. The left, with their capture of the major news outlets, is very good at demonizing, othering, ostracizing, unpersoning, and segregating all those with whom they disagree, dislike, and otherwise want/need to silence and do away with.
Continue reading “Demonization and Segregation”
A generational temper tantrum is occurring. There’s been a lot in the news lately (well, at least on the sites that I read. I don’t know if the mainstream media has said much) about childish adults throwing soup on Van Gogh’s sunflowers and gluing themselves to the wall of the museum, or gluing themselves to a street in Paris, or gluing themselves to other paintings, and other stupid, senseless, and destructive gestures with far less cool and panache than the brothers of Delta House. But they’re out there, throwing temper tantrums.
Continue reading “Creating Monsters”
I have to laugh when people attempt to remind me that they are superior to me now that they “know” what my politics are. The arrogant condescension of “I don’t expect to see conspiracy theories coming from you” followed by a link to FactCheck “debunking” some minor semantic part of the linked article is the preferred method. Because total burn on me doncha know. A post on FB about the Los Angeles DA charging the CEO of Kennoch for storing election worker data on PRC servers brought that response from a former colleague and once friend. (We’re still mostly friends, but s/he strays into attempts at public shaming a bit too often these days.)
Continue reading “Laughing at Arrogance”
Watching the Biden Administration announce, retract, modify, announce, let Joe speak, retract… and on and on is like watching a toddler on a sugar high. Think about it. Anybody who’s ever raised or dealt with small children knows that within the limits of their understanding, toddlers don’t necessarily lie. Tell outrageous stories about why or how something happened, yes. Understand that those stories are what adults often consider to be lies, no.
Continue reading “Toddlers In Charge”
With the election of Giorgia Meloni as Italy’s new prime minister, the terms “fascist” and “fascism” are being tossed around even more than they were when Trump was president. In almost every case these terms are wrongly defined. Reading all the ignorant garbage “reporting” about Meloni and her “far right-wing” party with its “fascist” ideology, has brought out the political science professor in me. For those who don’t know… yes, I have a Ph.D. in political science. I spent over twenty years teaching college students about not only the American political system, but about political systems throughout the world and over the last two hundred years or so. I worked hard to be this pedantic and sarcastic.
Continue reading “Defining Terms”
Lately we’ve been deluged with proclamations that the science of climate change, vaccines, greenhouse gases, the viability of nuclear power, the effectiveness of coal-generated power, the practicality of solar power, you name it, is settled and the answers trumpeted in the press and other public venues is the one true answer to any problems within these areas. I call shenanigans and bullshit.
Continue reading “True Science Demands Dissent”