Category: Ramblings

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Creating Monsters

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.

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Laughing at Arrogance

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.)

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Toddlers In Charge

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.

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Defining Terms

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.

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True Science Demands Dissent

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.

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Banning Books and People

I’ve written about this before, but the issue seems to have come around once again (truly, it’s never ending). There has been a huge kerfuffle in recent weeks and months over the “banning” of certain books. Yes, parents in some school districts have argued for the removal of certain books from the school library as not appropriate for the age group of the school (does anybody really think that third graders should be reading books more appropriate for middle-schoolers or high-schoolers? Yes, it’s happening in some school libraries). But in the end, that is not banning books. If you can go out and get the book from your local public library or pick it up off the “banned books” table at Barnes and Noble, the book is not banned. And if your small-town library doesn’t have a copy of the scandalous book you’re looking for… they’ll use interlibrary loan to get it from elsewhere for you.

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Wishful Thinking and MASSIVE Projection

The Left has, once again, lost their ever-loving minds. Or rather, deliberately destroyed whatever is left of their minds. The levels of projection and wishful thinking are astonishing. And when I say wishful thinking… they are wishing for a dystopian future in which they, somehow and against all odds, become the radical, system-busting heroes. They all seem to imagine themselves as Katniss in Hunger Games or Tris in Divergent, or Offred in Handmaid’s Tale, or whatever other female heroine fighting the good fight against always-oppressive men and society. It’s so freaking stupid and self-centered. I invite them to go live in Saudi Arabia where women were not allowed to drive until very recently. There they can see for themselves what a society that truly represses women really looks like.

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Wannabe Underground Railroad

As everybody should know, the Underground Railroad was a network of abolitionists who worked to secretly move slaves out of the south and into freedom in the northern states and Canada. Since the Dobbs decision last week, I’ve started seeing a number of posts with a meme that says “If anybody wants to go camping and you can’t do it in your state, I’ll help you camp in my state and I won’t say anything…” The implication being, of course, that the person posting will help you, the reader, come into their state in order to get an abortion.

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The States Decide

With the Supreme Court handing down its rulings on abortion and gun control today, my Facebook feed has been filled with sturm und drang. So far, I’ve seen references to The Handmaid’s Tale, Christian autocracy, women being forcibly returned to the dark ages, and a ton of wailing, moaning, tearing of hair, and the wearing of sackcloth and ashes (or maybe those ridiculous pink pussy hats). You would think that the world had ended.

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