Category: Liberal Rants

Thoughtful posts on why the neopaleolithic viewpoint, while perhaps valid for its adherents, is yet not the way I want my country run.

SPROINNNNGG!

Posted on by Dale

That is the sound of rightwing nutjob’s brains when they are invited to leave a comment on a World Daily Online article entitled OBAMA ANNOUNCES HORRIFYING NEW EXECUTIVE ACTION.

First, a little background.  World Daily Online is one of those nutjob aggregators that take brief snippets of news, rewrite the lead-in, slap a clickbait headline on it, and conclude with “Tell us what you think in comments.”  You will notice, if you take a look at the main page, that the screamy headlines are all a bit similar.  If you believed WDO, President Obama and Hillary Clinton do nothing but PANIC, and you yourself will constantly be either ill or in disbelief with the events of the day.

For your average conservative nutjob, it’s the perfect way to get your angerbear on first thing in the morning, and the comments are about what you would expect.[1]

So what HORRIFYING NEW EXECUTIVE ACTION is Obummer guilty of this time?

Here, go read it.

Right.

Now, I don’t know about you, but an a la carte approach to cable offerings has been a desideratum for this dirty freaking hippie for some time.  Why am I paying for shopping channels or entire channels devoted to the exploits of dead golfers or sitting in boats or college football players who are now more geriatric than I am?

Also—and here the nutjob and the hippie are of one mind—are we not concerned to the point of rebellion over the ickiness of huge, practically monopolistic corporations?

So here the Muslim Kenyan Usurper says, hey, I think we should give the people more choice in how their money is spent, and how do the nutjobs react?

SPROINNNGG!

They can’t do it.  They cannot say, “Wow, even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then” or “Even a stopped clock is right twice a day” or any other sequence of words that would give the MKU any props whatsoever.  They simply cannot do it.  The comments are an amazing study of cognitive dissonance.

I love that the article has over 2500 FaceTube shares of this HORRIFYING EXECUTIVE ACTION. I am amused that the authors of the website didn’t bother to recast any of the actual facts, so that their readers get the news that something they probably have bitched about is being supported by the MKU, straight up.

I’m a little concerned that—and this will shock you—the headline and lead are completely offbase in their characterization of the event.[3] The angerbears, who I am willing to bet are not getting their news from any actual news source, now firmly believe that they have one more example of the MKU’s blatant disregard of the Constitution.[4]  If you were to engage one in discussion, their unshakable faith in the perfidy of Barry Hussein Soetero Obama would be an irritating, teflon-coated wall, impervious to actual real Things, and this article will have contributed to that.

Oh well.  As the sage once said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”  It’s just amusing that some brains can’t process some facts when they don’t agree with their opinions.[5]

—————

[1] Never read the comments.[2]

[2] Read the comments.  They’re a hoot, and a great way to get your eyebrows and jaws their exercise first thing in the morning.

[3]  Here’s the Washington Post article.  See if you can tell the difference. That’s right, Billy, “urging” the FCC to do something is not the same as “issuing an executive order.”

[4] Unconstitutional?  Meh.  It’s a gray area, but most jurists are inclined to give the sitting President the benefit of the doubt.

[5] Actually, most brains can’t, but don’t get in my way when I’m being mean to nutjobs.

My religious school

Posted on by Dale

It seems that in the sovereign state of North Carolina, your tax dollars earmarked for charter schools are far more likely to go to a religious charter school than not.

I keep thinking that if I work hard and focus on the end result, I can one day kill off my morals and scruples and get in on these Jebus dollars like the shysters to the north of us are doing.[1]

Probably Cthulhu.

But Dale, I hear you asking, what religion will your school promote?  This is a good question and I will now attempt to answer a completely different one.

The philosophical/moral/ethical foundation of the Lyles Charter School will be as follows:

  • The 10 Principles of Burning Man
  • The 9 Precepts of Lichtenbergianism
  • The Big 6
  • The Golden Rule

 

 

Let’s examine the prospect, shall we?

The 10 Principles of Burning Man

Those ten principles are:

  1. Radical Inclusion: Everyone is welcome, all types, all kinds, friends, strangers, and in between.
  2. Gifting: Gifts are unconditional offerings, whether material, service oriented, or even less tangible. Gifting does not ask for a return or an exchange for something else.
  3. Decommodification: Hand in hand with gifting, burns are environments with no commercial transactions or advertising. Nothing is for sale – we participate rather than consume.
  4. Radical Self-Reliance: You are responsible for you. Bring everything with you that you need. Burns are an opportunity for you to enjoy relying on yourself.
  5. Radical Self-Expression: What are your gifts, talents, and joys? Only you can determine the form of your expression.
  6. Communal Effort: Cooperation and collaboration are cornerstones of the burn experience. We cooperate to build social networks, group spaces, and elaborate art, and we work together to support our creations.
  7. Civic Responsibility: Civic responsibility involves the agreements that provide for the public welfare and serve to keep society civil. Event organizers take responsibility for communicating these agreements to participants and conducting events in accordance with applicable laws.
  8. Leave No Trace: In an effort to respect the environments where we hold our burns, we commit to leaving no trace of our events after we leave. Everything that you bring with you goes home with you. Everyone cleans up after themselves. Whenever possible, we leave our hosting places better than we found them.
  9. Participation: The radical participation ethic means you are the event. Everyone works; everyone plays. No one is a spectator or consumer.
  10. Immediacy: Experience things right now. Live for the moment, because that moment is fleeting, and you never get another chance.

Also the 11th Principle, Consent.

The 9 Precepts of Lichtenbergianism

You already know these:

  1. Task Avoidance
  2. Abortive Attempts
  3. Successive Approximation
  4. Waste Books
  5. Ritual
  6. Steal from the Best
  7. Gestalt
  8. Audience
  9. Abandonment

The Big 6

We haven’t really talked about these in a while.  Here’s the main site.  Essentially, it’s a curriculum structure for finding and using information, aka research.

Here’s the original language:

1.Task Definition

1 Define the information problem

1.2 Identify information needed

2. Information Seeking Strategies

2.1 Determine all possible sources

2.2 Select the best sources

3. Location and Access

3.1 Locate sources (intellectually and physically)

3.2 Find information within sources

4. Use of Information

4.1 Engage (e.g., read, hear, view, touch)

4.2 Extract relevant information

5. Synthesis

5.1 Organize from multiple sources

5.2 Present the information

6. Evaluation

6.1 Judge the product (effectiveness)

6.2 Judge the process (efficiency)

Here’s my elementary version:

1. What’s the job?

1.1 What are we trying to do?

1.2 What do we need to know?

2. Where will we find the information?

2.1 Where could we look?

2.2 What’s the best place to start looking?

3. Find it.

3.1 Find the sources of information: books, encyclopedias, Internet, cd-roms, etc.

3.2 Look up the information in the sources: use the index, etc.

4. Deal with it.

4.1 Read through all the information.

4.3 Get just the information we need: take notes!

5. Show it!

5.1 Put all the information we found together.

5.2 Present the result.

6. How did we do?

6.1 Did we do a good job?

6.2 Were we good at finding information?

The Golden Rule

Here.  Read it for yourself.

That’s it.  Unless I’ve missed something.

Wait, you want me to explain all this?  Geez, who has time for that?  What do you think I am, an educator?

Let me put it like this: if people want me to explain how this foundation would make a perfect school, they can request me to do so in the comments below.  So there.

—————

[1] And if Nathan Deal has his way, I won’t even have to move to Asheville to do it.

Confused? Here, let me help

Posted on by Dale

From today’s FaceTube:

::sigh::

This is one of those memes that I call the rightwing “nuh?UH” response.[1]  Is your black-and-white world starting to look a little gray around the edges?  Simply asseverate whatever eternal truth that you think is unraveling.  Rinse.  Repeat.  Sneer smugly.

::sigh::

I presume this is in response to all the backlash to North Carolina and Mississippi’s idiotic “freedomz of religion” bills, the purpose of which is to protect the good Christianists from pooping next to someone who may or may not have the same fiddly bits as them.[2]

Look, I know that I have no clue about what it’s like to feel as if you’re in the wrong body.  I can look in my underwear and feel pretty affirmed, thank you very much.[3]  But I’m not so blinkered as to think that this is true of everyone when the evidence is piling up around us that it’s not.  In a conversation with my lovely first wife just last night, I pointed out that we seem to be awash in gender confusion much in the same way that we formerly seemed to be overrun with diagnoses of ADHD or reports of spousal abuse: society finally made it possible to even recognize the issues instead of hiding them.

So, yeah, suddenly it looks like crazy people have jumped on some kind of gender identity bandwagon, but the simple truth is that they were always there, they just suffered—and I mean suffered—in silence.

And further, I feel compelled to recognize their suffering as legitimate simply because of its disruptive nature.  In a recent interview, Caitlyn Jenner talked about breaking the world decathlon record at the 1976 Olympic Games, and said, “I remember waking up the next morning and looking in the mirror with not a stitch on and the gold medal around my neck, and it being a really scary moment. I was thinking, ‘Where do I go from here? What is my next distraction going to be?‘” She knew even then that she was in the wrong body.

Let us take a moment to remember what body she was looking at:

Yeah.  Tall, handsome, ripped, über-masculine.  Holy crap, I wish I looked even halfway like that.

Here’s the point: if the man in that photo couldn’t look in his underwear and answer the question of which gender he was; if he struggled with his gender for another 40 years; if he then chose to go public with his transition (problematic though it has been); then who the hell am I to discount his struggle?

And that’s just the one handsome man on the Wheaties box.  Rinse. Repeat.  But never sneer.

—————

[1] Why yes, that is the closest approximation in the Latin alphabet to the International Phonetic Alphabet’s glottal stop character.

[2] Because I know that’s what I’m worried about when I poop in a public restroom.

[3] Other than, well, you know…

Minimum wage: you’re doing it wrong

Posted on by Dale

Today on the Facetubes:

This encapsulates two of the rightwing positions that just drive me over the edge: worship of the military, and hatred for the poor.

As for the first, the idea that our current deployments in active war zones are in any way “protecting your unskilled butt” is ludicrous.  The last line in particular is one of those rightwinger classics.  I think the allusion is to the second World War, that we defeated Hitler and thus escaped the inevitable universal Third Reich that so captivates the authoritarian mind.

Because you remember how France and Poland and Holland were all speaking German by 1942, right?  Oh wait.[1]

I might add, if I were of a caustic nature,[2] that at no point in the last 60 years have any of us suffered the slightest threat of having to learn Vietnamese, Lebanese, Pashto, Arabic, Kurdish, or even Grenadan.  Just because the rightwing brain gets off on imaginary threats doesn’t mean they’re real.  (Spoiler alert: they’re not real.)

In the real world, our current “boots on the ground” adventures having nothing to do with any kind of existential threat to our nation.  They really don’t, and pretending they do is simply a ploy to elevate the good men and women who serve in our military to godlike heroes—a position I’m not sure many of them are comfortable with—for political purposes.[3]

My second bugbear, hatred of the poor, is there in spades.  Insulting names?  Check.  Disingenuous assumption that “Johnny Fry-Boy” works 40 hours a week?  Check.

But the argument that always just amazes me as an incredible example of the “is not/is too” frame of the rightwing mind is the “job designed for a kid in high school… who is earning enough for gas” thing.  They keep harping on this idea that fast food service jobs are merely some kind of a Happy Days lark, not a “real” job.

As they leave the drive-through at lunch, do they ever wonder who made their Value Meal if the place is staffed by high school students?  How is McDonald’s able to open before 4:00 every afternoon even?

Also, they harp on “burger flippers,” because those people are obviously scum, but of course the country is replete with other minimum wage jobs. (Also.)

Given the rightwing’s insistence on “personal responsibility,” it amazes me that they will look at someone working a job at McDonald’s in order to make a living and still sneer that for whatever reason the person doesn’t even deserve that because of “lack of skills.”  You’re poor and uneducated?  You should have thought of that before, loser.

I mean, and here’s the point, even assuming that Johnny Fry-Boy is a high school dropout and has no marketable skills other than working the line at Mickey-D’s, what do the rightwingers want him to do?

And here’s the biggest point that really leaves me slack-jawed: I see this story and the solution that pops into my head is to make sure our military is paid more too.

You would think that might have occurred to people who think our service men and women are godlike heroes.

—————

[1] Sure, the Angles and the Saxons had to learn some French after 1066, but… You know what?  The whole mindset is stupid.

[2] I am of a caustic nature.

[3] During the run-up to the Iraq War, the authoritarians were waving the “fight Them over there so we don’t have to fight Them over here” flag, and the dirty freaking hippies were all like, “Dude, terrorism isn’t an army,” and guess who was right?

Politically correct? More…

Posted on by Dale

Let’s take another look at our posting from the Facetubes yesterday:

My problem with this graphic is not that someone says “Merry Christmas” or “God bless the USA” or any of those other things.  My problem is that the author—and I have to assume anyone who posts it—wants you to think it’s a problem that they say these things.

They are hopping up on that cross to be crucified as martyr patriots when in fact no one is standing by with nails.  Most of the country would in fact agree with the honest sentiments expressed in each of the phrases individually.

But these people are not saying, “Merry Christmas.”  They’re saying, “I say ‘Merry Christmas,’ and that’s the way it’s supposed to be and if you don’t say it too then you are the enemy and I will fight you in the halls of Iwo Jima because you are one of Those People.”

They are declaring their über-patriotic stance as the only permissible and credentialed patriotic stance there can be in these here parts, and the rest of us need to take our nelly sensibilities and just move somewhere else if we don’t love the United States of A as much as they do.  That we might love our country as much—and perhaps differently— is clearly impossibile.  It is a thought-crime as far as they are concerned.  They have suddenly realized that there are 300,000,000 other Americans outside their monkeysphere, and they are freaking the freak out.[1]

Now I personally do have issues with the political stance behind some of these statements, “We support our troops” in particular.  What does that even mean other than militaristic idolatry?  But again, if these people are honest in their troop supporting, I have no issue with that. It’s when they go berserk with their SUPPORT THE TROOPS while at the same time they vote for people that lie us into wars; when they vote for people that don’t pay for those wars; when they vote for people who don’t provide for our veterans; when they post uninformed graphics about rejecting refugees while we have homeless veterans that need to be taken care of  while not voting to take care of homeless veterans; that’s when I have issues.

And I would be correct.  Politically, ethically, and economically.

—————

[1] Am I suggesting that they are hooting and flinging poo?  Why are you even thinking that?

Politically correct? Actually…

Posted on by Dale

Today on the Facetubes:

No, darling, you are not politically incorrect if you say those things.  You may, however, be an asshole if you say them as a way to consolidate your tribal membership to the exclusion of Those People.  And we all know about Those People, don’t we?

Those People are queer, aren’t they?  Or bitches, or chinks, or towel-heads, or niggers—aren’t they?

Those People all up in your face saying you ought to be more respectful of them and their so-called humanity.

Those People who make you so angry because they think that their “lifestyle” or “culture” or “religion” deserves some kind of special rights.

Those People who get their precious feelings hurt if you just say what everyone is thinking.

But no, darling, your saying “Merry Christmas” or “God bless the USA” is not why we might be calling you politically incorrect.  Let me know if you figure it out.

(see also…)

Oh, Republicans

Posted on by Dale

So here’s an odd thing:

U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Wednesday that President Barack Obama has politicized the Supreme Court nomination process by putting forward veteran appellate court judge Merrick Garland during a presidential election. (Reuters, 3/16/16)

He did what now?

Let’s back up a bit.  This is not news, of course.  The republicants have been pissing and moaning about how it tain’t fittin’ for them to even consider a Supreme Court nominee ever since Tony Scalia was found dead in a bed with a sheep.  Allegedly. [1]

Here’s Orrin Hatch, just last week, pissing and moaning:

“[Obama] could easily name Merrick Garland, who is a fine man,” he told us, referring to the more centrist chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia who was considered and passed over for the two previous high court vacancies.

But, Hatch quickly added, “He probably won’t do that because this appointment is about the election. So I’m pretty sure he’ll name someone the [liberal Democratic base] wants.” [Newsmax (!) 3/13/16]

Well, okay then.

So now that President Obama has nominated the very judge that Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Oopsies) has said would be the perfect nominee, we can all go back to wondering where Ted “The Zodiac Killer” Cruz was the day Scalia was murdered.

Wait, what?  What’s that?  Senate republicants are still pissing and moaning?  You don’t say!

They want the “American people to have a say” in the Supreme Court nomination by voting for the man who makes the nomination.[2]  Like we’ve already done.  Twice.

Not only that, but surveys indicate that a yoooge majority of Americans want the Senate to do its damn job.  Sounds like the people have had their say.

Republicants have also been pissing and moaning about how Democratic senators have said terrible, terrible obstructionist stuff about republicantist Presidential nominations in the past, which was just terrible.

And that’s what I really wanted to talk about today.

We have Sen. XYZ (R-Natch) pissing and moaning that Sen. ABC (D-The Past) once said they’d rather the Current Occupant nominate someone they like, so it’s only right that they (the republicants) refuse to consider any nomination made by President Obama, who has only 307 days left in office.  Why, that’s hardly any time at all left to do any real governing! [3]

So here’s what I always want to know when our republicant officials trot out the old tu quoque defense:

Are they saying 1) that what the Democratic Party did when they weren’t thrilled about potential SCOTUS nominees was a good thing to do and so they (the republicants) are going to do it too?  Or 2) that what the Democratic Party did was a vile and reprehensible thing to do and so they (the republicants) ARE GOING TO DO IT TOO?

I mean, there’s not really a third choice there, is there?

Do your damn job.

—————

[1] Tony Scalia was not found dead in a bed with a sheep.  That we know of.

[2] Or woman.  Heh heh.

[3] We may raise our eyebrows and purse our lips at this claim since Congress worked only 132 days in 2015.  That means President Obama has almost exactly 2-1/3 Congresses in which he must not try to accomplish anything.[4]

[4] Which, given this particular Congress, would not be difficult.

The Lyles Rule of Outrageous Truthiness: a review

Posted on by Dale

So today on Facebook…

Never Would Have Guessed

WHY MR. ROGERS WORE
A SWEATER?

Captain Kangaroo passed away on January 23, 2004 at age 76 , which is odd,
because he always looked to be 76. (DOB: 6/27/27 )
His death reminded me of the following story.

Some people have been a bit offended that the actor, Lee Marvin,
is buried in a grave alongside 3 and 4-star generals at
Arlington National Cemetery His marker gives his name,
rank (PVT) and service (USMC). Nothing else.
Here’s a guy who was only a famous movie star who served his time,
why the heck does he rate burial with these guys?
Well, following is the amazing answer:

I always liked Lee Marvin, but didn’t know the extent
of his Corps experiences.

In a time when many Hollywood stars served their country
in the armed forces often in rear echelon posts where they
were carefully protected, only to be trotted out to perform
for the cameras in war bond promotions,
Lee Marvin was a genuine hero.
He won the Navy Cross at Iwo Jima There is only one
higher Naval award… the Medal Of Honor!

If that is a surprising comment on the true character of the man,
he credits his sergeant with an even greater show of bravery.

Dialog from “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson”:
His guest was Lee Marvin….
Johnny said,”Lee, I’ll bet a lot of people are unaware
that you were a Marine in the initial landing at Iwo Jima ..
and that during the course of that action you earned
the Navy Cross and were severely wounded.”

“Yeah, yeah… I got shot square in the bottom and they gave me
the Cross for securing a hot spot about halfway up Suribachi.
Bad thing about getting shot up on a mountain is guys getting
shot hauling you down. But, Johnny, at Iwo , I served under
the bravest man I ever knew… We both got the Cross the same day,
but what he did for his Cross made mine look cheap in comparison.
That dumb guy actually stood up on Red beach and directed his
troops to move forward and get the hell off the beach..
Bullets flying by, with mortar rounds landing everywhere and he
stood there as the main target of gunfire so that he could get his
men to safety. He did this on more than one occasion because
his men’s safety was more important than his own life.

That Sergeant and I have been lifelong friends. When they brought
me off Suribachi we passed the Sergeant and he lit a smoke and
passed it to me, lying on my belly on the litter and said,
“Where’d they get you Lee?” “Well Bob….
if you make it home before me, tell Mom to sell the outhouse!”

Johnny, I’m not lying, Sergeant Keeshan was the bravest man
I ever knew.
The Sergeant’s name is Bob Keeshan.
You and the world know him as Captain Kangaroo.”

On another note, there was this wimpy little man
(who passed away) on PBS, gentle and quiet.. Mr. Rogers is
another of those you would least suspect of being anything
but what he now portrays to our youth.
But Mr. Rogers was a U.S. Navy Seal, combat-proven in

Vietnam with over twenty-five confirmed kills to his name.
He wore a long-sleeved sweater on TV, to cover the many
tattoos on his forearm and biceps.
He was a master in small arms and hand-to-hand combat,
able to disarm or kill in a heartbeat

After the war Mr. Rogers became an ordained Presbyterian minister

and therefore a pacifist. Vowing to never harm another human and also dedicating the rest of his life to trying to help lead children on the right path in life… He hid away the tattoos and his past life and won our hearts with his quiet wit and charm..

America’s real heroes don’t flaunt what they did; they quietly go about their day-to-day lives, doing what they do best. They earned our respect and the freedoms that we all enjoy.
Look around and see if you can find one of those heroes in your midst.
Often, they are the ones you’d least suspect, but would most like to have on your side if anything ever happened……. Jus sayin

Oy.

The Lyles Rule of Outrageous Truthiness states that “Any time something from the internet sounds too outrageous to be true, then you can safely bet that it’s not.”

That can be boiled down to “Cool story, bro—whoa, if true!”

The above is a lovely story, born I guess of our national fetishization of the military.  Yes, it ends talking about leading children on the “right path in life,” i.e., kindness and gentleness.  But first, boys, make sure you shoot guns and get tattoos!  After all, they’re our “real heroes,” not men like Captain Kangaroo or Mr. Rogers.

And of course, the story is not true. Not in a single significant detail.

Jus sayin.