July 12, 2010
It's Hard to Make Soccer Uglier and More Boring than it is, but ...
You have to hand it to the Dutch. They did it. Thank God the spectacle is over.
With the Netherlands' loss in the World Cup Final, Van Gogh's paintings and the invention of the wooden shoe still rank as the twin towers of Dutch achievement.
At least with Spain's win we are spared celebrations like this:
Thank you, Spain.
With the Netherlands' loss in the World Cup Final, Van Gogh's paintings and the invention of the wooden shoe still rank as the twin towers of Dutch achievement.
At least with Spain's win we are spared celebrations like this:
Thank you, Spain.
July 11, 2010
The Contextualizer In Chief
"They were simply parasites, less useful to society than his fleas are to a dog...Clearly there was only one escape for them - into stupidity...It is important not to misunderstand their motives, or one cannot predict their actions....What is to be expected of them is..stupidity, unconscious sabotage, an infallible instinct for doing the wrong thing...Only when their money and power are gone will the younger among them begin to grasp what century they are living in."
Orwell on the "ruling class" (1941)
Last week Barack Obama said that some Israelis are "suspicious" of him, because his middle name is "Hussein".
He said this with a straight face. It's a Jewish variation of Obama's Bitter Clinger axiom, but not an unusual construction for Obama (He "thinks" this way automatically) as do all leftists and most liberals.
For that matter, most of us do, to some extent. It's a valid and essential way to reduce and classify our own and someone else's assumptions and beliefs - contextualize them, to evaluate the influence of the "context" in which they're made.
The context, however, should never establish itself as the argument in the mind of the investigator...which it does to a shocking degree in the presumably well-educated brain of Barack Obama. The assumption that in the context of an embattled Israel, any or even a significant number of Israelis, are suspicious of the self-dignifying Obama because of his middle name is so - stupid - in so many ways, that it can't be ignored.
First,the claim is impossible to prove or disprove, and an expansive mind would reject it, off the bat, as incredible . Second - and not surprisingly - it portrays Obama as the honest, correct, post facto injured party in his Israeli policies, and Israeli opposition to them as simple-minded. Third, it's cruel, arrogant and clever, in the "do you still beat your wife" fashion. It exposes some of the poison in Obama's heart toward Jews and Israel, his inability to contain it, and the lengths to which "educated" liberals will go to avoid considering opposing arguments.
Contextualizing opposition to himself as the act of stupid, name-reactive Jews is happening here, but also in every other pre-judged social group (Racist Tea Partiers, bitter clingers, non-union members, xenophobic Southwesterners, health-care hating Republicans) contextualizing is the means of condemnation. It's more delicate than outright stereotyping because it's very surgical.
Obama is "bright" in the facile, glib, phony erudite style so important to liberals - that is, in the ways liberals recognize each other in crowds, mate-select and differentiate themselves from mere homo sapiens, but he is neither smart, learned nor honest. He never seems to have analyzed any of the liberal swill pumped into his head by family or mentors, except in his anticipation of objections to it. Obama is only "bright" like a male cardinal, or bright in the John Kerry fashion: how to sound like an intellectual with the brain power of an eggplant.
Kerry was a great contextualizer, too. Like Obama, his meager but vile intellect would establish the context of an opinion, belief or human pattern as the basis for its validity, and all Big Lies depend upon this scheme. This line of thinking isn't so much deduced from statist ideologies as it is impossible under any other kind of of ideology. When honesty, efficiency, justice, liberty, law and truth have to be dumped to establish authority and hold political power, they're drawing up plans for an authoritarian madhouse, with you as a permanent inmate.
I don't plan to show up and neither should you. Whom the gods would destroy, they first make stupid.
Orwell on the "ruling class" (1941)
Last week Barack Obama said that some Israelis are "suspicious" of him, because his middle name is "Hussein".He said this with a straight face. It's a Jewish variation of Obama's Bitter Clinger axiom, but not an unusual construction for Obama (He "thinks" this way automatically) as do all leftists and most liberals.
For that matter, most of us do, to some extent. It's a valid and essential way to reduce and classify our own and someone else's assumptions and beliefs - contextualize them, to evaluate the influence of the "context" in which they're made.
The context, however, should never establish itself as the argument in the mind of the investigator...which it does to a shocking degree in the presumably well-educated brain of Barack Obama. The assumption that in the context of an embattled Israel, any or even a significant number of Israelis, are suspicious of the self-dignifying Obama because of his middle name is so - stupid - in so many ways, that it can't be ignored.
First,the claim is impossible to prove or disprove, and an expansive mind would reject it, off the bat, as incredible . Second - and not surprisingly - it portrays Obama as the honest, correct, post facto injured party in his Israeli policies, and Israeli opposition to them as simple-minded. Third, it's cruel, arrogant and clever, in the "do you still beat your wife" fashion. It exposes some of the poison in Obama's heart toward Jews and Israel, his inability to contain it, and the lengths to which "educated" liberals will go to avoid considering opposing arguments.
Contextualizing opposition to himself as the act of stupid, name-reactive Jews is happening here, but also in every other pre-judged social group (Racist Tea Partiers, bitter clingers, non-union members, xenophobic Southwesterners, health-care hating Republicans) contextualizing is the means of condemnation. It's more delicate than outright stereotyping because it's very surgical.
Obama is "bright" in the facile, glib, phony erudite style so important to liberals - that is, in the ways liberals recognize each other in crowds, mate-select and differentiate themselves from mere homo sapiens, but he is neither smart, learned nor honest. He never seems to have analyzed any of the liberal swill pumped into his head by family or mentors, except in his anticipation of objections to it. Obama is only "bright" like a male cardinal, or bright in the John Kerry fashion: how to sound like an intellectual with the brain power of an eggplant.
Kerry was a great contextualizer, too. Like Obama, his meager but vile intellect would establish the context of an opinion, belief or human pattern as the basis for its validity, and all Big Lies depend upon this scheme. This line of thinking isn't so much deduced from statist ideologies as it is impossible under any other kind of of ideology. When honesty, efficiency, justice, liberty, law and truth have to be dumped to establish authority and hold political power, they're drawing up plans for an authoritarian madhouse, with you as a permanent inmate.
I don't plan to show up and neither should you. Whom the gods would destroy, they first make stupid.
July 10, 2010
Say Goodbye To The Auld Sod
Well, he WAS Irish, wasn't he?
GNN Arts & Entertainment - After a few days of smoke-filled rooming, a consensus emerged here at GNN about the death of Robert Byrd. We decided to wait for the liberal media to disgorge their face-saving encomia for this villain; to wait for their post-coital satisfaction with themselves to fade before their next lib-lick of another political canker like Byrd. Maybe Pete Stark next time. We wondered what our editorial position should be, because the position of "slobbering press bootlickers" was already chock-a-block full.
We found ourselves sidling into the "turd in the punch bowl" maxim, and mused that the Democrats were stuck with this Cicero-bleating, thieving, racist Goober, whether they liked it or not. DC then reminded us that it isn't a turd in the political punchbowl that the Democrats hate, but punch in their political turd bowl!. Good point. Byrd fit right in. How do you make something out of that?
Nick raised the point that the Byrd affair belonged in the GNN "Religion" category because of its moral complexities, until we all said that Hell was the world with a living Robert Byrd and Heaven was the world with a dead Robert Byrd, which was morally simple. Okay, "we all" didn't say that. Only me. But I have enough clout around here to prohibit a sermon from one of Paul's letters on the subject of Robert Byrd.
Next we thought that just some neutral, slightly melancholy, Thanatopsis boilerplate on "mortality" could put Byrd in perspective. But some wag in the conference room whispered out loud that our mortality might have prevented us from experiencing the current Robert Byrd, and mortality might prevent us from experiencing a future Robert Byrd! Mortality, in this view, is to be appreciated. This stuff is hard.
Then we thought that some tasteful but freighted-with-meaning photo of a weeping willow or pool of water behind, or near, some sign dedicating a public project to the pork efforts of Robert Byrd was the answer. We could publish it. That was easy. Now we have to photo-shop a couple of Port-o-Potties beside the Byrd sign, but we're going out for coffee and Bear Claws first.
GNN Arts & Entertainment - After a few days of smoke-filled rooming, a consensus emerged here at GNN about the death of Robert Byrd. We decided to wait for the liberal media to disgorge their face-saving encomia for this villain; to wait for their post-coital satisfaction with themselves to fade before their next lib-lick of another political canker like Byrd. Maybe Pete Stark next time. We wondered what our editorial position should be, because the position of "slobbering press bootlickers" was already chock-a-block full.
We found ourselves sidling into the "turd in the punch bowl" maxim, and mused that the Democrats were stuck with this Cicero-bleating, thieving, racist Goober, whether they liked it or not. DC then reminded us that it isn't a turd in the political punchbowl that the Democrats hate, but punch in their political turd bowl!. Good point. Byrd fit right in. How do you make something out of that?
Nick raised the point that the Byrd affair belonged in the GNN "Religion" category because of its moral complexities, until we all said that Hell was the world with a living Robert Byrd and Heaven was the world with a dead Robert Byrd, which was morally simple. Okay, "we all" didn't say that. Only me. But I have enough clout around here to prohibit a sermon from one of Paul's letters on the subject of Robert Byrd.
Next we thought that just some neutral, slightly melancholy, Thanatopsis boilerplate on "mortality" could put Byrd in perspective. But some wag in the conference room whispered out loud that our mortality might have prevented us from experiencing the current Robert Byrd, and mortality might prevent us from experiencing a future Robert Byrd! Mortality, in this view, is to be appreciated. This stuff is hard.
Then we thought that some tasteful but freighted-with-meaning photo of a weeping willow or pool of water behind, or near, some sign dedicating a public project to the pork efforts of Robert Byrd was the answer. We could publish it. That was easy. Now we have to photo-shop a couple of Port-o-Potties beside the Byrd sign, but we're going out for coffee and Bear Claws first.
July 9, 2010
They Make The Best Duck L'Orange Screwdrivers, Here
How To Tell If You've Had Too Much
GNN Booze Review - News from Beverage World. Call us when you have a Ball Park Frank version or Big Boy Double Bacon & Cheese!
GNN Booze Review - News from Beverage World. Call us when you have a Ball Park Frank version or Big Boy Double Bacon & Cheese!
July 8, 2010
A voice of sanity, a voice of inspiration and (obviously) a classy dame!
Sometimes, you just gotta marvel at the folks writing and educating out there in the blogosphere. You'll meet one of these web rangers over at Fuzzy Logic. GO. READ. LEARN SOMETHING.
White Guilt and Gynoguilt:
How the Left's Culture of Victimhood Undermines Equality
By Fuzzy Slippers
As we all know, the left and particularly its kudzu-like interweaving into and strangling of all aspects of academia is very fond of its "isms." Feminism, racism, whateverism--all purportedly designed to "call out" the oppressive white male and to tear down sexist walls, crash through glass ceilings, break out of the cycle of oppression. So imagine my surprise when, as a graduate student, I learned that I should not be teaching a particular female author in a Modern Literature class. She's an excellent, if under-read and under-appreciated, modern writer, but the chair of my department explained to me that her work should be taught in "women's literature" classes. It turns out that faux feminists were happy to perpetuate the idea that the term "modern writer" actually means "white male modern writer" and that because of this, a woman cannot be a "modern writer" at all. She's a writer of "women's literature."
"Women's literature" classes are chock-full of readings by people whose only qualification as a "writer" is a vagina. The "literature" is often . . . well, let's just say, not good. This isn't always the case, but often enough that you have to wonder why it's being taught at all (other than to fill in the entire semester's reading list by dredging up every female writer who ever put pen to paper). This gyno-centric reading list and my being told not to teach a truly outstanding female author in a "traditional" lit class initially unnerved and confused me. But the real reason is actually quite clear, if rather sinister: if we started selecting excellent female writers and started teaching them as if they were "real" literature, we'd end the hate-fueled gravy train. Who or what would the leftist intellectual elite write their endless, repetitive, belly-button-gazing critical essays about? What would happen to their careers if they had no one to demonize and no one to treat as a perpetual victim?
How on earth can we achieve any kind of gendered or racial harmony if we continue to perpetuate this bizarre notion that women and minorities must be treated with kid gloves or as strange anomalies to be taught in isolation, put on intellectual display as if they are animals in a zoo? Doesn't gyno-centric or race-based "grouping" serve only to underscore the "difference," to highlight the supposed inadequacies of said group/s? Yet when we on the right want to treat female authors or black authors as the equals of their white, male counterparts (i.e. actually worthy of study on the merits of the text, not because they have a vagina or other-than-white skin), we are not permitted to do so. In the name of equality.
(More...)
White Guilt and Gynoguilt:
How the Left's Culture of Victimhood Undermines Equality
By Fuzzy Slippers
As we all know, the left and particularly its kudzu-like interweaving into and strangling of all aspects of academia is very fond of its "isms." Feminism, racism, whateverism--all purportedly designed to "call out" the oppressive white male and to tear down sexist walls, crash through glass ceilings, break out of the cycle of oppression. So imagine my surprise when, as a graduate student, I learned that I should not be teaching a particular female author in a Modern Literature class. She's an excellent, if under-read and under-appreciated, modern writer, but the chair of my department explained to me that her work should be taught in "women's literature" classes. It turns out that faux feminists were happy to perpetuate the idea that the term "modern writer" actually means "white male modern writer" and that because of this, a woman cannot be a "modern writer" at all. She's a writer of "women's literature." "Women's literature" classes are chock-full of readings by people whose only qualification as a "writer" is a vagina. The "literature" is often . . . well, let's just say, not good. This isn't always the case, but often enough that you have to wonder why it's being taught at all (other than to fill in the entire semester's reading list by dredging up every female writer who ever put pen to paper). This gyno-centric reading list and my being told not to teach a truly outstanding female author in a "traditional" lit class initially unnerved and confused me. But the real reason is actually quite clear, if rather sinister: if we started selecting excellent female writers and started teaching them as if they were "real" literature, we'd end the hate-fueled gravy train. Who or what would the leftist intellectual elite write their endless, repetitive, belly-button-gazing critical essays about? What would happen to their careers if they had no one to demonize and no one to treat as a perpetual victim?
How on earth can we achieve any kind of gendered or racial harmony if we continue to perpetuate this bizarre notion that women and minorities must be treated with kid gloves or as strange anomalies to be taught in isolation, put on intellectual display as if they are animals in a zoo? Doesn't gyno-centric or race-based "grouping" serve only to underscore the "difference," to highlight the supposed inadequacies of said group/s? Yet when we on the right want to treat female authors or black authors as the equals of their white, male counterparts (i.e. actually worthy of study on the merits of the text, not because they have a vagina or other-than-white skin), we are not permitted to do so. In the name of equality.
(More...)
July 5, 2010
Nickie Goomba's message to American males: Grow a set!
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This gives you an idea of how it would have sounded had Lewis & Clark been committed life partners.
This gives you an idea of how it would have sounded had Lewis & Clark been committed life partners.
July 4, 2010
Five Million Shrimp Saved
Gore Describing Physique of The Perfect Masseuse (GNN File Photo)
GNN has learned that Albert "DNA" Gore will not be attending Chelsea Clinton's wedding.
GNN has learned that Albert "DNA" Gore will not be attending Chelsea Clinton's wedding.
Independence Day
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.
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Americans have bravely sacrificed, fought, and died for independence throughout our history.That independence must not end on our watch.Prepare.
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