Unraveling The Narrative

Posted on by accordingtohoyt

 

It was 1993 and Clinton was making us prosperous and balancing the budget, and equality and amity flowed throughout the land. We were glad the “me decade” was well in the past.  Everyone was altruistic and full of care for the poor.  And weren’t we lucky that Reagan had not nefariously caused WWIII.

We know this because if you pick up practically any movie or book from the decade, this will be beaten home with a jack hammer.

I have actually howled with laughter while reading a book published in the late eighties going on about how Reagan was a murderous so and so who intended to kill all the Russians, or the like. You see, I remember the rather soft-handed treatment when the USSR actually imploded (and having seen what came after, I’m not actually convinced we shouldn’t have done as Heinlein wished and tried and hanged all Komissars. Sure some of them were just following orders. Like Nazis, after all. And yes, I am actually aware that was under George HW Bush. But the groundwork was laid under Reagan.)

It was 1998 and we were living in happy and prosperous land with the budget balanced and the worst danger on the horizon was a resurgence of the “right wing militias.” The future was an endless lot of “progressive victories” under “enlightened technocrats.”

It was 2004 and George W. Bush was going to put every gay person in internment camps. On the street corners people were searched for possession of Muslim religion or liberal ideology. Most of the country had got strip mined and toxic piles of toxic stuff lay everywhere.

You lived through the time and it was not like that, you say? Next thing you’re going to say we don’t live in a land where one in five women gets raped while in college, and where men have this magical thing called “privilege” which is a get out of jail free card in every situation (except when arguing with a feminist, when being called on the possession of privilege means it’s off to the dungeon with me.) You’re going to tell me that in this land, women in powerful, well remunerated positions aren’t oppressed night and day simply because they have a vagina and “institutional patriarchy” oppresses them night and day because institutional. Also patriarchal.

You’re going to tell me that women aren’t paid less than men just because they’re women.

You’re going to tell me that and you’ll be absolutely right, of course, because you know what you’ve seen with your lying eyes and it’s nothing like the narrative you can find in every book, in every movie, in every newspaper, in every report, and in the majority of the presidential speeches, too.

It’s like there are two lands, one that the media-industrial complex writes from, and then the land we live in.

And after a while the suspicion sets in, that they can’t be that blind accidentally, that the lies and coordinated purposely and for an end.

You’d be right. And wrong.

The big lie that informs all the little lies the media-industrial corporations tell is uniform, taught in the schools, and pushed at every kid and adult who has even a modicum acquaintance with formal schooling. This is because the ideals of Marxism have slid into our society and become the “overculture” of the elites. Not only through Marx, himself, mind. He fit neatly into a matrix of despising the present and your countrymen in favor of the past and the exotic, which had been propagated by all the custard head romantics heading back to the eighteenth century. But the Marxist lie was absolutely manipulated and shaped by the USSR who infiltrated just enough of the media-industrial complex to create the sense that all the good people were hard left.

After that, it’s not needed to tell people what to say, they can deduce how to shape the narrative from their oikophobia and their “hierarchy of victims.” Once you know whose victimhood trumps whose, you know how to shape the narrative. You also know only the “oppressors” can be villains.

Are the lies told for an end? – oh, sure they are, but the end is not necessarily consciously sought. To an extent the lies are told to make the liar fit in with what they perceive as the “upper crust.” To another extent, the lies are told to bring about what they’ve been told would be utopia, to wit, the rule by enlightened technocrats. But to another, the lies are told because even these people see the bad results of what their supposedly enlightened elites are doing, and want to deflect blame.

To wit, for how long have we heard Reagan closed the madhouses? Untold was the fact that the madhouses he closed were largely empty, since due to a campaign by the enlightened purveyors of enlightenment (and this one REALLY was financed by the USSR) we’d defined our madhouses like the communist madhouses. They used theirs to imprison political dissidents, so in equivalence world, then we must be using ours to imprison political dissidents. And if what the people in the madhouses thought was that they were the son of Mary Magdalene by Napoleon and that G-d himself had ordered them to kill every person named Ned, that was too political. Their madness was brought about by the inherent injustice of the capitalist system, you oaf. How can you not see that? Don’t you know many wonderful people who are poor and many rich people who are asses? Then how can you not agree that capitalism is unjust and makes people insane? (Never mind that people are more or less insane from birth, and that no better system has ever been devised. It’s unfair and therefore everyone who goes mad, goes mad because of Capitalism.) The left had waged a war on the very concept of mental illness, but when the hordes of crazy hit the street and then the madhouses closed, they had to blame someone, and the someone was the person who formally ended a system that had already ended in practicality.

Well, yesterday I came across a similar thing. I was watching Scorpion with my husband. He had saved a huge stack of episodes going back to October.

Now, I didn’t set out to watch it. I was, instead, intending to work in front of the TV, because my husband was there and also yesterday was very cold and the room with the giant computer screen is warm.

However the series captured me, mostly with its depiction of very smart people. They’re Odd, like us, and that was interesting.

Oh, sure, there were burs under the saddle. Like the fact that the main character at 11 supposedly got upset because his software was used to bomb Kabul. Of course he did. Because every smart person is against the war and wants our enemies to thrive, right? I mean self-defense is such an uncouth value.

Never mind. I could get over those little moments. But then we came to an episode where the plot was that a good populist politician had got murdered by (of course) an evil corporation, which did so because he would prevent (!) their stealing water from smaller agro-businesses in… California. California, by gum. The place where small farmers ARE being run out of business, the place being given over to a desert, because Nancy Pelosi and the eco-freak lobby have chosen to let the water flow through to the sea to keep alive the delta smelt, a sort of schrodinger fish that might or might not exist, and if it exists might or might not be endangered.

At this moment, I needed to go out of the room and not Hulk out. Because think about it – how many people know that Nancy Pelosi and her merry band of idiots are the ones responsible for the suffering of small farmers? How many people follow the shenanigans of politicians. And how many will immediately assume that having seen this on television, it must be true, and the evul large corporation must be the ones stealing all the water?

A few more repetitions, and “everyone will know” the desertification of California is all the fault of big agro-business. And then we’ll empower politicians who will, of course, be bought by big agro-business, and make it even less possible to be a small farmer, but never you mind that, because the narrative tells you what to believe.

And the beauty of it, the sheer beauty of this, is that you don’t need to tell all the lies yourself. Just have people hear the same explanation three times and most of them will assume they came up with it on their own through REASONING. And then they’ll tell the lies for you.

This is how those raspers, like that Reagan was going to destroy us all in WWIII ended up in the middle of an otherwise completely apolitical cozy mystery. This is how you find episodes of Muslim harassment and hate crimes against Arabs as being common in America today, even though most of the hate crimes in America are committed… against Jews. Most of them by Arabs, but that’s something else. You will hear every time there is an episode of Sudden Jihad Syndrome that “we fear backlash against Muslims.” And having heard that often enough the man on the street assumes it must be happening, every time, otherwise why fear it? And thus it creeps into books, like other myths, such as Clinton’s balanced budget and devotion to feminist ideals.

All of which brings us to where we are today. And before you slump and say “we know. It’s all up.” – Pfui.
It’s not all up, and we’re starting to make substantial holes in the narrative. The fact that they get all up in arms these days about stuff that doesn’t ACTIVELY SUPPORT the narrative: Interstellar not blaming the destruction of the Earth on humans; American Sniper not condemning the war, means that they are both afraid and desperate. They want to control every single peep coming out of media, of entertainment, of news.

But time has moved on. Back in the eighties or nineties, they mostly had it as they wanted it. You see, the trick to constructing the narrative and fooling the maximum amount of people is that you have to both show only those of your field who are most rational and coordinated, and manage to not show any opposing views that accord with what people’s lying eyes are actually seeing.

Fail at one of those, and you’re going to have holes in your narrative. Thus, when the representatives for your side are a chick who made up a gang-rape story to attract a guy who didn’t care for her; or even moderately successful science fiction writers who scream they’re being oppressed and attack men for using the word “ladies” or, of course, Rose Eveleth, Vagina Vigilante, pissing all over the victory of a guy who landed on a comet – ON A COMET – because she doesn’t like his shirt… Or a vast group of supposedly educated women going on a crusade to make men sit as though they didn’t have male organs.. well, the idea that women are more peaceful or worthy of ruling than men goes out the window. So does the idea that feminism is about equality of opportunities. So, might the idea that women should ever have been let out of the drawing room and fainting couches, if it weren’t that some of us still insist on using the brains we were born with and in public, to boot. (The feminists can thank us later, if all women don’t end up treated as lunatics or children or lunatic children. Or they could thank us later, if they weren’t so busy acting like lunatic children.)

The narrative is leaking like the titanic after striking the iceberg.

Then there is the fact that the repellent Lena Dunham had her narrative of rape-by-college republican exploded by citizen journalism; that Herr (Schickle)Grubber’s lies on behalf of Unaffordable Care were shown by citizen journalism; that Rolling Stone had egg rubbed on its dirty face by citizen journalism. And there is the fact that other books are available, books that don’t have to go through traditional publishing’s “must reinforce the narrative mill.”

Suddenly you realize the narrative is already fracturing. Or to keep our metaphor, starting to list and fill with water.  If it weren’t, if someone in that big den of conformism that is Hollywood weren’t starting to get the sense the narrative is not one size fits all anymore, we WOULDN’T have got Interstellar. Or American Sniper. Not without the narrative.

Someone once told me they shriek louder when they’re losing. Ladies and Gentlemen, small furry folk and dragons, it’s time to do like Ulysses and plug our ears lest their shrieking drive us mad. Interpret their cries simply as meaning one thing: we are upsetting them. We’re disturbing their control. Which is exactly what we want to do.

Lay into them good and hard.*

In the end we win. They lose.

 

*To the SJWs reading this (oh, come on honey. EVERY SINGLE LINE, and you know it.  I  elevate your heart rate as much as exercise, but you like your ragey rage more.) yes, this is a rape metaphor. Just like a medieval sword is a phallic metaphor and the stuff between your ears is a potato metaphor. Or you could, you know, learn something of real life and history.

Of course that would disturb your belief in the narrative and in the end – heaven forbid – you might start thinking and join our little rebel band… er… I mean group of privilege who are privileged to be kept out of all positions of power by our immense… privilege. Better not risk it. Go back to sleep. It’s a rape metaphor. That’s it. Just like umbrellas. And rolling pins. And fish.  And a thought intruding on your head.

 

594 thoughts on “Unraveling The Narrative”

      1. I hate trigger warnings. I hate them so much that if i were the sort of person who actually thought they were a valid thing I’d say I find trigger warnings triggering. I’m a horrible person who writes horrible fanfiction. If I had to give trigger warnings for my favorite pieces I’d probably have to just list out every word including ‘videogame’ and ‘music’.

        I hate them because I’m a member of a virtual pet site featuring dragons and am part of a ‘Flight’ (elemental clan of dragons) that is considered triggering. Last year people were asking that our Flight’s week long celebration (all eleven Flights get a week long festival) be skipped because people found it triggering. The holiday was allowed to happen because can you imagine what would happen if one of the largest, friendlier communities of people on the site were told that they traumatize people just by being a part of the site? We’re still fighting the image of being actual, real monsters, too horrible to be viewed by most to the point where this year one of the big themes of our holiday was making people see the positive side of our Flight.

        I also hate how the concept of trigger warnings is used to shut down discussion. Someone brings up a topic or uses a word and then someone else says ‘oh, I find that subject/concept/thought makes me uncomfortable’ and suddenly the first person has to shut up or be a bad person for intentionally making someone uncomfortable. They’re a sneaky way to shut down discussion and protect people from having to learn things they don’t want to learn.

        2. *stare* *stares some more* *closes mouth* *stares even more* *blink*

          How the hell is having virtual pet dragons triggering? And… apologies to Sarah, but…

          How in the nine bleeding arse-torn HELLS is a VIRTUAL PET SITE in any way or form TRIGGERING and why the FUCK are these fragile mental halfwits even allowed NEAR a computer?! They’re CLEARLY too breakable to allow outside their ROOM, and are unable to handle any form of entertainment and media, so please, they need locking up in a nice, seamlessly white and padded room where they cannot find any deviation from their mindspace. Oh and somehow suspended in midair so that they may not come into contact with anything that is remotely distressing because ZOMG BADFEELS NOOOO.

          If they can’t handle something that’s likely aimed at children (I’m assuming, because neopets, and virtual pets, were always aimed at children in my experience) then there’s no way in hell they’ll be able to handle anything. Either they grow a brain, a spine and a pair of balls / ovaries, or just not inflict their ridiculously demanding dramas on the rest of us, for the love of Athena and all the representations of intellect out there.

          1. We’re the Plague Flight. According to the site’s lore we’re all about strength and survival, we wear the scars of what we’ve endured proudly and collect trophies from our fallen foes. The land we live in is harsh and inhospitable, at the center of which is a festering cauldron of rot and disease to which the strongest dragons will travel to in order to receive a blessing from our creator and hopefully survive said blessing. Basically we’re a bunch of ugly, diseased dragons and the art and designs submitted during our festival typically reference death or disease in some way or another. Some of the precious little snowflakes (and I’m not talking about the dragons in the Ice Flight) find the idea of us showing off pictures of mutant or visibly injured/sick dragons to be so upsetting that they’d rather have us shut up and go away, as opposed to you know, them just not participating in our festival.

            1. Duuuude. Even my flaming* pet cat’s not THAT sheltered, and she’s not been outside the house since she was 6 weeks old!

              *She doesn’t really flame, she just has really bad breath some days.

              2. The thing you need to remember is that the concept of triggers now extends to what makes someone even the slightest bit uncomfortable. If someone doesn’t like a thing they’ll say it is a trigger for them. For example someone might not like a particular author and could then say that said author is ‘triggering’ for them to stop a discussion about that author or their books. it has nothing to do with the content of the books or anything specific about the author, it’s that they don’t like them and don’t want to talk about them so they’re going to use the concept of triggers to force the other person to take responsibility for their mental well being.

                So yeah it’s not about being sheltered, it’s about wanting to be insulated from things they don’t like themselves or think that other people might not like.

                1. At which point, you point out that they don’t HAVE to participate in the discussion, and are free to leave if they don’t want to participate, because clearly, other people do, and they can come back when that part of the discussion is over, and can leave again when something ‘else triggers them.’

                  1. The problem is that they WANT to participate, they just want the discussion to change the terms that it uses to accommodate their needs. They desire to participate in all things at all times and things that they won’t participate in shouldn’t happen. It’s like how people call for books they don’t like to be banned rather than simply not reading the books.

                    1. I know it happens, I know it’s exactly as you describe, it’s just…

                      I’ve seen so many things that weren’t my thing, been involved in so many others that weren’t other folks thing, dealt with things that were nobody’s thing, and helped folks with stuff that surprised me it was a thing.

                      How can a rational, functioning individual believe that any significant fraction of what’s going on in the world is, or can be, all about them?

                    2. I mean, under the “makes me feel uncomfortable” the boys (with occasional input from husband) discussing advanced physics at the kitchen table? TOTALLY triggering. Next time I’m telling them that. “I haven’t had physics in thirty years and you’re trigggggering me.”
                      The look on their faces will be worth it.

                    4. One quibble. They claim they want to participate, when really they don’t, because they really want to force everything into their pigeonholes. Thus, they don’t want to participate in the aforementioned discussion, they want to participate in another discussion, to their specifications.

                    5. “they really want to force everything into their pigeonholes.”

                      They just want to control everything. Pigeonholes are just a technique to assert power.

                    6. Y’know how they have signs that say ‘you need to be this tall to ride’?

                      Yeah, there are reasons for those. I’m totally okay with telling them to sod off till they grow the fsck up. Which means with any luck they’ll never come back.

                    7. This triggers you? Very well, you are excused from the conversation. FeEl free to return once you have developed sufficient maturity.

                    8. At which point they file the “hostile environment” harassment lawsuit, or accuse you of “bullying”, or any of the other stupidities our legal system has been jiggered to permit.

                      I’m sorry, but these things are absolutely First Amendment issues, because the freaking government is on call to give them the legal authority to wage lawfare on the rest of us.

                  3. I think the proper answer to somebody claiming that they are being “triggered” is to say : “Then it’s time you went and had a little talk with your therapist. Don’t let us detain you, run along now.”

                    But I’m a Crank.

                  1. Exactly, they suffer from intellectual allergies and to stretch the metaphor, are against the most effective treatment. They refuse to be inoculated through exposure to concepts and experiences they wouldn’t normally consider.

                    2. Oh yes. We need to help these poor people, that kind of existence – when you can just barely go out or look at things online or watch a movie or read a book, without starting to feel uncomfortable or worse – has to be terrible. So yes, they need help. They need exposure. Constant exposure. It’s to their own good. Enough exposure often enough and they will start to toughen up and lose these weaknesses.

                      From now on consider it our duty to make sure they will have to face their weak spots at least once every day!

                      (Seriously speaking, some point to the idea. Especially for people who are just starting to recover from some traumatic experience. But as usual a basically worthwhile idea has been taken and pushed way past ridiculous, to the point where the original purpose has probably been destroyed beyond recovery. Who the hell takes ‘trigger warnings’ seriously anymore? Not most normal people. The whole thing has become a joke)

                3. Ha! I’m a walking human trigger then. Just saying “Hi, how’s it going?” makes a substantial number of women “uncomfortable” around me. Just standing still will do it.
                  I should get a trigger warning t-shirt.

                  Trigger Warnings:
                  cis-Male heteronormative White Nerd/Gearhead.
                  Carnivorous.
                  Large.
                  Likes trucks, motorcycles and punching hippies.
                  Hates Smart Cars, windmills, lippy wimmin and stupid old b*stards who drive too slow.
                  Thinks Andrea Dworkin was a bipolar fruitloop soaked in bat piss.

                  Be a big hit at the next gamer convention.

                  1. Heh. We might get along. I just bought a SUV and when the light turns green if I’m first in line I have a tendency to be almost to the next light intersection when the rest of the cars are just starting to move from the first one. Damn hate drivers who take enough time to get moving that only a couple can get through when it’s green. 🙂

                    (Usually I do obey speed limits, though, I don’t want to pay tickets, there are better uses for money. Only one I ever got was from a pretty literal trap, they had put the radar almost right after the speed limit sign. I was just slowing down, not yet at the required speed)

                    1. Ho Ho Ho, Back in the early 80’s I had a Jeep J10 with a huge V8 and glasspacks. It would shut down Corvettes even with the roof loaded with 8 hangliders and the back full of harnesses and helmets. I had a lot of fun with that truck.

                    2. 😀 I haven’t done that against any actual muscle cars, but I could leave young guys in their pretend versions behind when starting from a green light back when I was driving a Lada. Knowing how to handle your car can mean quite a bit more than just having a good one.

                    4. On the most common routes I take through downtown the timing on the lights is such that if you get stopped on one, but when starting again do accelerate fast to the speed limit and then stick to it you can probably go through the rest of them on green. Go slow with the start, and you most likely have to stop more than once again. One big part for the reason why I have acquired that habit. 🙂

                    5. A lot of folks don’t understand the difference between speed and acceleration. VBG
                      Stoplight to stoplight, top end doesn’t do much for you.

            2. Folks being disturbed by plague is at least little sensible– although their inability to bookmark their lair and just avoid the public areas for a little while is ridiculous– but when I was trying to find out what flight it could possibly be I found folks on the forums demanding trigger warnings for last year’s Christmas celebration, because the candy was triggering their eating disorders.
              I am scared that this isn’t an elaborate parody.

            3. The logic chain for turning your clan into a “trigger” is one of the most asinine, puerile, self-centered, and obnoxious things I have ever heard of.

              1. It’s not a parody, it’s the logical progression that trigger warnings are taking.

                The thing about trigger warnings is that they started out as a good thing, a way to alert people who had been though seriously traumatic experiences to avoid really intensely distressing content (think people suffering from PTSD being warned away from things that might cause them trouble). Over time this was expanded so that people who hadn’t bee through quite so bad ordeals wanting to be warned away from things that caused them distress. Now people want trigger warnings for content that makes them feel uncomfortable, even if just on an intellectual level. We’ve got people so concerned about their feelings, so determined to avoid anything that might cause them the slightest bit of upset that they demand warnings for everything.

                Of course as people are exposed to less and less they’re losing their ability to deal with things that they don’t like so that smaller and smaller things are able to cause them ever greater distress. To someone who had never actually suffered or been able to bring themselves to listen to an idea they don’t agree with, it’s quite possible that the image of a fictional being depicted in a way they do not like is the absolute worst thing they’ve ever encountered. It’s a little more active than being sheltered since people who talk about triggers are typically demanding that the world keep what they don’t like away from them. It’s not that they don’t want to leave their little bubble, they’re demanding that everyone else work to make the rest of the world conform to their bubble when they are present and they want to be present due to their distorted concept of fairness.

                1. Sigh. The weird thing is that if you’ve been through REALLY intense experiences of the unpleasant kind, you often want to read them to confirm “it wasn’t just me’ and “I’m not alone.” In my case, mob violence and revolutions can be a very odd sort of comfort food.
                  Hard to write, though, I’ve found.

                  1. Yes, well, that’s called dealing with it and we know that’s very vulgar.

                    😐

                    Despite any innate sensitivity to traumatic experience (actual trauma, not the current crop of crap) I’m getting real close to a simple idea: If you need a trigger warning, you’re not ready to function in full society. Seek treatment and get back to us.

                    6. *Raising up small and lady-like hand*
                      I did – in one of my own books. I mined out my own anger and resentment at a particular kind of betrayal, which still lingers although it happened a long time ago, as these things are reckoned. Possibly I am a better person for having exorcised that particular demon.
                      I like to think that it made a heck of a book, and an excellent justification for my heroine to be so very prickly when it came to marriage again.

                2. … and you get reactions like the woman at Harvard leaving the lecture hall when Larry Summers admitted that girls and boys were different, saying she was going to be physically sick.

                  1. I went to look it up (vaguely remembered some vague vagueness), it’s so much worse:

                    The woman was Nancy Hopkins, a professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Someone with a PhD!

                    To be sure, she’s tries to couch it as a black and white question of innate ability, rather than a question of how do the differences affect how goals are achieved. Which moves me not at all.

                    A biology professor who cannot sit through a talk and rationally address the differences between men and women and how this may impact how we go about education? Somebody needs to pull her PhD for review…

                3. I always remember the anthropologist who once tried to explain to a Chinese peasant why his nickname “The Stutterer” was offensive. He could not do it. The peasant could not see how an accurate description could possibly be offensive.

                5. The problem is that once they realized there was an opening, the definition of PTSD got defined waayyyy down. And of course a legion of therapists, whether for ideological solidarity or to make a quick buck, were ready to give them the paperwork.

            4. So basically, these people don’t like disabled or diseased people or critters, because seeing such things in public, even in imaginary form, is just too much for them.

              I don’t usually say this, but the word for that is “bigot.”

          2. SD, ma’am, you really shouldn’t hold it in. It’s hard on the digestion. Let go, let it flow, free the frustration…

            😈

                  1. You (I’m pretty sure it was you) indirectly introduced me to Japanese emoticons some time back, so I was able to parse my way through your sweet little missive…

                    But I’m saving that link for future translations. 🙂

          3. I so want you to record that so I can hear it. Partly because I’m an evil male patriarch who would think it sounds “cute”, of course, but still…

            😈

        3. See, you should _use_ this. Make warning signs like: “WARNING! Contains RAW, _graphic_ (insert whatever it is here). May only be suitable for mature participants.”

          There, now it’s not “triggery”, it’s something that only the grownups in the room get to play with.

        4. I think that is the place where we had to block on my son’s computer a couple of years back because he wasn’t attending classes or doing homework, having become obsessed with hatching dragons?
          Okay four years ago. He’s over it now.

            1. Oh. Okay. And I find your group cool. Okay, kid is now 20 and I’m NOT telling him about your site. yes, he’d become a valued member. One of the things people don’t GET about geniuses is that they work by obsession. And there’s no way to make them obsess only on useful things. Mind you, as an adult he has WAY more control, but still…

              1. No worries. Though I’m sure he could really stir things up on some of the forums, which is sadly too easy to do. There’s a reason the site has the nickname ‘Drama Rising’ after all.

              2. One of the things people don’t GET about geniuses is that they work by obsession.

                As my brother said about the one lab at IBM that he knew of – the people who worked in that lab might not show up for two or three weeks, but when one shambled in with a gleam in his eyes, he might work for another week or three for 16-20 hours a day and nap right there, until he worked out whatever he was working on, then go home.

                1. I’m wondering whether calling it tenacity is the right approach to take with the HR types.

        5. Ferric,

          I usually just point out that they are adults and that they are not helpless, and that they are asking me to treat them like a child. Asking the direct question of, “Do you really want me to treat you like a child, because I can?” really drives this point home.

          See a previous response I had, on a revious post, to some complaint about a link I provided that didn’t have closed captioning. Why they , the Mises Institute, might not feel the need provides close captioning; their whole Library of Liberty Minded publications is provided free in pdf form.

          This is what happens when we don’t teach self-reliance and personal responsibility. They want every one around them to take care of them, and if people want they will turn to the State.

          😦

        6. Trigger Warning: Wannabe writer with more ambition than discipline.

          Everyone know about all the Worm fanfic going around?

          Worm is a web serial where super powers come from a trigger, a traumatic event.

          I’ve notes for a fanfic where the trigger event, the worst day ever, for a sheltered lefty involves reading some books.

          1. “I’ve notes for a fanfic where the trigger event, the worst day ever, for a sheltered lefty involves reading some books.”

            Huh.. I’ve been trying to work out a mechanism wherein a similar cognitive dissonance triggers zombie-ism.

      2. Ummm…wow…I wasn’t aware trigger warnings were…a thing. Back in my day (OK, it wasn’t all THAT long ago) if a student had an issue with a topic on the syllabus, we would quietly tell the professor in advance and work something out. Or get into a raging argument, like the time a student of Ukrainian origin took exception to the professor talking about aiming nuclear missiles at Soviet nukes in the Ukraine. Great discussion, actually. I think all sides, and the spectators, learned quite a bit about the history and ways to put animosity aside. A shame to think that students these days are missing out because someone is too sheltered to even allow others to have the discussion.

    2. … It occurs to me that the best and kindest course of action for these law students would be for the professor to tell them that working in criminal law will bring them face-to-face with the worst violence and depravity that humanity has to offer, and that if they are incapable of dealing with that in a safe, clean, academic environment, they are unsuited to practice law and should save themselves the money and time by immediately transferring to a different field.

      1. The absolute cynic in me thinks that the reason why they insist on law school is because these idiots think they can Change The World if Only Better Laws Were Put Into Place, plus they imagine that they’re Awesome Famous Trial Lawyers… when they haven’t even started the classes.

        It’s insane, how they think they’re better already than the folks who actually *have* gone through the trenches, but again, cynicism on my part; they’ll be put into the firms of their families and family friends through connections… and warp the law that way.

  3. My daughter just bailed from watching the series Body of Evidence (streaming on her computer) about a season and a half into it when they had the Crazed Veteran scenario – this involving a VA doctor implanting explosives in the bodies of crazed veterans, IIRC. I think they had already used the Krazed Killer Kristian scenario (where the villain is an outwardly normal-seeming person of faith). Doubtless the next episode or two would featured the Murderous Corporate Businessman as Villain o’ the Week. This kind of crep is insidious, and it creeps into every crime-solving TV show around, world without end amen.

    1. I stopped watching television pretty much cold about the time Firefly and Farscape went off the air. The news was crap, the comedies weren’t, the dramas came with a not-so-silent melo-, all adding up to my entertainment being about as dull and unentertaining as y’all probably already know.

      Also, one of the reasons they hate us dirty, evilbadthinky Capitalists is that I hear that and think, “Ah-ha! Opportunity to make money!” That shows there’s a demonstrable demand for pure entertainment. Not preachy stuff. Some enterprising persons could be writing shows, or books, or something else, because the competition has gotten dismally weak on that front.

      Oh look, they are! Just not in the Ouroboros Hollywood world of television (and music, but there’s another vague rant). I have to wonder how much of the success of folks like Ringo, Correia, Kratman, Hot, Vox, and Wright is due to the SJW-crowd obsessively buying their books to feed their rage, all the while denying to themselves that the action, adventure, and derring-do are in the slightest entertaining. *chuckle*

          1. That could get fun at cons:

            “That Hot, she’s really stirring up the sparkly rods, and the glittery hoo-has are all aflutter ( 😐 )”

            “What? Who? The Slave Leia? The 6’3″ Sailor Moon? WHO?”

            “No-no, the Succubus (retired).”

            1. oh, yeah? You should see when we went to the thrift store (ARC) and they asked us if we wanted to be archangels (= arc angels) by donating. Older son “No, dad is already an archangel. We’re hybrids.” Younger son “I wonder where he hid the flaming sword.” Husband in anguished tones “You know I’m undercover, right?” Me to cashier, “Welcome to the traveling Hoyt show. It’s jokes about a book. I can’t take them anywhere.” She nodded really fast.

              1. You know, I wondered if Kate realized how thinly she veiled that about the archangel in the last book. I wasn’t going to say anything, since it gave the impression that it wasn’t supposed to be obvious.

          2. Ach, I like to think I can compliment a lady better than merely calling her “hot,” like some uncultured youth yowling out catcalls from the bad side of the street.

            Say instead that I admire a graceful turn of phrase, a strong sense of what’s right, and the kind of common sense the best of the female of the species seems to have. I’ve never met you, so I can’t say for looks or anything else, but I suspect your Dan can fill in the blanks for you easily enough.

            I could also mention an accurate carp-throwing arm and the ability to wield both puns and gifs with flair, but I suspect at least part of that would get me fished. *grin*

      3. I realized last week why I watch so little TV anymore. Likable characters doing pleasant or interesting things are few and far between.
        Looking through over a hundred channels, about all I found was a rerun of The Big Bang Theory.

        1. If you’re into outdoor stuff, I can highly recommend Swamp People. It’s about alligator hunting in Louisiana.. The people are interesting.

    2. Thanks for the warning. No, I don’t need trigger warnings, but I do like to avoid crap that doesn’t interest me.

    3. Television….television…. oh yeah, that electronic box with the moving pictures… yeah…

      I get scolded by “friends” for not having one. The only time I’m interested in TV, is if there’s a Mythbusters, Curiosity, Ancient Mysteries marathon… or So you think you can dance is airing its new season. …what?!

      1. “So you think you can dance is airing its new season. …what?!”

        We all have our little foibles. We watch British mysteries on netflix (our only source)

        2. One of my big brothers set me up with an xfinity comcast account. Most of the time the online selections leave something to be desired and many times I have to turn adobe flash on within chrome. For some reason that particular program isn’t playing nice with my computer… so I’ve not really watched anything in awhile. Dang shame too, because I’ve hearing rumors that they will release Mike Rowe’s “Someone’s Gotta Do It” episodes online finally.

          1. Mike Rowe’s “Someone’s Gotta Do It”
            I guess I’ll pass on that one.
            I see netflix has Dirty Jobs

            1. *snort*
              It’s actually him going around to people and places and interviewing folks that are incredibly passionate about their job. One episode was him talking to the behind the scenes crew for the “O” the water acrobatic show in Vegas.
              Another had him talking to a guy that some 20 plus years ago decided he was the someone in the phrase “Someone needs to do something about this”, bought himself a barge and picks up trash from along the river, and if I recall correctly it’s the Ohio River.
              The show is pure Mike Rowe. Sadly CNN has the slot, and they’ve been pre-empting episodes for the last two ish months with “news”.

              1. “they’ve been pre-empting episodes for the last two ish months with “news”.”
                speaking of the narrative

                1. heh… yeah now you mention it…

                  Especially Mike is constantly pointing out that a trade job pays better and is a better bet than this “College degrees of liberal arts and a large fry with that please.”

            1. New-ish, it’s been on since I think about late October. CNN picked it up because they liked the idea of 30 minutes of unscripted coolness. NO OTHER NETWORK WANTED IT.

              Downside: They’ve been prempting the show the past month to two months with “news”. Even Mike is starting to get ticked at them. Mike is on facebook too by the way, and gives updates on his page at least every other day on a variety of his projects, not just his new show.

              1. Mike is fun. He did a really delightful New years question and answer thing with questions from his facebook page. It was full of lovely snark and excellent straight talk.

    4. Then there’s Bones, which I’d been sticking along with despite a bunch of clunkers… until the episode with the eeeevil conservative talk show radio host as the victim.

      But, y’know, he wasn’t really evil–he was deeply internally conflicted about saying such awful, divisive things, and going to a dominatrix as a way to punish himself for having such an ugly public persona…

      …and it just kept getting worse, and I watched to the end to see if there was some sort of reveal that made it less stupid and there wasn’t. (Spoiler alert: It was his liberal assistant with a blackmail ploy, getting us the “corrupted by money” angle as well.) And I decided I didn’t really care if I enjoyed the scenes with nerds nerding out at each other in this series, I was the heck done with it. -_-;

          1. I’d like to see a post in which everyone puts up their links.
            Make it a sticky, if that’s possible.

                  1. Saw that but it seems like a short list. I can’t connect who’s who either. So far I just grab them when I see them and put them in my amazon wishlist, not very effective or efficient though.

              2. If you just sticky a blogpost link people could add their own indefinitely.
                Less work for you. If that’s possible.

                We just had a big barred owl hunting the front garden. Hope the pictures come out.

                  1. WordPress is weird. The only way I can follow the conversation is by email. But that would mean notification whenever someone posts a link, which sounds good to me. Nothing to loose really. One more old blog post in the fading queue. Put a link in Better Angels or somewhere.

                  2. I just did that for myself this evening. I started by searching my name. Most of my stuff was already there but my most recent “The Spaewife” wasn’t. I searched for the title and the search came up empty but there was an “add the book” link. I clicked on it and there was a form to fill out. Boom, done.

                  3. Where it says “add books” and has a search book, type in your byline. Push “Add to group” when it appears in the list. Add some shelves — “huns as author” and some genre ones — and “save group book.”

                    Note that we don’t have a fantasy shelf because there are too many; it would be too hard to search through. Add specific subgenre.

              4. The MZB workd are short story collections. I suspect a Hun might have a story in said collection (like my story “Time for Tears” is in Sword & Sorceress 26).

              2. “it doesn’t have the updated cover and blurb yet.”
                Awww, I like that cover. It caught my attention. I actually remembered it from months ago when you mentioned it. A rare, almost unique occurrence.

                1. Well, it’s still available full size on my DA account (and reduced slightly on FA because of their max size limit).

                  But with the new cover, I can be absolutely sure I have the rights to use the art, while the other, I’m not absolutely sure of the provenance of the starfield, among other things.

            1. Amazon doesn’t make it easy to collect authors. You can follow them, get updates, but I can’t see where you can look at a list of the authors you follow. Putting one of their books in your wish list sort of works, but of course they’re mixed in with all the other books that piqued your interest.

              Sarah, you didn’t want an author page on amazon? All i could get was a list of your books. Seems you can only follow from the author page.

                    2. “mousing over the author name, and in the pop-up it’ll say author page or search.”

                      Yeah, her name, sans A., is not a hyperlink.

                2. Here’s a weird one. I’ve heard of this before, but apparently there are a couple of guys trying to profit from other people’s work, including at least some of yours – they are offering highly marked-up copies of books under their names ($57.99). I saw Darkship Renegades and a collection called “Courts of the Fey” listed, as well as other stuff by other people.

                    1. I don’t think so. Apparently, there are people who sell things that are available on Amazon for a reasonable price, but mark them up to ridiculous numbers, and then if one sells, they simply order the item and then have it delivered to the address in the order.

                      I kind of doubt it’s technically illegal, but it’s pretty underhanded.

                    3. So basically an inventoryless drop-shipment business. Sounds like a case of Caveat Emptor. Of course, if a supplier falls through, they could be screwed.

                    4. Yeah. This particular one looks like they’re going for occasional bouts of stupid from people based on sheer volume of offerings. When I started browsing their page, there were 160 pages in the selections.

              2. GAH. I was never offered one. I am now on with help and they seem unable to understand “wrote more than one book.” I have no idea what’s wrong with me or them.

              1. Yeah, there is that. Wouldn’t mind being on the author’s page though.
                I mean I get hate-filled SJW posts in my reviews, that counts, right? 😀

  4. Ah, yes, the “All scientists are idealistic pacifists and none of them are dirty patriotic warmongers.” Which is why the military fights with sticks and slingshots, I guess.

    1. Ah, but all the warmongering scientists are dupes who were tricked into joining the program or blackmailed. Meanwhile, Fuchs and the Rosenbergs are simultaneously innocent of spying and great heroes of the fight against American militarism.

      Bah. I have no patience with this junk. Scientists and engineers working for the military are pretty awesome. I live near Wright-Patt and I know they do cool things.

    2. When the Star Trek Into Darkness tried to make Scotty into a bunny hugging pacifist, I was done. My hackles had already been raised by the obvious “Eeeeee-vil military conspiracy” plot as it was.

      1. Star Trek was never anything other than Liberals In Space. And I say this as somebody who’s seen every single one. (Except DS9. Couldn’t stomach DS9, it was disturbingly bad. Or the pre-Jerry Ryan Voyager. Kate Mulgrew, ew.)

        Because, who shows up in orbit over a planet, unannounced, with a starship powered by antimatter and weapons that can slag a continent with one shot, and is then shocked and surprised that the locals are all shirty about it? “But but but, we are simple explorers! We come in Peace!”

        Egad.

    3. It’s not the scientists creating those deathmachines! It’s the evil military engineers taking the advances that the wonderful scientists come up with and turning them into weapons!

      😛

      1. Yes, but Mad Engineer sounds ever so less dangerous and sexy than Mad Scientist, so we live with the slight inaccuracy.

        Of course, if the one who built it is *also* the one who designed it and formulated the theory behind it, then they might just be a Mad Scientist who likes Applied Science. *grin*

        1. Scientists don’t have to formulate a theory– they can be doing a “huh, wonder if this will work?” level thing, too. Oxford says it’s someone who has the knowledge, if they’re actively expanding on it or not.

          I got a kick out of the “engineer, not scientist” thing the first couple of times, but it’s getting a little worn. It was mostly funny because folks knew that “scientist” was being used to mean “expert” or similar, and the greater precision thing was definitely smile-worthy….

          1. Engineers and scientists can both be traced back a ways in history.

            Nowadays the training for both is relatively cheap enough that formally trained engineers generally are also trained scientists, whether or not they have much aptitude for the latter.

            1. I am irresistibly reminded that one of the earliest (mad? enthusiastic, at least!) scientists I can think of died from running out in the snow to stuff snow in a chicken. (Bacon, I believe– he figured it might work to preserve the bird’s meat. Er, I think I should mention the chicken was already dead and cleaned….)

              So now I’m picturing a guy in Olde English Lorde country gear, in stocking feet, holding a rubber chicken looking carcas and sprinting around in knee deep snow, with Classic Mad Scientist hair.

              Guess it’s a GOOD thing I can’t draw.

              1. For a minute there I thought you said “a bacon chicken” I don’t know what that is but I’d love to try it.

                There must be more to the story. Running out into the snow is not inherently dangerous. Unless he locked himself out and was forced to eat the baconchicken raw?

                1. Bacon Chicken is one of my “oh, crud, forgot to actually get anything going and I have a ton to do before company shows up” dinners— take individually frozen chicken thighs, drape at least 1/3 to 1/2 of a slice of bacon across each one (cover if you have enough bacon, or use bacon ends slightly chopped and have the pieces touching, will slightly increase bake time) and bake at 350 for 45-60 minutes. Sprinkle with garlic if desired, serve with those instant loaded potatoes, and a side of nuked, frozen mixed veggies or a bagged salad.

                  I had to go look up the details, but I did get his name right; the guy was Sir Francis Bacon, he had an idea during a snow storm that it might preserve the chicken, he caught pneumonia because he was in his sixties in a blizzard and died because it was the 17th century.

                    1. Go for it, and no credit needed.
                      The actual inventor was my husband, who suggested I wrap dumbsticks in bacon, and the back of the chicken bag. (Worked OK, but we only have individually frozen drumbsticks so I couldn’t make the bacon pretty like if you chop it correctly.) Any recipe that can be boiled down to a suggestion doesn’t need real credit to me!

                      You might call it Mother’s Desperation Bacon Chicken, or Mad Scientist Bacon Chicken if humor is allowed. 😀

                    2. @Foxfier

                      I like the name “Mad Scientist’s Bacon Chicken” – alludes to Bacon himself, per the story (which I think should be included for the random information) and brings to mind Mrs. Murry’s Bunsen Burner Stews – which honestly, sounded so delicious but was never really adequately described.

                2. Cold doesn’t make you sick, but the stress on your system does make you more vulnerable to illness. A thing that a lot of “scientific” folks forget….

                  1. As I point out to people who, with nose in the air, tell me “cold doesn’t cause colds. Cold’s are caused by viruses.”

                    “No shi…uh, fooling, Sherlock. But getting chilled can lower your resistance and make you vulnerable to the viruses that are all around us pretty much all the time.”

                    1. When they came out with that study where they took a bunch of people out in the cold and hosed them down and found they didn’t get sick any more frequently than the ones who weren’t, I said, “Yeah, ok, fine. Now send them out to spend several hours out there burning lots of calories, till they are chilled to the bone and completely worn out, and see what happens then.”

                      Mostly because it happens a lot faster than in warmer times.

                    2. What usually gets me is hunting season. Sitting still for several hours you get very cold. When we’re cutting wood I can stay out all day with no ill effects beyond ravenous hunger.

                    4. ukk. I don’t know what that is but I’ll check it out. I prefer to stalk but they usually see me first.

                    5. We had a gym teacher that my mom had to write a rather pointed note to, explaining that I would NOT be swimming on days when the high was in the 50s; he had previously told her that “science showed” that cold didn’t make people sick. She’d previously interacted with him enough to know that pointing out hypothermia would take a month, so she just sent a note that informed him that while “science” may say that it was fine to swim in the cold, (full name’s) mother did not agree and I would be excused.

                      I got to do a lot of reading until other parents got an ear full from the idiot children who’d thought that it would be fun, and the quasi-illegal deal got shut down…. (Public pool was required by law to be closed because of the cold, and he’d done a friend of a friend thing to get out of having to actually do any PT stuff for a few weeks.)

                    7. @mobiuswolf – blood clots, basically, that develop in the veins. Heart attack or stroke results. They constantly worry about them with regard to pregnant women (which is why, throughout this pregnancy, I’ve been on mild blood thinners…)

                    8. Yeah, I startpaged it. I caught that about your thinners, too. scary
                      How far along are you, evil hetero mother type person?

                    11. It’s also been connected with sitting for long periods: airline flights, in deer stands, etc.

                    12. Yep. Reason why I know though is because when a woman gets pregnant, their red blood cell count increases to support more oxygen – necessary when growing another human being. The side effect is, it means the woman is at risk for more clots, especially in the chest area / lungs.

                      That’s why my disgust at the pure lie of ‘not being informed about the risks of pregnancy’ is really, really high. Moms to be are informed about this. Hell, they inform each other. They probably know more about their body than that crazy lesbian does. Though, I wouldn’t be surprised if ‘sex ed’ these days only covers the whole pleasure part and not so much the scary icky sex results in pregnancy part.

                      *shakes head*

                    13. Not only are we informed of the (real) risks related to pregnancy, we’re informed of any risks that might possibly involve the kid, no matter how flimsy the connection or risk may be, and we’re given advice that ten levels before was useful, such as “don’t eat a lot of high mercury fish” morphing into “one three ounce serving of fish a month.”

                      (which I was told after I found out I was three months pregnant, which I discovered on Easter, so I’d been eating fish every Friday for most of my pregnancy; I was so scared crazy…and I discovered that the original rule of thumb was something like three meals a week of high risk fish, and THAT was one tenth of what had a possible risk)

                    16. Mmm, yes. And supremely lazy too. The local grocery’s in-house store budget brand has these tightly packed cans of tuna in oil that I just add salt to (because I like a bit more salt, plus I sweat more over here) and have for lunch over the next few days. On hot white rice, or on french bread, or just as plain ol’ sandwiches in white bread folded in half… om nom nom.

                    18. Third trimester. I’m going mad from cravings and a constant sense of being hungry and MUST. HOARD. FOOD. in preparation for post-baby. Bloody hormones.

                      Right now? I’m craving Chinese takeout food.
                      ｡゜(｀Д´)゜｡

                      I stare at recipes with an expression of longing. Rhys finds it cute and tries to accommodate my cravings as best as he can, because I can’t manage standing up long enough to make the meals I want need. I’m really lucky to have him.

              1. It is not.

                Engineering and science have subtly different mindsets that count as central things that the other considers a much lower priority.

                One can be a perfectly adequate engineer with zero scientific curiosity. One doesn’t need theory if the rules of thumb suffice for what one is doing.

                Likewise, one can be an excellent scientist, doing solid experimental work to advance theory, without the awareness and care for the effects of application on human welfare to be anything but an incompetent engineer.

                1. One is working to expand the knowledge base and the other is using that knowledge to acomplish a specific goal. The science behind what the engineer does is the same.

                  1. And soldiers and police are exactly the same!

                    The tests for the value of the information are different. Theories and evidence versus doing it this way costs this much blood.

                    Pure scientists expert in an area can try to apply their science, and fail horribly as engineers because they don’t that realize that engineers have different standards, and that their data do not satisfy those tests.

                    Science focuses on publication and peer review, and can take decades to have the results sorted out.

                    Engineering is bodies, the dead and the maimed.

                    Engineers tend to be conservative, because they know how they are judged in the end.

                    Being also a scientist adds flexibility. The scientific training lets an engineer estimate risks in doing new tasks without making the costs prohibitive. Everything is tradeoffs, and science is a powerful tool.

                    1. Engineers tend to be conservative, because they know how they are judged in the end.

                      Wonderful scene in Lois McMaster Bujold’s “Falling Free.”
                      The main character, is teaching a welding class. The particular lesson is on testing the welds (x-rays, ultrasounds, and so forth). He puts one pic up and asks the class if they know what it is. Someone offers “laser weld”.

                      The instructor points at it and says “that is the most evil thing you will ever see in your life.” A Pause. “That, is a falsified test report.”

                      He then tells a story about the events and how many people died because those test results allowing defective components into the field.

                      Clincher line, “You may fool men; you’ll never fool the metal.”

                      While I’m not exactly an engineer, as a scientist I am involved in testing for engineering. (We make measurements and pictures so that engineers can figure out what went wrong.) That line has stuck with me.

                    3. When I was describing the bit in FF to an undergrad in engineering recently, I summed up the guy’s speech as ‘falsified inspections are murder’.

                      Note that the subject matter of that speech was non destructive evaluation, regarding which her father was expert. I’ve seen a reference on it that McMaster was involved in.

                    4. When we were in school with the Navy, they made it clear that not only was falsifying a test result murder, we would be charged for it.

                    5. It’s harder to be an engineer than a scientist (and I can hear the scores of protests to that statement). Scientists try to make things that might work, and only have to work once.
                      Engineers build things that MUST work and must work for a long long time. And a lot of the time the ‘science’ given to us is incomplete, untested, untried, or still hazy. So we have to figure it out and perfect it.

                      Scientists deal with ideas, Engineers deal with reality.

                      And yes, I’m an Engineer.

                    6. Working in the Nuke Power business, I put my freedom on the line every time I sign a document.The natural conservatism pounded into my head in Engineering school is magnified by being held criminally liable…..

            2. Scientists tend to claim they blew up the lab on — inadequate grounds. My sister was in a lab that had an explosion, far from destroying the lab. She has permanent tattoo on her wrist where the explosion jammed a lot of ash into her lacerated wrist.

          4. The only reason I mentioned it was to parody the mindset of the ones who have the mindset Christopher mentioned above about scientists being idealistic pacifists. I actually like the “mad scientist” label, myself, and if I’m ever a legitimate scientist, I’ll get a plaque to that effect.

            2. Any real engineer has to be capable of facing the possibility of unintentionally causing death. The standard assumption is that an engineer will also be trained as a scientist, even if not always at the level of a professional scientist.

              Sometimes death needs to be intentionally caused, and there are engineers comfortable with that.

              The tools don’t make the man. The character of the man defines the man.

  5. And if feminists were really concerned about manspreading, they should be much more concerned about their own busts and buttocks, purses and bags, taking up space in elevators and everywhere else. So very inefficient.

    But of course that is totally different, so there are no signs calling for women to increase elevator efficiency by draping themselves all over random elevator-riding men.

      1. Sad thing is, it’s a valid complaint. There is a group of folks– mostly young, male, and of a specific sub-culture– that sit in obscene postures, the better to gesture at their crotch and make lewd comments.

        The pain-making thing is that having identified the issue, they decided… to put out posters with not that problem on it, because Sensitivity. Or something.

    2. Yeah, I read that whine not long after I read about a female activist who had her protest ruined because she had her music up so loud she couldn’t hear the guy asking her to please move her bag out of the train seat. So he moved it and sat down. PRIVILEGE!!!!!!!!! Macro aggression!!!!! These people have amazingly pampered lives if these are the biggest things they have to worry about.

    1. Word of the day is “Termagant”. Reply using Puce Protocol only. What’s the frequency, Kenneth?

        1. I assume you’re referencing:

          2. historical an imaginary deity of violent and turbulent character, often appearing in morality plays.

          Because surely you couldn’t mean:

          1. a harsh-tempered or overbearing woman.

          😯

            1. I had a witty reply all typed up.

              Then I re-read harsh and overbearing and decided I would scamper quietly away and hope to avoid notice…

      4. You know, I wish someone would write some awesome Tim Powers-style secret history story that uses the attack on Dan Rather and explores the hidden meaning of “Kenneth, what’s the frequency?”

        1. Spider Robinson had a completely ludicrous explanation tossed in as an aside at the end of Lady Slings the Booze. It works in the Callahan universe.

  7. The narrative is definitely fraying. My in-laws (who are rural Japanese) commented to me yesterday that Obama seems to be not exactly a successful president. Now this probably refers mainly to his approach to North Korea and China, but if people who only get the received (Japanese) MSM wisdom are noticing the problems then you have to assume that many others do too.

    1. I think the Japanese noticed this some time ago. In the anime Tiger and Bunny (2011), one of the politicians looks like Obama–and acts like him (IMO) weak, fretful, and easily pushed around by his council.

      1. The Japanese pop culture is strange on the subject of government. They accept that it is going to be everywhere, but they don’t trust it. They remember the military government that got them into so much trouble, and they also are well aware that the Diet is composed mostly of bureaucrat-approved swine.

        2. strange indeed–what I pull from the anime I watch is that they hate anarchy, believe in the power of the state to punish and organize and rescue, but don’t trust it an inch with that power. But I also see glimmers of libertarianism. In Log Horizon, where a group of gamers are trapped in a virtual world, they turn around a “Lord of the Flies” scenario by creating businesses. I cheered when they opened their first food cart 🙂

              1. No, that’d be the local bard/accountant with glasses, and the local berzerker fighter/guild leader with glasses.

                Shiroe, whose nickname from HIS FRIENDS is “Villain with Glasses,” truly isn’t sadistic and usually wants the best for everyone. (As the light novels note, this is what makes him dangerous and unpredictable.)

                It’s just that he also tends to do things for the best of everyone (that have rather far-reaching effects), without actually consulting everybody else. So far, nothing really bad has happened because of this, because he does usually consult just enough people to avoid Really Bad Things. But there was at least one situation that got way over-complicated because he couldn’t bring himself to explain his thoughts and actions. He’s working on that.

  8. Being the son of two History teachers, I run into glaring discrepancies almost every day.

    I keep encountering Black people who aren’t aware that there were Black slaveholders.

    I also keep running into the assumption that there were no high ranking Black officers in the Army in WWII. It turned up in the Ultimate Avengers series, and in some very sad time-travel/alien invasion novel I picked up (and promptly put down). Now, Black soldiers were on a separate track, and would only rarely command white troops, but according to the OXFORD BOOK OF AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY the first Black general officer (which isn’t the same as General) was promoted in 1928, and according to Wikipedia (which I would think was Narrative Friendly) the first Black General was promoted in 1940.

    It’s as if they believed the “George Washington and the Cherry Tree” nonsense. It’s THAT simplistic and stupid.

    1. Leftists prefer their pre-packaged, Alinsky-approved myths to hard facts. If you insist on sticking to the facts, you will be called bad names.

    2. To be fair to those folks, it was a tiny proportion of slaveholders who were black.
      And I know the guy you’re talking about, as well–his name was Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. The problem being that, through World War II and Korea, he was the equivalent of Gaunt’s Ghosts, which is to say the “First-and-Only.”
      So, while it is a bit simplistic to claim otherwise, it’s not on the level of “believing George Washington and the Cherry Tree.” It’s more like believing that Horatio Gates won the battle of Saratoga.

    3. I once heard a priest — a priest! What do they teach in the seminar these days — talking about two Roman saints, one of the slave of the other, and preaching on racism, with the full assumption the slave was black.
      I wanted to get up and make with the b*tch slapping action (I checked when we were home — no, we don’t know their colors.) In the Roman empire the darker one was more likely to be the owner. WTH?

      1. How about the various Doctors of the Church who were from Africa– and you get to see epic assumption fights with them being decried as nasty white Europeans and then re-written as being more far south African, when as best we can tell they were probably basically Mediterranean looking, given their known ancestry and any other art we have from the time?

        I don’t mind the old artwork that has All The Important People looking a lot like everyone else, but with a few symbolic markers– that’s what they did, it wasn’t supposed to be a photograph.
        The modern stuff that completely re-does saints and even Jesus to different races, in a modern style, to make people feel better? Creepy levels of racist.

        1. Oh. The historic church near my birth place has a 14th? century black Madonna. But she’s not black from Africa. She’s just BLACK. Apparently it was some sort of Templar symbolism that the craziest “everything is a Templar conspiracy” people HAVE talked about.

          1. The black Madonnas are fascinating and as far as i can tell, no one has really agreed on the reason for why they’re a thing. From the little I know it seems like all the theories came into being well after the fact.

            And if this isn’t the case someone please educate me because it’s something I’ve wanted to learn about.

            1. From a quick whip-around with my BS detector on, looks like you’re mostly right. The only ones I can find any kind of backstory that isn’t a “well, maybe….” are for a Polish picture of Our Lady that survived a fire with nothing but facial discoloration, and there’s a lot of surrounding legends about it previously having been “scared” (face slashed) by thieves who tried to take it and everything else of value, so it might be an after-the-fact as well.

              The BS detector was very much needed, because a disturbing number have silly “Mary is really a pagan goddess!” theories.

              To do a really good evaluation, someone would have to identify the oldest examples and then figure out what black symbolized at the time.

                3. You may be more correct than you think. A lot of the illuminated manuscripts used white lead as a base for paint, since it was a good paint and quite brilliant, and would take other tints well, especially skin tones that have to look right. When exposed to sulfur compounds, I find Hydrogen Sulfide mentioned, it can turn black. I have seen images of Moslem illuminated manuscripts where the skin tones have turned black.
                  I would not be surprised if a statue, of Mary especially, were primered with white lead for the brilliant tone or painted with compounded skin tones that turned black as it was exposed to the world, or may have had sulfur contamination to start with.

              2. “Mary is a Pagan Goddess”

                I run into far too many Neopagans who sincerely believe that their faith isn’t something cobbled together by countercultural nutballs starting in the 19th Century, and largely overwritten in the mid 1970’s. What we know about the Pagan gods ranges from disreputable to downright nasty (If you med Wonton on the road, kill him if at all possible). The only pre-Christian deity prone to keeping his word when inconvenient is YHWH, and that only because the Jews are an insanely brave people who are willing to argue with the Lord of Creation and try to hold Him to His word.

                We owe them a whole lot.

                I am likelier to believe that all Pagan and Neopagan goddesses are thin disguises for Shub-Niggurath than that Mother Mary is one of the bitching, whining, bitter, petty Pagan goddesses.

                *shudder*

                1. The best Neopagans and Wiccans cheerfully admit their religion was invented recently. According to them that’s a feature not a bug.

                  Depending on whether you consider Buddha to be a god or not, I reckon you could make a decent claim that he kept his word

                  1. I have no problem with those Neopagans who know the history of their faith and make no attempt to disguise it. My sister-in-law is one such, and it is an homor and a pleasure to kmow her. It’s the “No, really, we were living the Good Life and the Church stole everything from us” bunch I consider brain damaged.

                    1. Nod, the Neo-Pagans who acknowledge the “bad parts” of the “predecessor religions” of their religions are much better than the ones who claim that Pagans (for example) never sacrificed humans.

                    3. I have a rule: if I see “Never again the Burning Times” ANYWHERE on a webpage/forum/anything, I quickly and cautiously back away.

                      Or run screaming into the night, if I’m feeling theatrical.

                    4. One of the “hidden history” flavor tried to claim it gave her victimhood on par with Israel immediately after the Holocaust and while being targeted by their neighbors for genocide today, and couldn’t figure out why I was objecting.

                      One of those who really believes “The Burning Times” myths. Right down to the death tolls that are bigger than known populations, even when shown where junk was made up….

                  3. As for me, I have the sneaking suspicion that those who go on about the “Burning Times” would be among those very enthusiastically burning me and mine if they got the chance. I object to this.

                    1. Well, talking about the “Burning Times” is IMO a “You Shut UP” tactic. IE “I’m right and you’re wrong so be quiet”.

                2. You can tell that type because they are the ones who devoutly believe that a 5 pointed star is an ancient pagan symbol. The don’t realize it was an ancient hebrew symbol of the city of David IE Jerusalem. The crusaders found it all over Jerusalem so thought it was something holy and special and brought it back where the Catholic Church then embraced it and found all kinds of special meanings in it. Then during the I think 16th century when the French court was all fashionably engaging in secret black masses they took the Holy Christian symbols and flipped them over. Among these the 5 pointed star…. And then the English layabouts in the 19th century grabbed it from the French sources and well it wobbled its way forward as a magic and special symbol.

                  I’m minded to commend people I see wearing a 5 pointed star on their Christian faith. 😉 Anyway I don’t know what brought on that bit of lecture.

                  1. It’s fascinating so you wanted to share?

                    I know I thought it was neat, like when I finally found out the “sign to ward off evil” was the heavy metal two-fingers-up thing. 😀

                    3. Funny – when I was young, my mother saw someone doing that and said that when she was young, that was a sign that you were calling bullsh*t on someone (holding up bull horns).

                    4. A cracked article I didn’t link due to lack of cites said that in some countries it also symbolizes either that the person you’re doing it to is henpecked, or that you’re sleeping with his wife.

                    5. Ronnie James Dio was one of the most overtly Christian artists there’s been in recent history (Seriously. Just check his lyrics.)
                      He started making the gesture when fronting for Black Sabbath, and it caught on.

                      Try the search string “Malocchio Ronnie James Dio” and you’ll get more links than you know what to do with.

          2. Oh, cool– apparently there are a lot of them, enough that folks are arguing if it was originally a result of the face of the statue being discolored by constant candle smoke. (Which I wouldn’t find at all odd– one of the wonderful things about this old stuff is that they found a way to identify symbols in everything, without the assumption that the symbol was put there on purpose in the first place.)

            I kind of like the possible allusion to Solomon’s Canticle of Canticles, where a thing looks foul but feels fair, to totally steal from a much later poet.

            1. Not candle smoke. In this case it’s some sort of very dark wood. Now, it might originally have been painted, but the robes still are, so…
              Yeah, I think it’s a “her externals were nothing special.”

              1. Great. Now y’all are kicking that story idea I had about a modern secret church history researcher/novelist *wink, wink, nudge* and his reaction to some carvings from Pannonhalma. But starting with the medieval apprentice who carved the little animals as a practice exercise, nothing major, since no-one will see them but G-d . . .

            2. Or the lacquer they used aged to black? In some cases maybe it’s repeated dunking in the ocean from getting rowed out in a boat on a feast day (There’s a story from France that I vaguely remember, and I have no idea where I’d even begin to look it up again)? I guess this is to say that maybe different images wound up darkened via different mechanisms. Later, possibly someone thought it looked cool and repeated it on purpose. I will say I happen to like how the icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa looks.

      3. “with the full assumption the slave was black.”

        Point out that the root word for slave is “Slav.” Poles, Russians, etc.

    4. And then there is the story of the Freedmen and the Cherokee. Which only goes to show that being *human*, the Cherokee were quite capable of oppressing their black slaves at the very same time they were being oppressed. The media had to take disdainful notice a few years back, when the Cherokee Nation voted to exclude the Freedmen from their health benefits 😉 You could tell it made the media uncomfortable, though. Neither party was white, so who got automatic blame?

        1. BC Potlatch. Not just food got burned, my friends. Made the Romans look like a bunch of pussies.

          Iroquois. Don’t get me started. Its a shame the smallpox blanket thing was BS, let me tell you. They deserved every inch of whatever happened to them.

          Inca, Toltecs, Maya, oh holy fark let’s not go there I’ll barf. The Spanish Conquistadors actually improved things when they went through and wrecked the place.

          JMO, of course. Any Indians reading this, relax I don’t blame -you-, you weren’t born yet.

          1. I was in one of the few places in the country where THOSE truths were taught. Most of the families were families from Spain, who intermarried with a certain tribe who had a rough time of it, but converted early to Christianity under the Jesuits. They were also the only Jesuits who weren’t tossed out on their ear and replaced with Franciscans, because they were so successful. These were the same people who later helped engineer the Gadsten purchase to get away from Mexico. Columbus Day was a BIG deal in that part of the desert. But then, back then, the folks coming illegally to the US near that border were refugees with legitimate claim, and almost immediately filed for citizenship. Their ghettos were safer than parts of downtown.

            1. From what I’ve been told, because I wasn’t there at the time but my Hispano associate was, when La Raza first showed up in parts of northern Mew Mexico, the locals ran them out because they were Spanish, not Mexicans, thanyouverymuch. “Mexican” being shorthand for illegal, uncivilized, rude, Johnny-come-lately. This little gringa just nodded, listened, and took mental notes. And then I heard a talk by the NM state historian about how Mexicans were oppressed and people who honor their older Spanish heritage have mis-written the real history of the state and . . .

              1. That attitude goes back a long ways. During the Spanish-American War, when the 1st US Volunteer Cavalry discovered there wasn’t enough space aboard the troop ships for the entire regiment, Captain Maximiliano Luna of New Mexico pleaded with Colonel Wood and Major Roosevelt to be selected in order to help prove the loyalty of Americans of Spanish descent.

          2. I hadn’t heard about the Potlatch thing.
            The Iroquois–yeah, not really great guys. Neither were the Huron, mind, but still. The Pequot War has nothing on what the Iroquois did to the Huron. And the Mourning Wars…
            As to the big South American Indian civilizations–spare me any blubbing about them. Cortez killing every stinking Aztec priest makes up for everything he did on purpose (it’s not he knew about germ, theory). And while Pizarro did conduct himself most dishonorably, it really couldn’t’ve happened to a nicer bunch of guys.

            1. Slightly related– this year I finally found a full summary of the legend behind the Christmas Tree.

              I knew it had to do with a Catholic saint chopping down a tree that some locals were worshiping.

              I didn’t know they were “worshiping” it by bashing the brains out of the most “comely” child in the village each year, in honor of Thor*. Nor that the saint was an old man who had to walk with a stick, and the only reason the kid survived that year was because he charged in and chopped it down just before they did the deed…while the guys who were with him were standing back being scared. Which makes sense, honestly…..

              * you want some really intense fan fiction riffing on Captain America’s “there’s only one God” comment? Imagine that conversation, ie if you’re going to be angry about my decorating a tree in honor of stopping this pagan worship, then you’re going to have to own the yearly murder of random little kids. If THAT wasn’t something you’d want, then clearly it’s not an insult to you….

              1. Do you have a cite? I would love to pass this on to the pastor of the church that I attend with a suggestion that it would make material for a good sermon just before the Christmas season. (He is a prog & perhaps exploding his head would help him become a better pastor).

                1. I was on a different computer so I don’t have it here, but this link has most of the details:

                  http://www.catholic.com/blog/steve-weidenkopf/st-boniface-and-the-christmas-tree

                  Saint Boniface and the Thunder Oak. (He was at least mid to late 40s, and this was in the early 8th century. Wooof.)

                  The version I found was quotes from the traditional story, with lots of embroidery type details. I THINK it was from a link chain via Banshee’s place, but it may have just been from facebook or a random comment here, too. You know how the chains go.

                  1. Obviously false because the Noble Pagans never sacrificed humans. [Very Very Very Big Kidding Grin]

                    1. Welcome! If nothing else, it might spare you a “Christmas trees are pagan, and so is Santa, get rid of all the happy sparkly fun stuff because it’s TAINTED!!!!” sermon.

                    2. Off Topic a bit, but in my readings I came across stuff on why the Puritans were against Christmas celebrations in England.

                      Apparently the Christmas “celebrations” that they were against weren’t the family friendly gift giving “celebrations”.

                      These were excuses to let go of inhibitions and other social rules of behavior. IE “any thing goes” sort of “celebrations”.

                    3. No worries there. In Maine, it’s a lawful shoot if they refuse to desist illegal behavior, like trespass. ;o}

                      “An armed society…” and all that.

                  3. Thanks much. I will follow up on the secondary cites in the article over the next couple of weeks. The article looks like a winner though.

                    Thanks again.

                2. Here we go, this looks right, from a link at the other page:

                  Hunrad, the old priest of Thor, welcomed St. Boniface and his companions. Hunrad then said to them, “Stand still, common man, and behold what the gods have called us hither to do! This night is the death-night of the sun-god, Baldur the Beautiful, beloved of gods and men. This night is the hour of darkness and the power of winter, of sacrifice and mighty fear. This night the great Thor, the god of thunder and war, to whom this oak is sacred, is grieved for the death of Baldur, and angry with this people because they have forsaken his worship.

                  Long is it since an offering has been laid upon his altar, long since the roots of his holy tree have been fed with blood. Therefore its leaves have withered before the time, and its boughs are heavy with death. Therefore, the Slavs and the Saxons have beaten us in battle. Therefore, the harvests have failed, and the wolf-hordes have ravaged the folds, and the strength has departed from the bow, and the wood of the spear has broken, and the wild boar has slain the huntsman. Therefore, the plague has fallen on your dwellings, and the dead are more than the living in all your villages. Answer me, you people, are not these things true?” The people sounded their approval and then began a chant of praise to Thor.

                  When the last sounds faded, Hunrad pronounced, “None of these things will please the god. More costly is the offering that shall cleanse your sin, more precious the crimson dew that shall send new life into this holy tree of blood. Thor claims your dearest and your noblest gift.”

                  With that, Hunrad approached the children, group together around the fire. He selected the fairest boy, Asulf, the son of Duke Alvold and his wife, Thekla, and declared that he would be sacrificed to travel to Valhalla and bear the people’s message to Thor. Asulf’s parents were deeply shaken. Yet, no one spoke.

                  Hunrad led the boy to a large stone altar between the oak and the fire. He blindfolded the child, and had him kneel down placing his head on the stone altar. The people moved closer, and St. Boniface positioned himself near the priest. Hunrad then lifted his sacred black-stone hammer of the god Thor high into the air, ready to have it crush little Asulf’s skull. As the hammer fell, St. Boniface thrust his crozier against the hammer, and it fell from Hunrad’s hand, splitting in two against the stone altar. Sounds of awe and joy filled the air. Thekla ran to her child spared of this bloody sacrifice and embraced him tightly.

                  St. Boniface, his face radiant then spoke to the people, “Hearken, sons of the forest! No blood shall flow this night save that which pity has drawn from a mother’s breast. For this is the birth-night of the white Christ, the son of the All-Father, the Savior of mankind. Fairer is He than Baldur the Beautiful, greater than Odin the Wise, kinder than Freya the Good. Since He has come sacrifice is ended. The dark, Thor, on whom you have vainly called, is dead. Deep in the shades of Niffelheim he is lost forever. And now on this Christ-night you shall begin to live. This blood-tree shall darken your land no more. In the name of the Lord, I will destroy it.” St. Boniface then took his broad ax and began striking the tree. A mighty wind suddenly arose and the tree fell, wrenching its roots from the earth, and it split into four pieces.

                  Behind the mighty oak stood a young fir tree, pointing like a cathedral spire toward heaven. St. Boniface again spoke to the people, “This little tree, a young child of the forest, shall be your holy tree tonight. It is the wood of peace, for your houses are built of the fir. It is the sign of an endless life, for its leaves are ever green. See how it points upward to heaven. Let this be called the tree of the Christ-child; gather about it, not in the wild wood, but in your own homes; there it will shelter no deeds of blood, but loving gifts and rites of kindness.”

                  1. That’s a really good historical fiction story by the same guy who wrote “The Fourth Magi”, IIRC. I’m pretty sure he did his best to be accurate to what happened with St Boniface (and yes, Boniface really was hauling around his nephew, who later ended up having a famous book about a trip to the Holy Land, and yes, he really had tons of relatives he brought over to run monasteries of nuns, so that was all totally true). But I don’t know what all his sources were. St. Boniface has a lot of letters and other stuff, but I don’t know specific sources on him for what he did to the famous Oak. (Other than it notoriously got chopped.)

                    It’s also not clear that Christmas trees were subverting that. There’s a lot of evidence that our Christmas trees come from medieval German “Paradise trees,” which were evergreen trees that would have apples tied onto them to celebrate the connection between Adam and Eve (whose feast day is Dec. 24) and Christmas. Apparently these were originally a prop for some kind of mystery play or Advent pageant, but people liked seeing them so much that they started making and using them at home.

                    For most of history, people are too busy living to notice all these whys and wherefores and to document them. So it’s hard to find out the truth.

          3. IIRC, the Sioux practiced genocide (against other Indians) when they moved into new areas.

            There was a modern Sioux who “justified” it by saying “but we didn’t use more advanced weapons”.

            IE it’s Terrible when “Whites” conquer an area using guns against people without guns, but OK when non-Whites conquer an area without using guns against people also lacked guns.

            Is There Intelligent Life On Planet Earth?

            1. I belive there was a Pope who put out that crossbows were OK to use against heathens and heretics, but sinful to use against good Christians. Might explain why so many wars of the period had a religious component. You needed justification to use one of your most effective weapons.

              1. For those curious on what the origin of that story is, since I was curious and it doesn’t take long to share:
                http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=763524

                It’s sort of true, in the way those lists of cities with crazy laws like no sex with camels on a Tuesday are true*, but the phrasing is… from a very modern perspective, let’s just say. The Pope actually ordered that the “murderous arts” of the bow and crossbow weren’t to be used on Christians and Catholics, no mention of “but it’s OK for everybody else,” in a way that meant if you did it you were guilty of willful disrespect to the Pope. (which is kinda brilliant, really, as a political move)
                Most likely it was phrased that way as an attempt to appeal to their brotherhood in Christ.
                Jousting that put life at risk was also banned, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia.
                (replace spaces with .)
                newadvent org/cathen/09017a htm

                *actual law is against bestiality, no species or week day specified. I spent way too much time fact-checking one of those lists one day, and those where I could find any basis were always this type of thing. I think a couple of towns didn’t seem to exist at all……

                1. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to claim that the use of crossbows against non-Christians is allowed. After all, if the intent was to ban murderous arts, whe not just replace “Catholics and Christians” with “people”?

                  1. Because then you lose the appeal to brotherhood. (And the related assumption that the other guy would be following the same restrictions, which is non-negligible.)

                    As you know, it’s a bad idea to give an order in a way that makes it less likely to be followed.

                    1. I think it’s safe to say that this directive was honored more in the breach than in the observance.

                    2. Yeah, one of the eternal issues with the narrative of the all-powerful, all-controlling Popes is how often they got totally ignored.

                    4. The ban on crossbows, etc. was a war regulation about internecine wars with your neighbor, Lord Bubba, or with other nations that were within Christendom. The Pope didn’t have any power to regulate what people did outside Christendom, other than pointing out that certain things were sins straight out.

                      And this sort of thing was mostly regulations, not declarations of sinfulness. Like the declaration against Christians fighting battles with each other on Sundays, or during Lent. Thor the non-Christian who’s not from Christendom was totally okay with fighting on Sunday, so the regs against fighting on Sunday didn’t apply to him.

                      If Thor attacked Lord Bubba on Sunday, with a crossbow, Lord Bubba was perfectly free to defend himself. (As he would be if somebody from within Christendom attacked him, btw.)

                      IIRC, the ban on crossbows in warfare didn’t apply to using them for law enforcement on bandits, either, or just practicing with them with targets.

                      The purpose of war regulations was to gradually decrease the times available for war, the severity of war for both participants and bystanders, and the number of deaths suffered in war by Christians fighting Christians. Occasionally there was a corollary of “and this means you can fight somebody worth fighting, like on Crusade,” but it was something that various Christian leaders had been pushing for centuries.

                      (For example, there’s an early Irish saint who pushed for peasant Irishwomen to be exempted from being used as battle fodder by their lords, after seeing two women scythe the heck out of each other.)

                  2. To translate it a bit:
                    I believe the Geneva Convention who put out that chopping off fingers was OK to use against unlawful enemy combatants, but banned for use against lawful ones.

                    I’d object to that characterization of an attempt to make war less horrific to the then-modern sensibilities, too, although it is technically as correct

                    1. But the Geneva Conventions are OK with chopping the fingers off of illegal combatants. In fact, they’re pretty much silent on what happens to illegal combatants, in an effort to encourage combatants to obey the rules. But that’s because the Conventions are a pragmatic means to reduce the suffering in war. They are not beacons of morality or a divine representative.

                    2. If you’re going to insist that the Geneva Conventions were not an attempt to set a moral standard, we’re going to have to stop here because there’s no further points for agreement.

                    3. But the Conventions weren’t an attempt to set a moral standard. They are agreements to attempt to bring warfare closer to compliance with a pre-existing moral standard. That’s why signatories aren’t bound by them when fighting non-signatories or signatories that violate the rules.

                      The idea that killing and suffering was bad predates the Conventions.

                    5. Incidentally, this completely contradicts your claim that the GC was OK with chopping off some fingers.

                      Picking one problem to work on does not mean you’re OK with another you didn’t pick, it means you think you’ve got a better chance of results.

            2. The only reason the Sioux didn’t use advanced weapons was that the Winchester salesmen hadn’t gotten the shipments out yet. As soon as they got them, they used them. As Custer discovered.

          4. Maybe that’s why they’re so pissy about pointing out how nasty things were? Because by their philosophy they’d have to assign blood guilt, no matter how stupid the idea is?

        2. Yeah, one of the crimes of the “Trail Of Tears” was they took plantations and slaves away from some of the Cherokee who had names like Ross, Brown and Ridge. The paintings of them in traditional garb trudging to their new reservations was quite inaccurate for most of the groups wore the same clothes as the white people of the time.
          The abolitionists were mostly against Indian removal though because more Cherokee were leaning anti-slavery, and they did not want them taken out of the area.

        3. Not quite right. The slave holding contingent was the mixed bloods, primarily Scott/Cherokee. They went with the South, under Major Ridge. These days known as the Southern Cherokee.

          The Freedman were runaway slaves given sanctuary with the tribe. IIRC, The Dawes commission forced the Cherokee to enroll them as tribal members, but they never were, except in cases of intermarriage (which there was a lot of). The latest kerfuffle was an attempt to force the tribe to give the freeman full membership rights. Which they have never had and no reason they should.

          No good deed goes unpunished, especially by the State.

      2. Growing up I was told that the Plains Tribes were morally superior to white buffalo hunters because the former used every part of the buffalo while the latter simply took the hide and left the rest to rot. Only much later did I learned how Amerinds hunted buffalo before the introduction of the horse: They would sneak up and stampede a portion of the herd off of a cliff, then set up camp at the base and process what they could until the massive pile of broken bison flesh festered. The tribes had a use for every part of the buffalo – it was essentially their only resource. That’s rather different than using every part of every kill.

        1. I believe the “stampede them over a cliff” method is supported by archeological evidence as being used by ice age humans when hunting Mammoth.

          I don’t know of any evidence directly linking the Mammoth hunters to the plains indians (it seems like every genetic study on North American ice age remains I read about ends up showing no connection to the residents at the time Europeans got here), so this may just be an example of the same solution being arrived at by two different sets of folks when confronting a similar problem.

          1. Oh, I’m not faulting the process. If I’m ever tasked with turning a ton or more of mammal into jerkey, I’m going to look long and hard for some method better than “poke it with a sharp, relasticity short, stick.” Fortunately there aren’t many plans that are worse than that.

            What I object to is the whole “noble savage” BS. Amerinds had little environmental impact because their population density was so damned low.

            1. ” Amerinds had little environmental impact because their population density was so damned low.”

              No real enduring building materials either

                1. That was about the peak of their environmental impact (depending on how much influence you credit them with maintaining the Great Plains) and a bunch of piles of dirt that took decades to recognize as distinct from glacial moraine isn’t much of an impact.

                  1. Oh, they were pretty big in impact. Indeed, they were starting to seriously strain their resources when the Spaniards wandered by. Too few to conquer; plenty enough to carry disease.

                2. “Umm, Mound Builders?”
                  Have you seen those? Not much impact on the environment, but pretty cool. I think they take great care to keep them from un-mounding.

                1. “M.Wolf,
                  You might want to check your assumption.”

                  Doh! Pyramids. I didn’t think of those guys. Cliff dwellers too. :o)

              3. Rocks.

                Problem is, to reasonably build in rock you’ve got to be able to live in an area for an extended time– it takes a while to build up to that. There weren’t a lot of tribes that were able to shift from gathering to growing, for whatever reason.
                (There’s a little evidence that some tried it in Washington’s dry side… and the poor boogers chose an area that is only livable if you’ve got iodized salt. Even the animals can’t stay there if not supplemented.)

                Possibly part of the problem has to do with the pattern of roving tribes considering settled populations a resource; without some major tactical advantages, you’re not going to be able to get to the point where you’re making stone houses.

                  1. Three big issues:
                    I was responding to the idea that there was nothing really good for permanent building, and also pointing out why there’s so very few examples of things built from the best long-term building material around;
                    because of the lack of use of the material, one which even tiny groups of Europeans used, I pointed out to a reason that people didn’t use it more;
                    the most famous example of building with stone– the cliff dwellers– come with a big ol “and they vanished pretty sudden, we don’t know why.”

                    Pueblo/mud bricks require special materials (the clay mud is not everywhere) and work best in a special environment, plus have the same issue of requiring enough security to make it worth building.

                    I believe that folks here have pointed out before that you’ll find brick walls that fall over from you leaning against them to tie your boot in the middle east, because of this very lack of being fairly sure that “I will actually get use out of working to make it the best.”

                2. Foxfier,

                  Adobe house (pueblos) Agricultural farming communities.

                  Point being you don’t need stone.

                  1. I’ve only had one stupid enough to say that in my hearing and I replied “You First” and offered the use of my pistol by my hand if he was so squeamish … oddly, he did not take me up on that

    5. during ’08 and the 0 supporters dreams of collecting payments for slavery, I had one 0bama supporter mad at me because I pointed out that 0bama would be ineligible for receiving restitution payments as his black family side was never under American Slavery, but would have to put up money that would be received by an Ex-girlfriend I had who looks white as I am because her grandfather was the grandson of slaves. The pretzel logic they were coming up with at the time was entertaining. Said maroon was also a Che lover, and I pointed out that as the son of grocery store owners, Che would think he was only deserving of a baseball bat to the head administered personally.
      For some reason, he never kept a job very long and had trouble getting hired (we got him from a temp agency) … I think at 21 he had already had 15 or 20 jobs.

          1. Aye, same, but I wouldn’t bet against the likelihood that the grabbermint would want to tax it at every step of the way…

        2. yep. Plenty of folks could do that, now-a-days.
          0bama could get a double charge. As his father’s family were still within the continent, it is likely they sold some of those who ended up here as slaves to his mother’s side of the family in the first place.

      2. I have always been a proponent for reparations.
        Slavery was a terrible evil, and things must be set right.
        With modern DNA testing it is possible to determine where in Africa a person’s ancestors originated, so it is only fitting that they be offered the opportunity to be returned to the life they would have had if their ancestor had not been enslaved.
        So, here’s the deal:
        Renounce your US citizenship.
        Surrender all your possessions acquired to this point in your life.
        Receive in exchange a one way ticket to the country of your ancestor’s origin and a lump sum payment equal to five years of the average income for that country.
        It’s only fair and just after all.

        1. The thing is, we do owe them reparations. Not for slavery, but for allowing the Proggies to ruin their schools and destroy their family structure.

          1. No we don’t!!!

            I’m only moral responsible for the actual harm I cause. Not what others do or fail to protect themselves from.

            1. We are the sovereign. We are, ultimately, responsible for what the government we head does. We let the proggies ruin the Black schools and the Black family because it was easier than stopping them and listening to them shriek.

              1. I did my part I voted against all that shit, when I cam of age as a lot/ most of this started happened before I was born. I speak out against the glorification of Ganster culture within the black communities. Those that promoted it and the welfare system are responsible, not I. Those that stood back and let it happen in their communities are responsible. But I bare no responsibility for others stupidity. I bare no responsibility for implementation or advocacy. Are you suggesting I have some power or authority to impose my will? To force them to do what I think is best.

                I’m no more responsible for the current state of events than I am that. over a 150yrs ago there was slavery.

              2. Again , Fuck all this we are all our brothers keepers and collective responsibility crap.

                I fear this Colectivest crap has seeped to deeply into the American psyche.

                😦

                1. The point to my modest proposal being that when offered it immediately shuts the folks up who are loudly demanding reparations. It points up the fact that what they’re really after isn’t fairness, but rather their own seat on the free money gravy train.
                  Thus my eminently fair offer to erase as much as possible the effects of ancestral slavery simply is not something they want to hear. Not to mention the uncomfortable truth that for them personally the suffering of that remote ancestor is the luckiest thing that ever could have happened to them, giving them opportunities far out of the reach of their African cousins.

                  1. Uncle Lar,

                    This is me getting pissy about collected responsibility.

                    Not your proposle to show the stupidity of their argent.

                    🙂

                  2. eh, the reason they ask for reparations is they know they won’t get ’em.

                    Personally, I would offer to pay — on the condition that accepting is agreeing that we have made reparation. No more Affirmative Action. No more blacks-only scholarships or other programs. Etc.

                    1. One time payment. Not a bad idea, maybe.
                      Feels like danegeld, but we’re already paying.

          2. They voluntarily accepted the bribes to destroy their own family structure. I do not think we benefit from treating them like children.

            1. If anything, it will reinforce that pattern of behavior. It will get worse the more they see they can provoke that reaction if they misbehave enough.

          3. They voted for The Proggies, they still vote for them. They bought the con, so now they get to deal with it. Without everybody else paying for it.

        2. one of the more sensible things Whoopie has said was she is in no way an African-American. She’d visited Africa and was most certainly NOT from there.

          1. And as Mohammad Ali said after doing a fight in Africa. “Man am I glad my great-granddad got on that boat.” Or words to that effect.

            1. my old supervisor said much the same thing. He also always joked that with his luck, he’d be one of those the lions ate, or a snake bit.

  9. “it’s time to do like Ulysses and plug our ears…”

    In heaven’s name, why? Next to the laughter of children, the screaming of the dumb is the sweetest sound in the world. I intend to hear their cries, laugh heartily, drink their tears, and HIT THEM AGAIN!

    “…lest their shrieking drive us mad.”

    Oh. Well, once you’ve driven to WallyWorld you might as well enjoy the rides.

    1. We shall drown them in a tsunami of trigger words and revel in the lamentations of the SJW!
      See, when you use ear plugs to protect from the whining you also miss the giggles and outright laughter from the mundanes as the narrative begins to shred and the more obvious truths begin to shine through the curtain of deception they’ve woven.

    2. The angry screaming of the dumb, scolding us for not agreeing with their Great Wisdom.

      Major digression not exactly aimed at you, more in general.

      Probably not really needed here, but I’ve been seeing some seriously creepy dehumanization of people who are “dumb” and I’m getting twitchy about it. Especially when “dumb” is so frequently defined as “doesn’t agree with me” or “doesn’t share my knowledge of pop culture.”
      I wish I was joking– Ranger Up, not exactly a bastion of the usual “harm those who don’t agree with me” leftism, suggested that twitter people who didn’t know who the bleep McCartney was should go kill themselves. (There were apparently some folks who thought West was being nice to launch a career for him with a duet.) Usually it’s more of a “well, this Obviously Wrong thing that I did was OK, because the person I did it to was stupid and I was able to get away with it.” Standard justification junk.

      But “go kill yourself”?

      Seriously, what kind of mature mind doesn’t check themselves when they write ‘go kill yourself?’ Because some folks don’t recognize a pop musician from a band that broke up before their parents were born? (1970+26=1996, ~18 years old) Good grief, grow up and get over being old, and if you’re going to throw a fit about folks not having information from the 60s and 70s, save it for something that actually matters. And no, The Beatles do not really matter, I don’t care how cool you think they are, and no, most kids aren’t going to go “Oh, yes, McCartney– the guy who did that great James Bond theme, Live and Let Die!” They don’t care about the names of the guys in that big band from when you were a kid, anymore than you would instantly recognize Patty Andrews. (Passed two years ago.)

      1. I think it’s important to differentiate between dehumanizing and hyperbole for comedic effect. I doubt that anyone thinks not knowing who Paul McCartney is should be a capital offense. On the other hand, we live in an age of information. In less tI me than it takes to tweet “Who is Paul McCartney?” you can ask the Google and find out.

        On the gripping hand, the kind of dumb that gets the likes of Pelosi and Obama elected is dangerous. They aren’t going to stop until they win or they die, and if they win they’re going to have to kill the likes of me. Part of me views killing Democrats as nothing more than self-defense. That part isn’t allowed to make any decisions.

          1. And that’s my greatest fear.

            I’ve heard people ask in the wake of mass shootings how something like that could happen. The answer is rather simple. One day the part that says you can’t kill everyone loses to the part that says “why not?”

        2. Problem: “go kill yourself” is simply not funny at the best of times; when tossed out for lack of half-century old pop culture knowledge, it’s pathetically stupid on the level that got us Obama.

          That it’s popping out on pro-military spirit pages is really disturbing.

  10. The first time I head a grad student expressing relief that the “me decade” had passed I blinked. I had never heard that term. Then it turned out she assumed the original _Wall Street_ movie was a documentary, and it went downhill from there. And the textbook, well, I ended up not using it for the 1980s domestic policy because it was all “Ronnie cut the budget and poor people died and air pollution and he hurt Russian citizens by making the USSR bankrupt and the SDI would never have worked and was a waste of $$$ and” you get the picture. Boy howdy did the Narrative not fit the 1980s that I lived.

      1. I wish I was. She really was/is that clueless (and selfish. She ended up slacking off one spring because “I’m under stress and I’m taking a me semester.” I was taking an overload, teaching, doing service, and dealing with a very sick family member.)

        I used the book because 1) it had been used before at Flat State, 2) the other section instructor was using it, and 3) because of two emergency illnesses among the faculty we got three weeks to select and order books (actually, 24 hours between when I learned I was teaching and the hard book-ordering deadline) and couldn’t vet the book as well as I should have.

        1. Well, it was the narrative right up until the his funeral. Then the snap of the narrative shift from “Reagan Evil” to “Reagan Wonderful (if naive and wrongheaded about those poor Russians)” was loud enough to be heard on Mars.

          1. He’s only considered wonderful to the extent he’s usable as a club to beat us up for not being willing to do a larger version of the 1986 amnesty, for example. And it blows their minds that one reason we’re not willing is that we saw how the Democrats LIED when they said give us the amnesty and we’ll secure the border later. We should continue playing Charlie Brown to their Lucy.

  11. Rush wrote a book called ‘see I told you so’ about how the media and the libs would change the story about everything that happened under Reagan. Before it even happened, and boy did that piss the left off.
    I remember I got in an argument with a lib at a con about 2 years ago. All I had said was that I wanted the state governments in charge of welfare, not the feds, because there would be less corruption and waste. His response? To SCREAM at me that I wanted SICK PEOPLE TO DIE IN THE STREETS!!!
    That’s it, there was no middle ground, because I wanted to take power from the feds, I obviously wanted to kill sick people everywhere.
    Reagan used to say that the problem with liberals is that they know so much that just isn’t true. I say it’s that they’re all F**d! in the head. No critical thinking skills at all.

    1. That libby did not want to have a debate. He wanted to win. Humiliation for no reason trumps any kind of water carrying for logical thought. It is social engineering.

    1. “How do we deal with this kind of hate?”

      Lots and lots of really loud mockery, and maybe some judicious hitting for when they get up in your face in Real Life. I’d say Our Hostess here and Larry “Lord of Hatey Hating Hate” Corriea form the perfect models.

      2. Mockery only works if the people are smart enough to understand that they are being mocked. But Progs are always so SERIOUS, don’t you know. And I’m tired of either being a Fox lulled mind numbed idiot or a Koch paid drone without the mind numbing drugs(that I could sell to some REAL mind numbed types) or my Koch money.

        1. But sometimes you can mock them amidst a crowd that gets it, so the crowd laughs at them and with you.

    2. How do we deal with this kind of hate?

      Why is my mind so twisted I thought of this:

      Though more seriously, I suspect this trend will lead to bloodshed. People don’t spend so much effort denigrating and demonizing another group just for the heck of it.

  13. I think Americans don’t really appreciate the extent to which they’ve been libeled by their own media.
    I’m a Canadian. I was forced by circumstance, very much against my will, to move to New York in 1993.

    One of the very first things I did when I moved in was go buy an FN FAL assault rifle. Two reasons were 1. because I could, and 2. because I was sure I would need it before long. Expected a home invasion pretty much any time.

    Turns out rural New York State is exactly the same as rural Ontario. There’s no crime. Crime is like unicorns, you hear about it but you never see it.

    I expected New York City to be a wreckage strewn and blasted urban wasteland. Because that’s what I -always- saw on TV. Instead it was just kinda run down and dirty, with less amenities than I was used to in Toronto.

    You do get culture shock when you change countries, because stuff like bread labels and gas station signs are all different, and it takes a while to get used to it.

    But for me the biggest shock was how -profoundly- the media had LIED about New York my whole fricking life. Its NO DIFFERENT than Canada, other than bread labels, gas station signs and local accent. Alberta is more different to Ontario than New York.

    Americans want to know why Canadians (and Brits, and Australians, and Europeans and…) like to think you’re a bunch of red-neck cousin marrying louts? American TV. Whole reason, right there.

    1. Oh yeah. I live in Colorado Springs. This means we PROBABLY should lock the car and house at night, but many people don’t. Because I’m a ditz, I’ve forgotten my purse in the UNLOCKED car all night. And we live in the “dangerougish” part of town. It was still there in the morning.
      It’s a head trip to go to Portugal, a place where in SAFE suburbs, you remove stuff like the radio from the car at night, so it won’t be stolen, and people have bars in their windows and be told by shopkeepers how much we must be enjoying not being mugged and shot at every day. I tell them the truth and they plain don’t believe me. They saw it on TV, you know?

      1. According to the 2010 UN crime statistics numbers the UK with what are often pointed out as the gold standard in “sensible” gun control has a violent crime rate five times that of the United States. Not some biased NRA or other conservative organization mind you, the official United Nations figures.
        I point this out to anti gun folks and am rather consistently met with fuming, sputtering, and accusations of outright lying. Can’t possibly be true, simply does not fit the narrative.

        1. I’ve been at (verbal) war with the anti-gunners since they passed that idiot law C-17 in Canada waaaay back in 1991. They banned a rifle I owned at the time, which I didn’t think was possible way back then. I was unaware that the Canadian government could just declare something banned, and if you had one you’d be chucked in jail.

          Well here we are, 2014. Every single thing that was said waaaay back TWENTY FOUR YEARS AGO is still being said today, by the exact same people, parroted faithfully by all the media outlets just as if the last 24 years hadn’t even happened.

          Of course in those twenty four years all of their talking points have not just been debunked, its been proven each and every one of them is not just wrong, but pretty much backwards. The lying continues unchecked.

          What I (and others, obviously) used to believe was that if the truth was only known, this misunderstanding would be cleared up and we could all get back to our normal lives. discovered in the intervening decades is that this was never about crime. They don’t care about crime. The people making these arguments, crime never happens to them. They don’t live in De Ghetto where all the street crime goes down. They’ve never even SEEN the ghetto, most of them.

          This is about a belief system. They -believe- guns are bad. And they believe gun owners are bad people. Facts cannot sway them, because theirs is a magical belief. The gun itself causes “Bad Feelings” which then cause people to do bad things, and all the talking in the world can’t convince them otherwise. Only a badge and years of training can counteract the Bad Feelings guns create.

          You can’t talk sense to them. I’ve tried countless times. They get visibly uncomfortable if you argue against their beliefs, because its like you’re seriously arguing that the world is flat. They are convinced that you must be dangerously insane, because EVERYBODY knows guns are bad.

          No argument possible. Therefore they must be defeated in the public marketplace of ideas. Or, you know, the hitting.

          1. send them into the weeds and let them deal with a grizz, poley, or even a wolf who is in need a a bit of sustenance and then they might see the value in having something to argue the point

            1. They either expect fish and game to come to the rescue or believe they are so “at one with nature” nothing will bother them.

              I had one visit, wanting to wander about and commune with the woods. Fancied himself some kind of guru. I explained to him how not to get lost by orienting off the water courses and suggested he take a side arm in the off chance he’d run into the black bear that was coming in for apples. He looked suddenly out of tune. Downright jumpy, in fact.

              He decided he’s rather accompany me on a short tour. Every five minutes or so he would ask me, “Are you sure you know where we are?”

      2. Hell, I lived in a not-so-good section of Washington D.C. for eight years, and parked on the street (no choice). Not a BAD section, but when we pulled out the stove from the wall for some reason I forget, we found a cascade of empty crack vials. The ONLY time my car was damaged was when, during a blizzard, somebody broke the smallest pane of glass they could and took a coat off the back seat.

        Go with God, brother, you need that coat more than I do, and you had the class to try not to cost me any more than necessary.

        The ONLY time I recall New York looking as bad as its rep was a brief period between when the VCR had finally killed off all the 42nd Street movie theaters that used to show nonstop exploitation films (kung-fu, Superfly stomp the paddy, caged heat, etc.) and the great Revival that drove off all the porn shops. Somebody had used the marquees of all those theaters to write poetry, and the result was seriously “Omega Man” creepy.

      1. Hilarious life path, actually. Moved away from home to Toronto, lived all over the USA for ten years, now I’m back in Canada not five miles from my mother’s family farm in the sticks of Ontario. Like a salmon, forsooth.

              1. We’ve got moose, maple syrup and plenty of other edible critters here in Maine and a fairly easily defensible little valley. We also got 6 more inches of snow last night. We’re up to about to feet so far, though it has melted some.

              2. Maple Syrup is good. I personally can not STAND the corn syrup substitutes. I once got my hands on some Grade B syrup, and MAN that had some flavor! I remember that decades later.

    3. Yep. American TV is a funhouse mirror to American culture. My daughter lived from the time she was three to the time she was twelve in Europe – I was assigned there, we lived on the local economy. She had no frikkin’ idea of what living in the US was really like, and what little she did have she picked up from the handful of TV shows and movies that she was allowed to watch. The only TV show that I could tell her came anywhere close was The Wonder Years. Normal. Suburbia.

  14. I admit to being conflicted over Scorpion.
    Abysmal science for the most part.
    Hokey tired conflict situations that have been done to death years ago.
    But on occasion they do hit a nerve with the whole odd genius bit.

    1. It’s a tough show to like. I watch it for the interpersonal behaviors and such, as you mention. But the plots? Ow.

      I’ll tag this here, as it’s — sorta — a good spot:

      To be fair, Walter was upset that the military used his system to drop bombs when he’d designed it to drop aid supplies, because he’d designed it for time efficiency and not accuracy. I took it as he felt responsible for the collateral damage because he could have designed a more effective system for bombardment with lower collateral if they’d given him the opportunity.

      Which doesn’t change the Hollywood corruption to favor the narrative a whit, but it does make me wonder if Walter O’Brien (the real one) had a little more input there than the norm.

      Or I’m coloring the theme with my own biases…

      Nah, couldn’t be.

  15. Y’know, is a funny thing about that Clinton-era balanced budget. It really did kinda sorta happen, except Billy-Jeff didn’t balance it (he fought it tooth and nail until it happened and then he took credit for it), Newt did. Also — that great Bull Market, the one that generated much of the Capital Gains which generated so much of the taxes that enabled the balancing? Look at the DJI chart and you will see the boom began almost exactly on that November 1994 day the “Republican Revolution” was declared at the ballot box.

    The thing about narratives is, Sarah, that you write them professionally and know where to look for the plot holes and incompletely finished seams. Most Americans aren’t interested and find it easy enough to go along, only occasionally noticing the water is getting warmer. Bread & Circuses AFDC & American Idyll serve to prevent their paying attention to the men behind the curtain. That is why more people can answer who is Taylor Swift than who is their representative in Congress.

    1. And if one were to believe the media as history, you’d think that Newt ran with the “Contract On America” just by sheer repetition. They worked overtime to destroy that man.

      1. Of course! Gingrich had a brain…easily the most dangerous politician to the Left since Reagan.

        1. Newt,

          I liked his New Contract for Amarica, and I believe he was a better candidate than Mit. Newt at lest had a plan with goals and steps.

          Yah, but what was that net active again… Oh yah, I remember now, “Romney is the only viable candidate.”

            1. Mit was full of vague promises even when he moved over to the Ryan Plan. Where Newt had a plan action steps and the experience to know how to get things done in congress.

                1. No argument. Or Jeb, or Christie which might get foisted on us next. but you won’t convince Josh about the Art of the Possible. I too used to be like that, may G-d forgive me.

                  1. I was going to vote Mit but RNC 2011 convinced me they can the repub establishment could be trusted.

                    😉

                2. Point, even though I didn’t see much difference, he probable would have been better.

                  😉

                  1. Josh, my cat Havey who has three brain cells one devoted to sleep, one to food and one to sex would have been better than O. he doesn’t hate America. (Or anyone. Not enough brain power.)

                    3. Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.

                      – C. S. Lewis “God in the Dock” (1948)

                      Mit would have still meddled and for the same reasons. Thinking he knows what’s best. Would he have been worse? I don ‘t think so, but if we weren’t living through Obama who would have thought.

                  2. If you couldn’t see the difference, you need to learn to be more discerning.

                    Or at least listen to the Press and choose the opposite of anything they say.

                  3. oh a ton of difference. Even if we got national Romneycare instead of 0care … the international situation would be handled somewhat better, so things there would be more stable and that helps stabilize economics as well (something isolationists and Non-interventionists {I know, I repeat myself} are totally ignorant of) but I think Romney learned that there wasn’t really a way he could have forced that past and be well thought of.
                    And as for not seeing 0bama for what he was, I knew from day one he was Carter writ large (and gee, it seems that was a tad optimistic as well), by the time Romney came along I think my commie great uncle would have been a better choice than 0bama so even having the moderate Romney was a no brainer. Not seeing much difference is like saying there is little difference between a mild flu and Ebola

                    1. And the thing is, we wouldn’t have gotten Romneycare, as there weren’t veto-proof Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress like there were, and are, in Massachusetts. In fact, Massachusetts is pretty close to being a one-party state.

                    3. JP,

                      This last point didn’t help your case as to a reason I should have voted for him.

                      😉

                    5. alas, not voting for stupid gets you evil and stupid. So just how dangerous of a gov’t do you want? Romney might be the former head of Stupid, but he at least LIKES the United States of America (well more like loves the place)

                    6. JP,

                      I live in Texas, I could afford to vote Gary Johnson and Ted Cruz.

                      If I had lived in a swing state I’m not sure what I would have done, but I do know I was, and still am, pretty pissed at the Republican Party for what happened at RNC 2012. The Repubs are never again going to have Darkhorse candidate win the nomination.

                      Sigh… That is the past lets see what candidates pop up this go around, and what Faustian deals I’ll be asked to make this go around.

                      😉

                    7. yeah, but it is those who are not here with us in Texas that become the problem..
                      Gee, so far we seem to have a Bush, and Huckabee as potentials that have almost sorta said the will run. With Christie as one also being pushed.
                      yipee
                      makes one wanna scream.

    2. That is why more people can answer who is Taylor Swift than who is their representative in Congress.

      In fairness, I’m not sure who my representatives in Congress are.

      Once I established that not only did they represent the opposite of what I did, but that any letters, emails, phone calls or other contact would be misrepresented as exactly the opposite of exactly what I said, I stopped caring beyond voting for the better options and mourning when we fail…..

          2. Shhh – that right there is classified. Think through possibles ways to defuse the looming Chinese under-25-yr-old male-female ratio problem and you will see why project TAYLOR SWIFT was started back a few years ago.

            1. AH, too got to be true. Well, I tried to watch her on youtube, but vevos don’t seem to play for me. No great loss.

          2. Cute for values of “thin as a rail” and “for heaven’s sake somebody feed that girl a cheesburger.”

            But since she’s an android construct per above, the cheeseburger would not help.

            2. *shrug* She’s cute instead of pretty because she doesn’t have curves– kind of reminds me of a cousin I think of as The Fairy, but light instead of dark.

              If she filled out some, she’d be really pretty.

              1. My kids and I agree- she is one of those that require make-up to look good. Like Madonna. I prefer pretty without make-up.

            1. Sheer novelty value? I think it was when some guy who’s famous was really rude to her, and she responded with a reasonable amount of grace.

              That meme about “wait a minute, wait a minute, I’m gonna let you finish, but first I gotta say that (somebody?) is the greatest (something) of ALL TIME!”

              At least, I think that was when she got big, but I can’t really remember. I do know my husband says she has a few good songs.

    3. Just like if you look at the “Bush recession”, and his deficits: Until 2006, the deficit was going down every year since 2001 per CBO. Then what happens? We get the Democrats running Congress, and in a position to start re-screwing the economy, and businesses started running. Glenn needs to update this chart again.

      1. I had one particular brainiac iirc over at Don Surber’s old Daily Mail blog tell me it mattered not because GWB was in office, and that included the budget that he did not sign because it was illegally withheld until 0bama was in office … Its having such a huge deficit was still GWB’s fault because, well, because.

    3. I read that last night/earlier today. Instapundit linked to it. It’s very good.

      Until I read it, I had never before heard of this Feminist hatred for “Fedoras”, nor any kind of male movement about wearing them. I now recognize in retrospect that Clammy insulting my hat on that 700+ reply LJ thread was some attempt of his to insult me. But actually, I STILL have no idea what that idiot was talking about.

      And my hat is still an Australian “Swagman” not a Fedora by any stretch of the imagination.

      1. Grandkids got me a boonie one year. They are the best hats for keeping the sun and rain off the shiny.

        1. It’s definitely a wintertime hat. Even after 15 years, if you sweat in it some of the dye transfers to your head. Summer requires a switch to straw hats.

          1. I have one, and tend to replace it regularly as it gets dog/cat chewed, set on fire, or snatched by young girls and kept as a souvenir. Keeps the sun out of my eyes on long drives, and the dye doesn’t seep much, or I don’t notice it anyway. Good hat.

              1. Could well be. Also could be it’s camouflaged- my skin tone in the summer is in the warm beige range on the Benjamin Moore color chart, and the hat is Khaki. *grin*

                  1. Ah, gotcha. All my black hats leaked dye, so that makes sense. I’ve not had one in years, not since I left the city to come back here for work.

          1. And right now, some puzzled blogger is getting some incoherent remark about Dr. Mauser’s hat in his comments.

            1. I wish… It would be fun to see if he could insult Kiwi into best-sellerdom with the power of his hate. That line he let loose in Agilebrit’s LJ was almost brilliant marketing, if he could tell blue from brown. (But seriously, I’ve spent more than enough time on that. My new year’s resolution is to finish “Necessary Evil”)

              1. Kiwi! That’s you? I’ll read that next. I need a list. I’m too disorganized and can’t remember who wrote what.

                1. Yeah, in the secret background where nobody looks I’ve turned my WordPress into a writing/promotion blog.I’m even working on a recommended reading page (With a whole four entries on it).

      3. Oh, yes. They hate fedoras and seem to think it’s a movement. My kids have worn all sorts of hats since middle school. They do it because they like them. These idiots see movements in everything.

        1. Apparently the wearing of hats is some kind of attempt to revive the idea of being a gentleman, which horrifies Feminists, at least judging by that one cartoon in the article above.

          1. “Apparently the wearing of hats is some kind of attempt to revive the idea of being a gentleman, which horrifies Feminists, at least judging by that one cartoon in the article above.”

            It must be so, hats having no actual purpose.

            1. I almost hit post before realizing that I needed to replace the batteries in my sarcasm detector.

              To state the obvious: This bald guy doesn’t like rain streaming down his forehead, and finds sunburns uncomfortable.

              1. “This bald guy doesn’t like rain streaming down his forehead, and finds sunburns uncomfortable.”

                This one neither, nohow.

                1. of the things of my youth I miss most often, my hair is one of the biggest. Just for keeping the sweat from my eyes.
                  I used to get the inevitable “You’d not go bald if you stop wearing that hat”
                  I replied “If I don’t wear a hat, I get sunburn”

                    1. yeah, I know … this was the late 80’s and early 90’s. then some time around 2000 the person who cut my hair was diagnosed with MS, and I was getting so bald I wasn’t going to pay a barber to trim what little was there so it was easier to just shave it all.
                      Now, my Mom and middle sister have joined me.
                      Sis probably had Rhumatic Fever as a kid, and Mom started getting both bald spots and white spots, so mid sis convinced her to go with a wig. From behind me and sis are nearly identical.

                  2. Hats reduce your hair? *picks up end of very long, thick chunk of red hair* Dang, another memo I missed. Because I’ve been wearing hats since I was a teenager and I have a rather impressive haircoat. Especially now tht static electricity is back in town.

          2. Fedoras are stylish and give one a certain gravitas. Being a gentleman is a worthy goal. My father’s highest accolade was to be called a gentleman and a scholar.

          1. We lived in CO and shop in thrift stores. Add to that that the kids in stocking caps look like they’re ready to rob a convenience store. Since teenage years, they’ve worn Irish caps, Fedoras and other things that keep glasses dry (they both used to wear them) including but not limited to cowboy hats.

        3. Oh! Google has helped. Apparently the Fedora is a symbol of the Men’s Rights movement. No wonder they hate it so and recoil at the sight.

          1. Except most of the people who wear it have never heard of the movement.
            Good Lord they’re dorks. Next up, they’ll be looking for “right wing rings” and “reactionary lunchboxes” and possibly even “double plus ungood handshakes.”

            1. Yeah, further research has shown that it’s not MRAs who make the connection, but people who want to tar MRAs with the image of Geeky Neckbeards who think wearing a Fedora will imbue them with the spirit of Humphrey Bogart and women will flock to them, but it doesn’t.

              Also apparently a lot of people can’t tell the difference between a Trilby and a Fedora.

                1. Fat guys who try to define a non-existent jawline by styling their facial hair to have a thin beard. But there’s a boatload of other character assumptions that goes along with it.

                  1. Eh. Robert posted a picture of himself on Christmas morning, unshaven, and yes, his beard goes down to his Adam’s apple, but he’d shaved the day before, he just… you know? Latin? And someone called him a neckbeard. That was… special.

                    1. I wonder what Richard Nixon’s ethnic background was, then. I read something about him one time where the author said that Nixon was the only person he’d ever met who had 5 o’clock shadow by 9 AM.

                      Another thing about the “neckbeard” term: don’t most guys who wear beards trim them up at the bottom, so they look even around the neck? Could some of it relate to those guys who don’t do that, and they look more wild-man- ish?

                    2. Possibly. But the kid just had the “I slept and didn’t shave.” On Nixon there is a connection way back with Dan’s Connecticut family (I think by marriage, but they are from the same set of “goes back before the revolution quite a while” families.) And Dan when I married him had to shave twice a day. This has slowed somewhat past forty, but…
                      Since my dad had same issue… well… the boys are doomed.

                    3. I know a Scottish/English/Indian (feather) who does that (dad), and I married an Italian/Cajun/probably English who does that. All the “mostly Irish” that I know have serious beards, so I don’t know if they do…..

                      The name Nixon is UK/Irish, so I’d guess that’s where it came from. He looked a bit Irish, but who can tell?

                      It can be triggered by things like the Army’s “shave twice a day” thing that they did during boot camp in Vietnam.
                      (I don’t care that it’s supposedly an old wives’ tale, I’m believing my lying eyes over vaguely supported, unsourced word-of-mouth “science.” The brothers that were military have to shave more than those who didn’t to get the same appearance, and the cousins who are mostly Indian and went military have to shave while the ones who didn’t, don’t, regardless of who looks more Scottish than Paiute and thus presumably got more of the probably-guilty genetics.)

                    5. My beard also grows on my neck. (Which reminds me, I have to trim my beard).

      4. Going off of our (fruitless) attempt to find a fedora for my husband, they wouldn’t know an actual fedora anyways…. did they sleep through Indy’s movies?

        Trillbies, trillibies, trilbies? The adorable little lady fedoras, AKA Peter Pan Hats?

        Some guys can pull them off, but they’re not fedoras, and soooo maaaaaany places call them that, because that’s what fashion says…..

        *wanders off to cry about it*

      5. Except they’re not fedoras, they’re trilbies, and the reason I know this was a hilarious article which castigated MRAs for wearing them because ‘hat brims should be proportional to the width of the shoulders’, and trilbies are too narrow for most men and therefore a fashion faux pas. 😀

        2. Mine is a not really sold as a Fedora as it is slightly small rimmed but not the narrow trilby style either I bought it for the same reason many in archery call it a Fred Bear hat … Fred wore one like it as the rim is just small enough not to get too bent by the string of the bow at full draw and if it does and bends down won’t block the view. I was starting to shoot again and it was a nice neutral brown and warm enough felt. I do wear it in summer when mowing the grass.
          My dad would prefer one like Grandpa had, but we’ve never found one like it (fedora rim but a really high crown), so he usually goes with a “Greek Fisherman’s”(Blue Popeye the Sailor style).

      7. The whole hat thing puzzles me. I happen to like hats, and like girly, wide-brimmed decorated sun hats, akubras, cowboy hats, fedoras, driver’s caps, berets, fascinators, proper top hats, etc. Yes, I like wearing them too.

        I don’t get the hat thing, honestly. when someone says ‘fedora’ I think ‘Linux distro? hacker? Indy hat?’ Yeah, in that order. Guess who’s a little geekette?

        And the idea that ‘nerds’ are only ‘men.’ Uh. Female nerd here, with a nerd-geek hubby (who is just as capable of delivering death either with his bare hands or a weapon of any kind, probably better than the average jock) who is still cheerfully self-describes as a nerd, geek and gamer.

        So I just see the feminazis as the ‘out of high school’ version of the popular girl cliques who had no achievements other than being social bitches and got their way through sexual favors.

    4. “seriously, you wanted to throw the gauntlet down to lonely male nerds, and the turf you chose was Star Wars metaphors? HOW COULD THAT POSSIBLY SEEM LIKE A GOOD IDEA?”

      *chuckle*

      They’ve always had it in for the nerds, now they just have a vast structure and cheering section with which to belittle and insult us. It becomes so very easy to deny another human being their basic humanity when you reduce them to a stereotype, Odd corners lopped off, stretched or chopped to fit that Procrustean frame. It becomes easier to ignore suffering when you have the Earbuds of Feminism blaring “Patriarchy! Privilege! PIV!” and the Blindfold of Political Correctness showing you “Neckbeard! Rapist! Mouth-Breathing Troglodyte!”

      I’m sure some folks that call themselves Feminists are decent people. I am certain I’ve met some of them, at some point. But when I see more and more stuff like this, it doesn’t help me think of them as decent people. *shakes head*

      This Feminism nonsense is brain poison. It’s treating people like things, and that never ends well.

      1. Most conspiracy theories are brain poison.
        Someone frothing about “the patriarchy” should be treated the same as someone frothing about “the Rothschilds”, “the Tri-Lateral Commission” or “the Jews”.

        1. Depending on what definition of “conspiracy theory,” they’re all brain poison.

          There’s the (outside of rhetorical slings) most common definition, something like “false theory that shifts blame into something more interesting and radical.” If it’s true, then it’s not a conspiracy theory anymore.

          There’s the literal definition, which is any theory of cause which involves group action, with two flavors– deliberately planned group action, and any group action at all. (the latter includes group-think results)

          There’s the rhetorically common one, which attempts to paint a theory about group action with the requirement that it be false and kinda wacky, while only having to prove that it would involve some sort of group action.

          The first one is, if taken seriously, brain poison– it’s not just false, it destroys the chance of finding truth and warps world view.
          The second one can be problematic if it’s out of balance with other reasons.
          The last one is brain poison because it’s equivocation and destroys communication.

    5. Feminazis, jocks, popular crowd, all the same. Everybody kicks sand on the nerds. We’re used to it, and we have developed countermeasures.

      Because nerds plan ahead, and we know -everything-. ~|:( scowl!

      1. Yup. they come to work one day and discover they have been subscribed to every spam email list one can find, and the IT guys are ‘too busy’ to help.

          1. Oh, Lord. While waiting for Mammogram couldn’t avoid half an hour of her show.
            Really? REALLY?
            It can’t be aimed at preschoolers, right? So, how STUPID has television got?
            I’m afraid when I catch another half hour of day time television in ten years or so, people in contests will be getting prizes for correctly pronouncing their own name.

            1. She’s fairly cool compared to the nastier feminist types, I’ll give you that. But a lot of things that come out of her mouth that are obvious basic assumptions are pretty head-desk inducing.

        2. Shadowdancer, if I hadn’t read that post, as cynical as I am I wouldn’t have believed someone as twisted and hate filled as Hailey could possibly exist.

          Holy Mary Mother of God.

          1. There’s bits going ’round that she was supposedly just trolling and took down the post after she had thousands of people tell her, in various unpleasant ways, what a hateful bitch she was. Bit hard to believe she wasn’t out to inflict harassment without some sincerity of that hate because she supposedly spammed several mothers and parents communities about her ‘opinions.’ Which reminds me of some of the stuff I hear going on in IRC channels these days: feminists pretty much barging into channels that are likely to have a higher ratio of men to women due to topic and then hectoring them viciously for their misogyny. The one I heard about involved car mods, and the discussion involved detailed descriptions of how to achieve the sound system in the car that one of the people there was asking advice for. Suddenly this self-proclaimed feminist went off on a massive rant about how sexist and ugly and misogynist everyone there was, naming their cars female names and implying that women were meant only to be ridden or some such crap. She got kicked out because of the vitriol and the puzzled mods looked over the logs from the time she entered and to the time she’d blown up. There was no mention whatsoever of a car being referred to as ‘she’ or by ‘female name’… because the talk had been about parts installation. (This was about the week I drew the last FML strip after hearing Aff roaring into the mike. From the end of the hallway, behind a closed door.)

          1. Thank you. You know the funny thing? For all the feminist hate of ‘men do, women are’, they’re pushing the ‘women are’ narrative harder than the men ever have. Because once they take away the various social cliques they’ve decided are ‘solely the purview of men’ on the insane basis of ‘ew, women don’t do THAT!’ there really isn’t much left for women to do other than just … exist. Possibly as sex objects that aren’t desirable, given how hateful and internally ugly these rabid feminists tend to be.

        5. That anti-motherhood rant is something else. Lock her and Talks-With-Plants in a room and watch an explosion. Between “women who have sex and babies are the brainwashed victims of men and are obviously more oppressed than separatists” and “women choose to be het out of privilege and oppress separatists,” you’d get a matter/anti-matter explosion.

  17. So far ignored in the comments: “You will hear every time there is an episode of Sudden Jihad Syndrome that “we fear backlash against Muslims.” ” There are a few things that were known and in the news on 9/12 about 9/11 that have disappeared. (Most Muslim schoolkids in Jersey City came to school on 9/11 with cameras, for example.) I know of two happenings after 9/11 that never happened. But they did. And when I talk with some people who have noticed the same thing, in other areas, they agree with the following assessment. If the government did a data dump of every attempted terrorism act since 9/11, there wouldn’t be a mosque standing in the U.S. the following day, and the government would be unable to stop it.

    Most SJS acts are are never reported as national news, only local. So most people never hear of them. And, as mentioned, the media never reports them as SJS in any event, and in cases where Islamic connection cannot be hidden (the Boston Bombing) every single other possible motive will be discussed in the media- but never the true reason.

    1. Do you have a cite on the schoolkids in Jersey thing?

      I’m not in favor of trying entire classes of people, particularly absent concrete facts.

      If you have some concrete facts leading to the indictment of individuals, lets make them known, so they can be acted on.

      If you don’t — otherization is chilling. It has profound impacts that I believe are antithetical to our way of life. This applies regardless of the group we’re lumping together.

      Islamic Jihadism is a significant problem, one we will have no choice but to deal with in the end. But let’s call to task those responsible, and leave aside those associated.

  18. The only cite I can easily find is from this unreliable site http://www.prisonplanet.com/prior_knowledge_of_sept_11_not_just_urban_legend.htm

    As I said- the information had been scrubbed from ALL MSM sites. All of them. It was common knowledge and published in the days immediately following 9/11- and disappeared in very short order. If you know anyone who was living in Jersey City, Hoboken or Newark at the time- call them and ask. They should have memories of it.

  19. On phone, can’t find Banshee’s 4response about Boniface and the treee– found several sources that mention he had a ton of “vite” (?)including from his cousin Wil…something girly looking… who translated thor/donor to jupiter, but only the one guy named, his “life of” mentions killing people but not a specific example. Will try to find more if I don’t forget!

  20. Many moons ago, when I was in college, I took a three credit course in physical anthropology. (Yes, yes, I know. But I had to take six credits of “social science” as part of my degree requirement and microeconomics and physical anthropology were the least “out there” subjects. )

    One of the things we covered were “revival/revitalization” movements. In this context they were movements that were attempts to “restore” a culture that was essentially dying. The “Ghost Dance” among the bison following Plains Indians was given as an example–that somehow, by following this movement, white expansion would stop and they could go back to hunting bison.

    I have often found myself wondering if that might not be behind what we’re seeing with Islamic fundamentalism. But, also it could be a part of the increasingly shrill response of the SJW’s to anything, anything at all, that they can attack, even folk nominally on their side.

        1. :o} Actually, the Ghost dance movement was fairly tragic. These dipshits don’t deserve to be taken that seriously. Maybe the glittery hoo haw twerk would be more appropriate?

    2. “I have often found myself wondering if that might not be behind what we’re seeing ”

      You might have something there. A hopeful sign!

      1. Maybe like the original, they’ll do something really stupid and give the Army an excuse to mow them down. And then people will be arguing about it for centuries.

  23. Pingback: News of the Week (Januardy 4th, 2015) | The Political Hat

  24. I heard Scorpion was pretty good (forget where), so recorded an episode and started to watch. May have made it to 10 minutes (w/ commercials); gave up. Wasn’t accepting the premise or the way others were treating them.

    Backlash on Muslims: Been hearing warnings of and threats of and…no follow-up stories of anything happening. Or if something did, it was a hoax.

    The truth is out there. It’s just not in the lap dog media, the NYT, WaPo, alphabet TV. Not in my regional newspaper, which has been sold and gone thin on news and thick on leftie opinion, not in my local rag.

  25. Pingback: Race Matters — but should it? | Be Swift, Be Precise

Comments are closed.