"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
“Do you know more about the news than the average American?”
To which I answered, “Yes. *duh* I pay as little attention to the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind as possible. I watch no television ‘news’ programs, never read national newspapers except to do casual research into where the Hivemind’s narrative is headed, etc. So naturally I am better informed than the average American!”
Then I took their silly lil quiz.
…and I’ll still think you a slow-witted master of the obvious. What’s that you say? All the blowhards, pompous pundits and twits going on about how the country is “no longer culturally cohesive”–the so-called “two Americas” talking point for today.
*yawn* This is news only to people who’ve lived under a rock for the past 25 years and spent most of that time experimenting with their do-it-yourself lobotomy kits.
OF COURSE the country is “no longer culturally cohesive”! The Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind, Academia Nut Fruitcake Bakeries, public schools (A.K.A. “prisons/brainwashing camps for kids”) and politicians, bureaucraps and all the gaggle of leftist NGOs have spent decades dividing us, Balkanizing us, brainwashing us… and we (collectively, as a people) have been complicit in their chicanery, even if only by our lack of forceful, continual, unremitting resistance.
And so-called “conservatives”? R.L. Dabney’s trenchant observation still applies:
American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt hath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth, and has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom. It always, when about to enter a protest, very blandly informs the wild beast whose path it essays to stop, that its “bark is worse than its bite,” and that it only means to save its manners by enacting its decent role of resistance. The only practical purpose which it now subserves in American politics is to give enough exercise to Radicalism to keep it “in wind,” and to prevent its becoming pursy and lazy from having nothing to whip.
Not news. Dabney would recognize the same sort of division so obvious to twittering pundits today as little different to the division he witnessed in his own 19th Century America.
Now that a coupla days have passed since folks began bemoaning the effects of the “replacement refs'” advent on their beloved [Whatevers], perhaps an observation from Ring Lardner’s days as a sports reporter in Chicago would be fitting:
“Hero-worship is the national disease that does most to keep the grandstands full and the playgrounds empty.”
As couch potatoes and the never-weres of the sports fields everywhere thrash and moan about the horrible officiating ruining “their” teams’ games, maybe, to borrow a Jonah Goldberg quip, they need to get out and get a tan.
Meanwhile, those of us who were never all that impressed by circuses would like a little less bitchin’ and moanin’ about replacement refs and other inanities. Professional sports for the enstupiation of those with too much time on their hands and no thoughts nor even any worthwhile hobbies to occupy that time? DGARA.
I thought I might post a video of Madeline Kahn singing “I’m Tired” but I’m just too tired to go to all that effort.
IOW,
Q: Who’s surprised by this?
NPR’s report purportedly raised “questions” over ALEC’s tax status and quoted extensively from Common Cause. What listeners didn’t learn, however, was that NPR’s reporter, Peter Overby formerly worked for Common Cause.
A: Lobotomized Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind Koolaid drinkers living in an echo chamber.
The chances of throwing a rock into a group of NPR “reporters” and hitting something not joined at the hip with the Dhimmicrappic National Committee or some other closely-aligned Conspiracy of Dunces, Morons, Cretins and Traitors* is very nearly zero, so this sort of “revelation”… isn’t. A revelation that is. It’s a “So? What else is new? The Sun appears to rise in the East and set in the West? Wow. *yawn* News” sort of “revelation”.
Color me unsurprised, but then I’ve not been living in an echo chamber under a rock somewhere poisoning myself with Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind Koolaid.
But now, words mean… whatever. It’s not just normal pejoration of words over time, anymore. Ortega’s Mass Man controls the decline of our increasingly debased tongue.
FROOMB! (Trust me or not, it relates… *sigh*)
Parents: Cursing baby doll should not be sold
I really do tire of this kind of thing. The doll apparently says, “Hey, crazy bitch.”
*yawn* The “Outrage Factory” is at work full time on this one, it seems.
This is marginally interesting as an indicator of the normalization of vulgarity in popular speech (but then, “vulgar” does mean “common, base” and our society is increasingly base–“morally low; without estimable personal qualities; dishonorable; meanspirited; selfish…
of little or no value; worthless”). Only stupid, subliterate, neovictorian bowdlerizers would consider “bitch” a curse. It’s vulgar, of course, but a “curse word”? Hardly. Of course, in today’s increasingly alliterate society, such pejoration of words (such as “curse”) has become common.
*waits for “outraged” subliterates to react negatively*
“Now there abide these three: phonemes, syntax and semantics, and the greatest of these is semantics.”
Awoke at 5:45 to find my Wonder Woman watching a couple of Brits getting married. The last 15 minutes or so were more than I could stand. Probably the worst part was seeing the choral conductor’s really crappy conducting technique. Gagamaggot. The two guys double-teaming the service had to have taken advanced degrees in Boring Speech and then have been chosen from a field of the absolutely most accomplished bores on the planet. They really, really needed to have conscripted Peter Cook to be master of ceremonies or whatever…
The Impressive Clergyman: Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam…
OTOH, the sevenfold amen from the choristers was better than some I’ve heard, and the trumpets were very good.
I missed The Ancient Booer though. *sigh*
Hadn’t had my coffee yet, so the commenting by Mass MEdia Podpeople just washed over me without leaving any perceived toxic waste, just normal B.S.
Oh, and “15 minutes”? Wrong. I stuck around for the horses. Almost uniformly great conformation and nice gaits. Nice tires (tyres? *heh*) on the carriage.
Apart from that? Who frickin’ cares? Not my family or personal friends, so whatever comes of this “royal” wedding is no more important to me than the last one was, which is to say, not at all.
Bored now.
*heh* My Wonder Woman just told me that when the gal was having her ring slipped on, it looked like her finger had swollen or something because it seemed to get stuck for a second.
“Here, minion, run along and find me a woman who fits this ring. There’s a good minion.”
*heh*
Well, I’m not Lily Von Schtupp, but I can relate to the hook. Well, the “I’m tired” part. The rest of it (“I’ve been with thousands of men”? :-))? Notsomuchatall.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-pmpgrYQgs
(Embedding diasabled)
Light blogging. I may awake in the a.m., but if not, Shhhh!
😉
My post on “unintended consequences” brought a SPAM comment from someone who “respectfully disagree[d]” with my analysis, claiming to be the “Chief Medical Officer of URL Pharma” saying that “There is no such thing as ‘generic colchicine.'” [The inappropriate placement of the second ‘ is in the original.]
Asshat. My post didn’t even use the word “generic” so it’s easy to tell that this was either just a spider-crawling comment or one written by someone who’s too subliterate or lazy for any response from me more than mocking.
On top of that, had I referred to “generic colchicine” I’d have been correct in doing so, since generic=something that is general, common, or inclusive rather than specific, unique, or selective in its primary sense, and “generic colchicine” has thus been in use for the treatment of gout for “six centuries” (according to the historically illiterate FDA–it was first described in use for such treatment over 2,000 years ago in De Materia Medica by Pedanius Dioscorides, but what are 14 centuries difference to an FDA bureaucrap?). The asshat goes on to make other offensively disingenuous commentary, but what can one expect from some auto-response to folks blogging about a company and the FDA conspiring to screw folks yet again?
But let me be clear: I LOVE asshattery in comments, because it gives me a way to blow off steam that doesn’t involve “kicking the cat” as it were. Feel free to return for more mockery, jackass.
…or is Freecell in Vista/Win7 just easier than earlier versions?
