‘One of My Best Friends is Black’

Some of you may recognize this from the 1960s. It was the standard moderate-to-liberal White excuse that THEY couldn’t POSSIBLY be racist, because … “one of my best friends is Black,” or, more in keeping with the decade, “one of my best friends is a Negro.”

One of my best friends is a robot!

Negro, in case you didn’t already know it, is the Anglicised Spanish term, “negro” (not pronounced the same way) which means “black.” The new taboo (replacing the F-word) of the N-word, is simply a slang derivative of the Spanish term. And, perhaps I ought to point out that “blacks” are no more “black” than “whites” are actually “white,” in our imbecilic national race dialogue, just as “persons of color” are no more or less “colored” than anyone else, with the sole possible exception of albinos.

And the problem with our entire discussion of race, religion and diversity is that we continually break our differences down into equally extreme concepts that only mask the true problem: exclusionism. We see it today in the Über-rich and their minions, openly sneering at the poor. (OK, “the bottom 50%, ” who “aren’t doing their fair share” in paying billionaires’ income taxes for them.)

The Sport of Kings

I just finished tuning out NPR’s “Talk of Nation” listening to these educated boobs talking about the GOP horserace in the primaries. And, oddly, the actual picture came into sharp focus entirely outside the perception of the pundits, and even Mike Huckabee’s former campaign manager. And as they started getting into the weeds of presidential campaign financing, I realized that the most important story of the upcoming election cycle isn’t being reported, won’t be reported and probably nobody wants to report (lest their Korporate Masters spank):

Classic Party Game

The only important issue in the upcoming GOP primaries is money from large donors.

Period.

It’s Past Time for the LA Times to fire Andrew Malcolm

Seriously. Having somewhat rescaled the credibility cliff back to some degree of better journalism, the struggling LA Times was once more embarrassed by its most partisan hack, over the most trivial of issues, broadly hinting at anti-Semitism. Seriously.

Malcolm in the muddle

Here’s that “cut to the chase” moment:

Is that a Bundle of Racism under the Bigot Tree?

Of course not. (To hear them tell it.)

“Genuine conservative Southern belle”

I refer you to the protagonist of the earlier, enthralling posting “You Don’t Have to be a Racist to be a Bigot (Although it Helps) ” [28 April 2011], Sister Toldjah (“Genuine conservative Southern belle born in the wrong era. Soundly refuting liberals online since 2000″). One assumes the right era to be the Antebellum — if only from the context.

Today’s object of screeching that he’s a racist for suggesting racism is famed actor and Hollywood icon Morgan Freeman. But, let Sister Toldjah (whose blog name is, itself, a crypto-racist slur) limn the vastness of Freeman’s uppityness (interpolated with a mild Fisking):

Pardon Our Vorpal Dust

One of the nice things about blogging is that I am not required to have an opinion on everything, nor am I confined to today, in the endless rat race to get one’s latest blog post to the top of Memeorandum and suchlike.

Frankly, for the past couple of weeks, there has been nothing NEW to say. All of this kerfuffle, and kerfluffing has been dealt with at length before. So, when one has nothing to say, one is silent, observant, and says nothing. Or, as Lincoln is reputed to have said, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”

The Vorpal well has been dry, in other words, and all streaks — including seven-year streaks – come to an end. New streaks then begin.

As such, the Vorpal blade is being sharpened, and my sincere apologies for any stray vorpal dust that might exacerbate pre-existing medical conditions, etc. Here is a video to tide you over (if you can spare a whole fifty-five seconds from your busy day, that is):

click here to watch on YouTube
(will open in a new tab/window) 

And that’s the way we roll.

Happy Autumnal Equinox. (2:05 AM PDT; 9:05 AM GMT/UT/ZULU)

Courage.

Oh Noes! I missed ‘Talk Like a Pirate’ Day!

“Happy is he who has discovered the causes of things
and has cast beneath his feet all fears, unavoidable fate,
and the din of the devouring Underworld.” — Virgil

Fortunately, talking like a Republican and talking like a pirate are more or less the same thing (pirates tend to be more poetic and compassionate). So, we can chronicle who talked like a pirate yesterday with relative ease:

Politico:

“I suspect if something was up there like that about Joe Biden, they’d get rid of it. If you’re a responsible business, you don’t let things like that happen in your business that have an impact on the country.”

– Rick Santorum on contacting Google to attempt to have what happens when you google “Santorum” removed.

Arr.

And that was only the beginning.

The Legion of Flying Turds (redux)

I happened upon this, looking for something else, and it’s astonishing how little it’s aged. Same Legion. Same Turds.

“Which perhaps explains why the patron saint of The Legion of Flying Turds is Mr. Magoo.”

1. The Legion of Flying Turds Origin Issue!

Because the Legion of Doom was already taken. Same idea, but with significantly more malice and significantly less chutzpah. And yet, the Legion of Flying Turds share with various fictional super-villain confabulations that Prime Directive: they want to take over the world.

Think about it. Because it’s nothing less than that. They want the USA to be NUMBER ONE for all of history (forgetting that it wasn’t until the Spanish American War, or, some would argue, the First World War that the United States were seen as a world power of any sort). And they want to rule the USA. Their cockamamie ideas — ideologies never actually field-tested in the real world of human experience — are supposed to be the guiding principles, or they’ll “go Galt” and hold historically dyslexic “Tea Parties.” Ooo0h.

Inside the Death Cult of the GOP (part ii.)

“Your morgauge is not my problum!”

There is a point to painstakingly tracing the lie that masked Speaker Boehner’s unprecedented bit of scheduling nastiness on the President’s speech before Congress last week. It throws a harsh light onto the problem that pulls it into sharp relief.

Rather than governing, the GOP strategy is to go on strike, knowing that it will tank the economy and cripple the government’s ability to respond TO that crisis. The insane glut of filibusters, and the endless federal appointments — including, famously, a department newly created last year — and refusal to fund the continuity of governmental policies is well known and needs no supporting citations. As America begins to burn, cobwebs grow on the chairs in the fire stations.

Inside the Death Cult of the GOP (part i.)

I want you to try a thought experiment here.

Joseph Interpreting Pharaoh’s Dream Peter von Cornelius (1817) (click pix for larger image) 

Think of something obvious and intimate that you use all the time: a cigarette lighter, a tube of lipstick, a shoehorn, whatever. Something convenient, even something that you’re carrying right now (not a pair of glasses you’re wearing, please). Your car keys. Something perhaps trivial, but something that you use every day.

Now, without looking at anything or moving, tell yourself where it is, and then go get it.

Odds are it’s right where you knew it would be.

Congratulations! You just did something important that humans do every day, something so profound that we do it constantly without ever thinking about it. We have done it from earliest age: when you “located” the object, you used your PICTURE, your SIMULATION of the world that you and I and all functional humans carry with us constantly. When you physically located the object, you existed in the “REAL” world, and you also refined your PICTURE of the real world at the same time.

Drama Queens

America isn’t interested in facts or reason: America wants DRAMA! So, here’s some entertainment, rather than any analysis:

The Grand Olde Party – The Mu$ical

There is a small spotlight in the center of a darkened, almost smoky stage. Gradually, the light increases in intensity to reveal a meadow. But where? When?

Laughing and good-old-boy back-slapping and chatter are heard offstage, as an extremely diminutive man, a “little person” or who would formerly have been a midget, NEWT, enters STAGE LEFT, laughing and clearly a little out of breath:

NEWT: Come on Rich. That’s enough entertainment for tonight.

RICHMAN “RICHIE” RITCHE enters, also STAGE LEFT, also laughing and out of breath. He’s about average-sized.

RICHIE: It never gets old.

NEWT: No. I love it so. It’s the biggest reason that I come on these retreat weekends.

RICHIE: I’m always amazed that no reporters have ever snuck in.

My 2¢ Worth on the 9-11 Anniversary

The commemoration of the tenth anniversary has become the world’s largest blog essay contest, and, while I cannot hope to succeed in such an outpouring of virtual (and actual) ink, I will say this: