Category Archives: Culture

What I’m Reading, July 14, 2014

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Why So Down, Maureen Dowd? BooMan, Booman Tribune, July 6, 2014

We’re not a superpower brought low. That’s why the kids don’t want to have that discussion. It’s because we’ve been low ever since we found out that that John Wayne b.s. was a myth, which, for most people, happened decades ago now. In many ways, this country has never been stronger or fairer than it is today, and if we could just get back our majorities we could begin making progress on the problems we’re still facing. The kids don’t want to debate the death of a superpower foolishness any more than they want to debate Jim Crow, gay rights, or the reality of climate change.

At the end of her insufferable column, Ms. Dowd quotes, but does not seem to understand, Nathaniel Philbrick. Mr. Philbrick points out that past is not what it appears to be. The Founding Fathers’ flaws were airbrushed out of history. Even George Washington was a flawed man. “What George Washington did right was to realize how much of what he thought was right was wrong.”

This is what Ms. Dowd has not done. She has not learned that America was never John Wayne-undeafeatable. She mourns not the loss of a better America, but an America that was as phony as the idea of John Wayne being a courageous war hero. The truth is, he opted not to serve. The truth is, America is a much better place today than it was in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

Todd Starnes’ Convenient Concerns About Violence, Ed Brayton, Dispatches from the Culture Wars, July 11, 2014 Continue reading →

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What I’m Reading, July 11, 2014

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The American myth about entrepreneurs is dying, Eric Garland, Eric Garland Blog, May 20, 2014

America used to have a myth that it supported and honored entrepreneurs. I was certainly raised with it. My father owns a farm store, my mother ran a pie shop, my sister has a dance school, my Italian grandparents had their own bakeries, et cetera. I always thought that owning your own business was not only possible, it was preferable, somehow more noble than working in the boiler room of someone else’s company. I am an American, and it wasn’t until I arrived in Paris that I realized that this was a myth which had not been internalized by everybody, everywhere. In France, I was forced to confront the notion that some people saw small business as being a petty, money grubbing merchant who could not survive in the larger, more important world of state institutions and major businesses. Quite a shock, really.

Yet this is a myth I still cherish and here’s why: small businesses tend to produce the greatest job growth. Huge companies are more dominant in an industry, but small companies are the most likely to grow and create a new position with wealth, a tax base, a market for other businesses and all that good stuff. Yet our policies are making the world more friendly to the big and more hostile to the small. There was a guy who wrote about this a lot in the 18th century: Adam Smith. In his Wealth of Nations, he saw large businesses protected by the government as unjust and inferior to smaller businesses with accountability to their neighbors. His theory was called capitalism and we have gotten away from it in recent years.

Americans need to Answer: When Will Palestinians get their Fourth of July? Juan Cole, Informed Comment, July 4, 2014 Continue reading →

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What I’m Reading, July 10, 2014

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football v. fútbol — it ain’t just sports, Greg Fallis, gregfallis.com, June 27, 2014

[T]he U.S. is a football nation; the places where we’ve been engaged in combat are fútbol nations. We’re talking two different sports with radically different philosophies. Those philosophies can be seen as metaphors for the ways we wage war. American football is a great metaphor for waging large-scale land and sea wars. The U.S. totally kicked ass in World War II. But for your more modern asymmetrical conflicts, fútbol is the ticket.

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Here’s why. Football is centralized and authoritarian. Command and authority is channeled through coaches and advisers who aren’t even on the field. The information is relayed to a single individual who reveals those orders to the players. In other words, you’ve got old guys who don’t have any skin in the game making most of the decisions. This is thought to be a good thing, because their decisions can be made in a cold, dispassionate, logical way. Most of the individual players on the field don’t need to know what’s going on overall; they just need to follow instructions and do their fucking job. On the other hand, it means if communications fail, or if the defense takes out the quarterback, the team on the field is thoroughly fucked.

We, the people are violent and filled with rage: A nation spinning apart on its Independence Day, Jim Sleeper, Salon, July 4, 2014 Continue reading →

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What I’m Reading, July 8, 2014

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The birth control debate is really about the housing market, Eric Garland, Eric Garland Blog, March 4, 2012

All of this debate is about the housing market. And unemployment. And Afghanistan. And health care for Baby Boomers. And Netflix. And drones. And the bankruptcy of Greece. And more. None of this spontaneously vomited national debate has a thing to do with healthcare or birth control or morals. It has everything to do with a nation that is afraid to discuss its real future, so it would much prefer to re-fight the great debates of the 20th century.

As somebody who discusses the future professionally with leaders of organizations, I will tell you that people everywhere are so terrified of what is coming next that they are fundamentally incapable of having a discussion about it. The American Mindset is almost entirely about Growth and Winning, and the simple fact is that we are likely unable to grow geographically or economically due to fiscal and demographic constraints. Thus, our steady-state economics, or even steadily receding economy, will not look like winning, either on a balance sheet or in people’s minds. Americans are addicted to seeing the Dow Jones go up every year. They want their houses to be worth more and more, forever. They want to stay “number one,” whatever that means, at all costs. And virtually none of that is likely in the near future. It is so difficult for Americans to consider that they are reverting to all manner of fantastic, irrational thinking to avoid the painful realities that may be ahead.

A Fascinating Study of How Creationists Understand Early Human Fossils, Mark Strauss, io9, July 2, 2014 Continue reading →

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The Most ‘Murican Thing You’ll See All Day

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Does it get any more ‘Murican than guns, scantily-clad women, and the apparent present ability to kick your weenie commie ass? How much more ‘Murican is it to have all three not just in the same picture, but in the same person???

The Most 'Murican Thing You'll See All Day

(h/t to Imgur user mcpocg117 for his post “Freedom, Firearms, and Fitness Day!”)

The photo is actually by Jesse Hodge, and the model is Alicia Harris (official website) in the 2012 American Bombshells calendar (thanks, Google!). ‘Murica!

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What I’m Reading, June 24, 2014

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derekdavalos [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via deviantART“Chemtrails” Don’t Exist and Idiots Are Really Easy to Fool, Dennis Mersereau, The Vane, May 22, 2014

Have you ever run into someone so stupid that you just had to play a prank on them? Welcome to the life of meteorologists who have to deal with “chemtrailers,” or the people who falsely believe that airplanes are spraying chemicals because DA GUBMINT wants to kill you.

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Well, as with all conspiracy theorists, chemtrailers won’t take science for an answer. The true explanation behind contrails — the warm, moist jet exhaust meeting the extremely cold air of the upper-atmosphere and condensing into a thin cirrus cloud — is just the World Government’s smoke-and-mirrors to deceive the population from The Truth.

Government Treating Peaceful Left Activists Like Terrorists–Again, Paul Waldman, The American Prospect, May 23, 2014 Continue reading →

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Look, I get that the World Cup is a big deal…

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…and I get that, as an American, I will probably never understand the true magnitude of its big-deal-ness—but I truly feel that it’s not worth this:

A soccer fan in China has died from sleep deprivation after saying up for days on end to watch the matches.

China is 11 hours off from Brazil, with the games airing between 11pm and 6am. Die-hard fans who want to watch the games live pull all nighters, go to work in the morning, and repeat the ritual the next night. It’s not known exactly how long the 25-year-old man from the eastern city of Suzhou had stayed up, but IB Times reports it’s believed he’d been up “for days.” It’s also not known whether he died directly from sleep deprivation or from a heart attack related to sleep deprivation. He was found in front of his TV five hours after Netherlands defeated Spain 5-1 in their first round.

It is worth noting that this is not an isolated incident.

IB Times notes that Chinese doctors had warned fans of the risks of sleep deprivation during the World Cup. Chinese hospitals saw a spike of admissions for exhaustion in 2006 and 2010 during the World Cup, and during the 2012 Euros Jiang Xiaoshan died after staying up 11 consecutive nights to watch the games.

Clearly it wouldn’t be the same to record the games and watch them during waking hours. For one thing, there just wouldn’t be enough time to watch them all without foregoing other activities. If you can’t afford to lose your job, it’s your leisure time, your sleep time, or both that have to go. (And we don’t know if this guy worked an 8-hour-a-day job, a 16-hour-a-day job, or if he did nothing at all but sit and watch soccer football for days on end.)

For another thing, anyone in Asia is generally at a disadvantage, considering that most World Cups take place in American or European time zones (I’m including South Africa in this because it’s on the same latitude as parts of Europe, and therefore still basically on the other side of the planet from China.)

Finally, I assume World Cup fandom is like most major American sports events (the Super Bowl, the World Series, March Madness, etc.) in that it’s not just about watching games—it’s also about talking/bragging/commiserating about the games. If you didn’t catch the game live, this isn’t Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones. People are not going to respect your request for no spoilers.

But damn, dude, all good things in moderation, because the World Cup (nor any other entertainment event) isn’t worth anyone’s health, let alone anyone’s life. Continue reading →

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What I’m Reading, June 11, 2014

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Texas Republicans setting a bad example, PZ Myers, Pharyngula, June 6, 2013

You really must read the temporary Texas Republican Party platform for 2014. They have a clear vision for the future of America, and it is a hellhole. I skimmed through it this morning and there was much to fill me with dismay and amusement, all at the same time.

Socialism breeds mediocrity. America is exceptional. Therefore, the Republican Party of Texas opposes socialism, in all of its forms.

We are special. Don’t you forget it.

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You have to read the next two together:

We revere the sanctity of human life and therefore oppose genocide, euthanasia, and assisted suicide.

Properly applied capital punishment is legitimate, is an effective deterrent, and should be swift and unencumbered.

Only some life has sanctity, I guess. Continue reading →

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