Biting the Hand that Still Feeds Them

Posted on February 20, 2014 by wellsdc

Fibonacci Blue [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)], from Flickr Richard Eskow wrote a piece published at AlterNet a couple of weeks ago entitled “5 Obnoxious Libertarian Oligarchs Who Earned Fortunes from the Government They’d Like to Destroy.” To be fair, not all of the people he identifies want to destroy the government per se, but they certainly fail to appreciate the extent to which said government made their success possible in the first place:

We’re dealing with a cohort of highly fortunate, highly privileged and highly unaware individuals who have been inappropriately lionized by society. That lionization has led them to believe that their wealth and accomplishments are their own doing, rather than the fruits of collaborative effort – effort which in many cases was only made possible through government support.

But instead of thanking the government and the taxpayers for their good fortune, they’ve allowed their own good press to go to their heads. And they’re biting the hand that feeds them, attempting to shut down the system of taxpayer support and government action which created their world.

One of my principle complaints with libertarianism as practiced*, besides its tendency to rely on vague terms like “liberty” and define them in highly self-serving ways, is that it generally ignores all or nearly all of the contributions of the rest of society to certain individuals’ success. (I have many other complaints, but that one sticks out.)

By Leonard Kleinrock [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Pictured: Socialist tyrant.

The internet, which came into being because of massive government investment and development, is a singularly ironic place for such disdain for the government to arise. (Any jokes about Al Gore in the comments will get deleted, FYI.) Yes, the private sector made the internet profitable, but it did so once the basic infrastructure was already in place. It’s doubtful that a private company, concerned over quarterly earnings reports and the like, would have taken it upon itself to invent the internet from scratch. Other industries also benefit extensively from “big government.” To give a snarky example, Whole Foods is able to ship and receive products around the company with minimal fear of bandits.

1. Eskow first identifies Tom “Kristallnacht” Perkins, who does something involving venture capital, I think, but who clearly doesn’t have a strong understanding of broader American society or European history: Continue reading →

Lewd Asian Women

Posted on February 19, 2014 by wellsdc

Several friends will be performing an original play entitled L.A.W. Lewd Asian Women starting next week. The play is based in part on a 19th-century court case involving 22 women from China who were detained by immigration officials in San Francisco based solely on the conclusion of one commissioner that they were “lewd and debauched.” The case made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which struck down the California statute in question in Chy Lung v. Freeman, 92 U.S. 275 (1875).

KUT aired an interview with the cast about the show (hopefully the embed function works here):

The show runs Fridays and Saturdays, beginning February 28 and ending March 8, 2014, at the Salvage Vanguard Theater in Austin. Tickets might sell out, so you should buy some and go to the show.

A Brief Bit of Font Fun

Posted on February 19, 2014 by wellsdc

This is completely neither here nor there, but I find it amusing that the official style manual for the New Jersey state judicial system, the New Jersey Manual on Style for Judicial Opinions (PDF file), uses the Comic Sans font.

Do as you will with this information.

Stop! Grammar Time! “Finish” vs. “Complete”

Posted on February 19, 2014 by wellsdc

I have no idea if there’s a rule. My friend Nacole shared this take on it:

Here’s my hypothesis:

If you “finish” something, it sort of ceases to exist in your reality – you finish your dinner, or you finish a race.

“Completing” something results in a product of some sort that you keep – you complete a painting. You can also complete a marathon, which is an accomplishment that stays with you forever (maybe that’s a stretch.)

If you “finish” a book, I take that to mean that you read the whole thing, and probably won’t read it again.

If you “complete” a book, it sounds to me like you have reached the end of the writing process, so for the rest of your life you can say “Hey! I wrote a book!”

Of course, this is the English language, so there are exceptions. In fact, there are probably more exceptions than examples of the rule. Also, we haven’t discussed “I’m finished” versus “I’m done,” but that might just be a regional Texas thing.

I have now finished thinking about this issue, and I’d say this post is complete.

Living History

Posted on February 18, 2014 by wellsdc

By Edwards & Anthony [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Pictured: A player to the very end.

President John Tyler took office in 1841, after William Henry Harrison died. He served until 1845, but wasn’t even nominated to run again in the 1844 election (there are reasons I’ll get into below). He died in 1862, but he has two grandsons who are still alive.

First, an historical aside: Harrison served about thirty days in office, most of them spent with the illness that would take his life. He was the first U.S. president to die in office, the shortest-serving U.S. president in history, and the first victim of the “Curse of Tecumseh,” so named because of his military victory over the Shawnee leader 38 years earlier.

The “curse,” which is only apparent in hindsight, held that the president elected every twenty years would die in office. This pattern persisted for over a century, through Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Harding, FDR, and Kennedy. Zachary Taylor, who was elected in 1848 and died in 1850, is the only president to die in office outside of the “curse.” I remember when the curse was on everyone’s mind after Reagan was shot in 1981, but you could either say that he broke the curse or that the curse never really existed.

Now then, back to President Tyler. Continue reading →

Get Your Mind Back in the Gutter

Posted on February 18, 2014 by wellsdc

"Free Sugar Baby Puppy Dog and Pink Rose Petals" by Pink Sherbet Photography [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)], via Flickr

Try this: Whenever you think you’re about to start thinking of gay stuff, picture this puppy covered in rose petals instead. Feel better?

According to at least some people, growing tolerance of LGBTQ individuals and issues (this really only applies to the “G” part, I guess) is due to the fact that people just aren’t thinking about gay sex, and about how icky it is, nearly enough. If people could just get an image of anal intercourse back into their minds, then, uh, things would improve or something.

Alicia Colon, who writes for the American Thinker, really thinks we should be thinking about rectums and poo more often. Roy Edroso at alicublog quotes her as saying:

Those lovable characters in the sitcoms are robustly healthy and affluent, cuddly folks who never even hint at any of the negative consequences that follow on a lifetime of practicing anal intercourse. Nobody wears Depends, nobody deals with feces-borne diseases, and the devastation of AIDS is left for a few feature films that generate sympathy for the victims without addressing the behavioral component of the disease vector.

He goes on to add:

Colon obviously missed that very special Will & Grace episode, “Giardia is Not a River in Italy.” Colon does approve of gay Catholics who do not have anal intercourse, and hopes a book her friend is writing about them “may enlighten others and be helpful to Catholic gays as Bill W’s book was for alcoholics.”

It’s almost charming that such people still exist; they’re like bigot Shakers. I wonder if they ever perceive the irony of the likelihood that the carriers of the Gay Plague will outlast them.

Seriously, what is it with people and their obsession with same-sex sex? Specifically, gay sex, because no one ever quite seems to get so perturbed by thoughts of Sapphic lovemaking (or at least they don’t embarrass themselves in public about it as much.)

I like the way Allen Clifton put it when speaking of that Duck Dynasty guy and his apparent inability not to think of gay people primarily in terms of appendages and orifices:

When I read Phil Robertson’s comments, I wasn’t mad – I felt sorry for him. I couldn’t imagine feeling such disdain toward so many people based on who they love – something that has zero impact on my life. I can’t even wrap my mind around what it must be like to obsess so much about man on man anal sex to the point that it would bother me. To be honest, I never think about it. But then again, I’m straight and don’t care what other people do in their own bedroom – so why would I think about it?

Photo credit: “Free Sugar Baby Puppy Dog and Pink Rose Petals” by Pink Sherbet Photography [CC-BY-2.0], via Flickr.

If You Read Nothing Else About Sloths This Week…

Posted on February 17, 2014 by wellsdc

By Stefan Laube (Tauchgurke) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons …you need to read “The Mystery of the Sloth Poop” at Mental Floss.

Three-toed sloths leave their perches high up in the trees once a week, when they shimmy down to the ground to poop.

Two-toed sloths, meanwhile “prefer a ‘bombs away’ style of defecation,” just letting it drop.

By descending to the ground to take the kids to the pool, the three-toed sloth puts its life at catastrophic risk. Any random jaguar, or even a jaguarundi, that happened to be passing by would have an almost effortless meal. So why do it? Since three-toed sloths still exist, it obviously hasn’t proven fatal vis-à-vis natural selection, but it doesn’t seem like something they would do without a very good reason.

Scientists think they know what that reason is.

No, I’m not going to tell you. You have to go read the article. Sheesh.

Photo credit: By Stefan Laube (Tauchgurke) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Black History Month (or, Why We Don’t Need a “White History Month”)

Posted on February 17, 2014 by wellsdc

I was planning on doing a whole series of posts in February about Black History Month, specifically about how we really do not need a “White History Month,” but the month has been a cluster*ck for me, so instead, here are some links to articles and blog posts I probably would have used:

The history white people need to learn, Mary-Alice Daniel, Salon, February 6, 2014

#BreakingBlack: I hate Black History Month, Goldie Taylor, The Grio, February 2, 2014

What to do if someone asks: ‘Why isn’t there a White History Month?’ Blair L.M. Kelley, The Grio, February 11, 2013

Like I said, I didn’t get very far. This post is kind of a letdown, assuming anyone came here with any specific expectations. I managed to get several topics together, and hopefully I’ll get to them this week. In the meantime, here’s Barbara Jordan being awesome:

Monday Morning Cute: Dogs Doing Stuff

Posted on February 17, 2014 by wellsdc

First off, the Pitweiler, from Matt3794 on Reddit, who noted: “Met a Pitweiler the other day at the shop. I almost cried in front of the mechanics out of sheer joy.”

I’m not sure I see the Rottweiler in this little guy, but cuteness that can bring people to tears must be respected.

Next up, okk- asks “What is this witchcraft?”

And in keeping with the pug theme that didn’t really exist until I just now pointed it out, here’s a pug walking a stuffed pug in a stroller:

That’s all for this week. Go hug a puppy.

Plush Terror from the Deep

Posted on February 15, 2014 by wellsdc

I freely admit to having an above-average fondness for stuffed animals, at least among 39 year-old men, and I even have some rather unconventional examples. That said, I do have some limits.

To give you one example, a few weeks ago, my friend Paul posted a link to Facebook about the axolotl, an endangered salamander native to the lakes surrounding Mexico City. Partly inspired by this, I bought a mini squishable axolotl from Squishable.com, because while the axolotl is a strange and off-putting beast, it is also rather cute in its own proud way. See if you can spot which is which:

By th1098 (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

axolotl

I also have a squishable Cthulhu. Don’t try to understand why—it would only drive you mad.

(I’m adding some polite space here because the next picture might be jarring otherwise.)

Speaking of strange and off-putting beasts, this is a giant isopod, basically an oversized doodlebug that lives at the bottom of the ocean: Continue reading →

Cryptic Philosopher

Farting in Idiocy's General Direction

Biting the Hand that Still Feeds Them

Lewd Asian Women

A Brief Bit of Font Fun

Stop! Grammar Time! “Finish” vs. “Complete”

Living History

Get Your Mind Back in the Gutter

If You Read Nothing Else About Sloths This Week…

Black History Month (or, Why We Don’t Need a “White History Month”)

Monday Morning Cute: Dogs Doing Stuff

Plush Terror from the Deep