We digressed into the evolution of mankind and our use of artifacts and theologies from pre-human times in the last open thread, so in this one we will start on that and see where we end up (educational funding?).
I’ll start with an example of how far we have evolved since we separated from our common ancestor with chimpanzee’s seven or ten million years ago:
This is the second (more serious) part of two posts exploring the political consequences that would happen if Canada became part of the United States. The previous part can be found here.
A note to all Canadian readers: this post was written for the intent of a good laugh, and some serious political analysis along with it. It is not meant to offend, and sincere apologies are offered if any offense at all is taken.
More below.
I love to make food for my baby and watch her eat. A game arose between us from when she was learning to talk that I’d ask her “big hungry or little hungry”. We always knew the answer to the question it was big hungry, but the ritual was comforting intimate. Well one day 9 months ago as I’m preparing to do my barbecue magic I ran the question by her again big hungry or little hungry? She said she was little hungry. I walked away as waves of wonder hit me that was strange huh? Is she sick? Oh no what’s the matter!
She didn’t make me wait to long she sat us me down and told me she was expecting, oh so that’s why you’re little hungry. 9 months later the second most precious gift I’ve ever received is here. Behold Sean Lucien my Grandchild I love more than my next breath. Welcome to the world baby Grampy has been dying to meet you.
For anyone following the #hackgate FOTHOM diaries, you’ll know that that the slow motion crash of Murdoch’s UK Empire is still developing. But it wasn’t until Rush Limbaugh’s recent implosion that I began to think this isn’t just about News Corp, even though it is the world’s 3rd biggest media group and run as a one-man-band. It was in Meteor Blade’s Nopology diary early this week, that this thought came to me:
I think there’s a connection… (40+ / 0-)
between the slow rejection in the UK of the tabloid style of reasoning (basically trollery and personal insult) and the sudden turning on Rush L.
The British Tabloids and the American Shock Jocks basically thrived on the backlash against the civil liberties victories of the 60s: legislation against racial discrimination, homophobia, the rise of women in the work place and reproductive rights. For 40 years they thrived on right wing white male resentment. They had nothing to offer but trollery because they sought to to interfere with communication about race, gender and sexuality, but without an alternative agenda or real ideology, except that of opposition, reduction ad absurdum (looney left fictions about banning nursery rhymes etc) and the shock value of mockery.
This was never anything but a reactionary tribute to all the victories of the 60s. The candidacy of Sarah Palin was the ne plus ultra of this political style. Rebarbative, provocative, posited on antagonism alone, it never could offer much more than a macho guffaw and muttering of unfocused dissent.
Forty years on, the people who find this stuff amusing are diminishing. Shock Jocks have run out of positions. They can only flame out or die down.
The other connection is the rise of social media and blogs like DKos. They can organise dissent. Avaaz and 38degrees focused on the advertisers during the News of the World scandal, and when the public summoned enough outrage through twitter and email, the advertisers withdrew from the paper. That’s what killed News of the World.
Thanks to new media, we really aren’t passive consumers anymore, but can communicate directly with those to attempt to appease us. I guess this is what has happened to Limbaugh.
Actually this Kos comment was just a combination of two comments I’d made on the Moose in Strummerson’s Diary – so that just shows where my real thinking happens.
Does this line sound familiar?
widely panned by liberals as a watered-down sellout
Am I discussing any of the various pieces of legislation passed by Congress and signed into law President Obama? Actually, I am not. I am discussing a man considered a liberal hero and the president that many of President Obama’s critics on the left wish he would emulate: Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
When FDR created Social Security in 1935, the program offered meager benefits that were delayed for years, excluded domestic workers and other heavily black professions (a necessary compromise to win southern votes), and was widely panned by liberals as a watered-down sellout. Only in subsequent decades, as benefits were raised and expanded, did Social Security become the country’s most beloved government program.
Those words are written in “The Incomplete Greatness of Barack Obama,” an article by Paul Glastris in the most recent edition of Washington Monthly. The article is a long read, but is well worth it, detailing some of President Obama’s most important actions and accomplishments, and their ability to transform our country in the long run.
I know I’m not going to be popular burning this particular bridge (at least on Dkos where this diary was first published), but as news comes out about Assange both claiming intellectual copyright on wikileaks, and enabling the persecution (or worse) of dissidents in one of the few remaining Stalinist states in Europe, let me say: Julian, J’Accuse.
The delegate math says that Romney gets a boost today; Santorum failed to qualify for delegates in some districts of Ohio and is not even on the ballot in Virginia. But lacking the clear wins he desperately needs in Ohio and Tennessee, where polling indicates statistical ties, will Romney see his own shadow and retreat back to more weeks of interminable campaigning?
Unless Santorum squeaks out wins in both states, probably not:
…once the Death Star got focused, Santorum’s numbers began to bleed. Tennessee would appear to be the key. If Santorum holds on there, he can argue plausibly that Romney still cannot close the deal with the voters he needs the most in the fall. A Republican candidate with a demonstrable weakness in the South is every Republican playa’s worst nightmare. But this still remains a contest between an actual campaign and three cults of personality. ‘Twas ever thus.Charles P Pierce – How Romneybot 2.0 Built His Super Tuesday Death Star Esquire 6 Mar 12
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
The delegate math says that Romney gets a boost today; Santorum failed to qualify for delegates in some districts of Ohio and is not even on the ballot in Virginia. But lacking the clear wins he desperately needs in Ohio and Tennessee, where polling indicates statistical ties, will Romney see his own shadow and retreat back to more weeks of interminable campaigning?
Unless Santorum squeaks out wins in both states, probably not:
…once the Death Star got focused, Santorum’s numbers began to bleed. Tennessee would appear to be the key. If Santorum holds on there, he can argue plausibly that Romney still cannot close the deal with the voters he needs the most in the fall. A Republican candidate with a demonstrable weakness in the South is every Republican playa’s worst nightmare. But this still remains a contest between an actual campaign and three cults of personality. ‘Twas ever thus.Charles P Pierce – How Romneybot 2.0 Built His Super Tuesday Death Star Esquire 6 Mar 12
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
Hey, you know me by now — snippets of more or less thoughtful blither in the comments, and the occasional pointless diary. Here’s another one for ya, this time about spring and ponypix:
It seems a bit odd to be burbling on about spring fever, after a winter so lacking in wintriness. Ever since the shocker snowstorm of October, we’ve been devoid of the white stuff here in coastal Massachusetts north of Boston. We finally had some pathetic few inches of the stuff last week, but even that got mostly rained away on the tail end of the storm. Shriveled scraps of dirty whiteness linger here and there in sheltered spots, but with temperatures climbing toward 60 in the next day or two, they’re not long for this world.
And speaking of temperatures — what’s left to say? Unseasonably warm to barely chilly, a spot of real cold now and then, but mostly so mild that outdoor horse chores have been far from the usual frigid misery of our typical January and February. It’s hard to get excited about SPRING!!!! when the winter’s barely noticeable.
Well, it’s hard for me. For the horses, however….
By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/
Imagine you’re a tourist planning on visiting India. Determined not to be seen as culturally ignorant, you’ve decided to learn Hindi, the official language. As the plane lands in Bangalore, you are confident that you can speak in the native language.
Except when you get out onto the street, the people aren’t speaking Hindi. They’re talking in a dialect of Kannada, and you can’t understand them.
Eventually, after several painstaking months, you learn Kannada as spoken in Bangalore. Now you’re really confident that you’ve got this thing down; you know both Hindi and a very local dialect of another Indian language. You fly to Mumbai.
Except in Mumbai the people on the street don’t speak Kannada, Hindi, or English. They speak Marathi. And a fair share of the elite speak English.
Might as well have stayed with English.
More below.