One of the favorite claims by gun nuts is that "nobody robs a gun store." In the real world -- the one gun owners refuse to inhabit -- it happens every day.
Today, f'instance. Note the gun shop workers on the floor as the armed robbers take their ugly-looking assault rifles, and ammunition to make them work.
This was in gun crazy -- and I do mean crazy -- Colorado. The linked story doesn't say so, but other reports note that two schools nearby were locked down while peolice hunted for the robbers, who, unaccountably, were not subdued by the gun shop workers despite their access to plenty of guns.
Of course, they could have rushed the robbers, like lunatic Republican presidential candidate -- but I repeat myself -- Ben Carson suggests school children should do. Or they could have rushed one of them, although perhaps then one of the other robbers would have shot them.
Who can say?
Monday, October 12, 2015
Saturday, October 10, 2015
A Speaker for Animal House
I don't know why the Republicans are having such a hard time finding a Speaker for the House of Representatives. There is an obvious candidate: Sarah Palin.
She handles her liquor as well as John Boehner, she's as eloquent as Kevin McCarthy and she doesn't have any skeletons in her closet -- they're out brawling on the lawn. And since she shut down her teevee channel, which was occupying her for up to 6 minutes a week, she's available.
She handles her liquor as well as John Boehner, she's as eloquent as Kevin McCarthy and she doesn't have any skeletons in her closet -- they're out brawling on the lawn. And since she shut down her teevee channel, which was occupying her for up to 6 minutes a week, she's available.
Sunday, October 4, 2015
Carly's Mitt moment
OK, Fiorina did not herself say this, but she didn't bother to pay the people who worked on her Senate campaign either. It is her numbskull operations director saying it:
It would be hard to believe anybody could be that dumb, but Cross's boss watches imaginary videos, so maybe it's an example of incompetent fools hiring idiots. Maybe so everyone will feel comfortable in the executive lounge.
Who knows?
In the latest Pew poll, Jeb Bush, the only GOP contender besides Trump who doesn't have to worry too much about money, is polling 4% among Republicans. Had enough? as the GOP said in 1948.
I am beginning to think that my prediction -- made half in jest -- that Trump will knock out a candidate a week and bring us to early January with Donald as the Republican standard bearer without any Republican having had an opportunity to cast a vote has a good chance of coming true.
I dunno, Jon. If my business invests in advertising to increase sales, but sales don't increase, why should I have to pay the newspapers and radio stations that ran my ads? If I buy diet yogurt so I can lose weight but I don't lose, can I get my money back?“People are just upset and angry and throwing her under the bus,” said Jon Cross, Fiorina’s operations director for her Senate campaign. “If we didn’t win, why do you deserve to get paid? If you don’t succeed in business, you shouldn’t be the first one to step up and complain about getting paid.”
It would be hard to believe anybody could be that dumb, but Cross's boss watches imaginary videos, so maybe it's an example of incompetent fools hiring idiots. Maybe so everyone will feel comfortable in the executive lounge.
Who knows?
In the latest Pew poll, Jeb Bush, the only GOP contender besides Trump who doesn't have to worry too much about money, is polling 4% among Republicans. Had enough? as the GOP said in 1948.
I am beginning to think that my prediction -- made half in jest -- that Trump will knock out a candidate a week and bring us to early January with Donald as the Republican standard bearer without any Republican having had an opportunity to cast a vote has a good chance of coming true.
A failed foreign policy
RtO spends a lot of time making fun of rightwingers, because they are evil, stupid and harmful to our polity. But the left or liberals have their failures as well.
They are just not as funny.
It is true that President Obama's foreign policy has failed, at least where he has tried to use military force. He has had numerous successes in the political sphere.
Part of his failure results from having an incompetent military. He inherited that but he hasn't tried to fix it.
But a big part has been his misunderstanding of the situation. RtO has consistently called him out on this, starting in 2009 and continuing off and on since. I have concentrated on asking for support for a free and independent Great Kurdistan.
This is not because Kurdistan is the most pressing issue of international politics but because it is the most clearly justified. If America stands for democracy and self-determination -- it hasn't since 1945 but it did once, sort of -- then freedom for the largest ethnic, historical, linguistic population without a nation of its own ought to be a self-evident policy.
If we cannot understand that, how can we expect ourselves to understand more complicated situations?
The Kurds have acted to the limits of their military capacity to set up a homeland. From the New York Times story cited above, it looks as if the Iraqi Shia are prepared to accept that:
Waving the white flag at the new caliphate is a stupid position to take, and the Shia will come to regret that; but no one can say the Iraqi Shia have ever demonstrated any political sense. However, a recognition that the artificial borders of Iraq are not worth preserving and that something like a return to the three provinces of the Ottoman era could be made to work is something.
To make a Great Kurdistan, four old states will have to be broken up. Two already have been: Iraq and Syria.
In Syria, as in Iraq, Obama seems devoted to preservation of borders that go back only a century or so and were drawn to suit European empires, not the people who live there. Obama is no wiser than Kissinger in this respect.
Certainly, the questions call for skillful manipulation, and it can hardly be true that every trouble spot will be best served with a cookie-cutter response. The United States is on firm ground in supporting the independence of Ukraine, but it was silly to balk at the defection/seizure of Crimea, never historically Little Russian and only written into the borders of a fake "autonomous" republic of Ukraine as a result of cynical imperial maneuvering in the 1950s.
Foreign ministries almost always favor stable borders. It makes their life easier, at least so they think. Obama appears to have deferred to the Foggy Bottom bureaucracy too much, and neither of his secretaries of state has shown any vision or understanding of the aspirations of foreigners.
It cannot be a surprise that people will not willingly die for antidemocratic, antisocial, kleptocratic regimes. They won't always decide to die to get rid of them, but they will never choose to die for them.
They are just not as funny.
It is true that President Obama's foreign policy has failed, at least where he has tried to use military force. He has had numerous successes in the political sphere.
Part of his failure results from having an incompetent military. He inherited that but he hasn't tried to fix it.
But a big part has been his misunderstanding of the situation. RtO has consistently called him out on this, starting in 2009 and continuing off and on since. I have concentrated on asking for support for a free and independent Great Kurdistan.
This is not because Kurdistan is the most pressing issue of international politics but because it is the most clearly justified. If America stands for democracy and self-determination -- it hasn't since 1945 but it did once, sort of -- then freedom for the largest ethnic, historical, linguistic population without a nation of its own ought to be a self-evident policy.
If we cannot understand that, how can we expect ourselves to understand more complicated situations?
The Kurds have acted to the limits of their military capacity to set up a homeland. From the New York Times story cited above, it looks as if the Iraqi Shia are prepared to accept that:
The reality is that Iraq’s Shiite majority seems to be settling in to a divided Iraq and increasingly questioning whether it is worth shedding Shiite blood in areas like Anbar Province or Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, which the Islamic State captured in June 2014.
Waving the white flag at the new caliphate is a stupid position to take, and the Shia will come to regret that; but no one can say the Iraqi Shia have ever demonstrated any political sense. However, a recognition that the artificial borders of Iraq are not worth preserving and that something like a return to the three provinces of the Ottoman era could be made to work is something.
To make a Great Kurdistan, four old states will have to be broken up. Two already have been: Iraq and Syria.
In Syria, as in Iraq, Obama seems devoted to preservation of borders that go back only a century or so and were drawn to suit European empires, not the people who live there. Obama is no wiser than Kissinger in this respect.
Certainly, the questions call for skillful manipulation, and it can hardly be true that every trouble spot will be best served with a cookie-cutter response. The United States is on firm ground in supporting the independence of Ukraine, but it was silly to balk at the defection/seizure of Crimea, never historically Little Russian and only written into the borders of a fake "autonomous" republic of Ukraine as a result of cynical imperial maneuvering in the 1950s.
Foreign ministries almost always favor stable borders. It makes their life easier, at least so they think. Obama appears to have deferred to the Foggy Bottom bureaucracy too much, and neither of his secretaries of state has shown any vision or understanding of the aspirations of foreigners.
It cannot be a surprise that people will not willingly die for antidemocratic, antisocial, kleptocratic regimes. They won't always decide to die to get rid of them, but they will never choose to die for them.
Supply Side Jesus and the long-term bond
It's been a bad 24 hours or so for rightwing Christians.
First, Bill Maher absolutely nailed rightwing Christian economic preaching with his rap on Supply Side Jesus.
"Give all the fish to the 1% and let the fish trickle down."
Then "Pope Francis opened a divisive meeting of the world's bishops on family issues Sunday by forcefully asserting that marriage is an indissoluble bond between man and woman." So, like RtO has pointed out more than once, rightwing marriage heroine Kim Davis is living in sin wih a man not her husband.
Other reports say the pope is going to can the sleazeball archbishop who slipped Davis into the receiving line at the embassy, allowing Davis's attorney to float -- for a couple of days before reporters blew it to pieces -- a story claiming that il papa had praised Davis's courage.
I don't know if I believe the firing report; none of the sources repeating it is known to me; and I never did believe the report about the pope praising Davis, since I know Catholic theology -- 14 years, straight A's every report card.
So, is it time for Restating the Obvious to state an obvious fact, even though no one else seems to be noticing it? It is!
It's this: When god handed down the 10 rules for going to hell, he did not rank them. You get there just as surely by coveting your neighbor's ox as by disrespecting your parents. Or by lying.
Thou shalt not bear false witness. He went to the trouble to engrave it in stone, even.
Mat Staver, the prating Christian lawyer who retold the lies about Davis and the pope, ought to meditate on that one for a while. Mat Staver is going to hell.
First, Bill Maher absolutely nailed rightwing Christian economic preaching with his rap on Supply Side Jesus.
"Give all the fish to the 1% and let the fish trickle down."
Then "Pope Francis opened a divisive meeting of the world's bishops on family issues Sunday by forcefully asserting that marriage is an indissoluble bond between man and woman." So, like RtO has pointed out more than once, rightwing marriage heroine Kim Davis is living in sin wih a man not her husband.
Other reports say the pope is going to can the sleazeball archbishop who slipped Davis into the receiving line at the embassy, allowing Davis's attorney to float -- for a couple of days before reporters blew it to pieces -- a story claiming that il papa had praised Davis's courage.
I don't know if I believe the firing report; none of the sources repeating it is known to me; and I never did believe the report about the pope praising Davis, since I know Catholic theology -- 14 years, straight A's every report card.
So, is it time for Restating the Obvious to state an obvious fact, even though no one else seems to be noticing it? It is!
It's this: When god handed down the 10 rules for going to hell, he did not rank them. You get there just as surely by coveting your neighbor's ox as by disrespecting your parents. Or by lying.
Thou shalt not bear false witness. He went to the trouble to engrave it in stone, even.
Mat Staver, the prating Christian lawyer who retold the lies about Davis and the pope, ought to meditate on that one for a while. Mat Staver is going to hell.
Saturday, October 3, 2015
Book Review 354: Tweakerville
It is uncommon for a didactic novel to also be a good novel, but Alexei Melnick has done it with “Tweakerville,” which can be read from several points of view and works in all of them.
We know it is didactic because Melnick ends the book with a Q & A about why he wrote it and how the characters can be critiqued and understood. I generally avoid didactic novels and also novels set in Hawaii with drugs as the theme. In the first case, I hate sermons; and in the second, the plots and authors are usually lame and lazy.
I read this one because of a positive blurb by Chris McKinney, who wrote a fine novel about Hawaii’s underclass, “The Tattoo.”
“Tweakerville” can be read as a tragedy in the sense that Aristotle defined it: a character makes a decision that is blameless in itself but brings disaster to everyone around him.
In this case, Jesse, a runner for a crystal meth dealer, answers a ringing cell phone. It is an automatic, thoughtless gesture; but the phone belonged to a young girl who overdosed at a party the night before. Jesse has just dug a hole to dispose of her body.
(One of the many threads of contrast in the novel is the honest dealer vs. the dishonest dealer. Apparently the dead girl had bought low-quality ice (batu, clear) from the dishonest dealer. However, honest dealers like Jesse and his mentor Robby don’t do any better than the bad ones.)
Or “Tweakerville” can be read as a noir crime novel. Jesse is the young acolyte -- 17 when we meet him -- aiming to gain respect and money by serving an established hoodlum.
In this reading, the novel is as pitiless and violent as, say, Hubert Selby Jr.’s “Last Exit to Brooklyn.”
The best reading is as a coming of age novel. If “Tweakerville” has a long life among readers, I suspect it will be as a young adult novel, although it was not written as one. Its profanity would have precluded its publication even for adults two generations ago, but young adults read sterner stuff these days.
In addition to Jesse’s quest for adulthood, there is a love story, with Kapika, also 17 when we meet her. She is from a somewhat more privileged social class than Jesse (but only somewhat), but this is no Gatsby yearning for Daisy romance. Jesse and Kapika are among the more cynical young romantics of literature.
(I have little to criticize in this book, but for a novel meant to be realistic, there is a serious goof in the meeting scene of Jesse and Kapika. Jesse is trying to buy beer [unusually for him; he usually boosts it] and Kapika the clerk demands identification. The problem is that in Hawaii, the seller as well as the buyer has to be of age; 17-year-old Kapika would not be allowed to sell beer.)
Many betrayals and murders later, the novel ends back at the dead girl’s grave. Going clean, as dealer Robby does, does not preserve you. Being a loving family guy, like Vili, Jesse’s most admired friend, does not preserve you. Being a stand-up guy, as Jesse is, does not preserve you.
Smokable meth -- or as Jesse calls it, clear -- dominates all. “Next thing you know had seven cop cars up the road. All for one tweaked out love sick butchie. Clear is like that for some guys. No fear or pain, no tomorrow, just love and rage right now.”
Melnick has chosen to write the novel in the first person. Jesse speaks what I call Bamboo Ridge creole (because it originated in the literary magazine Bamboo Ridge), a printed form of pidgen that is not like any pidgen you hear but is serviceable enough. Kapika’s language is slightly less pidgen-y, and her tone is also slightly less effective.
Melnick is a born-and-raised, and his local color touches are authentic and nuanced, which is something outsiders writing fiction set in Hawaii never achieve. Locals will understand why Jesse’s last name is Gomes: Potagees (Portuguese) are stereotyped in the islands as loquacious, but the stereotype is valid often enough; only a Potagee would have told this long story. The other locals are, typically, economical of speech.
Once or twice, Melnick oversells the contrasts. Jesse is a dropout; he has an older sister who did well in school. That her school was Punahou (Barack Obama’s high school) is not impossible for a Potagee family headed by a tugboat captain but slightly surprising.
Gun nut delusions exposed
Gun nuts are all pretty much psychotics, in the definition that says a psychotic is someone who is not able to distinguish his fantasies from reality. Here we have a clear statement that exposes their key delusions.
One, which has been disproven so often that we can only conclude that anyone still shopping it is either a deliberate liar or crazy, is that killers aiming at a big score choose "gun-free zones."
However, the Umpqua school is not free of guns. How many persons on the campus were armed is hard to say, but the number was not zero and, according to the statement linked above, was considerable. They did not ride to the sound of the guns. They sheltered in place, just like wimpy unarmed liberals.
For good reason:
Three million Americans have been shot to death in the past century. The number who were criminals plugged by a conveniently placed gun nut is very small, and possibly (even probably) smaller than the number of innocents shot by mistake.
One, which has been disproven so often that we can only conclude that anyone still shopping it is either a deliberate liar or crazy, is that killers aiming at a big score choose "gun-free zones."
However, the Umpqua school is not free of guns. How many persons on the campus were armed is hard to say, but the number was not zero and, according to the statement linked above, was considerable. They did not ride to the sound of the guns. They sheltered in place, just like wimpy unarmed liberals.
For good reason:
“Luckily we made the choice not to get involved,” he explained. “We were quite a distance away from the building where this was happening. And we could have opened ourselves up to be potential targets ourselves, and not knowing where SWAT was, their response time, they wouldn’t know who we were. And if we had our guns ready to shoot, they could think that we were bad guys.”That is the very most optimistic view of it. Had they intervened, they'd just as likely have shot a student as a gunman, as happened in gun-happy Houston last week. Even more likely, they'd have lost the shootout with the already armed and prepped killer.
Three million Americans have been shot to death in the past century. The number who were criminals plugged by a conveniently placed gun nut is very small, and possibly (even probably) smaller than the number of innocents shot by mistake.
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