Friday, November 20, 2015

GOP Joins ISIS To Foment Discord

Welcome friends!

I actually had something else lined up for today but unfortunately events intervened once again and I decided to instead say something relating to our many Parisian comrades who were gunned down a few days ago in the latest CMA (i.e. crazy Muslim attack).  Before anyone gets unduly annoyed and starts running after me with the cutlery let me just clarify that the correct way to parse that phrase in my opinion is “crazy Muslim” attacks; not crazy “Muslim attacks.”  Yes, it makes a difference, which I’ll discuss shortly.  Of course, my blog is mostly about ideas so it wasn’t entirely clear to me what I should say.  I started out well enough, “murder bad,” but then found myself at a bit of an impasse.  You know me.  I need something to unravel or work through or clear up or confront or rebut.  Fortunately the group commonly known here in the US as the Stupid Party, the by now mind numbingly conservative Republican Party, managed to get it twisted and start talking about refusing Syrian refugees, closing mosques, conflicts between civilizations, etc.  Not exactly a fitting tribute to our fallen brothers and sisters in my opinion.  A bit irritating really.  Hey, now we’re getting somewhere!

Let me start out by acknowledging the small kernel of truth in the conservative argument, which is that Islam (by which I mean the Islamic religion as opposed to the collection of people living in various Middle Eastern countries) seems to be having a bit of a problem with violent interpretations... Sorry but only selected archived (previous year) posts are currently available full text on this website.  All posts including this one are available in my annual anthology ebook series available at the Amazon Kindle Bookstore for a nominal fee.  Hey, we all need to make a buck somehow, right?  If you find my timeless jewels of wisdom amusing or perhaps even amusingly irritating throw me a bone now and then.  Thank you my friends!

Thursday, November 5, 2015

Yesterday’s Tomorrowland

Welcome friends!

I was watching some cinematic fluff the other day about a genius (of course) karate (of course) girl (bet you didn’t see that one coming!) who travels to the future (of course) with George Clooney (why not?) to save the world (of course) and I found that rather than daydreaming as I normally would under such circumstances I became vaguely annoyed.  Of course, I don’t particularly mind becoming vaguely annoyed over this sort of cultural artifact because it gives me a reason to sit down and think through what set me off.  After a few minutes of rather lackluster cogitation I determined in this case it was probably the awkward mishmash of two competing views of human society and history that rubbed me the wrong way.  Well, that and the fact that the more prominent of the two I consider ancient hogwash.  Let’s talk it through.

As I mentioned previously we start out with the tiresome trope of the Genius Child.  Just that alone sets me a little on edge... Sorry but only selected archived (previous year) posts are currently available full text on this website.  All posts including this one are available in my annual anthology ebook series available at the Amazon Kindle Bookstore for a nominal fee.  Hey, we all need to make a buck somehow, right?  If you find my timeless jewels of wisdom amusing or perhaps even amusingly irritating throw me a bone now and then.  Thank you my friends!