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The Ungodly Godly

In the batter’s circle: Nehemiah Scudder

February 23rd 2012

 In 2004 the renowned British political documentarian Adam Curtis did a three-part series entitled “The Power of Nightmares.” In it, he pointed out that the group known as the neo-cons greatly resembled their counterparts amongst the radicalized population of the Middle East, al Qaida in particular. Both sides are deeply mistrustful of individual freedom and liberties, and are intent on using authoritarian methods of containing such. Both sides used fear, if in different ways. Islamic radicals used terrorism, whereas neo-cons used fear-mongering. Each side found in the other a useful bogeyman.

The neo-cons lost power and influence in America (and the power and influence of al Qaida in the Middle East had always been vastly overstated), and withdrew from mainstream political discourse as the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan bogged down and eventually failed.

But another group stepped in to replace the neo-cons in American right-wing political circles, and I tend to think of them as the ‘anti-Soviets.’ They saw their role in America as being similar to the role of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union: a sort of shadow government without accountability, and with vast influence in the workings of the actual government. They were the “financial sector.”

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The Drumbeat

Bull, and rumors of bull

February 18th 2012

 It’s more than a little weird to see the Guardian, normally one of the more sensible newspapers, write a lead story that is pretty clearly informed by the growing war fever over Iran.

But in an article today, written by Chris McGreal and Conal Urquhart, it does just that, accepting without criticism the unfounded claims that Iran is developing a nuclear bomb, and utterly failing to mention that Israel has at least 25 nuclear bombs, and the United States, well over 8,000.

In other words, Israel alone could destroy every microbe on the surface of the land in every large city in Iran. The United States could so utterly destroy the country that it would retroactively vanish from all the history books. This would tend to make Iran think before pressing the button.

The article claims, thoroughly without evidence or even rationalization, that if Iran were to get nukes, then every other country in the middle east would want to get them, too. As if Israel getting nukes didn’t make her neighbors nervous. And the Bush administration had a simple message for the “evil doers” – nuke up, or the US might capriciously invade you. People noticed that Afghanistan and Iraq were invaded, but North Korea and Pakistan were not, and didn’t have much trouble concluding that the US wasn’t eager to attack nations that had nukes.

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Chaos

It’s the end of the world as we know it…

February 8th 2012

 

It’s chaos out there.

First, there was the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the Walker ruling that found Prop 8 was unconstitutional. The populace of California, many of whom graduated from the eighth grade, did not have the right to deny legal rights to select parts of the Constitution.

I immediately ran over the the County Courthouse, and found thousands of married couples lining up to file for divorce. No surprise there, of course. This is, after all, California. But the crowd seemed more agitated than usual.

I spoke to one beefy looking lumberjack sort who was towing a sweet little eighteen year old thing while crying convulsively and wiping snot off on his flannel sleeve.

“Wrong team won the Superbowl?” I asked, cautiously.

“N-n-no! I won $50 bucks on that. It’s this faggot marriage thing!”

“Um, the Prop 8 ruling.”

“Whatever number it was. It’s wrong, just wrong. The bible sez so!”

“So why are you here?”

“Giting a dee-vorce!” I looked at his wife, who shrugged and gave me a fuzzy smile. Oxycontin is still popular in these parts.

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Watching the WAIS line

Antarctica unimpressed with GOP declarations that global warming is a myth

February 4th 2012

 Back in the summer of 2002, February and the first week of March, the Larsen B ice shelf on the east coast of the Antarctic peninsula suddenly and shockingly disintegrated. For people who had complacently assumed that Antarctic was too cold for global warming to have an effect, it was a wake up call.

The ice shelf didn’t just calve off the way the sheets of ice pushed into the ocean by the glaciers that formed them always do. If that were the case, it would have made for a big iceberg, about the size of Rhode Island, but nothing too extraordinary. Calving is the inevitable fate of ice pushed into the ocean by the glaciers. And the Larsen B, like the Larsen A before it, was expected to break off. Larsen A broke off in 1995, but since it was only 4,000 years old and was showing signs of calving, it came as no surprise to anyone. But Larsen B, older than the Holocene, was believed to be more stable, and would take much longer to calve off. However, it was the disintegration that was shocking.

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SOTU 2012

It left a lot to be desired

January 24th 2012

 As SOTUs go, this one was, at best, so-so. Give it a “C”. Obama needed to soar. Instead, he flapped.

In the gallery with Michelle, military uniforms were front and center. That is usually a sign that the SOTU is going to strike a bellicose note. I bet we get at least one direct threat against Iran.

Gabby Giffords, in her last appearance in this Congress, looked animated and happy. Well, she’s leaving this frustrating pit; that might explain it.

Interesting glitch: Boehner’s mike appears to be dead. He tried announce Obama, and I heard Biden say “Did anybody hear him?” At least the House did, and applauded. Well, the Dems did. So anyone who was listening, no, Boehner didn’t snub Obama.

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The South Carolina primary

Nuts don’t fall far from the palmetto tree

January 22nd 2012

 I’m grinning in delighted disbelief at the returns from the South Carolina primary. Newt 40.5%, Romney 27%, Santorum 17.4%, and Ron Paul 13.4%. The remaining 1.5% presumably looked at the choices on their ballots and cut their own throats instead.

This happened at a time where rumors are flying around the web that Joe Paterno was dead. Some are saying he was, and some are saying he warn’t. Or maybe that’s Mitt Romney they’re talking about. It’s getting harder to tell them apart. And now we have a final on the Paterno race: he -is- dead, and so is now mildly unlikely to be the GOP nominee for president in 2012.

South Carolina voted for Newt instead, which may have been a mistake. At least Paterno had a winning record.

Not that the voters of SC were given much in the way of appealing alternatives: a vapid plutocrat, a crabby old Randroid, and a religious nutcase. The only one who wouldn’t have delighted Democrats, moderates and liberals, none of whom want a Republican president next year, would have been Mittens, and that only because Mittens would have the most Citizens United money behind him.

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Entertainment 2011

Entertainment 2011

It wasn’t all bad

January 21st 2012

As we’re waiting with the usual mixture of horror and delight to see what the good people in the sovereign state of South Carolina decide whether they want the vapid plutocrat or the screaming arrogant demagogue, let go back into the distant past, turning back the leaves of the cliché until we reach that magical, mystical year of 2011.

Well, do YOU really want to discuss Republican politics right now? OK. Let’s talk about stuff I came across last year that I really liked and want to share with you. No guarantee you’ll like it, of course, but you might see something here where you go, “hmmm” and check it out, and discover that it’s terrific.

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Are They Serious?

Laughter at the GOP trails off to stunned silence

January 6th 2012

 Santorum and Romney effectively finished in a dead tie in the meaningless Iowa caucuses this week, which means that People are taking Santorum Seriously.

This isn’t entirely a surprise. Every other candidate for the GOP except Huntsman and Johnson enjoyed similar surges at one point or another. Given the quality of the GOP field, it became a joke. No candidate was too stupid or too crazy to be dismissed by frantic GOP voters. In fact, the only ones who were dismissed were the ones who were too sane or too intelligent.

But Santorum’s sudden lurch to the top brought about a couple of interesting things this week that show that the people are getting tired of this.

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2012

A Fraughtful Year

December 28th 2011

 2012 is fraught. It is absolutely fraught. It is the most fraught year since 2011, and we all know how fraught that was.

The good news is that it’s a bit shorter than most years. It ends on December 21st, rather than on the usual date ten days later. Or so the Mayan calendar suggests, since that’s the day the calendar ends upon.

Somewhere around here I have a World Almanac for 1966 which I’ve kept all this time because it recounts the glorious World Series win by the Los Angeles Dodgers over the Minnesota Twins. Yes, I probably should get professional help for that. But here’s the thing: the calendar section there ends on December 31st, 1967. Did the world actually come to an end then, and the Nixon years were just a bit of post-ectoplasmic tummyache?

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Solstice 2011

Dies Natalis Invicti Solis

December 22nd 2011

Every December, I write a “Solstice piece”, and the theme is the same; this is the turnabout point, from now on, the days are getting longer, and eventually it will be spring.

Of course, there’s another element that I tend not to dwell upon. And that is that the Solstice is also the first day of Winter. And it’s just going to stay winter for another 90 days or so.

In fact, in eastern Canada, among other places, old man winter blows right through the Solstice and keeps right on intensifying. The snowiest and coldest month is often February, not December. For folks who depend on nice weather for their comfort and ease—and that’s most of us—the worst is yet to come. It will be a while for the days to be noticeably longer, and in the far north, it may be weeks or even a month or two before the first brief glimmer of blue sky to the south reminds people that there’s still a sun down there somewhere.

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