Friday, April 30, 2010

Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #1628

I'm not feeling well today. Bleh. So here's the coolest jack-o'-lantern I've ever seen.

"Rasta don't work for no CIA."
(Image originally uploaded by jeffer72; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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Thursday, April 29, 2010

Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #2170

"The kids are gone for the weekend," Santa said. "It's just you and me now, carpenter."

*tense Ennio Morricone theme plays*

(Image originally uploaded by emzepe; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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Sanctuary!

My friend jules has been telling me about some really cool no-kill animal sanctuaries, such as ARFHouse in Texas and The Cat House on the Kings in California. She also passed along this nice little video about the latter:

Like Bach concerti, space telescopes, and Monty Python episodes, things like this make me proud of my species.


Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #1475

Henri Rousseau's The Oversleeping Gypsy.
(Image originally uploaded by rulevan; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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More Pitt

"Crazy from the Ground Up": a chilling collection of wingnut threats.

"Stupid People with Guns": never before has a national epitaph stood in such need of both proofreading and factchecking.


Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #5663

Modernizing Shakespeare is always iffy, but recasting Macbeth as a scheming convenience store manager resulted in what will henceforth be spoken of only as The Suckish Play.
(Image originally uploaded by stephenpasquini; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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Tea Time

I was catching up with my truthout feed and realized that I'd almost missed a minor gem: William Rivers Pitt live-blogs the Tea Party Express on Boston Common. Hilarity ensues:

10:15 a.m. - Wow. A guy wrapped in a yellow Don't Tread On Me flag just tried to use the "Render unto Caesar" line from the Bible to justify not paying taxes, but he got the quote wrong. I gave him the correct line, and said "It means pay your taxes." He turned beet red and fled into the crowd. I love this job.
It's a hoot.


Monday, April 26, 2010

Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #0483

Product of an unspeakable ménage à trois between Star Wars, Kagemusha, and The Metamorphosis.
(Image originally uploaded by ms_tinamarina; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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A Sprawling, Aggressive Inanity

Sometimes the Howler can turn a damn fine phrase, too.

I don't know what to make of this anecdote:

Over by the jambalaya, Alan Greenspan picked up some Mardi Gras beads and placed them around the neck of his wife, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, who bristled and quickly removed them.
And I don't want to know.


Sunday, April 25, 2010

Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #0641

"OK, let's see. Stylish Science of Getting Rich pen, $10, check. Practical Science of Getting Rich notepad, $15, check. Personalized Science of Getting Rich nametag, $20, check. Special Science of Getting Rich three-ring binder, $35, check. Exclusive Science of Getting Rich zippered portfolio briefcase to put them all in, $75, check. Cool! I'm all set. I can't WAIT to find out what the Science of Getting Rich is all about."
(Image originally uploaded by iambrianwong; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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"the lunatic greed-centered objectivist religion"

One thing I love about Matt Taibbi: he doesn't mince words. Another thing: he doesn't mince ideologies. The battle over Goldman "great vampire squid" Sachs really is between the mad anti-ethics of Randianism (according to which people who amass fortunes by pushing fabulous abstractions around in cyberspace are "producers" while people who do honestly productive but less-well-compensated labor for a living are "parasites") and, well, "the whole idea of civilisation—which, after all, is really just a collective decision by all of us not to screw each other over even when we can." Go read.


Saturday, April 24, 2010

Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #2971

As her insides began to spasm and churn, Natalie thought to herself, "I'm a reasonably wealthy, famous musician; what on Earth would inspire me to eat a 7-11 hot dog?"
(Image originally uploaded by KellyBeth7; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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Friday, April 23, 2010

Generik Remembers the Final Scene of Cabaret

Well, not exactly, but he has a great letter to the editor that reminds me of it.


Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #5070

Animal Planet's Fox & Friends is much like the human version, only with greater informational content and less squawking.
(Image originally uploaded by Finnur; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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BLIP...BLIP...BLIP

Wow, Mika Brzezinski really gives the game away in this inexplicable altercation with Joan Walsh. When Walsh asks an honest question—Which prominent voices on the left are comparable in extremism to people like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck [and the list could easily be lengthened] on the right?—Joe Scarborough immediately tries to change the subject and Mika Brzezinski becomes what I can only call "desperately insulting":

MIKA: I think it's all very obvious.

WALSH: Is it obvious? Who on the left is comparable to Rush and Glenn on the right?

MIKA: Okay, Joan, if it's not obvious to you I'll talk to you off-set. I mean, my God! Alright so let's read from the Washington Post...

SCARBOROUGH: We'll talk off-set.

WALSH: Okay...

MIKA: Seriously, it's like BLIP... BLIP... BLIP... right in front of you and you're like [imitates willfully clueless Walsh] "I'm sorry, I don't see it!"

If I may be kinder than this irresponsible behavior deserves, I'd like to suggest that Mika's condescension (hey, wasn't that outlawed a while back?) stems from a confusion between the possible and the actual. It is undeniably possible for people on the political left to be violent, nasty, and extremist; there is nothing in being "on the left" that serves to inoculate someone against these vices. But something which is possible need not therefore be actual. It is possible that at this moment there is somebody standing atop the summit of Mount Everest, but all by itself, this is not enough to show that someone is actually there. The way to show actuality is to, you know, look and see. Similarly, the way to show that there are actually people on the left equivalent in violent, nasty extremism to the Limbaughs and Becks (and Savages and Levins and Ingrahams and Boortzes and Mancows and...) on the right is to show us the evidence. For people at a major news network, this should not be hard to do. It's therefore telling that, when asked to name names, Mika/Joe's response is to change the subject, imperiously declare "it's all very obvious," and resort to childish insults. They don't have the evidence of actual equivalent perfidy—and they either know that (and don't want to admit their dishonesty) or hadn't realized that they'd been confusing the possible with the actual (and are embarrassed to reveal that they haven't grasped a distinction which you'd think would be obvious to anyone practicing "journalism"). Either way, they owe both their viewers and Joan Walsh a serious apology.

As is often the case, digby has a great response when Newsbusters offers up a list of supposed equivalents:

What, no Dixie Chicks?

But hey, I'll bite. I hereby admonish Rosie, Mike (is he still around?) Bill "the bomber" and Mrs Bill "the Bomber," Van, Dylan, Rachel and Keith for their extreme rhetoric.

Now maybe The Left will disband all their militias, stop all their death threats, stubble the revolutionary rhetoric and accept the fact that democracy means they have to accept majority rule. In fact, now that I've called out our "leaders", I'll bet it will be as if all that stuff never happened.

Actuality, Mika. Ask for it by name.


Thursday, April 22, 2010

Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #1773

Little kids will believe anything.

"There it is, Jimmy: the Loch Ness Monster!" "Wow!"

*catfish enjoys the attention*

(Image originally uploaded by SeanKelley; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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PBS Continues to Disappoint

Man, what happened to Frontline? Now they're not only excising single-payer advocates from the discussion of health care reform, they're carefully editing 'em into public option supporters. Furthermore,

This is not the first time that Frontline has decided that a conversation about healthcare reform should exclude single-payer from the discussion. The March 31, 2009 Frontline special Sick Around America avoided discussions of national healthcare plans. This omission led Frontline correspondent T.R. Reid--who had hosted a previous Frontline special (4/15/08) that examined various public healthcare models-- to withdraw from the project.

PBS ombud Michael Getler agreed with those who thought the show missed a chance to discuss single-payer. It looks like the program has done so again.

In other news, remind me again why anyone reads Newsweek?


Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #2717

The Richards family soon learned to either (a) choose non-board-games for Family Game Night or (b) exercise special vigilance to keep Keith from absent-mindedly gobbling down the pieces.
(Image originally uploaded by Patricia Barcelos; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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Apparently, Those Eight Years Never Happened

The Washington Examiner neglects to mention that, while only 22% of Americans in a recent Pew Research poll confess to having "trust in government," that number was actually at 17% when Bush II left office—and it actually rose from 23% to 45% during the Clinton years.

And so do the Washington Post, the New York Post, USA Today, the Des Moines Register, and ABC News.

Oh, that liberal media. Sigh.


Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #4596

Feel free to disagree, but I think that a flower should not look like something one expects to see bursting out of John Hurt's chest.
(Image originally uploaded by sabrina_gross78; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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Monday, April 19, 2010

Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #1305

Veterans of the late Sixties remember when John used to tool around London in his psychedelic Rolls, blasting Yoko's demo tapes out the windows and leaving behind a trail of dead birds and dropped jaws.
(Image originally uploaded by edvvc; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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Save the Oocyte-Americans!

PZ revises some anti-abortion billboards to better reflect the facts of biology—and the results are quite interesting.


Sunday, April 18, 2010

Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #3321

Man, I could spend hours at the Ball of String Cam.
(Image originally uploaded by beatrice_le_chat; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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Teabagistan

The good Generik ventured out into a Tea Party rally last week and returned with a worrisome post and some nifty pictures. Check 'em out. One quickly notices some recurring themes: old white people, visceral hatred of Nancy Pelosi, and a resort to tried-and-false old-school far-right rhetoric, like the "Silent Majority" poster and this one, my favorite:

I doubt that Columbia- and Harvard-educated, U of Chicago-teaching, Wall-Street-friendly President Mandates and Bailouts has even met that many actual communists, let alone had close relationships with them, but never mind. This Zombie Rhetoric just goes to show how right Rick Perlstein is when he points out that the Tea Party is nothing new under the sun: movements of "angry, ill-informed, overwhelmingly white, crypto-corporate paranoiacs" have cropped up with astonishing regularity every time Republicans have lost power over the last fifty years. (I'm sure it's just coincidence.) There ain't much new about them—not even their slurs.


Saturday, April 17, 2010

Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #2114

Angus and Angus took ventriloquism in a direction that, frankly, nobody really wanted to see it go.

"Say 'ello to the nice people, Angus."

*Sporran begins moving, says in high-pitched voice, "'ello, nice people."

(Image originally uploaded by KiltGent; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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You Dial 9, You Get an Outside Line

Once again, a comedy show schools a "fair and balanced" news network in how to, you know, learn stuff:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
A Farewell to Arms
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full EpisodesPolitical HumorTea Party

Mention of the hydrogen atom reminds me of one of my all-time favorite Doonesbury jokes.

Q: What's the difference between Rush Limbaugh and the Hindenburg?

A: One is a flaming Nazi gasbag; the other is a dirigible.


Friday, April 16, 2010

Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #5414

"Aw, jeez, my nose just fell off. Whose bright idea was it to do baptisms in Love Canal?"
(Image originally uploaded by Petranek Fitness (Crossfit LA); Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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CT on Countdown with KO

Good friend jules sends along notice of this recent appearance by three wonderful MST3K alums on Keith Olbermann's show. Whatever else you can say about KO, he's obviously a MSTie in fine standing:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Thanks, jules!


Thursday, April 15, 2010

Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #1425

"In other news, Buckingham Palace took the unusual step of apologizing earlier today for an odd remark of Her Majesty's, when, after being asked if she would like to review her Mounted Guards, she replied, 'Oh my, I don't want them mounted; just holding hands will be fine.' Now this."
(Image originally uploaded by tstelian; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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The Yes Men Fix the World

Highly, highly, highly recommended.

I swear, we need a new word to describe the odd art these guys practice. Spoof, prank, parody, satire, impersonation, guerrilla theater—none of these really capture their astounding ability to blend in at gatherings of the rich and powerful (and of toadies of the rich and powerful), to fake their way onto TV, to convincingly imitate the websites and media outlets of corporate civilization, etc. "Identity Correction" just doesn't cut it, I think. "Deconstructive Mimicry"?

Here's a DN! segment about the film from last July:

Again, highly recommended.


Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #4073

If there's one place where you don't wanta try guerrilla-style protest art, it's the Theater District: the cops there are brutal.

"Tsk, tsk. Wooden." "Pathetic." "Predictable." "Sadly passé." "Trite and unoriginal."

(Image originally uploaded by zachwass2000; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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Score One for Real Journalism

David Leonhardt's "Economic Scene" column debunking the 47% of Americans Pay No Taxes The Leeches!!?! talking point that's been making the rounds of the right-wing cable/radio/blogosphere has itself been making the rounds today (h/t Michael Tomasky and The Daily Howler)—and that's a very good thing. It turns out that even for just federal taxes, that 47% figure is nonsense; Leonhardt agrees that, thanks to the economic downturn and the stimulus programs pushed by both Bush II and Obama, 47% of households receive enough credits to have no federal income tax liability, but when you factor in other federal taxes—e.g., payroll taxes and capital gains taxes—that number is more like 10%. And this doesn't even count state taxes, local taxes, sales taxes, etc.

So: When you hear someone claim that almost half of Americans pay no taxes and are leeching off the hardworking other half, the person telling you this is either trying to spread their own ignorance or lying to you. I leave it to you decide which is most likely in the case of the well-compensated "journalists" and "commentators" on Fox.


Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #9759

No course was more popular, no professor more loved, no tenure more exploited, than Dr. Bradstreet and his SOC 283, Theory and Practice of Social Lubrication (emphasis on practice).
(Image originally uploaded by h_u_t_gerhard; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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The $32 Million Man

Michael Tomasky points to a recent profile of Glenn Beck which notes that he hauls in about $32 million from books, TV, etc. and that he claims to be merely an entertainer, not really interested in politics:

I wonder if Beck is telling the truth there. If he is, the whole business is amazingly cynical and actually quite contemptuous of his fans. And he has said these kinds of things before, so it may well be the case.

At the other end, he has spoken lovingly of right-wing books like this rambling and paranoid malignity by this clown named Cleon Skousen that Beck has said changed his life. Of course, maybe he just meant it changed his life in that it showed him what kinds of crazy conspiracies about the world people were willing to believe and therefore what he should say on the air and in books etc. for the purpose of hauling in $32 million a year.

Word. The he's-a-con-man-riding-the-anti-Obama-paranoia-zeitgeist theory works fine for me at the moment.


Monday, April 12, 2010

Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #6151

Wasn't sure what to do with this one.

WARNING: CRAM SCHOOL STUDENTS MAY BE OVERCAFFEINATED AND HEEDLESS OF TRAFFIC?

CAUTION: CLIMAX OF THE GRADUATE IN PROGRESS?

DANGER: CATHOLIC CHURCH IN VICINITY?

(Image originally uploaded by 0219; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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Tax Day Madness

Head it off at the pass with this great post from Jon Perr.


Sunday, April 11, 2010

Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #3373

*scritch scritch scritch scritch*
(Image originally uploaded by jorrge; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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Saturday, April 10, 2010

Cue Willful Misunderstanding

Even I'm a little surprised at how blatantly Gingrich, Hannity, Bachman & Co. misstate Obama's nuclear policy to fit their standard mythos (appeasement!!! he wants us defenseless before our enemies!!!) about Democrats, liberals, etc. I've seen pictures of Tea Partiers carrying signs that say things like "Thx Fox for telling us the truth"; how on Earth do they square that fantasy with this reality?

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Big Bang Treaty
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full EpisodesPolitical HumorTea Party

I think that fackles may be my new favorite word.


Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #5486

Eutropius was sort of the Byzantine version of Truman Capote.

*sniff* "That's not writing, that's scribing."

(Image originally uploaded by dermalin3k; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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C'mon People, This Consent's Not Gonna Manufacture Itself

I almost missed this telling anecdote from William Rivers Pitt about a cell phone call he took while driving in Boston back in the pre-war winter of 2003:

On the line was a producer for an MSNBC news show; she told me she had read my book and really enjoyed it, and was inviting me to come on the network to talk about Iraq. Specifically, she wanted me to come on and talk about Hans Blix and his weapons inspectors, who at that point had been in Iraq for less than 100 hours. They hadn't found anything yet, but were still looking. Very specifically, she wanted me to come on MSNBC and say that Blix and his inspectors were doing a terrible job, that Iraq definitely had WMD and 9/11 connections, and that Bush should blow off Blix and do whatever the hell he wants.

I very nearly put my car into the river. You couldn't really have read my book, I said to this MSNBC producer, because if you had, you'd know that the very last thing in the world I would ever say on television or anywhere else was the inspectors were not doing their jobs and that war in Iraq was a necessity. Let's allow Blix and the inspectors to do their jobs, I said, so maybe we can avoid a costly and unnecessary war that would certainly kill thousands and thousands of people.

The MSNBC producer chortled—literally, a deep, throaty too-many-cigarettes chortle—and hung up on me.

Remember that the next time someone regales you with tales about the "liberal" MSNBC.


Friday, April 09, 2010

Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #2769

His previous owner should've warned you that your Petsmart account would be wasted on the aptly named Ecclesiastes.
(Image originally uploaded by innuendo; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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Eyes in the Sky

Is it a bad sign when you've gone most of your life hardly ever seeing a police helicopter and then, three times within three months, you find one orbiting your neighborhood?

Back in January we had one circling overhead for a good half-hour—and a streetful of police cars as well—as the cops chased some guy who'd abandoned a vehicle and taken to ground on a nearby street. A few weeks ago we had one circling the neighborhood just south of here; we never learned what that was about. And then, before dawn this morning, I was awakened by the unmistakeable roaring chop-chop-chop again circling nearby. We don't know the cause of that bit of excitement, either, but at least it didn't last long; the chopper vanished right after I got up to take a look.

I do not like where this trend is heading.


Thursday, April 08, 2010

Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #9563

Different people react to The End of Life As We Know It in different ways. "Dang Mist could've at least waited 'til I got the begonias in. Harrumph."
(Image originally uploaded by Ree Drummond/The Pioneer Woman; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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Haiku Glenn Beck!

An organization called Jewish Funds for Justice is using the awesome power of haiku to respond to Glenn Beck's bizarre denunciation of "social justice"—and they're asking for our help (h/t digby).

My contribution:

Beck phenomenon:
Familiar to those who've seen
A Face in the Crowd
Go!


Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #2752

Agent 0017's trim physique was valuable for more than just exercising her seductive wiles.

"I am sorry that our affair must end like this, mon cherie, but there are guards at every exit; you cannot possibly escape with the plans." "That's what you think."

*kicks him in groin, slithers through tiny air vent*

(Image originally uploaded by Danceology; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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Playbook

Robert Parry argues:

Washington’s conventional wisdom for explaining the intensity of Republican obstructionism toward President Barack Obama breaks down one of two ways: either it’s a philosophical disagreement over the role of government or a desperate need to stay in line with a radicalized right-wing base.

But there is another way to view the GOP political strategy, as neither principled nor reactive to the rantings of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and the Tea Partiers. It is that the Republicans are following a playbook that has evolved over more than four decades, to regain power by sabotaging Democratic presidents.

As Parry notes, they undermined Johnson's Vietnam peace talks in 1968—and thereby helped to put Nixon in office.

They undermined Carter's attempts to get the hostages out of Iran in 1980—and thereby helped put Reagan in office.

They undermined Clinton with a talk-radio delegitimation campaign, relentless scandal-mongering (not that Clinton's dalliance with Monica Lewinsky helped), a sudden wave of black-helicopter-fearing militia madness, etc. Funny how that militia madness pretty much vanished for eight years under Bush the Younger, huh?

And now here we are with another Democrat in the White House and an even freakier delegitimation campaign, revamped militia madness, a "tea party movement" that seems to have come out of nowhere, etc. (I mean, really: the economic issues that supposedly motivate many of the tea partiers—corporate bailouts, deficit spending, etc.—trace back to well before Obama took office; where were these hordes of concerned Americans when the Bush tax-cuts-for-the-wealthiest first started destroying the Clinton surplus?)

There is nothing new under this sun. More.


Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #5262

"Jerry, stop playing with the lights and please put that thing away before you scare the bridesmaids."
(Image originally uploaded by zebtron; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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Monday, April 05, 2010

Where's the Grenade?

I think that may become my favorite question re. Christian dogma. P.Z. Myers points out that the most moving thing about the Jesus story—the horrendous self-"sacrifice," like a soldier throwing himself on a live grenade for our sins—is vitiated thanks to that whacky doctrine of Original Sin:

Ask a Christian, and they'll tell us he's saving us from Original Sin, our flawed, weak, inherently wicked natures. But what that sin is is an act committed by a pair of mythological ancestors (they didn't even actually exist), and the sin was being willful, curious and disobedient to an imaginary man in the sky — it was a non-existent crime. I don't believe in being held accountable for my ancestor's weaknesses (as Patti Smith sang, "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine"), and in this case I don't even consider what they did to be wrong. So Jesus suffered for an act that I would consider a virtue, committed by myths against a myth? That's no hand grenade, that's a fairy tale. Nobody needs to die to protect me from a fairy tale.

Next problem: what Jesus did didn't even protect me from that fairy tale! Imagine that in some metaphorical sense it was true that there was some heritable taint infecting the entire human race, passed from generation to generation and making us more prone to do wickedness. Instead of a hand grenade, we've been fed a poison that's going to hurt us slowly and horribly.

How does having the sick butcher the doctor make us better?

Indeed, the story's only inspiring when you de-deify Jesus and think of him as a kind, decent man who suffered at the hands of the cruel, short-sighted monsters of his time (who thus serve nicely as symbols of the cruel, short-sighted monsters of all time); when you go instead with the oh-he's-really-God-in-human-form-and-hey-presto!-he's-not-really-dead version of the story, the whole thing seems more like a baroque form of torture p*rn. Which may explain the Mel Gibson movie, I don't know.


Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #3929

Grandpa's been strangely pensive since he joined that earth-tone-based religious sect. And harder to spot when he's in the rumpus room.
(Image originally uploaded by promohthree; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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Early Morning Shuttle Launch

The first of the last four Shuttle missions lifted off shortly before sunrise this morning; the sky was nice and clear, clear enough that we could see the boosters as they separated and fell away, resulting in this shot, where Discovery seems to be running away from a pair of scare quotes:

"No comment."
I still remember getting out of high school to watch some of the first Shuttle launches way back in the early 1980s. It's going to be weird not seeing those things take off anymore.


Sunday, April 04, 2010

Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #0821

Product of an unspeakable ménage à trois between Bill Gates, Stephen Fry, and Topher Grace.
(Image originally uploaded by mika_ja_niina; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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Kathleen Turner as Molly Ivins?!?

I almost forgot that a week or so ago, the Krugmeister mentioned seeing a new one-woman show, Red Hot Patriot, featuring Kathleen Turner as the late, great Molly Ivins. It sounds like a serious hoot.

It strikes me that our culture could use a female version of what Hal Holbrook does with Mark Twain. Perhaps we've found it! If anyone deserves a second life, Molly does.


Saturday, April 03, 2010

Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #6337

Times Not to be Caught Modeling Your V Costume, #17: as a carload of Crips drives by.
(Image originally uploaded by uubergeek; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton. Dig it: next door to this one is a gaggle of Battlestar Galacticoids, including one quite remarkable Tricia Helfer impersonator. V is for Va-Va-VOOM.)

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Friday, April 02, 2010

A Great Bill of Particulars

If you haven't perused this "open letter to conservatives" yet, do.


Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #1880

'Twas then when the Hurdy Gurdy Man finished singing songs of love and became refreshingly frank. "Well, basically, it's the product of an unspeakable ménage à trois between a violin, an accordion, and a pencil sharpener."
(Image originally uploaded by Dmitry Sumin; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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CNN's Death Spiral

Heh. Indeed. Etc.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
CNN Hires Erick Erickson
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full EpisodesPolitical HumorHealth Care Reform

I don't have cable and wouldn't watch much CNN if I did; I did not realize that they'd been hemorrhaging viewers so badly. I'm sure that passing off a mean-spirited, meat-headed right-wing blogger as some sort of insightful, authoritative voice on American politics will lead to floods of new viewers, though. What audience would not respond favorably to being treated with such respect?


Thursday, April 01, 2010

Daily Random Flickr Blogging, #2088

The neocon dream: a future where every rest stop, everywhere in the world, even farthest Sahara, has Stuckey's nut logs.
(Image originally uploaded by Roybon; Random Flickr Blogging originally invented by Tom Hilton.)

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The Day in Pithy Phrases

It wasn't much of an April Fool's Day for me otherwise, but I must say that I ran across some magnificent phraseology on the intertubes today.

First, Michael Tomasky dismissed pedophilia apologist Bill Donohue as "an identity politics ambulance chaser." (Honorable mention goes to P.Z. Myers: "Donohue is resorting to arguing that because a 13-year-old had pubic hair, he had the full autonomy of an adult and the abuse of the priest was simply a love affair between equals. And that is bullshit.")

Second, Jon Chait wrapped up a piece on the Nate Silver dissection of rightthink-tanker Veronique de Rugy (h/t Krugmeister) with this most trenchant observation: "There are hundreds of people like her in Washington, most of them conservative, living well-compensated lives of pure ideological hackery."

I think we just found a title for Elizabeth McCaughey's memoir.


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