We Don’t Seem To Be Too Alarmed About the Climate Crisis
This is excellent.
Obviously, it could apply to a great number of phenomena in our current world, but the imperative to mitigate climate change comes immediately to mind.
Trump Supporters and Evidence
This may be funny, but it’s an imperfect analogy at best. The first two characters are actually damaged by those threats. The third refuses to believe the threat exists.
Tagged with: Trump Supporters and Evidence
Accepting the Truth of American History
What Ken Burns says here is spot on.
Accepting the fact that the United States has committed atrocities and continues to perpetuate injustice is something we should all confront and do our best to correct.
I was lucky enough to attend a talk Burns gave a few years ago, and I encourage everyone to try to do the same.
Tagged with: Accepting the Truth of American History
Is “Canada First” Really a Thing?
This is kind of funny, but seriously, it’s hard to imagine that this is “a thing” in Canada. We Americans think of Canadians as urbane and genteel folks.
What’s next? Denmark First?
Tagged with: Canada First
Republican Agenda of Hate and Suppression
Here’s a meme that, IMO, accurately depicts the GOP platform.
The beauty here, is that if you can keep ’em poor, sick and stupid, you can do whatever else you might like, e.g., repeal regulations that protect the environment. Stressed out people don’t have the emotional (or financial) bandwidth to protest.
Though this agenda would be repulsive beyond words in any other country in the developed world, almost half of Americans eat it up with a spoon.
Of course, actually winning elections with these policies requires making voting difficult for people who may have different thoughts, but that’s part of the agenda as well. Putting people under duress and driving them into apathy has the side benefit of keeping them away from the polls.
It’s one, neat, coherent package of hate and suppression.
Can Traitors Run for State Governorship, As Long As They Haven’t Yet Been Convicted?
Of course. Take the case of Ryan Kelley, pictured on right, who organized militias and stormed the Capitol. Now he’s running for governor of Michigan.
I was about to write a post to the effect that domestic terrorists don’t make good gubernatorial candidates. Then I realized that treason is not the deal-breaker it used to be when Julius and Ethyl Rosenburg died in the electric chair in 1953 for having plotted against the U.S. government.
Free College
This reminds me of a conversation I had with my mom recently, where we discussed free college. I explained that we should choose not to live in a country dominated by ignorance, because life under those circumstances gradually becomes more violent and less affluent.
Of course, there is the embarrassment factor as well. Other countries look at this boob with the assault rifle, and say, “We just feel sorry for you. We never thought this could happen in the United States.”
Tagged with: country dominated by ignorance
When a Palace Becomes a Circus
I can’t vouch for the validity of this “Turkish proverb,” but I wanted to publish it anyway, due to its relevance to the American political scene and the presence of Donald Trump within it.
Ignorance Hurts
Detractors of social media make the excellent point that it fuels the spread of hate and ignorance.
I agree with my friend David Leebron, president of Rice University, who believes that social media represents a net negative for society.
Anti-vaxxers, climate deniers, and those who believe the Big Lie would be voiceless in such a world.
Plant-Based Chicken
Here’s a quick report on KFC’s new plant-based chicken product, “Beyond Fried Chicken,” available at nearly 4,000 U.S. locations.
As I’ve mentioned frequently, meatless meat has gone mainstream. That’s because the plant-based burgers from Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are virtually indistinguishable from beef, and represent an enormous step forward from the veggie burgers of the past. (more…)
