“Grown-ups” have always had issues with the culture of young people.  Adults in ancient Athens thought that Western Civilization was doomed because they deemed the youth of the day to be lazy, decadent, and uninterested in learning.

I remember quite clearly showing up for my piano lesson a few days after the Beatles’ appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show the previous Sunday evening.  My teacher echoed Mr. Jones’ viewpoint, and was mortified to learn that I (age 8) had watched the performance along with so many million others.

She was concerned that the purity of the world’s musical tastes were in the process of being destroyed.

She was an uptight gray-haired woman, but she treated me with great kindness, always praising me for even the most minute bit of progress.

I’m just glad she didn’t live to see this year’s Super Bowl halftime show.

Tagged with:

The popular Christian reverend John Pavlovitz writes:
It’s simply demoralizing sharing a country with people who think Donald Trump is someone worth emulating: to be surrounded by that kind of moral inversion every single day, to be continually encountering such cruelty.  It’s a source of profound and sustained grieving to believe that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and afforded opportunity—and to know how many simply do not share that belief.  I don’t hate these people but I am deeply saddened by them.

(more…)

Tagged with: , ,

Question:  OK, Americans, if you had to do it on your own, how would you rank the 50 states in terms of education?  An old friend who went to college with me in Connecticut boasts that the state of our alma mater is #3.  Obviously, Massachusetts is #1, but who is #2?

Answer: Can be found at Clean Energy Answers.

Relevance: As you review the list, think of how this all breaks down in terms of support for Donald Trump. The states where support for the former president is strongest are those whose education is at the bottom: Oklahoma, Kentucky, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and West Virginia. The top five most educated people, who despise Trump, live in Massachusetts, ??, Connecticut, Colorado, and Vermont.

 

 

 

Tagged with: , ,

Simply put, there is a big difference between a white American country music star and an African American football player peacefully protesting police brutality and racial inequality.

Tagged with:

Here’s Morgan Ortagus, a well bedecked woman running for the seat in Congress that represents Central Tennessee, who proudly claims that she’s supported by Donald Trump, and wans to distinguish herself as being to the right of her opponent Robby Starbuck (backed by Rand Paul and Rudy Giuliani).  Starbuck says:

We face a Marxist threat from the woke ideology that’s poisoning our colleges, our media and entertainment. I’ll fight to end mandates and return your freedom back to you. I’ll fight to ensure you aren’t censored online. I’ll fight to ensure your parental rights are protected. I’ll fight to keep Critical Race Theory out of our schools. I’ll fight the Defund Police movement, I’ll fight for our police and support more funding for them. I’ll fight the mass illegal immigration crisis and protect our border. I’ll fight all of the Marxist forces that want to destroy our way of life and our unique American identity. 

Outside of lynching people of color, or closing our public schools and universities, or leasing Yosemite to ExxonMobil, it’s hard to imagine a policy that is more conservative than what Starbuck stands for.

Tagged with: , , , , ,

There is something to be said for the content of the meme here, but only if you’re unwilling to look around and consider different ideas (see below, sorry about the typo).

Before labor unions came along, there were eight-year-old kids working 60-hour work weeks mining coal.

Also, environmental and safety restrictions virtually never come from the private sector.  Without not-for-profit entities, we’d have cars without seatbelts that get 12 miles to the gallon, unregulated coal plants, and skies like the one shown here.

Tagged with:

Funny, but the probability that Trump goes down on tax evasion is minute, and getting smaller with each revelation about his conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government.

 

 

Tagged with: ,

Here’s Donald Trump announcing his lawsuit against “Big Tech” on the basis that Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have “silenced” him unfairly.

Actually, they’ve banned a great number of people from their platforms in order to reduce the dissemination of harmful lies.  This is their right, if not their duty.

Tagged with: ,

Apparently, Fox News was able to come across a retired Army general who would say on camera that Putin wouldn’t have messed with Trump, implying that Putin perceives Biden as a weaker president. (more…)

Tagged with: , , , ,

What Harrison Ford says here is on point, but keep in mind that our “leaders” are simply reflecting what voters want.  They understand that most people will make precious few sacrifices for the good of the people who will inhabit this planet 50 years hence.

Yes, it’s selfish, but that’s where we are.

If everyone donated 2% of his net worth to the decarbonization of our energy and transportation sectors, and to putting an end to deforestation, all this mess would simply go away.

Many of us would be thrilled to write that check, but, regrettably, too few.

Tagged with: , ,