Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Crime, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economics, Economy, Education, Environment, Free Speech, History, Immigration, Law, Media Bias, National Security, News, Politics, Pop Culture, Progressives, The Constitution, The United States, Unemployment | Tags: Democrat Hysteria, Struggling to Understand, Trump Derangement Syndrome
The general era of hysteria, one crisis after another that Democrats erupt over, we have usually attributed to “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” But I ran across this video from November of last year of Victor Davis Hanson chatting with Ginny Thomas, and Dr. Hanson explains it all perfectly. So if you are wondering about all the weeping and gnarling of knuckles over “poor innocent children ‘ripped’ from the arms of their mothers” here’s why: Look closely at the county map of the election, and listen to the whole explanation.
Filed under: Blogging, Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economics, Election 2016, England, Entertainment, Free Markets, Free Speech, Freedom, Humor, Law, Media Bias, Politics, Progressives, Progressivism, Regulation, The Constitution, The United States | Tags: "the Resistance", Not Funny!, Trump Derangement Syndrome
We have certainly had a plethora of people persecuted for something they said in this profoundly politically correct period. (after ‘plethora’ I couldn’t resist all the other p-words) People keep losing their jobs or their careers after saying the wrong thing. This is also a very political period. Democrats have chosen to refuse to accept the results of the last election because they don’t like President Trump. They call themselves “the Resistance” and we call them victims of “the Trump Derangement Syndrome.” So it is somewhat understandable that those who identify as “comedians” fail to understand what comedy is all about.
If you have whole groups of people seething with rage, an especially strong insult can provoke cheers and applause, but it may not go down so well with those who are not seething. There are a lot of what you might call under-stories here as well. When you are consumed with hate, however illogical, the normal societal barriers are shoved aside and a presumed “comedienne”can assume that a mock, bloody, severed head of the President of the United States will be funny. Another presumed “comedienne” can think that calling the president’s daughter a vulgar word for spurious reasons will be funny. Kathy Griffin was just wrong. In an era when terrorists are decapitating victims on camera, one should assume that it would not go over well. Her career may be over. Samantha Bee went off on misunderstood fake news —The New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today all had to issue formal corrections to their reporting on immigration. They falsely claimed that President Trump had enacted a policy to separate illegal border-crossing parents from their children at the U.S. Mexico border. The New York Times wrote:
Correction: An earlier version of this column mischaracterized the legal status of 1,475 undocumented migrant children who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without their parents. Those children were placed in the custody of sponsors screened by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. They are no longer in federal custody.
USA Today’s correction read:
Corrections & Clarifications: An earlier version of this column mischaracterized the legal status of 1,475 undocumented migrant children who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without their parents. Those children were placed in the custody of sponsors screened by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. They are no longer in federal custody.
The media also got all confused when someone found a picture of illegal immigrant children in locked cages with their bedding, and that went viral, as they thought they really had something real on Trump — and then the picture turned out to be from the Obama administration, and not Trump’s responsibility at all. So if a comedienne gets all confused and calls the president’s daughter a vulgar word because the comedienne didn’t bother to check her information and just wanted to say something nasty about Ivanka Trump, it’s just an accident, isn’t it?
We seem to have entered a period when the people who are trying to make a go of a career in “comedy” have no real understanding of what comedy is, and what makes something funny.
I am not funny. I have never been funny. I laugh at someone else’s joke and then can’t remember what the punch line was when I try to tell it. Mildly amusing I can sometimes handle, but seldom.
But I do understand some things about comedy. Only the rare comedian can be funny with insults. Don Rickles was so good at it, that people misconstrued his humor. His insults were never designed to hurt, and his audience knew that. You can make a joke about someone’s fondness for Big Macs, done the right way, but you can’t successfully make a joke by calling them a fat pig. Self-deprecating humor can be really funny, Attacks not.
It is hard to be funny. You walk a very narrow line between joke and insult. Don Rickles’ insults were carefully planned to be funny and not insulting. Jack Benny invented a whole character so he could make fun of himself as stingy and mean. We have all sorts of late night comics who try to be amusing about the news of the day, but they seldom manage it. Roseanne Barr made a racist tweet and had her show cancelled. The insults were unacceptable, and Ms. Barr has a history of mouthing off. But the executives at ABC and Disney decided early in the day to pull the plug on Roseanne. It seemed to be supporting Donald Trump, and that would not do.
Race is one of the under stories. Democrats are extremely dependent on the votes of Blacks and Hispanics, and have been ramping up racial prejudice at every opportunity. How many times have you heard Republicans accused of racial prejudice? And the President and his administration. When they are not being called Nazis, which as the president has moved the US. embassy to Jerusalem and has a Jewish son in law and daughter and their children, gets a little absurd.
Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas and other prominent Blacks are regularly called Uncle Toms simply because they are Republicans. Democrats want to make it clear that they are the party of color and ethnicity because they can’t afford to lose those votes. They get the votes by giving presents — welfare, housing, food stamps, free phones, all the presents that make people dependent on government. It’s always possible to buy votes. And somehow the help to escape dependency never arrives. That, by the way, is why Democrats want sanctuary cities and open borders. New immigrants mostly vote Democrat, or can be bribed to do so. The Border Patrol has kept track of all the illegal immigrants who confess to having voted several times. There are a lot of them.
The comedy focus, of course, is on the rude words. The ones uttered by good Democrats are excusable, and vanish down the memory hole. Joy Reid has a long history of “hateful” blog posts attacking John McCain, praise for Iran’s former president, anti-Semitic comments which were quickly absolved by MSNBC. And so it goes. Would-be comedians need to study up on comedy. They’re missing the point.
Then there’s the matter of “free speech” which is also deeply misunderstood. Free speech does not mean that you can say whatever you want with no consequences. The First Amendment says quite specifically that “Congress shall make no law,” It is entirely about protecting the individual from acts of Congress. Which is especially interesting in the light of the case in Britain of Tommy Robinson.
Tommy Robinson was a reporter and activist concerned especially with Islamic “grooming gangs” who were raping young girls. He was reporting outside a London courtroom where a trial was going on of just such a gang. He was arrested, promptly convicted and sent to prison for 15 years because he dared to say out loud things that society did not want mentioned. It was, in the judge’s mind, “racism.” Is that something catching from America’s news which appears prominently in English papers? The judge put a block on anyone mentioning the trial, Islam, Tommy Robinson, or what it was all about. The British are protesting, and they learn about the case from the discussion in our news media and that of other countries in the Anglosphere. Americans are shocked and disbelieving.
Our ideas about free speech, about what’s funny, about what can be public knowledge are all under attack, and attempted to be changed irrevocably, so that the goals of another political party can triumph as they assume is their due.
Addendum: Kathy Griffin popped up today to defend Samantha Bee, which only proves that the poor thing does not understand what she did. Everyone she knows thinks Trump is a terrible president and a terrible person, Nazi, dictator, etc. There’s nothing wrong with Samantha Bee calling Ivanka Trump the C word because nobody she knows likes Ivanka Trump either.
Let me spell it out. When someone threatens the life of the President of the United States, the Secret Service descends and they are taken into custody. Your cute little beheading “joke” was a threat and an incitement to have someone do harm to the President. You could be in prison for a significant term. Tommy Robinson has been sentenced to 15 years in prison in Britain, for far less.
Fortunately the authorities recognized that you were too dumb to recognize what you had done. Samantha Bee decided that because Ivanka Trump is the daughter of the President, it’s fine to attack her with vulgarity although Ivanka has done nothing whatsoever to deserve such an attack. You both demonstrated a profound lack of understanding what comedy is. That career is probably over, but thanks to President Trump, unemployment is back to the level it was in 2000 and equals the lowest rate ever, set in 1969. You’ll probably be able to find something.
Filed under: Environment, History, News, Pop Culture | Tags: Mount St. Helens, Natural Disasters
[Note: the following was originally posted in 2008 on this infamous day]
Chances are, if you’re not from Washington or Oregon, the date May 18th has little meaning to you. Heck, even around here many don’t think of it unless someone reminds them. But I remember — every year. It’s one of the only world events I remember from back then — I was very young after all; but the eruption of Mt. St. Helens on May 18, 1980 was just the kind of event that little boys remember forever.
We were very fortunate; the mountain exploded northwards, but the winds carried the ash-cloud away to the southeast. I remember being somewhat disappointed that the ash wasn’t turning day into night for us like it was for all the people on the television. In fact, we didn’t seem to get any ash-fall at all, much to my chagrin; while people on the other side of the mountain were measuring it in inches, like snow.
So much excitement! …and so little pay off.
About the most exciting thing I personally experienced was standing on my father’s roof to see the enormous plume looking fairly small and unimpressive so many miles away. I’m not sure if we heard the explosion or not. They say people heard it as far as 700 miles away, and we were certainly much closer than that. I think we did — but that could just be my memory playing tricks on me.
So close, and yet so far. But I still remember it every year.
Where were you?
Update: Michael Rubin at the Corner links to an excellent photo montage on the eruption and the aftermath.
Sorry about the missing video. Surely you are just dying to hear the Mount St. Helen’s song! Here it is.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Domestic Policy, Election 2016, History, Middle East, Politics, Pop Culture, Progressives, Terrorism, The United States | Tags: Chutzpah, Hillary, The World Tour
Hillary is back on her world whine tour. In New Zealand yesterday, she told an Auckland audience that Michelle Obama was “so right” when she blasted women for not electing Clinton and said female politicians are held to a higher standard than men.
“The more professionally successful we are, the less people like us,” Clinton said. “Historically, people like me when I’m serving a supporting role… But the minute a woman, at least in our country, stands up and says ‘I’d like a chance to lead’… everything changes.”
I don’t think the Logan Act applies, but one usually doesn’t go abroad, even to an ally, and badmouth her own country. But then Hillary has never had a self-esteem problem, just a profound lack of self-awareness.
As Secretary of State, Hillary managed to kill her own ambassador and his aide by ignoring his pleas for help in a situation of increasing danger. That neglect also resulted in the death of two former SEALs who were trying to protect the embassy staff. Then she tried to palm it all off on a poor Coptic Christian man who had made a film that nobody saw. Sent him off to prison.
Insisted that we should abandon any support of Ghadaffi, who admittedly was a bad guy but was keeping the lid on in Libya, got him killed and turned the nation into a terrorist hellhole. Lied about her trip to Bosnia to enhance the story of her own bravery, by claiming that her plane had to spiral in because it was so dangerous, when there were photos of her greeting children on the tarmac at the airport. Drinks too much, has a mouth like a sewer, and keeps falling down. I could go on, but plenty of people are fully aware of Hillary’s “qualifications.” The problem is that so many are unaware.
Our presidents are just ordinary men, who have risen to the responsibility of the office, or not, with all the failings of ordinary men. The same would be true for women. They all make mistakes, some small, some occasionally momentous. Sometimes we get one of really good character, and more often we don’t. Takes some extra chutzpah¹ to run for that office.
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¹Chutzpah is a Hebrew word that has been adopted into Yiddish and then English. Chutzpah has been defined as audacity, insolence, impudence, gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible guts, presumption and arrogance. Yet something essential about chutzpah is missing from all these words.
Chutzpah can be destructive and ugly or vital and fantastic, but never in-between.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Domestic Policy, Environment, Global Warming, Junk Science, Media Bias, Politics, Pop Culture, Progressives, Regulation, The United States | Tags: Bill Nye "The Science Guy", Senator Bernie Sanders, True Believers
This conversation took place about a year ago on Bernie Sanders’ show, featuring Bill Nye, “the science guy” who apparently doesn’t know any. This is perhaps the most vapid, inane, totally empty of thought or meaning conversation I have ever heard.
Science consists of hypotheses that can be tested and the results can be retested by others and come up with the same results. Bill Nye keeps referring to those who do not agree with him as “deniers,”which is just a slur since no one denies that the climate changes. The climate has been changing for millions of years. The climate science that alarmists extol comes out of computer programs, not the real world. And there is no 97% consensus among climate scientists. That has been thoroughly debunked.
James Hansen, former director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who Nye cites, wrote a paper in 2008 that claimed his climate models showed that exceeding 350 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere would have catastrophic effects. We have long since blown past that point, and the result has been the greening of the Earth. CO2 is a natural fertilizer for plants, and the plant growth is feeding a hungry world. Plant nurseries keep their greenhouses at somewhere around 1,000 ppm, and the nurserymen are still healthy. Real world evidence clearly shows Hansen’s theory was wrong.
Bernie Sanders serves on Senate committees on the environment and climate. Bill Nye spoke of the rising sea level, and how it would force the people of New Orleans to abandon their homes, and they would leave behind great coils of wire and pipes. These two gentlemen clearly have no idea what they are talking about, but they care deeply about global warming. A situation that seems to be common on the Left. This level of sheer ignorance should be disturbing.
Filed under: England, Heartwarming, History, Literature, Military, National Security, The United States | Tags: 243 Years Ago, Paul Revere's Ride, The Birth of a Nation
[A little Henry Wadsworth Longfellow for the eighteenth of April]
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend,”If the British march
By land or sea from the town tonight,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light—
One if by land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”
Then he said, “Good night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, a British man-of-war:
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street,
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.
Then he climbed to the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry-chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the somber rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade—
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.
Beneath in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night-encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay—
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now gazed at the landscape far and near.
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth
And turned and tightened his saddle girth:
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and somber and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!
A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides:
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
It was twelve by the village clock,
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.
It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.
It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.
You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.
So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm—
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will awaken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
(The illustration is from a lovely edition of the poem illustrated by Ted Rand for children or any Longfellow lovers. Copies still available from Amazon at very reasonable prices)
I post this every year, but I almost forgot entirely. Too late for most, but print it out if you have kids and teach them a little history, which they probably won’t get in school. Kids like the rhythm- of galloping hooves that Longfellow used in this historic poem.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economy, Education, History, Law, Politics, Pop Culture, Progressives, Taxes, Technology, The United States, Unemployment | Tags: California, Victor Davis Hanson, What's Gone Haywire
California is becoming the most watched state in the union. The worst-managed state. threatening secession, or division, insisting on whatever the rest of the country is doing, they will go in another direction. And Washington State is trying to follow in their wake,
Here’s Victor Davis Hanson trying to explain what’s gone wrong and why. Our most populous state, a sanctuary state, broke, and people and businesses are fleeing the state for anywhere where taxes are lower and housing costs are sane. People are living in motor homes, sheds, turning a single apartment into a dormitory. Facebook and Google are apparently building a new town to house their workers.
