Latest musings, analyses, and general madness
The annoying thing about unrestrained government authority is that it does not magically become beneficial when it happens to fall into the hands of the faction you prefer. The insidious thing about unrestrained government authority is that it invariably appears to have become a beneficial thing when in the hands of the faction you prefer. Everything political leaders do is questionable, because only...
The Wall Street Journal is making itself into headline news (the ultimate goal of all modern news media) with a headline labelling Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on Canada and Mexico as “The Dumbest Trade War in History,” followed by the teaser, “Trump will impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico for no good reason.” I call disinfomation on that “no good reason”...
Elon Musk, as I have previously discussed here, has been widely accused of giving a Nazi salute to his fellow Trump supporters, said accusation consisting in an object lesson in establishing a truth by dint of endless repetition of a blatant lie. For the video clip of the supposed neo-Nazi outrage is readily available for all to see, although I am quite sure...
The most cowardly president in U.S. history, in one of his new administration’s ceremonial first lies, ordered one of his most prominent and tongue-weary bootlickers, Marco “Yes Master” Rubio (aka Marco the Martian-Hunter), to “pause” all foreign aid, excluding military aid to Israel and Egypt, which is to say including military aid to Ukraine. Meanwhile, the Insult-in-Chief himself, in part of his feverish...
Listening to a friend’s description of a disappointing social engagement with a former work colleague, in which she confessed, though without any great sense of self-recrimination, that she herself was “being boring” during that evening’s dinner conversation, I was compelled to reflect upon my own life as a social entity, such as it is, or rather to reflect on the sense in which...
The American voting public, roughly a hundred and forty million people, is divided neatly down the middle between a faction that wishes The United States of America to cease to exist and dissolve itself into the United Nations, after abjectly apologizing for its existence while shamefacedly redistributing all of its wealth to the rest of the world in an act of penance for...
In 2022, comedian Dave Chappelle hosted Saturday Night Live and caused quite a stir with an opening monologue that was both highly entertaining and, at moments, politically on point in the way intelligent stand-up comedy can occasionally be. On that night, the controversies he stirred up, primarily with his comments on “the Jews,” but secondarily with his refusal to do the simplistic “Trump...
There is no art without limits. Absolute freedom of expression, attractive as it may be as a theoretical principle, ought never to be allowed into the arena of artistic endeavor. Art thrives on finding ways to imply what cannot be said and to reveal new beauty within the constraints of existing forms — and existing norms. Even the artists whom we have come...
The Village People are performing at the U.S. president’s inauguration celebrations. Very appropriate. The Village People are a group of campy, unmasculine performers who have built a popular entertainment career that has extended long past its sell-by date by donning the costumes of various “real man” types — the hard hat, the police officer, and so on — and dancing around while laughably...
Cause and effect. — Prod people into desperation by denying and disemboweling everything they ever held dear. When they actually become desperate and begin to act as desperate men do, accuse them of being extremists and assert the need for stern measures to tamp down their irrational outbursts. Voter’s dialectic. — “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” Fool me...