The Crusty Polemicist

The Cailleach's Time

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 01:48:00 +0000

The Cailleach arrived last night. The Hag of Winter made her presence know around 8:30pm. We were lounging by the firepit, comfortable in shirtsleeves and sweats, sorting out the problems of the world with a nice fire. A benign warm-ish breeze blowing. Around 8:20 the breeze fell off like someone had thrown a switch. A minute later, a new breeze, this one from the opposite direction, and bitter cold. It picked up to the point where our flags were fluttering flat-out and we found ourselves huddling close to the fire just to keep from freezing.

The Hag holds sway now, and will do so until Feb 2, when a small female figure will emerge from inside the hollow hills to engage The Cailleach in a desperate battle.

RIP Hitchens

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 11:16:00 +0000

I found the man smarmy and infuriating when he was wrong (e.g., Iraq), and could be almost as smarmy and infuriating when he was right (which was often). But damn it all, the man could write.

RIP Hitchens.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2011/12/16/firebrand-christopher-hitchens-dies.html

The Long Slump

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 11:02:00 +0000

…Under the best of conditions, we will endure a Long Slump. If we respond incorrectly, as we have been, the Long Slump will last even longer, and the parallel with the Depression will take on a tragic new dimension…

– Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz

Goodbye, Jobs

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 00:05:00 +0000

I remember when Steve Jobs took all his Apple $$ and poured it into a little thing called Pixar. "Rich man's folly," I grumbled. Years later, he generated a boatload of buzz over something with the ridiculous name of iPod. "Stupid glorified MP3 player," I harrumped. Then the iPhone: "Christ, people, it's a goddamn CELL PHONE!" Finally, the iPad - "Dude, everyone's tried to launch a tablet. All have failed. You're different how?" A life well-lived, and cut short too soon. RIP, Jobs. (typed on my MacBook Pro ...)

Sunday morning haiku

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 12:44:00 +0000

Grey, dawn a ways off
Hens bounce up, down for breakfast
"BOK!" they insist. "BOK!"

Happy Labor Day

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 10:37:00 +0000

When I was a kid, my grandma put my hand on her head, under her hair, and I felt the lumps and scars. "The fookin' goons cracked my skull lotsa times," she said. And that's how I learned how my grandma stood with her sisters and helped organize the ILGWU. When that old "look for the union label" commercial came on, she would stand and sing along, hand over heart like she was singing the National Anthem.

Happy Labor Day, grandma. And a shout-out of solidarity to all those who labor.

SOUTH

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 15:51:00 +0000

Just finished reading "South: the story of Shackleton's 1914-1917 Expedition" on Kindle.

An amazing read, and a humbling one. A matter-of-fact description of the kind of heroism, loyalty and determination that we moderns, with our addiction to pointless luxury and gawking inactivity, can not even imagine, let alone hope to emulate. When did hardship become a horror to escape rather than a challenge to accept and overcome?

Genetics account for up to half of intelligence differences

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 12:35:00 +0000

Genetic differences between people account for up to half of the variation in intelligence, according to a University of Edinburgh study of more than 3,000 individuals.

Intelligence Tests Highlight Importance of Genetic Differences

"There is no longer a West .."

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 11:11:00 +0000

"The word "West" used to have a meaning. It described common goals and values, the dignity of democracy and justice over tyranny and despotism. Now it seems to be a thing of the past. There is no longer a West ..."

Once upon a time in the West

Race riot in Milwaukee

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 10:44:00 +0000

Back in a simpler time we called them "race riots." Not sure what we call them now; "unruly youths," I suppose. Our language has become riddled with cowardice.

"Witnesses' accounts claim everything from dozens to hundreds of young black people beating white people as they left State Fair Thursday night."

Witnesses describe mobs, some people claim racially-charged attacks

What the slave wants

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 19:00:00 +0000

“The true desire of the slave is not freedom, but rather that he and his slave master exchange places.” -- Franz Fanon

Where have these guys BEEN all my life???

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 18:59:00 +0000

By all the gods, this shook me to my roots. This should be it, the last song ever, the one you play as you sit in your favorite chair with a smoldering Cuban in one hand and a whiskey in the other hand ... waiting for the medicine to take its final hold.

Blood Axis, Vortex

No, not one jot!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 23:31:00 +0000

"Where will these millions of to-day be in a hundred years? Will not at least a result be left which those of a hundred years hence may be the better for? No, not one jot! There will not be any sum or outcome or result of this ceaseless labour and movement; it vanishes in the moment that it is done, and in a hundred years nothing will be there ... for nothing is there now." - Richard Jefferies

A nearly complete capitulation ...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 23:30:00 +0000

"... a nearly complete capitulation to the hostage-taking demands of Republican extremists. It will hurt programs for the middle class and poor, and hinder an economic recovery."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/opinion/to-escape-chaos-a-terrible-debt-deal.html?_r=2

Malcolm McLaren, dead at 64

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 13:22:00 +0000

Malcolm McLaren: impressario, fashion visionary, and general agent provocateur, dead way before his time. His fashion boutique was the seed from which the whole "punk look" emerged, not to mention the idea of piercing one's body parts. Before McLaren, only women got pierced, and then only once in each ear, for inserting a single pair of sensible and non-flamboyant earrings. So if you have any piercings of any kind (and I most definitely DO NOT WANT TO KNOW ABOUT IT if you do, thank you very much), you can thank Malcolm. He also kicked in the doors of the tedious, pointless disco era with a quartet of fresh-scrubbed, clean-minded lads known as the Sex Pistols. Whatever you may think of their music (and mind you, I'm a person who can play every verse of "Anarchy in the UK" in my head), they were total game-changers.

Johnny Rotten, speaking at McLaren's funeral, choked back tears as he so eloquently expressed what we all must be feeling:

"**** on you, ya ****in' utter ***t!!! I'm *****n' glad yer *****n' dead, so ******and don't forget to ***** while ya ****** yer ******** and
your Mum too, ya *****n' wanker!!!!'

(OK, I made up the Johnny Rotten paragraph. Couldn't resist .... ;-)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100408/en_nm/us_mclaren_2

Creepiest Childrens' Books Ever

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 18:50:00 +0000

This is some messed-up stuff right here. Thankfully, my mother chose to scar my psyche Olde Schoole Style, with endless readings of the anarchistic guerrilla-theater stylings of "The Cat in The Hat" and the bitter nihilism of "The Cat in The Hat Comes Back." I mean come on, seriously: a children's book called "Hair in Funny Places"? Really? Still, it sure beats #14 on the list, "I Wish Daddy Didn't Drink So Much." Hell, when I was growing up, we all kind of rooted for Daddy to drink his fill, he was more tolerable when he was three sheets to the wind. But I digress.

Creepiest Childrens Books

Does Jesus Cause Gayness?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 10:16:00 +0000

I'm really starting to wonder if there isn't some connection between ultra-conservative belief in Jesus and men who do all that there secret gay sex stuff. Could it be ... is it possible? ... OMFG!!! We finally know what causes gayness -- it's Jesus!!!

VATICAN CITY- One of Pope Benedict's ceremonial ushers and a member of an
elite choir in St Peter's Basilica have been implicated in a gay
prostitution ring, in the latest sexual scandal to taint the Vatican.

Read more:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2010/03/05/2010-03-05_gay_prostitution_scandal_rocks_the_vatican.html?ref=rss#ixzz0hMI43gTs

O Irony, is there no end to your endless array of manifestations?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:34:00 +0000

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/04/roy-ashburn-arrested-anti_n_485419.html

Early Wednesday morning, State Sen. Roy Ashburn (R-Calif.) was pulled over and arrested for drunk driving. Sources report that Ashburn -- a fierce opponent of gay rights -- was driving drunk after leaving a gay nightclub; when the officer stopped the state-issued vehicle, there was an unidentified man in the passenger seat of the car.

Good for the French

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:06:00 +0000

Given their tendency in recent decades towards that uniquely post-modern combination of strident relativism and knee-jerk anti-Westernism -- this is the country, after all, that has inflicted both Foucault and Derrida on the world -- it's good to see the French can still act in a way that suggests they may still possess some vestigial remnants of cultural sanity.

Veiled wife costs man French citizenship

Paris, France (CNN) -- France has denied citizenship to a man because he allegedly forced his wife to wear a full Islamic veil, the French immigration minister said in a statement Wednesday.

The ever-quotable Mark Twain

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 11:32:00 +0000

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it."

Mayor: gays don't get to go to heaven

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 00:01:00 +0000

Gay Americans, having been deprived of the spiritual consolation of standing around eternally singing Hosannas and Halleluhias to the bedouin sky god, are welcome to join me and mine in Tir na Nog, The Land of The Eternally Young. You basically get to spend eternity in feasting and merriment; good cheer, good company, stories, laughs, raucous debates and cheerful songs. Besides the finest of meats and cheeses, you get your choice of ale, mead, hard cider, or wine. No hangovers, guaranteed. And the Celts weren't particularly obsessed with a person's sexual persuasion, so there's no "purity test" to get in the door.

I'm hoping to get a payin' job there when I die. I'm thinking "court jester" would be a great fit.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_13908329

VALLEJO — Hundreds of people crowded the steps of Vallejo City Hall on Tuesday to protest a published comments by Mayor Osby Davis that gay people would not go to heaven.

Fox yells at employees for on-screen "mistakes"

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:00:00 +0000

It's just so darn cute the way that Fox is trying to make believe that all those on-screen screwups are accidents and not a clever way of shaping opinion in favor of their conservative POV. The latest faux pas (not mentioned in this article) was showing SC gov Mark ("the girl from Ipanema is my Soul Mate") Sanford as "D-SC", when of course he is an "R". They did the same thing with Mark Foley during the height of the Foley "trolling for teenage boys" scandal.

Fox isn't riddled with idiots who screw up all the time. On the contrary, Fox is the ultimate expression of the ability, given modern technology, to reinvent reality. They show massive crowds at a rally, and people think to themselves, "gee, there are a whole lot of people who think the same way I do!" They show Mark Foley as a "D" instead of an "R", and people think "golly, them liberal Dems just can't keep their hands off young boys, can they!" It's sleazy, it's despicable, but you really do need to take a moment, step back, and admire how good they are at manipulating reality, and how effective the results are.

http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/fox-news-threatens-pink-slips-for-on-screen-errors.php

After a rash of mistakes and apologies over the past weeks, Fox News has sent a memo to employees announcing a new "zero tolerance" policy for on-screen errors.

FishBowlDC obtained the memo, sent last Friday, which warns mistakes could lead to written warnings, suspensions and termination.

"Please know that jobs are on the line here. I can not stress that enough," the memo reads.

Fox has had three much-noticed errors in the past few weeks. First, Sean Hannity used misleading footage to beef up attendance numbers at a Capitol Hill tea party rally -- an incident that caught the attention of the Daily Show's Jon Stewart, forcing Hannity to apologize on air.

Then, last week, one of the midday news shows aired footage of an old Sarah Palin campaign rally to show the "crowds" at her current book tour. An anchor apologized a day later, and Fox blamed a "production error."

They're doing a remake of "The Prisoner"

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:30:00 +0000

What a horrible, horrible, horrible idea. Horrible. Some things are amenable to remakes. Some are not. "Citizen Kane" should never be remade. And neither should "The Prisoner". My dear old mom, who first turned me on to "The Prisoner" (and who sadistically refused to tell me who Number 1 really was, when I ran to the bathroom for a minute during the final episode and missed Number 1's climactic unmasking) must be spinning in her grave right now.

Did I mention that this is a horrible idea?

http://www.amctv.com/originals/the-prisoner/

I love me some North Carolina loonie politicians

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:53:00 +0000

This is what I enjoy about living in NC: when the politicians are loonies, they are REAL loonies. The genuine article, madder than General Jack D. Ripper, madder than "Mad Jack" McMad, winner of last year's Mister Madman competition.

http://www.georgehutchins.com/
First offering for your delectation: George Hutchins, who's running against David Price for his congressional seat (which covers Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, etc). Note well the flamboyant and unrestrained use of color and, well, just "stuff" that gives his web site that certain je ne sais quoi that just screams "he's mad as a balloon!" Looks like the web page designer got his mitts on the Big Boy box of Crayolas when mommy's back was turned. The guy's politics don't matter; all sane people are morally obligated to vote against him on purely esthetic grounds.

http://mediamattersaction.org/blog/200911020003
And in this corner, we have long-time Uber-loonie Rep Virginia Foxx (R-NC), who states -- with nary a hint of irony (or goldy or bronzey, for that matter) -- "I believe we have more to fear from the potential of that bill passing than we do from any terrorist right now in any country." If she doesn't get mad loonie props for that, then she should definitely get some for using the word "tarbaby" in an earlier public speech on the floor of Congress.

This is the kind of stuff that makes it worth dragging my butt out of bed in the morning.

Samhainophobia

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 10:04:00 +0000

"Samhainophobia". Apparently it's a real phobia, an irrational fear of Halloween. Me, I've got filthylittlebeggarphobia, an irrational fear of costumed rugrats showing up at my door and demanding "treats" consisting of simple carbohyrates and trans fats in that eerie, high-pitched little voice that they have. In years gone by, I would issue the command "Release The Hounds", who would then run the little monsters off. With the dogs all dead, I'm now reduced to commanding "Release The Kittehs", which doesn't seem to have the same salutory effect.

>>>
Samhainophobia is an intense and persistent fear of Halloween that can
cause panic attacks in sufferers. Other relevant phobias for this time
of year: wiccaphobia (fear of witches), phasmophobia (fear of ghosts),
and coimetrophobia (fear of cemeteries).

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/30/the-history-of-halloween_n_321021.html