Question of the Week: September 8, 2015

Posted on September 8, 2015 by Gene Howington

The Constitution is quite clear. Article VI, paragraph 3, states that:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis was not required to take a religious test to take office as an officer of the court. Yet she seems to be under the impression it is permissible to impose her religious beliefs upon the citizens who elected her to office because her beliefs disagree with the law of the land as promulgated by the Supreme Court. This illustrates several legal principles in action, but perhaps none more so than the concept that “your rights end where others rights begin”. She is currently in jail for contempt of court and one can reasonably expect she will remain there until she either complies with the law or resigns her office.

Posted in Equal Rights, Hypocrisy, Polls, Question of the Week | 55 Comments

Word Cloud: SUBVERSIVE

Posted on September 4, 2015 by wordcloud9

Word Cloud Resized

BY NONA BLYTH CLOUD

Whenever a small group hungers for power over a larger group, the weapons they use are the same:  Terror and Guile.

The larger the target area in geography, the greater the population, the more Guile must be the weapon of choice.  Rhetoric and Dogma are smoke-screens of Guile – rarely, the lust for power drives a Power Seeker mad – but overwhelmingly Power Seekers have no belief in the politics or religion they espouse, and will revise or jettison a set of beliefs that fails to get them what they want.

Items high on any successful Power Seeker’s check list:  Control of the Media and of Education. Freedom of the Press is not merely an ideal of democracy, it is a primary requirement. Enslaved peoples are always denied education – they are trained, not taught – a most important distinction.

But once a person can read, they have in their hands a great weapon in the struggle to become or remain Free.

All of the Arts are acts of rebellion. They kindle self-awareness and curiosity.  Power-Seekers rightly distrust the Arts. They stop Arts programs in schools, cut government subsidies to the Arts, they forbid music and dancing, they destroy or subvert cultural treasures, but they spend fortunes to own Art, or they steal it outright. If they own it, they believe they control it.

The Guile of the Power Seekers can be undermined by Ridicule. It is hard to control people who see through your propaganda. The Emperor Has No Clothes. Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain. A ridiculous enemy is much less frightening, which diminishes their power. Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Education, Poetry, Society, Word Cloud | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

By Grabthar’s hamster, will no one rid us of this troublesome publicity?

Posted on September 3, 2015 by ann li-summers

By ann summers (née Puffball Petrovsky)

There’s no such thing as a bad persecution for Ted Cruz. As much as one may try any publicity whether organized PR or not, it may have long-lasting intended and unintended consequences. Apparently the Rowan County (KY) Clerk was jailed and not fined because of the potential of crowdsourcing to pay a financial penalty for not doing her job. And like being plucked from so many Schwab’s Drugstore counters like Lana Turner, or John McCain’s 2008 “Hail Mary” choice of VP, makeovers and speaking engagements might result because of the curse of all PR is good PR. Will Kim Davis have her Lester Maddox Cain-raisin moment in the sun.

After the movie Borat made relentless fun of the nation of Kazakhstan, Hotels.com reported a 300% increase in requests for information about the country, and a wine described as “redolent of stinky socks” by a prominent website saw its sales increase by 5%.

Five of Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis’ deputy clerks have said they are willing to issue marriage licenses. Judge David Bunning said that would purge the contempt charge against Davis.

————

Continue reading →

Posted in Celebrity, Christianity, Conservatives, Constitutional Law, Courts, Democracy | Tagged | 17 Comments

Scott Walker favors a complete Canadian Border wall, what could it look like and would ex-Stasi get H-1B visas

Posted on August 30, 2015 by ann li-summers

By ann summers

Scott Walker has supported the idea of a complete Canadian Border wall reminiscent of East Germany, so what could it look like and are the Koch Brothers willing to pay for it or would gastarbeiten or braceros be needed? Would we all sniff a nativist line of the Great Wall of Koch, knowing that “The U.S.-Canada boundary is the longest international border in the world at 8,891 kilometres.” OTOH it could be sub-contracted to the Saudis who are also worried about their northern border with Iraq.


click on image to enlarge


Walker was asked Sunday morning on NBC’s Meet the Press whether he wanted to build a wall on the northern border, too. Walker said some people in New Hampshire have asked the campaign about the topic.

 

Continue reading →

Posted in Campaign Finance, Capitalism, Conservatives, Countries, Democracy | Tagged | 7 Comments

The Triumph of the Nanny-State: Lock-down those classrooms or I’ll hit you with my heroic lunch-box

Posted on August 28, 2015 by ann li-summers

By ann summers

“We wanted to nip the problem in the bud,” (1990)


A Second Grader in Widefield, CO, was subjected to investigation and evaluation after he responded to an assignment as to what he saw in the clouds by drawing a gun. (2014)



Equipping teachers with firearms is simply not enough, the banking theory of education, like any McDuck money-bin needs to protect k-12 human capital from dangerous thoughts and even worse images because media effects on (pollo) loco parentis.

Continue reading →

Posted in American History, Animation, Art, Capitalism, Celebrity, Civil Liberties, Conservatives, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Democracy, Education | Tagged | 8 Comments

Word Cloud: ANONYMOUS

Posted on August 27, 2015 by wordcloud9

by Nona Blyth CloudWord Cloud Resized

Anonymous is an Afghan woman.

I write blogs for different groups, and sometimes research for one turns into material for another. In this case, a news story found for a “War on Women” diary:

Love, Poetry and War: the Afghan Women Risking All for Verse
Sahira Sharif, Founder of Mirman Baheer,
Afghanistan’s largest women’s literary society
will be speaking at International Poetry Festival in London this year
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/06/love-poetry-and-war-the-afghan-women-risking-all-for-verse

so intrigued me, I bought a book mentioned in the article.

The landays of the women of the Pashtun, a tribal people living in the borderlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan, are two-line poems. This ancient oral art form is meant to be chanted or sung, often while beating a hand drum. It is almost exclusively an art made by women.

The poets stay anonymous, so they are free to say whatever they think or feel.

I Am the Beggar of the World bkcoverWhen the Taliban tried to ban music in Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, they included landays. In some places, bans against them remain in force, but the landays have never stopped.

Eliza Griswold is a journalist who is also a poet, and she has covered the war in Afghanistan with photographer Seamus Murphy. They’ve combined her English translations of the landays she collected, sometimes in risky situations, and his striking black-and-white photographs in a book called I Am the Beggar of the World.

The impetus for the book was the suicide of a teen-aged girl, connected to the Mirman Baheer poetry society by listening to radio broadcasts of poetry, and calling in on their poetry hotline. When her brothers discovered her writing poetry, they beat her badly. Her father destroyed her notebook. She was already at risk because her family had forbidden her long-arranged marriage to her cousin when his father died and he could no longer pay the volver, the bride price. Heart-broken and defiant, she set herself on fire, and died in the hospital shortly after a final call to the poetry hotline. Her poems died with her.

Continue reading →

Posted in Afghanistan, Poetry, Word Cloud | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

What is a Democratic Socialist?

Posted on August 27, 2015 by Gene Howington
Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders

Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders

One of the running conversations here that carried over from that other place is between me, Bron and the other participants here trying to explain to him what socialism, and in particular democratic socialism, means. It is a fun interaction in no small part because Bron has some really hilarious definitions he works from and can be obstinate as a chunk of granite, but that is itself no small part of why we love him so. However, democratic socialism is not what most people think. The word “socialism” itself has become so value-loaded and demonized in American culture since the days of the Cold War that unless you have a legal and/or political science background, few know what it is and falsely equate it to communism or fascism. While it is neither of those forms, the mistake is easy enough to make as both of those dismal forms have varying degrees of managed economies and a managed economy is a salient feature of all forms of socialism. Not all forms of socialism are created equal either. Some are just as destructive as communism or fascism or laissez-faire capitalism albeit for differing reasons. Democratic socialism is its own creature, a creature with a successful track record in some very robust Western nations. The really important part of the term is “democratic”. The economy of a democratic socialist country is managed to the benefit of the demos – the people. As in all of them and not just those throwing the most money at candidates or legal fictions pretending to be real people doing the same.

Let’s hear what the latest candidate “accused” of that nasty ol’ socialism, Sen. Bernie Sanders, has to say about it. Speaking to Ezra Klein at Vox, the Presidential candidate gave his definition. To wit, he said the following . . .

Continue reading →

Posted in 2016 Election, Political Science, Socialism | Tagged , | 37 Comments

Question of the Week: August 24, 2015

Posted on August 25, 2015 by Gene Howington

According to AP:

“Ferguson Municipal Court Judge Donald McCullin issued an order on Monday that attempts to address some of the damage caused by St. Louis County’s practice of issuing arrest warrants and harsh penalties for minor violations, a revenue-driven approach the Department of Justice criticized in a March report. ”

This is a highly unusual action by the judiciary to remedy systemic abuses by law enforcement.

Posted in Polls, Question of the Week | 19 Comments

Iconoclastically applying Mary’s geologist handle to The Donald

Posted on August 24, 2015 by ann li-summers

By ann summers

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump greets supporters after his rally at Ladd-Peebles Stadium on August 21, 2015 in Mobile, Alabama. The Trump campaign moved tonight's rally to a larger stadium to accommodate demand. (Photo by Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images)

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump greets supporters after his rally at Ladd-Peebles Stadium on August 21, 2015 in Mobile, Alabama. The Trump campaign moved tonight’s rally to a larger stadium to accommodate demand. (Photo by Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images)

Continue reading →

Posted in American History, Campaign Finance, Capitalism, Celebrity, Christianity, Conservatives, Democracy | Tagged | 23 Comments

Pilot saves lives by riding his plane into the ground instead of ejecting.

Posted on August 22, 2015 by Chuck Stanley

by Chuck Stanley

There was a crash with fatalities at the Shoreham Airshow in West Sussex, England Saturday afternoon. A Hawker Hunter jet fighter was performing a loop, when it did not recover at the bottom of the loop.

Hawker Hunter in RAF markings

Hawker Hunter in RAF markings

The Hawker Hunter is a first generation jet fighter designed and built in England shortly after WW2. It was operational by the RAF in the 1950s and 1960s. The RAF retired the Hunter from combat roles in the mid-1970s, although some two-seat models remained in service as trainers. Hunters were also used as one of the first military airshow display teams, such as the RAF “Black Diamonds.” The RAF finally retired the last variant of this sturdy little jet fighter in the mid-1990s as a result of the end of the cold war.

A number of airworthy examples still exist, some in private hands, and some by the air forces of small nations.

At about 1:20 PM local time (13:20 Zulu) Saturday, a Hawker Hunter T.Mk.7 crashed and burned during the Shoreham Airshow in West Sussex, England.

Continue reading →

Posted in Airshow, Aviation, England | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments