Why the constant rash of demands for apology? It should be unnecessary to give examples, just tune in any news channel, any day of the week. The political candidates are constantly spouting accusations, then indignantly demanding apologies when they are accused. As a result, a certain paranoia has crept in, whereby some persons and entites are almost in a pre-apology mode. I expect any day that I will begin hearing disclaimers before any public statement, and perhaps even placards on many buildings, that "I/We hereby apologize for anything we may have done, are doing today, or may do in future that is perceived as offensive to any individual or group, of whatever species or planetary origin."
It would be funnier if it were more absurd, and not coming to be seen as just part of a day at the office.....
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
Guilt by Association?
Every time I make a resolution that I'm not going to comment on the campaign circus.....well, there I go again. Allowing for the fact that I'm not a fan of anyone currently running for President, or in the current ugliness, POTUS, I fail to understand the flap over Barack Obama's minister. As it is being currently disucssed, if any evidence whatever comes to light that Mr. Obama has been in the church and heard so much as a word of any of Rev. Wright's "extreme" sermons, then he is somehow indicted and ruined as a candidate. OK, OK, maybe it's just another one of those things that lets people say "-well, he lied about it," but that's not really the important thing, at least not to me.
It seems to me that this is a classic case of guilt by association. It is as if I was permanently and irreparably damaged at some time in the past because I:
1. Listened to some sermon in church attacking abortion (or Masons). As a Catholic, this was/is practically inevitable, so I'm assuming this has occurred, although I have no specific memory of it. This, of course, means nothing, as it may all be repressed and just waiting to come out.
2. Watched Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will (as I've said before, if you don't know what this is, toddle over to Google), which is so compelling that watching even a few minutes (out of your peripheral vision, while talking on the phone, drinking a beer, and being hit on the head) is bound to make me some kind of closet Nazi.
3. Listening to a speech by any of our Great Communicators (was that FDR, or JFK, maybe Ronnie Reagan or Slick Willie or......), which by this theory means whichever one I listened to first permanently infected me with his ideas, like a virus, and no matter what I think I think, oh, no, boyo, you're that, and forever.
We are therefore contaminated by the very "diversity" of our lives. By this theory we're all dirty, of course, and permanently screwed. When the campaign moves into the Trunks vs. Donks proper, I can't wait until whichever of the Democratic candidates is nominated accuses John McCain of being a latter day Laurence Harvey in The Manchurian Candidate. He was obviously brainwashed into a deep mole during his stay in the Hanoi Hilton, and so how could you ever vote for.......exactly the same sort of thing that person or persons unknown are trying to do now by smearing Barack Obama with the brush of Rev. Wright.
But you get the idea. Unfortunately.
It seems to me that this is a classic case of guilt by association. It is as if I was permanently and irreparably damaged at some time in the past because I:
1. Listened to some sermon in church attacking abortion (or Masons). As a Catholic, this was/is practically inevitable, so I'm assuming this has occurred, although I have no specific memory of it. This, of course, means nothing, as it may all be repressed and just waiting to come out.
2. Watched Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will (as I've said before, if you don't know what this is, toddle over to Google), which is so compelling that watching even a few minutes (out of your peripheral vision, while talking on the phone, drinking a beer, and being hit on the head) is bound to make me some kind of closet Nazi.
3. Listening to a speech by any of our Great Communicators (was that FDR, or JFK, maybe Ronnie Reagan or Slick Willie or......), which by this theory means whichever one I listened to first permanently infected me with his ideas, like a virus, and no matter what I think I think, oh, no, boyo, you're that, and forever.
We are therefore contaminated by the very "diversity" of our lives. By this theory we're all dirty, of course, and permanently screwed. When the campaign moves into the Trunks vs. Donks proper, I can't wait until whichever of the Democratic candidates is nominated accuses John McCain of being a latter day Laurence Harvey in The Manchurian Candidate. He was obviously brainwashed into a deep mole during his stay in the Hanoi Hilton, and so how could you ever vote for.......exactly the same sort of thing that person or persons unknown are trying to do now by smearing Barack Obama with the brush of Rev. Wright.
But you get the idea. Unfortunately.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
If People Can't Communicate.....
"People who cannot distinguish between good and bad language, or who regard the distinction as unimportant, are unlikely to think carefully about anything else."
- B.R. Myers, "Keeping a Civil Tongue," The Atlantic, April 2008
- B.R. Myers, "Keeping a Civil Tongue," The Atlantic, April 2008
Saturday, March 8, 2008
My Brewing Skills
Homebrewing is an underrated activity. It's just another form of cooking, basically, with enough lab sanitizing procedures thrown in to create flashbacks to my blithe college daze in bac-T lab. With a little care, and the sources of ingredients available on the Internet, it's possible to produce quite a palatable product. So far, we're drinking a Copper Ale (something like a Killian's or a Leinenkugel Red, but better than either), an Octane IPA -not too heavy on the hops- and a Lemon Coriander Weiss, which is a crisp product that goes well with lunch or in the middle of the day.
I bottled a Power Pack Porter on Wednesday, and will rack a batch of Amarillo Ale today (I'm not that sure how this one will turn out, except that it should be in the Pale Ale category). I still have 5 gallons of Noble Trappist Ale maturing in a secondary fermentation vessel. I'll leave it in there about two months, and bottle the first week of April......should be drinking it by mid-summer.
It's more fun to drink something you've made yourself.
I bottled a Power Pack Porter on Wednesday, and will rack a batch of Amarillo Ale today (I'm not that sure how this one will turn out, except that it should be in the Pale Ale category). I still have 5 gallons of Noble Trappist Ale maturing in a secondary fermentation vessel. I'll leave it in there about two months, and bottle the first week of April......should be drinking it by mid-summer.
It's more fun to drink something you've made yourself.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Too Busy to Blog
Whoo- a whole month without posting. A lot of family events, a lot of driving, a lot of dirty weather. The details don't matter; it was February, which should suffice. To save time, I might quote from William H. Gass' In the Heart of the Heart of the Country:
"For we're always out of luck here. That's just how it is— for instance in the winter. The sides of the buildings, the roofs, the limbs of the trees are gray. Streets, sidewalks, faces, feelings— they are gray. Speech is gray, and the grass where it shows. Every flank and front, each top is gray. Everything is gray: hair, eyes, window glass, the hawkers' bills and touters' posters, lips, teeth, poles, and metal signs— they're gray, quite gray. Cars are gray. Boots, shoes, suits, hats, gloves are gray. Horses, sheep, cows, cats killed in the road, squirrels in the same way, sparrows, doves, and pigeons, all are gray, everything is gray, and everyone is out of luck who lives here."
ITHOTHOTC- p. 199
"For we're always out of luck here. That's just how it is— for instance in the winter. The sides of the buildings, the roofs, the limbs of the trees are gray. Streets, sidewalks, faces, feelings— they are gray. Speech is gray, and the grass where it shows. Every flank and front, each top is gray. Everything is gray: hair, eyes, window glass, the hawkers' bills and touters' posters, lips, teeth, poles, and metal signs— they're gray, quite gray. Cars are gray. Boots, shoes, suits, hats, gloves are gray. Horses, sheep, cows, cats killed in the road, squirrels in the same way, sparrows, doves, and pigeons, all are gray, everything is gray, and everyone is out of luck who lives here."
ITHOTHOTC- p. 199
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Isn't that Special?
Yet another badly conceived idea.....and from the same Democratic Party that spent much time screaming at the last election that all electronic balloting methods, or anything that didn't leave a paper trail, was being used to cheat them. Now we have Internet voting, from that same source, even more unproven and risky than Diebold machines or whatever. From "hanging chad" to off the deep end, in only 8 years.....
I reflect, however, that this is consistent with a philosophy that any votes, from whatever source, are valid and desirable, be it (as the article relates) from some hacker in Eastern Europe, the tombstones in the graveyards of Chicago, etc.
I reflect, however, that this is consistent with a philosophy that any votes, from whatever source, are valid and desirable, be it (as the article relates) from some hacker in Eastern Europe, the tombstones in the graveyards of Chicago, etc.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Yeah, this is pretty much it. Get over it.
Cf: the neverending national pastime among some people of blaming George W. Bush for everything from the War in Iraq to fallen arches, I found this post on Peeve Farm, which is usually worth visiting....and the comments contained this quote from Parliament of Whores, by P. J. O'Rourke, which is even more basic and to the point:
"We treat the president of the United States with awe. We impute to him remarkable powers. We divine things by his smallest gestures. We believe he has the capacity to destroy the very earth, and - by vigorous perusal of sound economic policy - to make the land fruitful and all our endeavors prosperous. We beseech him for aid and comfort in our every distress and believe him capable of granting any boon or favor.
The type is recognizable to even a casual student of mythology. The president is not an ordinary politician trying to conduct the affairs of state as best he can. He is a divine priest-king. And we Americans worship our state avatar devoutly. That is, we do until he shows any sign of weakness, and disability, as it were. Sir James Frazer, in The Golden Bough, said: "Primitive peoples... believe that their safety and even that of the world is bound up with the life of one of these god-men... Naturally, therefore, they take the utmost care of his life... But no amount of care and precaution will prevent the man-god from growing old and feeble... There is only one way of averting these dangers. The man-god must be killed." Thus in our brief national history we have shot four of our presidents, worried five of them to death, impeached one and hounded another out of office. And when all else fails, we hold an election and assassinate their character."
This is the real point, which means all the Bush-bashing is, and always has been, hot air and irrelevant. Even absent belief in this, he's made his last State of the Union. He's a lame duck. None of it matters any more, even if some believe he's Beelzebub, and Cheney is Mephistopheles, or whatever. Just drop it.
"We treat the president of the United States with awe. We impute to him remarkable powers. We divine things by his smallest gestures. We believe he has the capacity to destroy the very earth, and - by vigorous perusal of sound economic policy - to make the land fruitful and all our endeavors prosperous. We beseech him for aid and comfort in our every distress and believe him capable of granting any boon or favor.
The type is recognizable to even a casual student of mythology. The president is not an ordinary politician trying to conduct the affairs of state as best he can. He is a divine priest-king. And we Americans worship our state avatar devoutly. That is, we do until he shows any sign of weakness, and disability, as it were. Sir James Frazer, in The Golden Bough, said: "Primitive peoples... believe that their safety and even that of the world is bound up with the life of one of these god-men... Naturally, therefore, they take the utmost care of his life... But no amount of care and precaution will prevent the man-god from growing old and feeble... There is only one way of averting these dangers. The man-god must be killed." Thus in our brief national history we have shot four of our presidents, worried five of them to death, impeached one and hounded another out of office. And when all else fails, we hold an election and assassinate their character."
This is the real point, which means all the Bush-bashing is, and always has been, hot air and irrelevant. Even absent belief in this, he's made his last State of the Union. He's a lame duck. None of it matters any more, even if some believe he's Beelzebub, and Cheney is Mephistopheles, or whatever. Just drop it.
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