(no subject)
Mar. 21st, 2013 03:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwydion* Our President is touring the Middle East. Various people are speculating about various things. I'm not going to.
* Republicans keep saying that the government "should be run like a business." 1. No it shouldn't. Most big business is run to make a handful of rich people richer; the point of government is to look after the greater good. These are nearly always mutually exclusive goals. 2. If you told a business, any business, that they could borrow unlimited money at 2% interest or less, which is well below inflation, they would borrow a ton of money and expand, employing more people, upgrading facilities, investing in R&D, buying more buildings in new locations. The Republicans say that the government should ignore the opportunity and fire people etc.. Looks pretty bullshit to me. 3. In this case, run like a business has the rare opportunity to also serve the greater good by actually helping the economy and infesting in our future. Since doing the opposite of what's good for the country trumps all over ideological points n Republican policy, they are throwing out what they claim is a core principal, the one time it actually makes sense. Sigh.
* Dianne Feinstein is not giving up on the assault weapons ban despite Harry Reid's lack of spine. She's on my short list of politicians who actually stand for something positive. Good luck to her and her allies.
* It turns out there was plenty of evidence in the murder of a black man in Mississippi three years ago, but the sheriff's department ignored it:
* "Steubenville: this is rape culture's Abu Ghraib moment:" http://www.newstatesman.com/laurie-penny/2013/03/steubenville-rape-cultures-abu-ghraib-moment
* "An open letter to "Jane Doe" of Steubenville, Ohio - "You're not alone."" http://samurai-ko.livejournal.com/421334.html?view=973014
* Greenwick found, "What social progress looks like:" http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/19/17370605-what-social-progress-looks-like?lite
* "City Council Member Who Wants Prayer at Meetings: ‘This is a Government Institution, Not a Secular Institution’:"
* "Gay Inc Orgs, When Are You Going To Start Hiring Us?" http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/03/11/city-council-member-who-wants-prayer-at-meetings-this-is-a-government-institution-not-a-secular-institution/
Every time the HRC contacts me to beg for money, I politely but firmly tell them I won't support them until they decide that Trans folk are humans and thus deserving rights.
* I finally got around to seeing "Rock of Ages." It's a bit of a mess as a film. It's just interesting enough to keep watching, but boring enough my thoughts keep wandering. What occurred to me watching it was that in all it's nostaligia it misses the tone of the 80's, the way it really felt to live them. After all, AIDS and Ronald Reagan hung over us all, and there was a perpetual "last party at the end of the world" feel to everything, the special sort of frenetic activity you get when a generation is pretty convinced it will never live to be old. For all that the music is right and the fashions familiar, those aren't my '80's. It's too innocent and bright, if that makes sense. I suspect that much be how the 50's nostalgia of the '70's looked to my parents generation. I mean the 1950's were terrible, all that violence and oppression, lynchings and sexism and witch hunts of homosexuals and communists. How could anyone be nostalgic for that? As much as I love asymmetrical haircuts and some of the styles of the '80's, I don't want the '80's back. I don't want the plague burning through Broadway and the cities like a fire consuming any one beautiful and free. I don't want back the constant threat of the world being burned to a cinder in a game of chicken. It horrifies me that we have learned so little about the damage supply side economics did and continues to do to our country, and that will still let greedy old white men run our health care policy under the belief that everyone but them deserves to die. Much as I loved having sex pretty much on demand, I do not want the '80's back. No, I really don't.
* Game of Thrones Season 3 - "Princess Bride Promo"
* Messe Kopp - Forward
* Republicans keep saying that the government "should be run like a business." 1. No it shouldn't. Most big business is run to make a handful of rich people richer; the point of government is to look after the greater good. These are nearly always mutually exclusive goals. 2. If you told a business, any business, that they could borrow unlimited money at 2% interest or less, which is well below inflation, they would borrow a ton of money and expand, employing more people, upgrading facilities, investing in R&D, buying more buildings in new locations. The Republicans say that the government should ignore the opportunity and fire people etc.. Looks pretty bullshit to me. 3. In this case, run like a business has the rare opportunity to also serve the greater good by actually helping the economy and infesting in our future. Since doing the opposite of what's good for the country trumps all over ideological points n Republican policy, they are throwing out what they claim is a core principal, the one time it actually makes sense. Sigh.
* Dianne Feinstein is not giving up on the assault weapons ban despite Harry Reid's lack of spine. She's on my short list of politicians who actually stand for something positive. Good luck to her and her allies.
* It turns out there was plenty of evidence in the murder of a black man in Mississippi three years ago, but the sheriff's department ignored it:
* "Steubenville: this is rape culture's Abu Ghraib moment:" http://www.newstatesman.com/laurie-penny/2013/03/steubenville-rape-cultures-abu-ghraib-moment
* "An open letter to "Jane Doe" of Steubenville, Ohio - "You're not alone."" http://samurai-ko.livejournal.com/421334.html?view=973014
* Greenwick found, "What social progress looks like:" http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/19/17370605-what-social-progress-looks-like?lite
* "City Council Member Who Wants Prayer at Meetings: ‘This is a Government Institution, Not a Secular Institution’:"
* "Gay Inc Orgs, When Are You Going To Start Hiring Us?" http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/03/11/city-council-member-who-wants-prayer-at-meetings-this-is-a-government-institution-not-a-secular-institution/
Every time the HRC contacts me to beg for money, I politely but firmly tell them I won't support them until they decide that Trans folk are humans and thus deserving rights.
* I finally got around to seeing "Rock of Ages." It's a bit of a mess as a film. It's just interesting enough to keep watching, but boring enough my thoughts keep wandering. What occurred to me watching it was that in all it's nostaligia it misses the tone of the 80's, the way it really felt to live them. After all, AIDS and Ronald Reagan hung over us all, and there was a perpetual "last party at the end of the world" feel to everything, the special sort of frenetic activity you get when a generation is pretty convinced it will never live to be old. For all that the music is right and the fashions familiar, those aren't my '80's. It's too innocent and bright, if that makes sense. I suspect that much be how the 50's nostalgia of the '70's looked to my parents generation. I mean the 1950's were terrible, all that violence and oppression, lynchings and sexism and witch hunts of homosexuals and communists. How could anyone be nostalgic for that? As much as I love asymmetrical haircuts and some of the styles of the '80's, I don't want the '80's back. I don't want the plague burning through Broadway and the cities like a fire consuming any one beautiful and free. I don't want back the constant threat of the world being burned to a cinder in a game of chicken. It horrifies me that we have learned so little about the damage supply side economics did and continues to do to our country, and that will still let greedy old white men run our health care policy under the belief that everyone but them deserves to die. Much as I loved having sex pretty much on demand, I do not want the '80's back. No, I really don't.
* Game of Thrones Season 3 - "Princess Bride Promo"
* Messe Kopp - Forward