Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Every few months or so, someone will say a word or two audibly, or perhaps type in a comment to the same effect, in an effort to propound a feeling of futility with regard to blogging. Sometimes it’s an innocuous question, but the message is always the same and it isn’t being put just to me. Something in the universe, some entity or construct vague and undefined, is unsettled and in an unsatisfactory state when I have my say, and if I shut up, then something vague and undefined is then, somehow, made good and right.
I don’t know for sure what drives this, because such critics won’t define what they seek to leave undefined. In fact, that appears to be the focus of their criticism; they like seeing things continue to be undefined. So that’s my best idea: They come from a world in which, when definition is likely to lead to conflict, it is better to avoid the definition and therefore the conflict. They are anti-Pragers, in other words; they’d rather have agreement than clarity.
Leaving aside the obvious question — “what good is the action of agreement, if you don’t know what the contents are?” — I cannot help but wonder where freedom fits into it. The man who values clarity over agreement, can be said to value clarity and freedom over agreement. Can the same be said of the man who values agreement over clarity? In that conflict, can freedom take the side of agreement? Can it be opposed to clarity? It is difficult to see how. One cannot expect to remain free for very long, extending agreement and the obligation that goes along with that agreement, to undefined covenants.
Some of our leftists insist the rest of us think of the attack on Glenn Beck’s family as an isolated incident, one that is not emblematic in any way of leftism or what it does to the soul. They are not willing, I notice, to even superficially engage in any behavior that would motivate an abandonment of the stereotype. They won’t scold their fellow leftists, they won’t call for the perpetrators to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, they won’t confront the legacy of thuggery that is interwoven with the history of organized labor, they won’t look within, they won’t have the same “national dialogue” on leftist strong-arm tactics they routinely insist the rest of the country should have about gender or race. They just want everybody else to stop — period. Don’t think thoughts that obstruct the progressive agenda, even if those thoughts are based on facts that are proven accurate.
What if someone from the right, or maybe from the Tea Party, engages in physical violence in this way? If & when such a thing takes place, it isn’t everybody-else’s-fault. I expect to see one statement after another after another, to the effect of “we can’t have this” or “we cannot be defined through deplorable acts like this.” The people noticing the thuggish behavior, and coming to their own conclusions that derogate the Tea Party movement, would be just natural occurrences — something to be expected. But when the left grapples with the same awkwardness, it’s the fault of the people who do the noticing. That’s what has to be stopped. The thuggish behavior, in turn, is what is natural and is to be expected. Stopping it would be like stopping the wind or the tides. I find that interesting.
You know, perhaps they do have a point. The left in this country is not trying to attack anything that is meaningful to us, important to our way of life…nothing really sacred. Just expendable, trivial, throw-away items. The authority of the individual to live life as he sees fit, religion and the culture that goes with it, lives of babies, sexual innocence of children, wages and the unique specialties that earn them, profits that come from the risk of our capital, motherhood, fatherhood, chivalry and the obligation to protect women, the duty to confront evil, international borders, the God-given right to self-defense, and the love of the country that has made it possible for us to survive, prosper and pursue the continuing betterment of ourselves.
Just a bunch of miscellaneous stuff like that. The really important things, they’ve left alone. So they’re not really all that bad.
But seriously, let’s get down to brass tacks on this “don’t point that out” stuff: People who have chosen not to take a stand, do not have neutral feelings toward others who decide to take the same stand. It’s no different from stopping a mugging, or helping to put out a house fire. You decide to mind your own business, someone else decides to do it differently — he makes you look bad, and you hate him for it. One crab refuses to let another crab crawl out of the bucket.
No, I don’t think it’s any more complicated than that.
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Hadn’t heard about the Beck incident. I did a search and found a letter to an editor supposedly from a friend of the wine spiller who said she was there. I don’t doubt that it actually was from a person who was there with the wine-spiller.
In it, it is claimed that the spilling was completely accidental. Maybe it was. On the other hand, I have no more reason to believe her than Beck. And while Beck may have misinterpreted it if it were accidental, it is just as easy to believe that the people involved if it weren’t were so embarrased that it went out to a national audience that they felt the need to completely deny it.
As I said, Glenn may indeed have misinterpreted the wine spillage in the context of the attitude of the crowd “We hate conservatives here”, and so on … Still, I think Lindsey reveals herself in her denial I can assure you that it was a complete accident. A happy one, to be sure
I kind of enjoyed this guy’s response.
Note the bit about the bad poetry. I tried to find some of it from a bio link here, but the “poetry” was gone.
Did find a blog post here where she complains about legislation banning short-term rentals (I actually agree with her on the property rights end of things) sh confuses a “right” with a “rite” (or does she? The ability to switch things up is a right of passage for New Yorkers, like the unlimited metrocard or a cold combo at Katz’s Deli. We’re a city that thrives on uncertainty and creativity, and like Basquiat or Maplethorpe [ed.. much of his work is too obscene to link] or Patti Smith, it’s imperative that we pursue our interests atypically and free, the possibility of becoming unhinged at any moment not only anticipated but welcome. Right now, vacant condos in Williamsburg and gallery lofts in Bushwick are being populated by likeminded twenty or thirtysomething squatters hoping to carve a much sought-after place for themselves in the New York culture cannon. Doing so often requires odd hours in strange spaces, for undefined periods of time.
Of course I know what the local New Yorkers … you know, the ones who pushed to get the law passed were trying to accomplish. To keep these “artists” and their presumptuous attitude that they somehow have a right to bug the snot out of working people because they’re “creative” — such as doing cartwheels and other acrobatics in a crowded space at a park concert — but more to the point to attempt to ameliorate their city from the filth and decay and drugs (check out that Basqiat guy … died of a heroin overdose at 27) of people who have no stake in keeping up their living quarters or being good neighbors or members of the community. They think they have a right to shelter because New York is all about them.
Apparently New York voters disagree.
- philmon | 06/29/2011 @ 08:36Oh, The Blaze has more about the “wine spiller” … from Lindsay’s Twitter account.
I think I like twitter. It helps catch twits when they try to present two different stories to their friends and to the rest of the world.
- philmon | 06/29/2011 @ 12:01What did you call that kid in class, or in the locker room, who’d look — one time, two times, three times, really quickly — to make sure the teacher wasn’t watching, then throw something, then angle his body away so he could pretend he was just minding his own business…oh so sincerely tell the authority figures he knew nothing about it and had NO idea what was going on?
Yeah, that’s right, we had a special word for this. Bullies.
- mkfreeberg | 06/29/2011 @ 12:31I turned it into a full blown blather on my blog. Yeah, like I didn’t make a good run at it here this morning 😉
- philmon | 06/29/2011 @ 13:03[…] mean, the entire column would win, but in particular, I’d like to highlight this gem from Morgan K Freeberg: People who have […]
- If I gave out Quotes of the Day, this would win it | Blog of the Nightfly | 06/29/2011 @ 13:11