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...
ca∙boo∙si∙fy (v.):
To kill off a designated individual, demographic class, business endeavor or political ideology, slowly, by sequentializing it behind a bunch of other trivial stuff and ahead of absolutely nothing.
In such a strategy, the plausible deniability involved is just as important as the eventual outcome. The tactics are achieved incrementally. On any occasion where it is seen that the target requires (or may require) a resource, something else is argued to be in conflict with that resource and, for one nagging reason or another, sporting a superior claim to the resource.
The caboosifier is identified easily but only to those who take the time to diligently inspect. He is the one who consistently argues the designated target should take a back seat to other things, and never a front seat to anything. But if he confines his strategy to caboosification, and never actively attacks the target, to those who only observe the situation casually the entire situation is undetected and therefore non-existent. He may even seem, with only a cursory review of events, to cosmetically support the thing he seeks to kill off.
A short list follows of things modern America has seen “caboosified” in modern history, including those that have been starved to the point of demise, and those that have only been nudged in that direction.
1. Men, masculinity, venues of entertainment men like
2. Cancer research
3. Guns, gun rights, the right/obligation to defend one’s self and one’s family
4. War on Terror and the memory of the September 11 attacks
5. Boy Scouts
6. Stay-at-home Moms
7. Belief in God, monotheistic rituals, Christianity, Christmas
8. Talk radio, blogging, any medium of communication that combines ideological independence with potential for reaching masses
9. Capitalism, private property, feelings of individual achievement, personality in children, competitive games
10. The formation of entire industries, in the high-tech sector, in someone’s garage
11. Moonshots
12. …pretty much everything that, sometime in the 20th century, either gave America the building blocks to become, or entrenched America’s reputation as, a nation that kicks ass.
It should be noted that with a few statistically-insignificant exceptions, everybody who has done their bit to weaken the above items and bring them closer to extinction, has been left in a position to say they never intended to do such a thing. And who is to say they are wrong? Caboosification, ultimately, is the coupling of homicide with deniability, simply by taking things slow. It is inherently cowardly and craven.
Inspired by yesterday’s rant.
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1, 3, 5 and 6 are very closely linked. So much so that I’d say that 3, 5 and 6 should be subsets of 1.
- Duffy | 12/13/2007 @ 14:34Good point.
But of course every single one of them is a spinoff from a single great-great-grandfather issue that is really what’s dividing the country…although few bother to talk about it.
- mkfreeberg | 12/13/2007 @ 14:50