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...
I find these kinds of things interesting, especially after the September 11 attacks and the political division that took place after that. Seventy-one years ago the turn-about was in the opposite direction; I wasn’t there, but Kirkland was, and he’s not the first to note that America had isolationist misgivings about the war that was already going on in Europe. After the attack, like he says “we all just went down and signed up.”
To me, this illustrates the change America has seen since World War II. It’s not a good change; it is an erosion against the healthfully compartmentalized thinking that enables a college kid to say to himself, without anyone lecturing him into it: Well, that’s my country that’s just been attacked, class is over. Nowadays, we seem to be living in opposite-land. Some terrorist attacking our country must be some kind of freedom-fighter, let’s find out what he has to say; those rich people who start businesses that hire people, have to pay enough in taxes that they know how awful the rest of us think they are; that boss guy who tells me what to do all the time is so mean, we need a union to stand up to him and then I’ll just do whatever the union tells me to do; racial discrimination is so awful so we need an institutionalized system of discrimination in the opposite direction, and it should last forever and ever. Legalize pot because government has no business telling people what to put in their bodies, but size restrictions on sodas, “ya know I think that’s actually a good thing.”
What impresses me the most hearing these survivors talk about what went down back then, is I never get the impression they were in too big of a hurry to show off for each other by signing up. Like I said, healthfully compartmentalized thinking. There’s creation and then there’s destruction, there is helping and then there’s hurting. To the last man, they all seem to be going through a thought process of: Attack, response. Simple as that. Like seeing a fire break out in your living room and grabbing the extinguisher, just something that has to be done.
This is where our thinking has gotten muddled. The whole “waitaminnit waitaminnit, before we get to the stuff I’m going to do, what’s that other guy doing, what about equality.” It’s infected our very language. Can’t find occurrences of the word “disproportionate” before sometime in the 1970’s, and since then it’s gotten to the point where I see this concern, if not the actual word, several times monthly: Taxes, work, military service, sacrifice, contracting, promotions, weddings, health benefits — before we worry about the job getting done, we’ve got to start up all these tempests-in-teapots about making things equal-equal-equal.
It’s not an entirely illegitimate concern. But on December 7th, if not some of the other days out of the year, we might do well to spare some thoughts about how people used to be much more concerned about just meeting the goal and getting the work done. They had a sense of focus that we seem to be missing today. America would be much better off if we brought it back, and we’re very fortunate that if such a devastating attack had to happen, that it took place before we’d lost this sense of priority, drive and purpose.
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Good points, Morgan .
Off topic but this struck a cord – “Like seeing a fire break out in your living room and grabbing the extinguisher, just something that has to be done.”
Just had a local gal today plead guilty to manslaughter for killing her four (4!!!) kids by setting fire to her house and burning the little ones alive. She copped a deal for a sentence of 7 to 15 but will most likely be out in 6. Let’s see 6 years divided by 4 kids…carry the 3…that’s 18 months per life. Yup, seems fair to me.
Seems the local DA thought this would be a great idea. So glad “we” voting here this past Nov.
Piece of shit…both of ’em.
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20121207/NEWS01/312070029/Bobbie-Kugler-pleads-guilty-to-manslaughter-arson?odyssey=tab|mostpopular|text|FRONTPAGE
- tim | 12/07/2012 @ 13:47I don’t know Morgan. You could also read it as, Dec 7th, the Democrats were in charge, and Republicans stepped back for the good of the country. Sept. 11th, the Republicans were in charge, and the Democrats used the moment to gain power. This seems to fit the available data better, given how the Democrats acted during the Cold War, Vietnam, etc……
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 12/08/2012 @ 09:38