Brexit : the Revenge of Ireland

Brexit= the Revenge of Ireland. Since the 12th Century the English have imposed their mostly unwelcome rule on some or all of Ireland. But now, the British want to “free” themselves from the rest of Europe—and the only way they can do that without a return to Troubles in Ireland is to ABANDON their last “plantation” in Northern Ireland and withdraw, after 9 centuries, to their own little island—end of Empire, full stop. Delicious irony. Northern Ireland, meanwhile, has to face the truth: these days, they would really be better off being Irish than British. (None of this is likely to happen tomorrow—but it will happen, IMO.) Sic semper tyrannis.

Merry Christmas or Merry Yule?

Ho hum. Same old debate: is it OK to say “Merry Christmas”? Of course it is—OR “Happy Holidays” or “Merry Yule,” or whatever. Basically, it’s the INTENDED message that matters. If your greeting is a benign expression of seasonal goodwill, it will almost certainly be accepted as such, even by non-celebrators (rather like “Have a nice day”). But if your tone and manner convey an intent to proselytize or scold—saying, in effect, “The Winter Solstice holiday belongs to ME and to MY religion and screw you if you don’t like it”—there’s a good chance that any non-celebrator you are “greeting” will consider you a belligerent asshole. So, what do you MEAN?

Kavanaugh Caveats

I doubt that we will ever know what, if anything, actually happened between Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh. But Kavanaugh’s behavior since this accusation surfaced has revealed some character traits we CAN rely on in assessing his suitability: a) he has a history of heavy, “mean” drinking; b) he craves the approval of other “entitled” guys (jocks); c) he is so narcissistic/ paranoid/ obsessive that he has kept his planning calendars from high school (36 years ago); d) he is smarmily self-righteous about remaining a “virgin” throughout high school and for “many years thereafter,” despite his macho posturing at women’s expense (hypocrisy/ bad faith); e) he has no moral or ethical objections to granting a self-serving, political interview to Fox News; f) he expressed no outrage when a crony/friend attempted to blame a clearly innocent third party for the alleged attack on Christine Ford (not a word to denounce such blatant injustice). 

In short, Brett Kavanaugh—quite apart from what he did or didn’t do to Christine Blasey Ford—does not sound like the kind of principled, conscientious judge whose decisions, whatever their ideological foundation, would likely command the respect (however grudging) of the American people. I therefore think his nomination should be withdrawn. Surely Trump and the conservatives can find a more trust-inspiring candidate.

Holy Mother Beard: the Catholic Church Needs a Shave

“Holy” Mother Church is a kind of Bearded Lady—or, in any event, a “beard.” For centuries, the Church’s notion that “those who vow celibacy/chastity* are holier than ordinary folks” has served as a coverup—or beard— for both a) homosexuals wishing to hide their sexuality, and b) pedophiles wishing to prey on children.

Obviously, though, (heads up to Archbishop Viganó) these two groups must not be confused or conflated, since statistically, most pedophiles are heterosexual—and since what pedophiles do is dangerous, criminal, and harmful to society. On the other hand, what most homosexual priests do occurs between adults and is therefore, unless non-consensual and/or abusive in nature, perfectly legal.

Still, though, any kind of sexual activity—heterosexual or homosexual, legal or illegal, consensual or abusive—remains forbidden for Catholic priests, who, because they cannot be married, cannot “licitly” satisfy even perfectly benign sexual urges. WHY IS THIS SO? Is it cognitive dissonance? Unabashed hypocrisy? Why, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, is Mother Church stuck in this medieval view that holiness can somehow be acquired by denying oneself healthy (i.e., legal, harmful-to-nobody) sexual relations? Regardless of St. Paul’s disdain for the baseness of marital coupling (after all, he thought the apocalypse was imminent and would render all sex irrelevant), I find such willful disregard for the real, non-apocalyptic world warped and, frankly, anti-human. 

So I’m persuaded, alas, that the current “situation” will not (CAN not) be significantly ameliorated until the Church rejects it’s archaic notions and, at the very least, abandons its self-destructive requirement of priestly “celibacy/chastity.” This bearded Church desperately needs a shave—and freedom for priests to marry is just the razor to at least start the job.

*Technically, most priests pledge to remain “celibate,” i.e., unmarried. But according to Church law, this pledge is also a moral commitment to have no sex at all, since the Church condemns as sinful any sexual activity outside the bonds of marriage. Thus, celibacy = no marriage = no sex at all =chastity

Trade War Centrifugal Bumblepuppy

How to play Trade War Centrifugal Bumblepuppy:

1.  Promise to Make America Great Again
2.  Start a Trade War with China in order to Make America Great Again
3.  Give soybean farmers $12 billion when they lose markets while Making America Great Again
4.  Ratchet up the Trade War in order to make China pay for Making America Great Again
5.  Make America Great Again by giving all Americans money to pay for shoes and washing machines made in China because no shoes or washing machines are made in America
6.  Invade Iran in order to confiscate their oil in order to pay for the soybean bailout and the washing machine subsidy in order to win the Trade War with China and Make America Great Again
7.  Declare that Mission is Accomplished and America is Great Again
8.  Borrow money from China to pay for the Iran war to Make America Great Again
9.  Discover that America ISN’T Great Again anymore because it owes China money for the Iran war to Make America Great Again
10. Start new Trade War with China in order to Make America Great Again Again.

Game starts over

Living in a Bullshit World.

People keep asking, “What did he MEAN ?” He didn’t mean ANYTHING, my dear credulous friends. What he said was BULLSHIT, and bullshitters don’t say stuff in order to convey information or to “make sense.” They say stuff (usually made up on the spur of the moment) to create an emotional response in their audience. The SHOW is the message.

In other words, this is a world where 2 + 2 equals 3, 5, 26, 789, whatever you like, and, oh yes, sometimes— but only coincidentally or accidentally—4. Just don’t count on it. 

Because there are no reliable rules. And very little can be counted on.

In a universe where bullshit reigns, human reason, logic, and language can no longer impose the order of decency and the security of stable government. All reverts to primordial chaos. Make America Great Again by destroying the very underpinnings of civilization?? Yes, that seems to be what’s happening. 

In the world of bullshit, the biggest turd is king.

Not Well-Regulated.

I’m perplexed by those who argue that they need their weapons to prevent the government from “taking over” and enslaving the citizenry. Who really thinks that private citizens with guns—no matter how many—could ever prevent a modern-day government from controlling/subjugating its populace if it so desired (that might have worked in little 18th Century communities—but I doubt it)? 

Yes, individual gun-wielders might be able to kill a couple of marauding storm troopers, but the government forces WOULD eventually prevail and take what they wanted. Doesn’t our best protection lie in good/humane government and good/humane laws that, in fostering tolerance and mutual respect, prevent storm-trooper regimes from arising in the first place?

The Second Amendment just doesn’t seem like a good law for the safety and general welfare of 21st Century Americans.

How The Second Amendment Wrecked The Republic

Once upon a time—in the late 18th century, actually—a group of farmers, merchants and amateur philosophers decided to go into business together, hoping thereby to pursue happiness and profit. They adopted the name USA Inc. and set about building a beautiful new structure—named The Republic—to house their ambitious operations.

Recognizing that the most vital element of this edifice would be a strong, durable foundation, the so-called Framers deliberated mightily about what ingredients should be included in the foundational concrete. Once they had agreed on the desirable constituents for their mixture (a recipe they proudly nicknamed “novus ordo seclorum,”) they were ready to pour and cure the foundation of The Republic.

One special ingredient in the agreed-upon constitutional concrete was the “second amendment”—an additive intended to provide greater strength and durability to the foundation (now called The Constitution) and in particular to make the concrete’s surface harder and more resistant to attacks from intruders.

Luckily, there weren’t many intruders and, for a while, the foundation held—even when the superstructure occasionally frayed or fissured. Over time, in fact, The Republic grew extensively, adding rooms, stories, gilded spires—all sustained by the original, second-amendment-infused foundation.

But slowly, things began to change. Cracks began to appear. Parts of the The Constitution began to crumble. Whatever was the problem? Well, upon investigation, researchers discovered that the second-amendment additive, so good at hardening the surface, was, beneath the surface, interacting destructively with the chemistry of the underlying bedrock (i.e., objective real-world context) to which the foundation was anchored but with which, thanks to the toxic second-amendment, it was increasingly incompatible. Thus, the very ingredient intended to strengthen the foundation was, in fact, slowly but surely, weakening it—threatening, over time, to bring the whole magnificent edifice of The Republic tumbling down.

Whatever could be done to remedy this lamentable situation? Scholars and scientists proposed several procedures which might (though there was no absolute guarantee) successfully extract or neutralize all or substantial portions of the second-amendment contamination, thereby restoring the foundation and shoring up The Republic.

But, alas, the flaccid descendants of The Framers (NRA-bots) had grown too accustomed to the good old second-amendment-riddled foundation. How, they asked themselves, could they ever pursue profit and happiness if they were obliged to walk upon surfaces not armored with second-amendment hardness? Surely the second-amendment admixture could not be blamed for those cracks and crumbly spots. No extraction! No neutralization! No changing the constitutional make-up of the venerable floor.

So, instead, the ruling NRA-bots directed their attention and their wrath toward the ultimate boogeyman—the real world bedrock—reality. And they concluded resoundingly that their crumbling foundation was the bedrock’s fault (a conspiracy, really), that any attempt to make the foundation of The Republic constitutionally compatible with Reality Bedrock would be most perturbing, and that it was, in self-evident consequence, UP TO THE BEDROCK TO CHANGE.

But the bedrock was unmoved. It did not change. And The Republic fell. So it goes.

Shithole Lemonade

I’m amused by pundits who Twitter and titter about the “threat” of Trump being “blackmailed.” How can you “blackmail” a cult leader who, by his own assessment, could shoot someone dead in the middle of Fifth Avenue and still lose no support from the faithful?Even if the Russians—or anyone—produced indisputable evidence of criminal behavior—political, financial or sexual—Trump’s votaries (think Sarah Sanders) would simply declare these crimes heroic defenses of religious freedom and The American Way of Life. And they could quite possibly succeed in re-electing him on that platform. This is why I think that Trump is not seriously threatened by the Mueller investigation. Of course, he’d like it to go away (so he could devote more of his precious executive time to “deal-making”), but if the shit DOES hit the fan, he will just use it to make shithole lemonade. And proceed to sell the stuff as a patriotic nectar. That’s his modus operandi—and that’s how cults work.😣