Want of Chastity

 News of the day, Politics  Comments Off
Mar 102012
 

I had a truly genuine laugh Friday.  One of those laughs that at the end of it you are wiping tears from your eyes.

Aimlessly buzzing the net I stumbled into the story of Gloria Allred’s letter to Palm Beach County State Attorney Michael McAuliffe requesting that he investigate the possibilities of prosecuting Rush Limbaugh for his comments referencing Sandra Fluke.  I’m confident I have no need to rehash the actual incident since it’s been so thoroughly trod already that one would need to be a hermit in the Himalayans to not know what happened and what was said.  The Allred chapter of the circus can be found on Politico.

I’m not defending Mr. Limbaugh.  A) He doesn’t need my defense and B) He’s offered a very humble apology, quite publicly.  But what I found so hilarious was the fact that music enjoyed by the average person in Ms Fluke’s demographic celebrates using such terms for women and even girls.  And do I need to say, expressions fully protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

And then I had the brilliant thought that I hoped Mr. Limbaugh is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and that

He needs to face the consequences of his conduct in every way that is meaningful. [Ms Allred]

Here are the parameters of the “crime” according to the Politico article:

The statute stipulates that anyone who “speaks of and concerning any woman, married or unmarried, falsely and maliciously imputing to her a want of chastity” is guilty of a misdemeanor of the first degree. [emphasis added].

If a female wishes to use birth control to prevent pregnancy and said woman is not married she is, by definition, not chaste.  Mr Limbaugh may meet the “malicious” requirement of the proof of committing this most heinous of crimes [please, do note the dripping sarcasm] but he does not meet the “falsely” component.

 

In actuality, I do hate the general lack of civility in public discourse.  I don’t listen to Mr Limbaugh’s program for just that reason.  But the general lack of civility in public discourse exists across the political spectrum.  However, we do have the First Amendment of the Constitution I referenced above.  Freedom of speech.  And yet again it is a Liberal that is demonstrating they only believe in the First Amendment when it protects speech they agree with.  Folks, that’s not “free speech”… that’s censorship.  Not only is it censorship but it’s censorship enforced at the end of a gun barrel.

Perhaps Ms Flukes should ring up Ms Palin for advice on how a public person (something Ms Flukes became with her public advocacy on the contraceptives and insurance coverage issue) might handle personal attacks from those that don’t agree with them.  I’m confident she would have a great deal of field tested advice to offer the aggrieved Ms Flukes.

 

 

 

 Posted by at 8:26 am  Tagged with: , , , ,

2012 Obama and Israel

 News of the day, Politics  Comments Off
Mar 092012
 

As I’ve watched the Republican primaries and caucuses, along with the debates (I’ve only missed one), I’ve often silently chuckled to myself wondering if it was some really funny cosmic joke that the next presidential election in the US will be held in 2012.  Not only in 2012 but very close to what some believe is the day the world ends – or the world as we know it ends depending on who you talk to about it.

For the record and for what it’s worth: I don’t believe in the Mayan prophecy nor do I believe in the Biblical Apocalypse.  That said, I do believe that our collective beliefs have a tendency to drive events.   If enough people believe bad things are going to happen the chances of a bad thing happening increase.

And there’s no argument that the world is a pretty messed up place right now.  But every time I think that thought I do try to remind myself that there has never been a time when the world wasn’t a messed up place.  That is also followed (if I’m not feeling too cranky or depressed) with the upbeat silent reminder that in the aggregate the world is a lot better than it ever was historically.

 

Here’s where I have to admit to having grown to despise the presidency of Obama, and as such I would view his reelection as a disaster writ large for the US and probably a smaller scale disaster for the rest of the world as well.  Or, given his proven ineptitude maybe just as large for the rest of the world.  We do have that pesky little ”Iran situation” looming over us and our semi immediate future.

When I first read that Obama had asked Netanyahu to delay any action on Iran until after the elections I thought my head was going to snap off my neck as I spun it around to focus all my attention on words I couldn’t believe I was hearing… even from the self absorbed narcissistic Obama.  By all means Israel – what’s your very survival when measured against the possibility of mucking up Obama’s chance at reelection?  Actually, I don’t believe it’s exactly that, more like Obama doesn’t want to have to face any decisions where he has to make a clearly defined choice.  Which in my mind is infinitely worse.  [Yes, there is now some conflicting information as to whether Obama said that to Netenyahu.  Personally, I choose to believe he did or Panetta said it for him]

Obama can’t afford to lose the Jewish vote and equally, he can’t afford to lose the anti semetic vote.  Obama’s answer: Wait till after the election.  You know, to, uhmmm, “give the negotiations and sanctions time to work”.   I guess we should feel some reassurance Obama reminded us he “doesn’t bluff”.  Nope, I never thought he bluffed, instead he just blows rainbows up everyone’s butt.

Obama may “have Israel’s back” but he’s hoping no one notices his knife sticking out of it.

 

So even though I don’t believe in the Mayan prophecy or the Biblical Armageddon I do believe Obama is sailing us right into a biblically proportioned apocalyptic disaster.  Rather like Capt Schettino and the Costa Concordia, just on a much larger scale with a lot more time allotted to successfully change course.  Not that he will… Obama has demonstrated time and again that he is no more a real “captain” than Schettino proved to be.

The wording from the indictment of Schettino is also eerily applicable:

… – owing to culpable behaviour consisting of imprudence, negligence and incompetence…

 

…even though in the proximity of obstacles, in a way such as not to be able to act in an appropriate and efficient manner so as to avoid collisions and to halt the craft within a distance appropriate to the circumstances and to the conditions of the moment), caused …

 

… for having abandoned about three hundred persons (passengers on the cruise ship Costa Concordia), unable to fend for themselves …

 

Will there be a similar notation as this to Obama’s “Ship of State” captaincy:

… what is premised in the matter of this order must be viewed in light of the totality of the verified facts concerning the dynamic of the shipwreck forming the object of investigation, and as concerns the seriously culpable behaviour engaged in by the captain in the course of the entire event in question. The gravity of the culpable behaviour of the captain is indeed verifiable from the beginning …

 

 

I can only hope I’m just indulging in a bit of overwrought melodrama and Obama’s tactics of diplomacy and sanctions will change Iran’s nuclear course

 Posted by at 8:41 pm  Tagged with: , , , ,

Future Shock and an ODWG

 General  Comments Off
Mar 092012
 

I’ve scraped away the several inches of dust off this silly little indulgence of mine (see previous post) and yet my mind is still firmly stuck between Toffler and Burke.  Which makes complete sense actually.  Things have changed a lot, and since in this particular reference to change it’s not really a good thing Toffler and Burke are quite apropos.

 

Few people are mentally disciplined enough to exist only in their “now”, the vast majority of us lesser beings straddle the present with one eye glued critically or nostalgia dimmed on our past and the other fretfully trying to discern our future.

This morning vaguely remembered snippets from  Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock and a quote from Edmund Burke, “Custom reconciles us to everything” bounce chaotically between my three brain cells.  These two,  time distant “white guys”, one dead, one not, “old” by the old measure of old, not so much by the measure of boomers, come together to meet in my now.

 

I remember how appalled I was when I learned that Dateline NBC manipulated a GM truck to show the explosion hazard from a side collision.  Goodness, that was almost exactly 20 years ago, all the way back in “the more innocent early ’90s”.  November 1992 to be exact.

Between the mid 80s and roughly through 2005 I experienced a glorious spring of optimistic idealism.  The years when press manipulation was actually a shocking concept to me.  Now?  Now I’m even more cynical than I was in the first half of the 80s.

Now I’m not at all surprised to read about someone called “Syrian Danny” in the blogsphere and  how he staged his reports and pleas from Syria.  Not at all surprised that when I first watched Anonymous’ declaration of war on the US I wondered if it was a production of the US government, “Operation V“.  Or. learning of the deliberately hidden and/or ignored video(s) of a much younger Obama and his more pronounced radical associates and his/their very far left issues, advocacy and beliefs.  (here, here, here)

So what once was shocking is now just so much “more of the same”.  I’ve been reconciled to being lied to and accept it as normal instead of aberrant.  The ODWG (Old Dead White Guy) was right.

 

You might be asking where Toffler fits in to all of this.

I embrace change and progress with exuberance but I’m appalled at the change in me.  My own personal “future shock”.  I no longer care about the truth, or the lies for that matter.  I’ll just quietly go about my own business.   But, isn’t that why we are so consistently lied to?  We don’t hold anyone accountable for lying to us.  And isn’t it a just a bucket o’ irony that we look at truth askance assuming it must be a lie and a lie we accept because we are too lazy and disinterested to ferret out the truth.

I am old enough to remember the prediction that there would soon come a day when a picture would be worthless as evidence, that a picture would no longer be “worth a thousand words”.  Graphics programs would render every photo suspect.  Where were the predictions that there would just as soon come the day when every “fact” would have to be clothed in quotation marks?

 Posted by at 3:10 am  Tagged with: , , , ,
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© 2012 Mental Pluff Mud We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature, and the means perhaps of its conservation. Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha