Heraldblog
Proud Member of the Reality Based Community
| Guestbook |
| Archives |
| Contacts |
| Subscribe |
| About |
 |
Follow the leader
The indispensable Digby is wondering about the same thing as I am:"The problem isn't that the left is pacifist in the war on terror. It's that it's pacifist in the war on liberalism and that's coming from both within and without.
Indeed, Democrats will continue to get their butts kicked at the polls until they can at least muster a genuine sneer when talking about terrorism. But we're just too damn introspective to pass judgement, even on a misogynistic, homophopic, liberal-bashing, mass murdering trust-fund baby like Osama bin Laden. If ever there was a poster child for something liberals can get pissed about, it's this guy. There's a time for academic conferences and break-out sessions, and there's a time for trumpets. Liberals have risen to the challenge of fighting wars in decades past. What's the problem now?
"The old saw about 'the terrorists have won' is a cliché to be sure. But that doesn't mean it's not true. Bin Laden doesn't have to invade with an army or even terrorize us further with bombings and terrorist attacks. His job is done. We are now fully engaged in destroying ourselves."
Tsunami videos
Here.
This is what 150,000 looks like on a computer screen.
This is what it looks like in southeast Asia (Warning: Extremely graphic image).
And speaking of washed up
David Brooks is adrift in a tsunami of inane ramblings intoday's NY Times:"Human beings have always told stories to explain deluges such as this. Most cultures have deep at their core a flood myth in which the great bulk of humanity is destroyed and a few are left to repopulate and repurify the human race. In most of these stories, God is meting out retribution, punishing those who have strayed from his path. The flood starts a new history, which will be on a higher plane than the old.
Then he goes on to dis Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, The Lion King, and anyone else whose heart with pleasure fills and dances with the daffodils.
Nowadays we find these kinds of explanations repugnant. It is repugnant to imply that the people who suffer from natural disasters somehow deserve their fate. And yet for all the callousness of those tales, they did at least put human beings at the center of history.The naturalists hold up nature as the spiritual tonic to our vulgar modern world. They urge us to break down the barriers that alienate us from nature. Live simply and imbibe nature's wisdom. "Probably if our lives were more conformed to nature, we should not need to defend ourselves against her heats and colds, but find her our constant nurse and friend, as do plants and quadrupeds," Thoreau wrote.
Yes, David, and when you write crap like this you sound a political hack who has had breakfast with Jerry Falwell and now thinks God will return his phone calls. Brooks ends his screed by mourning Asia's dead, and "for those of us who have no explanation" for God's wrath. Presumably this doesn't include David Brooks himself, who is pretty sure it's the liberals' fault.
Nature doesn't seem much like a nurse or friend this week, and when Thoreau goes on to celebrate the savage wildness of nature, he sounds, this week, like a boy who has seen a war movie and thinks he has experienced the glory of combat.
More red state values
In keeping with today's theme of death, Heraldblog directs you to Reason online, and this curious little piece on the great Oklahoma casket conspiracy. Oklahoma is one of a handful of states that only permits licensed morticians to sell caskets. "Qualifying as a funeral director in Oklahoma requires two years of college courses, graduation from a mortuary science program, a one-year apprenticeship that includes the embalming of at least 25 bodies, and two exams. After all that, the applicant is deemed qualified to sell boxes."
This greatly benefits deceased Oklahoma businessmen who want to rest assured that their home state's economy is at least breathing, and of course Oklahoma funeral homes who can charge twice for a casket what it would cost most anywhere else.
Enter Kim Powers and Dennis Bridges, two outside-the-box thinkers and founders of Memorial Concepts, which sells caskets on-line. Powers and Bridges asked the courts to overturn Oklahoma's casket cartel, but so far have been turned down. The case appears headed for the US Supreme Court, which will be on a high state of irony alert if Chief Justice Rehnquist gets to hear the case.
3.1.05 03:01
|
john / Website (3.1.05 20:11) I had heard that the waves were coming in at about 500 mph!!! That is beyond comprehension for me. What a horrible disaster. |