“That’s Family. That’s Blood. And That’s War.”
As some professional wrestler famously put it.
Then.
Now.
Jacques and his cousin Christian watching Casablanca. (Christian’s mother and J are first cousins.)
One: fuzzy. The other: not so much.
Which Way?
67% of Political Class Say U.S. Heading in Right Direction, 84% of Mainstream Disagrees
Recent polling has shown huge gaps between the Political Class and Mainstream Americans on issues ranging from immigration to health care to the virtues of free markets.
The gap is just as big when it comes to the traditional right direction/wrong track polling question.
Happiness Formula
:) = Health + Money + Social Life + Meaning
!
(As outlined by Dilbert creator Scott Adams)
Echo Chambers?
One reason why “intellectuals” do not realise that they have shed their youthful liberalism is that they tend to socialise with people going through the same ideological shift, Dr Rockey said.
Detached from the broader electorate, they fail to notice that their views have become distinctly conservative.
“Politics is social,” Dr Rockey said. “There are two main factors – the first is that people compare themselves not to the population as a whole but to the people they know; the second is that political preferences change over time.”
(Via The Telegraph)
Colonoscopy Check-up
“It is sad to think people are no longer learning how to use the colon…” muses grammarian Lynne Truss in Eats, Shoots and Leaves, “not least because, in this supreme QWERTY keyboard era, the little finger of the human right hand, deprived of its traditional function, may eventually dwindle and drop off from disuse.”
Wherever you are, Ms. Truss, you may smile.
Sampling a single week in April from the New York Times, colon use appears both rampant and revisionary.
As Thomas Friedman says, “You’ve heard that saying: As General Motors goes, so goes America.”
Or Nicholas D. Kristof, who requests, “Note that terminology: ‘painted dogs.’”
And last, “I was puzzling over that one when it hit me: As a Catholic woman, I was doing the same thing.” Here it’s Maureen Dowd.
(Read the whole article at The Millions)
Taser Her!
Police Tasered an 86-year-old disabled grandma in her bed and stepped on her oxygen hose until she couldn’t breathe, after her grandson called 911 seeking medical assistance, the woman and her grandson claim in Oklahoma City Federal Court. Though the grandson said, “Don’t Taze my granny!” an El Reno police officer told another cop to “Taser her!” and wrote in his police report that he did so because the old woman “took a more aggressive posture in her bed,” according to the complaint.
(Via Courthouse News Service)
The Heart of America
Michael Bloomberg gets it:
The government has no right whatsoever to deny that right – and if it were tried, the courts would almost certainly strike it down as a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question – should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here. This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions, or favor one over another.
The right to worship or not worship as we please, and the right to do with our own private property as we please. Those freedoms are central to the experiment that is the United States.
Good Governance
Q: Prior to politics, you represented accused organized crime figures. What’s the biggest difference between politics and the mob?
A: My clients gave me their word, and their word was their bond. They always paid me. They always thanked me at the end of the day. In the political world, none of that happens. A politician’s word usually doesn’t mean a damn. His word is for the moment.
(Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman in Reason)
Bezos Baccalaureate
Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy — they’re given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you’re not careful, and if you do, it’ll probably be to the detriment of your choices.
(Address by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos at Princeton University)
Ambiance 