A Different Street

There were several comments in the spam filter thanking me for my “incitefull” posts. LOL!

My daughter has been invited to what seems to be a rather fancy Bat Mitzvah celebration. Anyone have any ideas what sort of gift might be appropriate?

From the LA Times (via Media Matters):

America’s serious news media — whether print, broadcast or cable — are in the grip of a collective nervous breakdown. Embracing popular culture and its icons seems somehow therapeutic on several levels: It appears to address charges that serious media are elitist, as well as the manifest indifference of younger readers and viewers to conventional news. Then there’s the fact of simple, brute commerce; popular culture in the form of film, music and TV now provides an outsized share of the financially strapped media’s advertising revenue. Finally, there’s that source of the news media’s anxiety and confusion — and that great enabler of popular culture — the Internet.

When [Michael] Jackson’s death was first reported, traffic across the Internet spiked to virtually unprecedented levels. Google’s search engine slowed to a crawl; Yahoo reported “one of the biggest things” in its history; social networks Twitter and Facebook nearly collapsed under the weight of traffic. This newspaper experienced 12 million page views at its website, apparently because it was widely credited with confirming the death.

Have you drawn up a will and named a guardian for them?

If so, congratulations — you’re savvier than some late pop stars.

If not, call on Monday to make an appointment with an attorney. It’s not something anyone enjoys, but it is what you owe your family.

Trying to sort out the very messy inside of my brain, and I appreciate the help (and patience) while I sort the latest flurry.

Theory: people are bitter about past experiences only to the extent that they perceive themselves as victims.
Possible Corollary: Stop feeling/acting like a victim, stop feeling bitter.

If you see any weaknesses in this idea, or wish to embroider a bit, fire away — please!

“Online communities are inherently dysfunctional.”

Commenter, Renaissance man, and all around cool guy Les heard my plea for miniature Spirograph business cards, and behold:

(Sorry for the poor quality image; as they say in the customer support business, PILBKAC (Problem Is Located Between Keyboard and Chair).)

I plan to offer a couple of these in an upcoming “1000th Comment” contest, so stay tuned!

Sara Robinson catalogs the grim statistics:

Eight episodes of right-wing extremist violence in four-and-a-half months. We haven’t gone four weeks since February without some deranged soul—always with a long history of mental illness; usually with a record of military service and/or domestic violence; and invariably jacked up on a toxic cocktail of white male privilege; us-versus-them enemy-seeking; fury at women, blacks and/or Jews; and a belief that the world as he knew it was ending unless he took up arms—taking out his gun and killing innocent Americans in a suicidal bid for glory.

For the record: This is not business as usual. True, there have always been occasional events, usually dismissed by the corporate media as “isolated incidents,” the work of “lone wolf shooters” acting for reasons all their own. But you have to go back a long, long way in American history before you come to a place where you find incidents like this happening an average of once every two weeks. And the chattering classes are finally beginning to realize what those of us who’ve been faithfully watching the right wing for years have been telling them for a long while now: there’s nothing isolated about any of this.

In fact, this is exactly how full-scale terrorism begins.

How do we respond? What do we do? PeaceBang reflects:

What I’m getting at is that I don’t believe — have never believed — that what will heal the world of hateful fundamentalisms is rationalism, but humility and reverence. When I am with Unitarian Universalists, I often feel that we’re under the impression that a good dose of reading on the historical Jesus, Biblical criticism and other “rational” sources will cure any dogmatic mind of its delusions. [...]

Reverence, mystery, humility, service and love are the antidote. Not information. Not sociology. Not analysis.

Prayer. Silence. Cultivating peace within the great ambiguity, the unknown, and the transient.

I believe this, but it will take a more enlightened soul to lead me out of the paralyzing fear that these terrorist incidents are precipitating.

The very delightful Margaret at Leave It Lay Where Jesus Flang It anticipates the discussion at the Episcopal Church’s upcoming General Conference over divisive issues of inclusivity:

And to not grapple with the issues of sexuality–well, the church will have lost its salt, will be sicker if it does not –will be as disordered and wrong as the disciples trying to keep ‘the little ones’ away from Jesus, or the crowd sternly ordering a blind man to be quiet….

It is the crowd, the disciples that get it wrong. Over and over again.

The Church cannot offer healing in this; the Church is what must be healed–the church is the blind man sitting in the gutter begging. The Church must recognize its blindness, cry to see again. Clearly. And receive the testimony and blessings of those who have been told to shut up, who have already regained their sight. The ones who are already proclaiming God’s glory.

Ripley, writing at Whiskey Fire, reacts to a recent appearance by “Joe” the “aren’t my 15 minutes up yet?” “Plumber”:

Dig this, from Sam the Joe:
“Pay your dues, serve your country, but don’t let the country take advantage of you,” Wurzelbacher said.

Breathtaking, isn’t it? Unfortunately, I’m not equipped with the proper telepathic skill set to determine exactly what Sammy means by “dues”, but it brings up an interesting point - namely, FREEDOM ISN’T FREE! Or to put it in words that you and I understand without wearing stars and stripes underwear and clanging our Pavlovian bells - we live in a nation, and a society, that requires us to put something back into the system, so that we can enjoy the benefits of said nation and society. Call me an eternal optimist, but I’d think that’s a concept that even a person with “the Plumber” in their superhero name could understand.

No one enjoys paying taxes. We all know that. But those of us smart enough to know that stepping on a crack won’t break our mothers’ backs realize that a functioning society demands - legally, socially and practically - that we give a little something back for the greater good. And since America is populated by a fair number of welfare queens who are too busy driving their Escalades and patriots who are too busy attending church and grilling brats to offer their time, Society has decided that some financial remuneration is the most efficient way to provide the services and products that our advanced civilization has come to depend on for safety and a relative degree of comfort.

So, it’s more than a little curious that a guy, whose sole claim to fame is asking a Presidential candidate about tax policy (snort!), is running around our fair nation, telling us to pay our dues but demanding that taxes be abolished. And I have to ask: “Sammy Joe - what are you doing to serve your country?” I’ll be honest, I don’t get the slightest bit of value from hearing some dude who’s riding the Think Tank gravy train tell me his opinion on taxes, dues and service. And don’t get me started on tabloid assholes like Squeaky Hannity and entertainment reporter, Bill O’Reilly. Where’s the service, boys? Hell, the high school kids at my local grocery store who bag groceries and push the cart to your car provide more service to the country than any of the yip hounds on TV and radio.

And the teabaggers? Piss off, ya bunch of freeloaders! If you have time to construct a cleverly worded sign (ahem), tape it to a stick and mill about in front of City Hall or the Capitol building, you have time to volunteer at a soup kitchen or drive a senior citizen to a doctor’s appointment or put together packages at a food bank. Hell, call your buddies together and clean up a god damned stream or park in your neighborhood, but do something fucking productive for a change! Stop whining and start doing something meaningful! As your Hero of the Hour said, pay your dues and serve your country.