Three White Guys (With Black Backgrounds)

David Brooks says he thinks Nikki Haley is the best Trump alternative, as though anyone's looking for a Trump alternative. Who would give him that idea?

Maybe Steve Schmidt, of the Trump-hating Lincoln Project, who accused Ron DeSantis of lying about "Penny," when it was Steve Schmidt, of the Trump-hating Lincoln Project, lying about "Penny".

Or Rocker Alice Cooper, who says transgenderism has reached the 'point of absurdity' where it endangers women and children,...though people always thought he'd kinda be into that by now.

 

Comedy Is Not Pretty And Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction

SATIRE

 So we were smoking this joint of Jamaican over in that corner and [NYT columnist David Brooks] got the bright idea to blow the smoke into the register. “That’ll make everyone up there one of us!” he said. And sure enough when we went up to class the whole floor stank and the vice-principal was hustling up and down the hallway, wrinkling his nose like a bloodhound trying to figure out where the smell was coming from, and then he went into the boys’ room and dragged out one of the only two black boys at Radnor High, yelling at him for smoking pot in school.

I remember the guilty look on Dave’s face when he saw Mr. Santangelo with the kid by the collar. Later on, he told me that he was tempted to confess, but he also happened to know that that boy did smoke pot, that he was a full-on stoner, so if he got in a little trouble, it might be good for him.  When I read today that Dave thinks that “not smoking, or only smoking sporadically gave you a better shot at becoming a little more integrated and interesting,” while “smoking all the time seemed likely to cumulatively fragment a person’s deep center,” I thought about that boy and wondered if getting kicked out of school had helped him hold together his deep center, and if his going to juvy was the kind of subtle discouragement that Dave thinks governments should engage in when it comes to the “lesser pleasures.” I suppose he thought he was doing the kid a favor by letting him take the rap.

THE JOKE

  In “Weed — Been There. Done That” [David] Brooks makes a case for a “moral ecology” that curbs individual freedom for the collective betterment of potheads that would be better served devoting their energies to higher aspirations like running track. If you think I’m minimizing his argument to be glib, I dare you to read it. That is his argument.

...The ACLU released a report, based on federal arrest data and self-reported crime reports, that,...found that over half of all drug arrests in 2010 were for marijuana possession,...that whites use marijuana more than blacks, yet blacks are over 3.5 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana use.

…The ACLU makes a passing mention of federal student aid and drug convictions in its report. African Americans, particularly African American men, are more likely to be arrested for recreational drug use and consequently barred from receiving financial aid to pay for college AFTER paying their debt to society.

We can thank Bill Clinton for that.

…Brooks’ rumination on his stoner days is kind of funny. It’s certainly elitist. But it is also an example of the two Americas we’ve fomented through legislative, cultural, and organizational boundaries that disrupt every single path for opportunity available for those not born to wealth and privilege.

No one need make a black code anymore. They need only embed moral ecologies in laws that have nothing to do with morality and wait for systemic disadvantages in neighborhoods, schools, and racist policing to do the rest.

It's No Wonder Prince Has Remade "Let's Go Crazy"

 Ann Althouse cribbed this line from Matt Tiabbi of Rolling Stone:

This morning's David Brooks column on same-sex marriage was one of the weirdest, most mean-spirited things I've ever seen in The New York Times.

See, this is why I bag on the dumb blonde and could give a shit about Rolling Stone, too. "The weirdest"? Did they, both, miss The New York Times article (I linked to yesterday) about pet psychics? That was perfectly sane, compared to David Brooks' thoughts on gay marriage, right? 

And, if it isn't, we can't count on Ann Althouse or Matt Tiabbi to tell us, can we? Why not? Because they're both ethical bottom feeders, that's why: 

 These people - now arguing for unknown "rights" and demanding we change - they're disturbed. 

 BTW - Here's the Prince song. It sucks, like all his stuff since becoming a megalomaniac...

 

Who Will Watch The Watchmen? Nobody, That's Who,...

Peggy Noonan has another funny, head-spinningly-whacked, and completely oblivious column for us today, on "How Far Obama Has Fallen":

Why did the president make such mistakes? Why did he make decisions that seemed so unknowing, and not only in retrospect? Because he had so much confidence, he thought whatever he did would work. He thought he had "a gift," as he is said to have told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. He thought he had a special ability to sway the American people, or so he suggested to House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor. 

But whenever he went over the heads of the media and Congress and went to the people, in prime-time addresses, it didn't really work. He did not have a magical ability to sway. And—oddly—he didn't seem to notice. 

It is one thing to think you're Lebron. It's another thing to keep missing the basket and losing games and still think you're Lebron. 

And that really was the problem: He had the confidence without the full capability. And he gathered around him friends and associates who adored him, who were themselves talented but maybe not quite big enough for the game they were in. They understood the Democratic Party, its facts and assumptions. But they weren't America-sized. They didn't get the country so well. 

It is a mystery why the president didn't second-guess himself more, doubt himself. Instead he kept going forward as if it were working.

Some "mystery". I've got a picture of the reason right here:

Except for the line "he gathered around him friends and associates who adored him, who were themselves talented but maybe not quite big enough for the game they were in," Peggy Noonan offers not a single acknowledgement she had anything to do with what's happened. Nope - it's all this Peggy's fault:
 

Michelle Malkin labeled Joseph "Peggy The Moocher" - showing a nicely-honed lack of civility that pissed no one off, BTW - which raises the question:

Why has Obama "fallen" but the nation's Peggy Noonan's - whose endorsement helped put Obama over the top - can carry on as though they're still credible? As though they can "keep missing the basket and losing games and still think you're Lebron"? Why do they pay no penalty?

This is going on all around us, still, and will continue until we're doomed by their decisions - and finally, pushed by reason, compelled to kick them out - because it'll then be obvious they won't/don't/can't adMitt when they're wrong and just leave the stage. Instead, we're stuck listening to more of their insane rattling, except now it's going from one sap's assessment of the crease in someone's pant leg to another's "less than inspiring endorsement for a less than inspiring man."

Which is one way to spin him, I guess,…

 

These Are Headlines (Form A Line And Give Me Head,...)

Oh wow - a member of The "Bigotry" Brigade got called out as crazy:

For a conservative commentator, David Brooks gets plenty of flak from the right. And he doesn’t much care. 

“If it’s from a loon, I don’t mind it,” the New York Times columnist tells me in a video interview. “I get a kick out of it. If it’s from Michelle Malkin attacking, I don’t mind it."

I know, it's David Brooks, but still - nobody EVER tells these people they're nutty. 

It's just not like that where I come from.

GOD IS GOOD:

Pastor charged with first wife's murder after 'staging car crash to kill second wife'

OH, COME ON - IF SHE WAS MITT ROMNEY THEY'D BE CALLING IT "CHARITY":

 Madonna Gives Another $750K to Kabbalah, But Little to Anyone Else

LET ME SEE IT - STRICTLY FOR "RESEARCH" - AND I'LL BE THE JUDGE:

Jailed Texas group-sex teacher Brittni Colleps says, ‘I was victimized in that video’

IT'S WEIRD - MY FRIENDS AND I JUST GET TOGETHER FOR COFFEE:

Inside Tom Cruise and Scientology Chairman David Miscavige's Complex Relationship:

"There’s a point of no return, and I think Tom has crossed it," says Hall, who worked closely with Miscavige and knew Cruise slightly. "The time for him to leave was a long time ago. The lines between him and Miscavige are so blurred now." 

The consensus from interviews conducted during the past two months with dozens of former Scientology members who freely divulge church secrets was that Cruise’s relationship with Miscavige was symbiotic. Rinder says Cruise was a "really nice guy" when he first joined the church but, over time, took on more and more of Miscavige’s personality traits. "In Scientology, it’s called being in someone’s valence," says Rinder. "Cruise has assumed a lot of Miscavige’s qualities." 

Church literature defines the concept of valence in part as "another’s identity assumed by a person unknowingly; a valence is a substitute self taken on after the fact of lost confidence in self or a failed valence or as a solution to a problem." 

Karen De La Carriere, who says she was one of Scientology’s most well-known and respected auditors until she left in 2010, notes that Cruise was "practically channeling" Miscavige during his infamous interview with Matt Lauer on Today in 2010. 

"The way he lit into Matt Lauer, calling him glib and attacking him -- that was exactly how David Miscavige deals with people," says De La Carriere. "That was the purest example of how Tom is in Miscavige’s valence. It’s a scary thing to watch."

AND, FINALLY, I THINK "CONGRATULATIONS" ARE IN ORDER:

Ke$ha Says She Had Sex With A Ghost 

Out Of Sight/Out Of Mind (And Out Of Our Minds,...)

Even though I'm only catching them at a glance, I'm simply amazed at the number of great stories out there - by that, I mean, the number of great stories nobody's really covering. Easily, the biggest news today is Voyager 1 leaving our solar system, but I've barely seen or heard a peep about it in our so-called "media," with it's so-called "journalists," and all these bloggers hanging around. Voyager 1 is but one example of how TRULY uninformed, and stupid, we've become - here's another:

A billion people jabbering 24/7, most not saying or doing a damned thing worth knowing.

But I'm the bad guy.

Voyager 1 is possibly the biggest story of our lifetimes and - we get zip, nada, nothin'. 

And I know ultimately why:

Because "humanity's first emissary to interstellar space" has found no evidence of little green men, no sign of a Heaven, and certainly no God or gods. (BTW - no Mormon stars, either,...)

Report that - in detail so everyone understands what it means - and a lot of the "spiritual" gobbledegook these morons HAVE reported, as though it matters, goes up in smoke.

These NewAgers and religious nuts have always claimed that, if we found God or alien life or whatnot, it would change the way we see the planet and ourselves. Well, confirmation we're alone would do the exact same thing - including proving NewAgers are full of shit - but we can't have that, now can we? So everybody's hush-hush, keeping us fully up-to-date (but in the dark) as they fill the airwaves with what's REALLY IMPORTANT. Whatever is needed to stay sheep.

Because the people gotta know.

Yeah, yeah - what the people gotta know is this whole set-up stinks,….

 

I Know This Subject Like The Back Of My Hand

I've had a problem with The New York Times' David Brooks for quite a while.

For instance, after telling us "Obama and Clinton were completely irresponsible,..." he backed Obama (and his Secretary of State) based on his feelings about the crease in Obama's pants.

Later, I noted that Brooks had gone NewAge on us (funny that no one else picked up on that) just after the other smartest guy on the web - Robert Stacey McCain - agreed with me that "David Brooks is a useless son of a bitch."

Now comes a Sp!ked review of Brooks' latest book, The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement, where they, too, catch his NewAge tendencies in full flight:

Brooks’ argument against reason culminates in an attack on the Enlightenment. Following Gertrude Himmelfarb (The Roads to Modernity), he writes of a ‘French Enlightenment’ that is overly rationalist and violent and a ‘British Enlightenment’ that emphasises sentiments and is moderate. Three hundred years later, the research finds, ‘the British Enlightenment wins’.

But this is a thoroughly flawed understanding: Enlightenment thinkers on both sides of the English Channel were defenders of reason, from science to politics. Brooks quotes Edmund Burke approvingly, and cites him as a leading member of the British Enlightenment – even though Burke became the leading opponent of the Enlightenment. The concept of reason was central to the American and French revolutions: it provided the basis for widespread social cooperation and was inherently democratic, because it was considered that everyone had the capacity to act rationally and play a role as a citizen.

The implications of Brooks’ anti-rationalist views are drawn out in his recommendations for social policy. He believes that the state can mould emotions and culture for positive ends. What this means in practice is the state intruding into the most personal aspects of people’s lives. Schools need to take over from families that don’t instil the right values to learn; state policies need to inculcate ‘the habits, knowledge and mental traits’ for success. He wants to take the latest findings about the brain and use them to control people’s behaviour.

But, all this said, the problem with The Social Animal is not just that Brooks simply elevates emotions and denigrates reason. It is that (despite protests to the contrary) he sets up a false dualism between the two.

You can read the rest for yourself, but I will point out that, not only have I been reminding you of the NewAge concept - and threat - of "duality" since I started this blog, but that I choose my topics carefully.

You see, having been schooled in the NewAge belief system, I don't need to have the word "NewAge" mentioned, or the landscape explained - I spotted David Brooks as having gone over to The Dark Side a long time ago, and without him having said much - just as I know Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and all the others I cover are NewAgers.

They don't have to openly declare it - as so many, wrongly, demand Obama should about Islam - it is revealed:

Just as I knew with Jared Lee Laughner, their associates, behaviors, words (evasions, really, which are another tip-off) and political positions, say far more about their occult beliefs than they ever imagine.

But, then, it's a lack of imagination that gets people into NewAge in the first place - and why the rest of you keep listening to them.

For Most Of Your Lives (You Haven't Had One)

Oh dear, here we go again. Since Glenn Reynolds has suggested that Ann Althouse and New Media Meade deserve some kind of blogging award for merely living in Wisconsin and doing what the media refuse to do (don't get me wrong: I agree they do) can I get a prize or something for digging into another story Reynolds and pretty much everyone else barely even acknowledge?

As I mentioned a week ago - in an effort to underline that too many are ambivalent about truth and, thus, not really interested in what's important - the really bad crowd were going about their dubious business, with nary a word from the chattering classes, because they were focussed on Charlie Sheen. Well, events are taking another turn in the very episode I outlined, and of course - just to rub it in good - there's now another NewAger at the center of things:

Prince Andrew is facing fresh questions over his involvement in the £500,000 cash-for-access scandal surrounding his ex-wife.

Doubts were raised after evidence emerged contradicting his denials that he had ever known a psychic employed by Sarah Ferguson.

Andrew last year vigorously denied all knowledge of his former wife’s plot to take £500,000 from a wealthy businessman in return for arranging a meeting with the duke.

Days later, he also denied that he had ever met or heard of Sarah’s friend Azra Scagliarini, a clairvoyant. Miss Scagliarini was yesterday identified as the ‘go-between’ who set up a meeting between Sarah and a News of the World reporter posing as an Arab businessman.

Now a handwritten letter from the duke to Miss Scagliarini has emerged, in which he thanks her for her ‘help and friendship’.

The thank you note for a Christmas gift is dated January 1999, indicating that he had in fact known the 46-year-old psychic to the stars for more than a decade.

The revelation comes at a time of growing concern over the duke’s judgment and his links to dubious characters, including the American billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, who is a convicted paedophile, and tyrannical leaders including Colonel Gaddafi and his son Saif.

The Daily Mail understands that New York-based Miss Scagliarini does not claim to have met Andrew face to face, but is adamant that the pair have had ‘dozens’ of phone conversations since she was hired as one of Sarah’s spiritual advisers in 1998.

Now how many times do I have to say you're looking at the wrong things? When are you going to learn we've got this huge grey area existing in our society - called NewAge - and it's filled with psychics and cults and killers and liars, and only by unraveling who they are, and what they have their hands in, will we ever get a handle on what's going on out there?

Do you seriously think I just pulled this particular scandal out of a hat to make my point- and it just happened to involve a psychic? Or was it because it contained my usual topics (NewAgers, lying, child abuse, fraud) with my usual cast of characters? Come on, with the exception of Charlie Rose, we've been over all these subjects before:

The Royal Family.

From the Queen to Prince Charles to Diana to Fergie - all of them are/were NewAgers with numerous contacts in the occult underworld. Of course, Britain's The News of the World would exploit that knowledge to get at the truth, even if America's so-called smart set refuses to do so.

Celebrity.

Oprah Winfrey is at the center of the NewAge belief system (it is now accepted we bow before her) and she just happens to be friends with almost everyone involved in this scandal, starting with Fergie.

Politics.

Where to start? Bill "a higher state of consciousness" Clinton, Hillary "I talk to psychics" Clinton, George "I lied for Clinton" Stephanopoulos, and their pal, Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted paedophile and major donor to their campaigns.

What holds all these people together? NewAge, and the various subjects it's regularly associated with, and nothing more. But while everyone will hold hearings on Islam, or fight Republicans based on connections to the Christian Right, or investigate child abuse in the Catholic church, or even go see musicals on Broadway about Mormons, this one group (probably with the exception of Scientology) gets off, scott free, with little-to-no examination whatsoever, no matter how idiotic the belief, heinous the behavior, or ugly the crimes they're repeatedly proven to be involved in. I've talked to many people about this and, despite their interest in every other belief system causing trouble out there, when it comes to NewAge they all say "We don't play that game" like exposing NewAgers is a crime itself.

And trust me, I know what they mean:

NewAge is the belief system of the Baby Boomers, so, in a sense, they do consider it a crime to expose it's dark side - a crime against themselves.

Few want to acknowledge it as such, but (along with his own stupidity) NewAgers - including a psychic - brought down John Edwards.

MoveOn.org is an astrology outfit - an astrology outfit backing everything conservatives don't want in this country, starting with the fight against public unions.

Oprah brought us the disaster of Barack Obama - who got the full support of NewAgers - further led by cult leaders and frauds like Arianna Huffington and Deepak Chopra. And, despite all the evidence Americans have absolutely no reason to take Oprah's - or any other NewAger's - word for anything, they repeatedly go to her and them for advice and solace.

Right after the actor and comedian Jim Carrey declared he was a NewAger, he was fingered in the anti-vaccine fraud that took the lives of children world-wide.



NewAgers, like Louise Hay, are major donors, producers, and consumers, of NPR, PBS, and the CPB - and, if you ask me, a major reason for the white, elitist, liberal politics they espouse - and why it's been so easy to bust them (the NewAge conception of "duality" makes believers evil - and stupid). Note to David Brooks - who has espoused NewAge views several times before:

Nothing about NewAge is representative of our "common culture".

As I've said before, whether Charlie Sheen is crazy is a matter of opinion, but - whether the world we live in is - that is beyond dispute.

And the fact the Baby Boom's big brains uniformly refuse to investigate what NewAge is up to, no matter what NewAgers do - while looking strenuously and directly at every other belief system under the sun and how they affect our lives - is all the proof I need this is the truth:

For the last four decades, America has been locked in a madhouse - and it's the NewAge Baby Boomers who have been holding the key.