I Black, You Black, We Blackity-Black-Black-Black, Black

Since I felt forced into that little series on blackness, I'm trying to figure out how to elegantly get out of it (homeopathy!) but post-Trayvon, the stream of stories keep it hittin' - here's where I sit on 'em:

I don't give a fuck about Paula Deen or Riley Cooper because I live in America, and know how we talk, and don't think Americans should be punished for it. You want to reprimand an employee at work, fine. But firing somebody? Fuck you. 

This shit ain't that bad, if it's bad at all.

Everybody knows I don't like Oprah, but right now conservatives are wrongly "playing gotcha" with her because she said millions of blacks were lynched when, by the strict definition of the term, there were merely thousands. I guess it's somewhat to their credit that - even after watching her fall for every NewAge character and concoction ever invented - no one considered the possibility Oprah's uneducated. One of those blacks, like Obama, who's allowed to slide by for whatever quality white's appreciate seeing in them. That's what I see. 

I see a whole lot more, too, but I'm typing with one finger, so fuck it.

I see The Root says Spike Lee compared Tyler Perry's work to Amos n Andy. 

In light of that, I don't think The Root, Spike Lee, or Tyler Perry are worthy of two sentences.

I think a "Dummies" version of the Trayvon Martin trial should be produced, and replayed everywhere, until the Black Muslims are begging George Zimmerman to come home.

Charlie Rangel is a liar, a crook, a troublemaker, and a fool. 

And he's not alone.

And finally, all Don Lemon said is what anybody's grandmother would say. So he's gay, big deal. 

Calling him a "Professional Assassin” seems a bit much,...

 

Tom Wolfe: "They Bring It Back To The Nazi Period,..."

Tommy Boy sees it, too - just as I've been saying all along:

Whatever I am, when it comes to this culture - this NewAge - I've never been far off,...

ADDED:

 Drudge catches Hollywood in the act,...

The Future Is Now (Take A Sedation)

Black girls booty-shakin' - check. Rodney King/"Cops" video - check. Marriage in trouble - check. Anti-depressants - check. Existential crisis - check,...

Instapundit: The Tests Find Nothing (Hand 'Em The Bill)

 

"SO, APPARENTLY, I’m an idiot who should keep his mouth shut. Er, well, whatever."

If they're wrong, a lot, should that idea be so hard to get their minds around?

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you François Hollande - I mean, Glenn Reynolds - in all his glory.

As receptive to criticism as Ann Althouse, but a little bit more mature ("whatever") when he gets some. And he does get some - what a joke:

"I had no plan to suck up to Reynolds in an effort to gain him as an ally anymore than I planned to teach a pig to sing. As players in punditry go, Reynolds is a major player, and he enjoys his importance. He doesn't swim with minnows like Gid and me. At most, he eats us for a snack. Radley may have been well-intended, but didn't really appreciate the pecking order. 

Of course, there was nothing to stop Reynolds, either before or after he published his Ham Sandwich essay, from speaking with people who were actually knowledgeable about criminal law, whether that was Gid and/or me, or some other trench lawyers, who could explain why good ideas on paper don't play as well in the courtroom.  But no. He didn't. Since it was his essay being published to enlighten the world, it was his duty to get a clue, and his choice not to. 

My point to Radley at the time was the when loud voices with ascribed credibility write something like this, bad things happen. Bad ideas are taken more seriously. Other people will mistakenly assume that Reynolds, lawprof and all, has a clue what he's talking about and his ideas must have merit. After all, lawprofs could never be wrong about lawstuff.  And now that Reynolds had rung the bell, it could not be unrung."

Now, I ask you, how many people have to make the same point - after me, I might add - before the readers will pay attention and stop listening to a credentialed "idiot" who doesn't know what he's talking about?

"While Instapundit is a Big Kahuna on the interwebz and among academics, George Will has a soap box that dwarfs Reynolds. And he's taken Reynolds' "ideas" mainstream, not only crediting Reynolds for his position as an academic, but taking for granted that he's got criminal law chops.  It's unlikely that George checked Reynolds out at Tennessee Law School, where he teaches Administrative Law, Constitutional Law, Law, Science, and Technology, Space Law, Internet Law. See criminal law in there? See anything in his past to suggest even a passing familiarity with the actual practice of criminal law? Me neither. 

Yet, I look forward to some fine senators extolling the virtue of a dangerous and hare-brained reform of the law, citing to Glenn Reynolds' Ham Sandwich essays as the font of practical criminal law brilliance.  Because the myth has now been created and George Will gave it legs. 

And this is how we end up with monumentally bad ideas being enshrined in law.  For those who aren't familiar with Instapundit, this from Reynolds' Wikipedia page:  

'Much of Instapundit's content consists of links to other sites, often with brief comments. (His frequent use of "heh," "indeed," and "read the whole thing" have been widely imitated and are often parodied by other bloggers.) Reynolds encourages readers to explore the wider blogosphere and to fully read articles and posts to which he links.' 

And that's the foundation for being a major player on the internet."

Exactly. As I've said a billion times, Reynolds (and Althouse) are too isolated - and too willing to be all "whatever" when criticized - to be of much help where it's needed. They don't care about anything but their own success. We need men and women who are adults, engaged with the world as it is. But, instead, we get petulant children with an attitude problem, thinking they should be telling the rest of us how to live by virtue of being the first to gather a crowd. (Carnival barkers always do,...)

Ideas mean nothing to them, nor does right and wrong ("whatever") or - especially - the bad outcomes their ideas generate (a HUGE "whatever"). Really - anybody on the Right want to follow Glenn and Ann's lead and argue for a President Romney again? Does Romney want to keep insisting the Mormons invented cold fusion? I don't think so.

The worst is how Reynolds and Althouse also take both sides of an issue. One day Glenn's promoting "laughing yoga" and the next it's "GOOD ADVICE: Don’t Romanticize Traditional Medicine. It’s mostly quackery." Well, if this dingbat thinks "traditional medicine" is "mostly quackery" then what does he think yoga is, but "traditional medicine" from India? I'll tell you:

  He doesn't know.

And he doesn't know because he's not willing to learn, and he's not willing to learn because he's "a major player" and there's "the pecking order" that dictates A) he doesn't have to, and B) the rest of us should be screwed only by those greater, and thus more comfortable, than ourselves. Only they can ignore their victims ("he enjoys his importance") with class. Why? Because, once they've passed a certain online celebrity threshold, few think they can be challenged. (I'm shocked by the reverence Althouse and Reynolds have received, in spite of spreading bad ideas, and helping lose elections - it's wild.) I've heard people say as much - "Reynolds is too big." I call it:

The Kim Jong-Un Effect,...

This Is A Rant: We Couldn't Buy Your Magazines If We Wanted To (Which - Surprise! - We Don't!)

Mickey Kaus links to Slate's Jack Shafer column - about Tina Brown's "new" Newsweek - saying of the Leftist/feminist rag:

This is a meal that a homeless person would walk away from.

Now that's funny, considering all the people who are, or will soon be, homeless out there! (We happen to be using the phrase "homeless" in two ways - in the traditional sense, and to represent Generation Jones, those of us who aren't Boomers and never bought into the prevailing Boomer mindset.) Considering the Right is currently doing the exact same thing the Left is, this got us to thinking:

What else are we "homeless" walking - or running - away from?

In a world where the rich and celebrated are destroying our institutions while hanging out with killers and pedophiles, the president's a baldfaced liar (and delusional as he blows our money) and won't support freedom, doctors are quacks who give out fake excuses to miss work, a college degree is worthless (unless you want to see a woman get off for $50,000 or support a dictator) older people sleep with guns because their daughter's done well, organizations we support take us for granted and are anti-semetic, what's a true blue "homeless" American not to like?

Our answer is "everything". This isn't a case of a few "bad apples" - with some, like Glenn Reynolds, representing the good guys - but of a despicable culture, eating itself alive, in order for the rest of us not to have a meal. The Left and the Right are strangling the middle, in every way possible, and daring those of us closest to the bottom to say a word about it.

Oh, they don't mind if we scream, because they're no more likely to publicize it than their brothers in the mainstream media or the dictatorships they claim to despise. As a matter of fact, to let any accurate criticism of them get out is their worst nightmare, because they have no interest in fixing anything - they only want power as badly as the so-called "bad guys". They speak for those who can "buy now" - not for those who can't buy anything because of long-standing cultural and political policies they've supported, that have made them rich, but that made the rest of us "homeless", both in the financial sense and ideologically.

There is no outlet for those that dislike what they're all doing.

So yes - when it comes to what we "homeless" desire from those in the Boomer set - yes, yes, yes:

Considering what you've made, we'd rather break your plate than eat from it.

This Is A Normal Picture Of A Business Meeting (Or How Too Many Folks Seem To View Them)

Little-by-little, the world is closing in on - and warming up to - this blog's theme:

Please be advised: No updates on the health of Steve Jobs are contained in this article. Nor, despite its title, are there any in the piece being reviewed herein. Mike Daisey's "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," which opened Sunday at Berkeley Rep's Thrust Stage, is much more concerned with the moral health of a society hooked on the products of Jobs' company.

And with the physical health of the labor that produces them.

Which is not to say that Daisey doesn't like Apple computers, iPhones, iPads and the rest. Or that he doesn't regard Jobs as a genius, with a particularly good eye for design. Quite the contrary. In one of the indefatigable raconteur's most tightly constructed, passionate and socially engaged monologues yet, Daisey's anger and biting comedy stem from his heartbreak as a former longtime "worshiper in the house of Mac."

Together with "The Last Cargo Cult," which Daisey is performing in repertory with this piece, "Agony" fills out a trenchant and funny critique of what might be the most deeply held, if unacknowledged, beliefs in our culture. In "Cargo," he visits an actual cargo cult in the remote South Pacific, juxtaposing its overt worship of material goods with a look at the depth of our faith in money. In "Agony," he takes on the worship of technology and its high priest, because religion is, in essence, "the way we see the world."

So, if "religion is, in essence, 'the way we see the world'" - and considering how shitty everything's been lately - what would happen if we stopped looking at the world that way? You know, dropped all the "spiritual" and "intuitive" nonsense and went with what we actually know?

Yea, yea, we're waaay ahead of you,...that's crazy talk!

Justice

Alright - maybe you assholes will stop romanticizing France after seeing this: look at the shitty cars, the weak populace, the fucked up industrial wasteland/gingerbread house decor, and the 1970's public housing. "France doesn't agree" with us? Who cares? They've got their own problems - including vicious racism and anti-semitism - and, so, are in no position to talk. (And when they do, they sound like they're about 5 fucking years old.) I'm saluting it, right now, with a $2.00 bottle of wine. That's about all the relativist bastards deserve.

I love this video: it's about time.

Saving The Planet (The Old Fashioned Way)