From The People’s View, a fascinating article about where the Glenn Greenwalds and Jane Hamshers of the world–you know, the ones who became liberal when a black man took office and dared to create and sustain progressive policies without consulting them first–get their respective bread buttered. The next time self-described left wingers start throwing the term “corporatist” around within earshot, ask them if they’ve seen any investment disclosure statements from the Huffington Post lately.
Give a Man a Quarter and He Can Play One Game, Teach Him to Write in Basic and He Can Feed a Village (Really), They Don’t Make Video Games the Way They Used To (and Get Off My Lawn!), Russ Can’t Help Falling In Love…Again…, Is This the Text That Launched a Thousand Ships?, How Rabbits From Certain Places Can Help You Recover Your Voice, How Many Meppers Does It Take to Get One Mepper a Date, Angry Pictures are Angry, and Chemistry = Not Fat.
Greg Runs the Gauntlet of the Spa Castle, Uniforms Vs. Au Natural: Fight!, To Every Horde, Turn, Turn, Turn, The Horror of Red Bumperman, The Joy of Having One’s Skin Ripped Off, and Zombie Kings.
In everyday speech, I try to be direct as possible, regardless of social context. This may explain my lack of understanding of most people. Experimental psychologist, Steven Pinker has some insight on this matter.
I’ve always felt the turning point in the 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign was the moment when the sight of then-candidate Barack Obama after wrapping up the Democratic nomination was almost immediately contrasted with now-failed-candidate and angry man John McCain, in front of a sickening green background and performing to an audience which sounded more like a canned laugh track, giving a nasty, pitiful screed about the man who would trounce him in the election only a few months later. One man represented the best of what America would like to imagine itself as–intelligent, broad-minded, appealing to the better angels of our nature–and the other represented the impossibly tired bitterness of a rapidly disappearing part of our society. The choice, and thus result, was never more stark.
Beyond expressing my sorrow for the lost and injured and all those affected by this tragedy, I have little to say about the horrific events in Arizona yesterday except one thing. Regular Mep readers / listeners will know all of us here put a high value on communication and the power of rhetoric; the two greatest speakers of the twentieth century (arguably) were Martin Luther King and Adolf Hitler, and I don’t think anyone needs a cheat sheet to determine which person pursued the good and which the evil. What yesterday conclusively, definitively proves is that rhetoric is not an unalloyed good. It is a neutral tool, and it has consequences.
The following piece features the voices of Joe Rogan, Bill Hicks, and the Bizarro Reagans. In posting this, I do not wish to convey that drugs are necessary to transcending the narrowness of your daily perceptions. They can help, if used properly. The real point is that it is your responsibility as a human to remain curious, to absorb more of the world than your traditional senses can impart, to access deeper parts of yourself. And, for the love of everything, you need to start doing this now.
Another TheraminTrees piece, this one on conformity studies. Particularly of note, was the Weaver study, which established that hearing something multiple times makes it more convincing even if you are hearing it repeated by the same source. Could Fox News and friends have incorporated this bit of social engineering into their broadcasting style any more obviously?
