Thought for the day, from E.J. Dionne in the Washington Post:
… You do not get to choose your parents or where you are born, and no government program can guarantee that you’ll benefit from acts of kindness and generosity that you do nothing to earn.
These thoughts were inspired by the death on Monday of one of the best human beings I will ever know. Bert Yaffe, 93, was a businessman and a decorated Marine combat veteran — he was a tank commander in Guam, Bougainville and Iwo Jima — who carried shrapnel in his body to his last day. He was also a citizen-politician who ran for Congress in 1970 because, having fought proudly in a war he considered absolutely necessary, he came to oppose a war in Vietnam that he saw as a terrible mistake…
He had been the local organizer for Eugene McCarthy’s 1968 anti-war campaign and was a prime force behind what became the 1969 Vietnam Moratorium protests. We met when I interviewed him for a high school project on the reform movement in the Democratic Party, and it happened almost instantly: He decided to take me on as an extra son — and, bless them, his own children, Eric, Cheryl and Rob, welcomed me as part of the family…
Faced in the early 1970s with a highly personal feud among some of our political friends, he sought to mediate rather than take sides.
“The rule is: Make no gratuitous enemies,” he said. “The key word is ‘gratuitous.’ ”
If you stand for something, you will always make enemies. That is part of the price of being principled. What you should avoid are entirely unnecessary fights that advance no cause but create bitter feelings. I’ll always think of it as a singularly important piece of political wisdom…
raven
Damn, he was born in Sparta. It’s a tiny town that is on the two-laner that I take to Savannah!
Schlemizel
Ironic coming from Dionne who seems to have a lot of gratuitous friends
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: I knew about Rome and Athens, GA; there’s a Sparta too?
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: Oh yea, and I live in Athens. I ordered his book, I am interested to read about a Jewish family in Sparta, GA in the 20’s and 30’s.
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: I knew you lived in Athens(not Greece).
Linda Featheringill
Gratuitous enemies. Yeah. The world is full of ’em.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: Oh, it’s early and I missed your Athens!
WereBear
@BillinGlendaleCA: There was a real vogue for naming towns based on Greek and Roman antiquity; upstate NY is also full of such.
raven
Ya’ll need to swing through Hahira and Between GA sometime!
raven
Joe wants republicans to stop being rodeo clowns and more like Newt!
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: I’m still trying to figure out the difference between Newt and the clowns.
BillinGlendaleCA
@WereBear: I know NY has a Rome, Ithica, and Syracuse.
Betty Cracker
@raven: My grandparents used to live in Hahira! Snake Nation Road.
I stayed in Rome, GA for an event once back in college. Beautiful town.
raven
@Betty Cracker: Wow! I bet they know my former dept chair! Hangin at Berry College huh?
kindness
Dude was the anti-thesis of current Republican Party groupthink.
Betty Cracker
@raven: Yep, Berry College. I think everyone knew everyone else in Hahira. Haven’t been there for years now. Once my grandfather passed, my grandmother moved back to FL to be near her kids and grandkids.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
About 1.5 wives.
TR
@WereBear:
I’m not sure about the Georgia towns, but the upstate New York towns — Rome, Ithaca, Homer, Corinth, etc. — were all named in be aftermath of the Revolutionary War as part of a trend that evoked Roman and Greek names in an homage to classical democracies.
Punchy
@raven: Born in Sparta? Damn he’s old. I bet the Athenians hate him. Stupid city-states.
Edit: looks like about 18 people got there first….
Frankensteinbeck
Under other circumstances, it would be. Haven’t we moved well beyond this to ‘Nearly fifty percent of the population has completely lost its political shit’? It’s like giving clothes shopping advice to The Hulk. Okay, yes, technically he could use it, but you’re treating the symptoms here.
Maybe I’m just crabby when I get up early. It seems like a nice eulogy.
SiubhanDuinne
@BillinGlendaleCA: There’s also a Cairo, Georgia (one in Illinois, too, but they pronounce it “KAY-roe”).
TheMightyTrowel
Election is a couple of weeks away here and the stupidity of the Australian media is breathtaking. The ABC has just proved what we all knew: that dudes hated Gillard largely because she’s a woman. Instead of reflecting on the deep and ingrained misogyny in Australia in any meaningful way, they decide the better option is to discuss Gillard’s ‘bloke problem.’ FUCK ME. ARGH.
Also, where the fuck are the error bars or p-values for these graphs!?! I’ve emailed ABC three times this week to tell them how shoddy their data analysis is, they don’t ever write back.
Nina
Dionne needs to make some more non-gratuitous enemies. He’s far too chummy with some of the hatemongers.
Lee
I’ve got an interesting story from the first School Board meeting I have ever attended.
I live in wingnut red North Texas which makes this story interesting.
In our district we have a ‘student opportunity center’ which is where they send the kids with discipline or serious grade issues (as well as others). From all accounts I’ve heard it is an outstanding center with really dedicated teachers.
So the principle of the center is giving her yearly update. How many graduated on time, +1 year, how many GED, how many pregnant students, etc. She throws in this nugget of information and not one single board members make a peep.
Apparently they let non-english speaking young adults ‘audit’ the ESL classes even if they have zero educational history from their country of origin. They just got their first one admitted to our local community college. One board member even applauded her efforts!
I’m worried that this whole reasonableness is going to catch on nationally with Republicans.
Geeno
NY also has Attica, Utica, Troy … There’s just boatloads of ’em.
NotMax
@raven
Forty years after driving solo from NY to Miami (and back), the name of the town of Claxton, Georgia is still etched in the brain from the near-endless run of roadside signs advertising fruitcake.
Baud
@Lee:
I’m not surprised. Conservatives are a different animal when they aren’t made to feel threatened by liberals or some other Other. Just like kids behave differently when they’re all alone as opposed to all together at a birthday party.
ETA: To be fair, it’s a general trait of humans, not just conservatives, although I think they exemplify it more.
Baud
No love for Thebes?
NotMax
@Baud
Only thometimes,
Frankensteinbeck
@Baud: and @Lee:
Notice that they only went insane nationally when they realized they weren’t completely in charge. Apparently for a lot of folks, minorities can be just as good sidekicks as whites and should be respected in that role. I think that’s what happened to Eastwood.
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck:
Johnny Depp agrees!
TheMightyTrowel
@Baud: but only if the minority in question is actually a white guy with dark makeup and a silly accent.
raven
@NotMax: Yup, right off the superslab to Savannah.
Baud
@TheMightyTrowel:
David Carradine agrees!
PsiFighter37
So…what’s the latest thoughts about Egypt? It’s pretty much devolving into the shitshow that was coming once the military retook power…
raven
@PsiFighter37: Like it wasn’t before that.
gene108
Indian Independence Day today. Nice run down from the BBC (irony never sleeps) on the state of things today.
Frankensteinbeck
@PsiFighter37:
We wish them luck, but at least it’s not OUR shit show? I’d actually be interested in reliable news about how it’s going. Recommendations?
raven
@Frankensteinbeck: I assume the reason Cole leaves Pat Lang’s link here is because, despite being a confederate and catholic nutjob (and deep Kerry hater) , he KNOWS about the ME. Here’s part of his take:
raven
@Frankensteinbeck: Did I mention gun nut?
PsiFighter37
@Frankensteinbeck: I feel like we’re in a bad spot. The sensible thing would be to cut off military aid, but I think the Israel-Egypt peace treaty is pretty dependent on us helping out the Egyptian military.
Even if we’re not directly involved in it, it’s still partially our mess that we have to figure out (very delicately) how to walk through.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Malki! has a great daily series at Wondermark this week (it’s usually only Tues & Fri). Be sure to check it out and pass it on to your Teabagger friends.
In Which a Train is Taken and subsequent.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Just a fan.)
Belafon
@Lee: Which part of North Texas. I’m in the little county on the east side. That really tiny one.
Mino
@Lee: They haven’t yet been told it is a bad thing.
Carnacki
Q: How many Steelers fans does it take to change a light bulb?
A: They don’t. They just talk about how good was the old one.
...now I try to be amused
@raven:
Jim Dunnigan pointed out that most armies in the world are what he called “police armies”. They seldom perform well when they have to fight a real army.
RaflW
4 week moving average new unemployment claims are the lowest they’ve been since Nov 2007. Still a long way to go but the news is good (so the markets are down).
Well, the Egyptian situation may be playong a part in that, though the financial press automatically assumes good financial news = Fed action that will “hurt” investors … ie: the bond gravy train may be winding down.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Tammy Duckworth being awesome.
Sent to me by a friend who appreciated her snark/rant and had no fucking clue who she is. Which made it even better.
PurpleGirl
As to classically named cities: In NYS, we also have an Athens, which has an important lighthouse in the Hudson River. In the Catskills region there is also a Cairo, which they also pronounce as Kay-ro.
Gex
It is very interesting getting first hand experience at how utterly shoddy our journalism is.
Dave Weigel recently wrote a piece for Slate about Orson Scot Card’s racism. Which is fine. But he had a need to down play the homophobia. So we had an email exchange.
I took him to task because he wrote, “Card’s religious objection to gay marriage is shared by a substantial minority of Americans, and holding it against him is a little pat.”
Orson Scott Card has called for the violent overthrow of the US government in response to advances in gay rights. Which I hope IS NOT where the average anti-gay Christian stands.
His response: “I’ll write an update today. I honesty didn’t see as much about the gay rights thing as activists did, and I’m sorry for missing it.” Really?
My response: “That’s just very sad. Why express an opinion on his view on gays if you don’t know what they are?”
His response: “Mea culpa, I had read coverage of his role in NOM but not the pure craziness aspect of his other gay marriage views.”
Well color me impressed. Another straight person who doesn’t have to pay attention to gay issues, barely scanning around and confirming for himself that the problem isn’t that bad. What a fucking useless piece of shit. Five minutes on Google and he’d have had that info. HE CAN’T EVEN SPEND 5 MINUTES ON GOOGLE TO RESEARCH HIS ARTICLE.
Just fuck him with a rusty farm implement. Because you know what else I hate about that article? The subtle, probably unintended message of we can care about homophobia or racism, but not both. Because if you are a mealy-mouthed part of the problem straight white male, you cannot help but pit the two groups against each other.
Less than useless. Not even wrong. Why hasn’t the universe imploded under the absurdity of all this contrarian bullshit?
Culture of Truth
That’s pretty good, actually.
schrodinger's cat
Thread needs kitteh, one that goes for the kill.
schrodinger's cat
@Gex: Good job, keeping Weigel on his feet.
NonyNony
@schrodinger’s cat:
One thing that struck me in that exchange that Gex posted – Weigel crosses what should be a low bar where he admits that he was wrong, he doesn’t know enough about an issue and didn’t do sufficient research. And promises a correction.
That should be the minimum – the absolute minimum – that we should expect from a paid journalist. But it seems to be more the exception that the rule these days.
But in agreement with Gex – how the hell do you get to August of 2013, after EVERYTHING that Card has said and posted about gay marriage and gays in general in the last few years and NOT know that he’s more than your average crusty-old-fart-anti-gay-marriage-because-I-hate-change-and-my-Elder-says-its-wrong kind of anti-gay guy? He’s spouted some absolutely vile shit that I thought was well-publicized in a number of places over the past year alone.
Manyakitty
And today in god-botherers: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/missouri-legislator-files-suit-to-be-exempted-from-contraception-mandate/article_911b75c9-8004-55be-9a76-44c0fa637e02.html
Ruckus
@Gex:
I believe it is imploding. What we are seeing is the fallout of that implosion.
Pitting the two groups against each other keeps them off of your throat. And lessens the possibility that you have to actually think about or take any action with or against either of the parties. It is actually classic self protection. Of course at some time the two other parties may notice that they have a common enemy, join forces and kick some righteous ass.
Ruckus
@NonyNony:
It’s pretty easy to get there if you have your head up your ass or even just don’t want to know.
Maybe we need a listing of the racist, homophobic and misogynistic assholes. How many would get checks in all three columns? I wonder how many would be proud to be on the list?
NickT
Apparently a German town is trying frantically to find Mitch McConnell in a nearby lake:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-bavarian-village-of-irsee-is-ramping-up-efforts-to-find-alligator-snapping-turtle-lotti-a-916775.html
God knows what will happen if Ted Cruz escapes into the wilds.
Ben Cisco
TBOGG’s not quite done yet.
Lee
@Belafon:
Frisco.