Deafening Silence

Quote of the Week

From a commenter on Reddit, summarizing one of my pet peeves re: internet punctuation:

And apostrophes don't mean HOLY CRAP HERE COMES AN S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you, sir.

Now everybody go surf comments on the internet and count the incidents of apostrophe abuse (Bless the creator of that site!).

It's like English speakers are trying to make the apostrophe the new umlaut or accent grave.

Sheesh.

 

Quote(s) of the Week

I concur.

And Now for Something Completely Different...

...a biochem lecture with a dash of theatrical Ole!

 

Somehow, our modern world, with its economic collapse and its many wars, still has college kids like this in it.

Suddenly, I'm less scared.  Have at you, world!

Quote of the Week

From the comments thread beneath a Washington Post article about the Supreme Court debate of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare):

"Sooner or later, a much more far-reaching overhaul of the health-care system will be inevitable."

Maybe this time it will be bipartisan effort, that is constitutional[ly] sound, and not need midnight votes on holidays, and strange Senate rules to pass. Maybe this time it will be a couple hundred pages (Canada's Health care law was seven) instead of 2700, and printed before the vote and actually read. Maybe this time it won't put everybody in the same "pool" except for unions, states, and government employee with waivers and allow private citizens and employers to obtain the same policies as Senators and unions. Maybe this time the government won't feel the need to dictate free medicines to employers, insurers, and organizations down to the level of $9/mo. Maybe this time there won't be an appointed Secretary and a non-elected panel of 15 people that will make all health decisions for $350M people and for 17% of the economy.

Noble cause but a bad law. ...

Pretty much my thoughts exactly.

 

Quote(s) of the Week

In a letter sent to members of the Republican Caucus, Indiana state Rep. Bob Morris said many parents were "abandoning the Girl Scouts because they promote homosexual lifestyles."

"As members of the Indiana House of Representatives, we must be wise before we use the credibility and respect of the 'Peoples' House' to extend legitimacy to a radicalized organization," Morris said, warning lawmakers not "to endorse a group that has been subverted in the name of liberal progressive politics and the destruction of traditional American family values."

(Indiana representative Bob Morris, quoted in CNN.com story 2/22/12)

........................................................

"This is a spiritual war. And the Father of Lies has his sights on what you would think the Father of Lies would have his sights on: a good, decent, powerful, influential country - the United States of America...

"...We look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is in shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it."

(Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, speaking at Ave Maria University in 2008.)

................................................................

I really don't want to think that every Republican politician is a creepy, backwards thinking knucklehead but, my god, give me something to work with!

(Eileen3am on CNN comment thread)

Quote of the Week

From Nick Cohen's essay, "Bound and Gagged":

The grand posture of writers in liberal democracies is that they are the moral equivalents of dissidents in repressive regimes. Loud-mouthed newspaper columnists claim to 'speak truth to power'. Novelists, artists, playwrights and comedians announce their willingness to transgress boundaries. Their publishers look for controversy like boozers look for brawls because they know that few marketing strategies beat the claim that a courageous iconoclast is challenging establishments and shattering taboos.

To maintain the illusion that they are part of some kind of radical underground, intellectuals must practise a deceit. They can never admit to their audience that fear of violent reprisals, ostracism or crippling financial penalties keeps them away from subjects that ought to concern them - and their fellow citizens.

Read the whole thing, as they say.

 

Quote of the Week

From Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal:

"Above all, it doesn't matter that Americans are generally eager to send Mr. Obama packing. All they need is to be reasonably sure that the alternative won't be another fiasco. But they can't be reasonably sure, so it's going to be four more years of the disappointment you already know.

............

 And the U.S. will surely survive four more years. Who knows? By then maybe Republicans will have figured out that if they don't want to lose, they shouldn't run with losers."

Well put, Mr. Stephens.

Country First!

I just saw this in the Christian Science Monitor and I confess it brought tears to my eyes:

During a Huntsman campaign stop outside Marie’s Bakery in Henniker, N.H., Monday morning, patrons chanted his words: “Country first! Country first!”

“This is a turning point,” says Wayne Lesperance, a political scientist at New England College in Henniker, who was present at the event and confirms that the chanters were not campaign staff or even typically involved in politics.

The phrase "Country First" entered the campaign this week as Mr. Huntsman responded to a jibe from Mitt Romney during a debate.  Here's a replay put together by Huntsman's campaign:

 

When I first heard about this moment in the debate, I was immediately reminded of Scott Brown's debate comment in the Massachusetts Senate race two years ago:

"With all due respect, it's not the Kennedy's seat, it's not the Democrats' seat, it's the people's seat."

  

I am a registered Independent.  I'm not a rabid Huntsman or Brown supporter.  Instead, what moves me about the mental image of ordinary Americans chanting "Country first!  Country first!" is the conviction that this is what we need.  I suspect I'm not alone in yearning for a candidate to become viable by bringing this nation together- not setting themselves apart as "the Purest" in some extreme doctrine. 

The bitter truth is that all sides of the debate can bring something valuable to the table.  The genius of this country is not some trumped-up notion of "Purity" or political pedigree.  Historically, generation after generation, the strength and genius of the United States has been its ability to hybridize, to weave together different points of view and create visionary solutions to all sorts of problems.  In these dangerous and discouraging times, we need to remember that.

Maybe we even need to climb up on our chairs and chant a little, just to remind ourselves:

It's not the Democrat's seat or the Republican's seat- it's the people's seat.

Because the country still belongs to us- all of us.  As long as we're willing to work together and fight for it.

Country First!!!!!!!!!!!

Quote of the Week

This week's quote comes from Jonah Goldberg at the National Review:

Another Christmastime commercial that drives me nuts is the one(s) for Kay Jewellers. The husband/boyfriend buys the missus/girlfriend a diamond whatever and she gives him some sugar. The tagline as they smooch is “Every Kiss Begins with Kay.” Now, I understand that it’s also a pun (“kiss” begins with “K”, har har har), but if every kiss begins with a bauble from the jewelers then, well, your wife’s a whore.

I agree completely and this commercial drives me crazy, too.  (Fortunately, I watch very little TV and what I do watch I get via Hulu or Netflix, so my exposure to commercials in general is blessedly minimal.)

I'll even go Mr. Goldberg one better and admit that I personally dislike diamonds.  Of all gemstones, I find them the most boring and ugly. They are about as interesting to look at as a flashlight, in my opinion- just a chunk of overpriced, blinding hyperwhiteness. 

And my first words when my sweeheart presented me with a (sapphire-studded) engagement ring were: "Is this paid for?  How could you afford this?  It looks too expensive!"

I was on the verge of launching into a lecture about the foolishness of throwing away money on jewelry for me when he was still struggling when I realized he was, like, proposing marriage.  Erm...

He will never let me forget that.

 

 

Quote of the Week

From a comments thread on Slate:

This is quite a change from the late 1960s-early 1970s when the message of the sitcom was to have 3 kids, kill your spouse, then marry someone else with 3 kids who had killed their spouse. Ever notice they never explain what happened to the first Mrs. Brady and the first Mr. Carol? The kids never mention the missing parents, either. Their unspoken terror was palpable.

 

And also this quote, given in response:

I always wondered why all six kids had to share one bathroom... you think there was another bathroom they couldn't use any more because that's where the bodies were walled up?

 

That's the way they all became the Brady Bunch....