“Not only could a million monkeys have turned out the works of Shakespeare, they actually did.”
Category Archives: World
Out of the Barrel of a Gun
Politics: the complex or aggregate of relationships of people in society, esp those relationships involving authority or power
Mao Zedong said, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
He was right. He and I have some pretty major philosophical differences but on that he was absolutely right. Continue reading Out of the Barrel of a Gun
Best Buy Has My Business
There is more to a retailer than price.
A few weeks ago I switched from an iPod Touch and an old flip cellphone to a Samsung Galaxy. All-in-one! And believe it or not I’m actually paying less per month now than I was. Of course, switching my habits to encompass an android device instead of a Touch has made a bit of an impact. The functionality is all there, and more, but it’s different.
Among other things the little FM transmitter I could plug my iPod into and hear it over my car’s radio didn’t plug into the Galaxy. So, I did a little research and decided to go with Gomadic for both a mount and a power/transmitter device. They arrived. (I do so love getting packages with cool things in them!) and I installed them both.
The mount was OK, secure if a little wobbly. The transmitter was crap. They had assured me on their website that their transmitter was “2nd Generation, even more powerful!” and that I would listen to all my music with “crystal clarity”. I had faith because the one for the iPod had worked quite well.
Bull.
Larry Correia on Tax Day
Over on Monster Hunter Nation rockstar author, accountant, and gun maven Larry Correia has some pithy thoughts on the state of US Government spending.
But no matter how screwed up our tax code is, and even if we suddenly had a sensible tax code tomorrow, we’d still be in deep trouble, because the government is spending too damn much.
Back From Africa
I’ve been out of the country for a while and busy for longer than that.
I deployed to Senegal Africa with the National Guard and had a grand old time.
Senegal was interesting. Among other things it was almost entirely populated with black people. Who knew? Coming from Utah, this was quite a difference. It wasn’t long though, before it became apparent that most things were still very much the same. The Senegalese seem to be primarily concerned with putting food on the table and generally making their way in the world.
Among other things, Senegal is very proud that their country has never had a military coup. Also, they have the largest Baobab forest in the world. This forest was, apparently, about 10 kilometers south of where we were in Thies. I wouldn’t know as we were too busy to make it there. I did get to go into downtown Thies on several occasions as well as see a bit of Dakar but raw tourism was pretty much off the table.
There were some trinket vendors just outside the section of the Senegalese military base we were on, well, not really trinkets, most of it was nicer than trinkets but you get the idea.
I determined that I wasn’t going to buy statues of any exotic animals unless I saw those animals during my stay. As it ended up, I could have bought a statue of a goat, a pig, a horse, or maybe a cow. The elephants, lions, giraffes and monkeys were not in evidence. Very exciting.
So next I asked if I could get a wooden piece made from baobab wood. I was sternly informed by a women manning one of the tables that baobab wood was no good for carving. It’s really not even good for making fires. You can make rope or clothes out of it if you’re really desperate. Instead I wanted some nice teak pieces. Yes?
I don’t know if baobab wood got such a bad rep because the woman didn’t have any to sell me or if it’s really no good for carving.
Gris Gris were no good either. Gris Gris are charms, good luck charms in particular. I asked if they had a gris gris specifically for luck in battle. Nope, just luck in life in general. I went back and asked for a battle specific gris gris a couple of times until finally it became apparent that they would probably hand me one the next time I came back and tell me it was for battle just so I’d shut up.
I did see a nifty mask though. It’s an ugly little thing, totally unlike the other masks on the table. Upon questioning the woman told me that it was a bird mask of the Seti people in the old style. It was so ugly it kind of grew on me in only a few minutes so I bought it.
My Uncle!
He presents a paper that is a brilliant examination of the relationship between the Indian Wars the United States fought in its early life and the current terror wars we’re fighting now.
The New Racism
For starters, racism is real in today’s America. It exists. I’ve seen it.
Now I’ll go on to point out something I’m finding endlessly amusing.
Background is required. Several months ago, centering around the release of Avatar: The Last Air Bender, there was a great deal of discussion concerning the whitewashing of that film and whitewashing in general. Folks were angry that the producers of Avatar had cast white actors to play characters that most people would imagine as asian from the TV show and story. Great anger and acid accusations of racism were leveled at said producers. Much of the attention, I suspect, was paid because of M. Night Shyamalan’s involvement with the film.
I only heard about the uproar over Avatar because a friend of mine jumped in with both feet and shrieked in outrage with the best of them. Personally, I thought it was a molehill, but my apathy doesn’t, or shouldn’t, take away from the feelings of others on the matter.
Now enter the Thor film from Marvel Studios, and Idris Elba cast as Heimdall, a Norse deity. Again we have some folks getting a little upset over the casting. You see, Idris Elba is black, and most people would assume that Heimdall would be white, being Norse and all.
So, in one case we have whites being cast in roles that people imagine, reasonably, as asian and in the other we have a black man being cast in a role that people imagine, reasonably, as white. Same exact disconnect in both cases. The studios are clearly GETTING THE RACE WRONG when they’re choosing the actors to play these imaginary characters.
Cue the same uproar. The same bitter sarcasm. The same rage. … The crickets.
No one seems to care that a black man is playing the part of a norse god. I certainly don’t and I think the few people that do are racist, a bit nuts, and perhaps dangerously so.
Yet now we see, a little uncomfortably, that those who objected so loudly to the casting of Avatar share a slice of their root philosophy on race with these people.
You’re both racist. Deal with that and let’s all move on.
Bonus link: My friend Dan Wells has posted on this same topic over on his blog. As always he is erudite and fascinating.
Nancy Fulda and bias
Just got linked to this great article on bias by Nancy Fulda, via Howard Tayler. She’s apparently his sister-in-law and an accomplished researcher and deep thinker.
Very well put and well written. Highly recommended.
Fareed Zakaria
Just found a guy named Fareed Zakaria.
I’m really impressed. This article, which he wrote for Newsweek in the aftermath of 9/11, was amazing. In its tone and basic ideas I feel vindicated that it says many of the same things I’ve been saying for years. And Mr. Zakaria has actual creds to his name, not just seat of the pants armchair theorizing like me.
While the fact that I agree with him is nice for me, more importantly he speaks to and integrates many of the root ideas that other people skate around in favor of rhetoric. He doesn’t gloss over anything that I could see. While not claiming to be perfectly unbiased (impossible) he does present a solid, clear look at both sides of the issues he’s discussing.
I’ll definitely be looking for and reading more of his stuff.
Wikileaks two
Lots of people out there on the web pooh poohing the idea that wikileaks is costing lives. They don’t claim that wikileaks hasn’t cost lives. Most of them simply claim that it pales in comparison to the number of lives lost due to actions by the governments wikileaks targeted. A fair point. And, if you assume that the west, the United States and Britain in particular, is corrupt and murderous by nefarious design, you can stop thinking at that point and simply wave your placard. I don’t share that view and find those that do a little long on the yammer and short on the hammer. They speak, confidently, from under the umbrella of freedom, security and prosperity those very governments provide.
There’s another necessary half of the argument, usually left implicit by these rhetoricians. You must also believe that the threats of terrorism and rabid jihad the west is facing and fighting are largely nebulous and illusory. I direct your attention to the New York of nine years ago. You may then stepping stone your way to the present over countless incidents of violence and cruelty deliberately perpetrated against innocents by the very same individuals and their groups that are so necessarily (for this particular argument to hold water) illusory.
The west has not been perfect in its prosecution of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. There are plenty of examples of western soldiers and leaders doing wrong. Such incidents are few and far between, as evidenced by the attention they get when they do happen.
The massive and pungent irony of the whole wikileaks situation is that wikileaks targeted only the side it is safe to target. Exposing the inner workings of Al Quaeda and like groups is, after all, awfully difficult and dangerous.
As for wikileaks being treasonous, no. It’s only treasonous for Bradley Manning. For folks of other citizenships it’s called espionage.