Animals
Jonah Goldberg makes the moral case for pets in a chapter from his new book, The Dadly Virtues. (Yes, that's "dadly" not "deadly." The book explains further.)
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/418479/moral-case-pets-jonah-goldberg?
Books
These two aren't Fair Trade Books--yet. Too new.
http://blogjob.com/arthurchappellbookreviews/2015/08/21/book-review-joe-hill-nos4r2/
(Just reading the review made Grandma Bonnie Peters and me giggle, yesterday. It's funny because it cites the book.)
http://blogjob.com/arthurchappellbookreviews/2015/08/20/book-review-kenji-kawakami-101-un-useless-japanese-inventions/
Business Opportunity
Earlier this summer, Grandma Bonnie Peters was delivering telephone directories by day, sitting with a patient by night. The phonebooks have all been delivered, the patient has found a university student to share her flat at night, and GBP has been job-hunting. A friend who is a visiting home health aide tells us, "My agency has patients downtown! You could go from house to house on the bus..." I'm not the one who's job-hunting. "But you could earn as much per hour as you make from some entire days hack writing." Those cute but crowded little vans that wind their way through all those residential neighborhoods are not designed for an efficient visiting nurse. And although I've always felt that driving in Kingsport is swimming with sharks, GBP says it's even worse now because Kingsport drivers--a grumpy lot at best--are crowded and frustrated by the new bike lanes. We walk downtown for breaks, and every day she says, "Notice all the bikers not using these bike lanes? I'm counting...I've seen nine bicycles...all...summer...long."
Then I read this post by a foreign tourist in New York City, and I saw an opportunity for some creative investor to revive Kingsport's economy. No way would the local market support rent-a-bikes for $7/hour or $19/day. But I'd bet it would support rent-a-bikes for $1/hour or $5/day. Not a full-sized business, but a side line an existing business could operate. And yes, I would seriously consider renting a bike in order to be a visiting health aide--depending on the need. Not an option I'd recommend for GBP, but definitely one for people of normal working age.
http://blogjob.com/members/ksridharprasad/activity/169944/?ref=priscillaking
Censorship
Right. If Denver wants to force the whole city to boycott a big-chain restaurant because they disagree with the CEO on a private political issue, then Real Americans do have to boycott Denver...I don't like this kind of thing at all, you may have guessed. I don't even eat at Chick-Fil-A. But one must support their right to freedom of speech.
http://politicaloutcast.com/2015/08/we-may-see-chick-fil-a-banned-in-denver-due-to-crime-of-heresy/
Gross-Out
This web site cannot ignore Jimmy Carter's last wish. But this web site is sure it's the most stomach-turning story a regular, family-type newspaper has printed today. (This web site is also pretty sure that anyone who's read Carter's books will remember everything the Post report adds to the headline in this link. Only the Post adds color photos.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/08/21/jimmy-carter-wants-the-guinea-worm-gone-by-the-time-he-dies-heres-why/?tid=sm_tw
Health News
Here in the U.S. doctors have been warning people for about twenty years now that taking antibiotics when we're not seriously ill is breeding MRSA, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, the hard-to-kill strain of staph that can harm normal healthy people and kill fragile people. The normal cure for staph is and should be to cover your face if and when a "summer cold" makes you sneeze, wash your hands, and keep a good healthy distance from people who don't live in your home. I've been thinking that everybody's heard that. Arthur Chappell's friends evidently have not. So now I'm wondering: (1) Is the word getting out in the U.K.? (2) Is it even getting out to people who don't work in health care fields in the U.S.? (3) How many of us already know someone who doesn't have an immune deficiency disease, isn't on immune-suppressant meds, is only middle-aged, but is showing serious immune deficiencies (e.g. multiple bouts with pneumonia) due to overuse of antibiotics?
http://blogjob.com/arthurchappellblogjobpersonalblog/2015/08/21/illness-debt-and-editorial-bias-the-last-few-months/?ref=priscillaking
(About Blogjob links: I see the site is automatically providing referrals when I link to other people's Blogjob blogs. This is nice; it may boost my Blogjob earnings a little bit. If you want to paste the link into your browser and delete the "?ref=priscillaking" part, however, feel free. You'll see the same ads, and need to purge the same cookies if your browser does not do that automatically, either way.)
History
How racist, exactly, was Margaret Sanger? Probably less than many of the people to whom she marketed the then-controversial idea of women's having a right to choose--traditional Catholics still don't want us to mention this one--safe sex. Here's a mostly left-wing site with an African-American pro-choice writer discussing what Sanger actually wrote. The comments get ugly, but the article itself strikes this "conservative" web site as fair-minded and accurate: Imani Gandy sticks to her point of view without falsifying Sanger's. (I get more good links from the Left via Twitter. Thanks to +Katha Pollitt for this one, and also for retweeting that splendid picture.)
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/08/20/false-narratives-margaret-sanger-used-shame-black-women/
Mental Health
Dr. Robinson's statistics make me wonder about the interaction between creative inspiration and bipolar manic moods. Most creative "highs" don't reach the scale of manic mood swings; most bipolar patients don't create great or even decent art. So, instead of letting no-talents console themselves with the belief that "the link between genius and madness" means they're protected from mental illness (which isn't even true), maybe we should reframe it as "manic mood swings may stimulate creative talent if people have any"?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/21/mental-ill-health-creativity-high-iq-genius?CMP=twt_gu
Picture
After all these years, the original Narcissus still looks better than that well-known narcissist, Bogus-As-His-Hair. (There shouldn't be a copyright on this picture...unless it's a good fake, the artist is prehistory. But, credit where credit was due, the image was tweeted by Gareth Harney (@OptimoPrincipi).)
Politics
Rand Paul posted a good one on Freedom Connector--members-only, for copyright reasons. (Not a member? The article is also at Reason.com; I read it and commented at FC, here.)
http://connect.freedomworks.org/user/login?destination=node%2F343488%2Fdiscussions%2F1604873
Publius Huldah posted an...interesting one. I don't imagine it's the one that would actually be used to disqualify Ted Cruz, for obvious reasons, but it's an interesting consideration of one of those obsolete points of law that nobody's bothered to remove until people notice how obsolete they are.
https://publiushuldah.wordpress.com/2015/08/20/natural-born-citizen-and-coverture/
Race (As Distinct From Stupidity)
Stupidity, unlike race, is a choice...and if you seriously think any of these things are racist, here's your sign. I think most people will agree that they're funny. (I tweeted that if a lot of White males are in a class, a lot of White females will probably want to transfer in. Where does that leave the rest of studentkind? Duh...free to find out whether your White classmates show fear if you sit beside them, or invite you to lunch. If they invite you to lunch and say ignorant things, hello, they are students; educate them. If they get up and move when you sit beside them, that would be racism. And this web site will make fun of them on social media.)
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/422819/racist-microaggression-list
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