Link Log for September 15

Categories: Bigotry & Defamation, Christian, Citizen Fights Crime, Communications, Education, Gardening, Human Rights, News of the Weird, Politics. Too much politics. And now I have to go home and compose some bad fiction. Good night, Gentle Readers...

Bigotry & Defamation 

Howard Fineman wades into silly stereotypes about the Fightin' Ninth District in Virginia. I'm afraid to ask where he gets them--sounds as if he's mistaken The Trail of the Lonesome Pine for current reportage...Actually, a lot of us like a Northern big-city Ivy League lawyer-type, e.g. W Bush, e.g. President Kennedy, e.g. Al Gore, if he can keep his foot out of his mouth for half an hour at a time. Which is a skill H. Fineman evidently lacks. If Poor Howard had done his research, e.g. read this web site, he'd know that this web site has consistently mentioned his personal charm as President Obama's big asset; it's his policies we bash. And need I mention once again that my late husband was a legal immigrant from Canada and a Phi Beta Kappa at McGill? I may not be typical of much of anything, but eat your heart out, Poor Howard, you'll never know how many rustics in places like Bristol and Wytheville have told me my geographically centered accent is sexy. (I just have to call him Poor Howard because, as any folk singer knows, Poor Howard's (ideas are) dead and gone. Goodness only knows where he dug them up.)

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2015/09/15/matthews-hardball-panel-mock-gop-women-rural-virginians-theyve-got#.Vffs5A3Wv_I.blogger

Christian 

Jerry Jenkins challenges Christian bloggers:

http://www.jerryjenkins.com/how-to-write-a-devotional/

Citizen Fights Crime 

Unarmed citizen fights crime...and pays the price.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/09/14/father-pays-ultimate-price-to-protect-his-family-after-armed-suspect-climbed-into-car-and-pointed-gun-at-his-wife/?

Communications 

Scott Adams' post is interesting on multiple levels...

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/128998963111/this-graph-does-not-apply-to-the-reader#

Speaking of personal relationships...

http://themillionhair.tumblr.com/post/129133460799/reblog-this-if-you-are-literally-suprised-when

(At fifty? Of course I'm surprised. People who are at the stage in life where they feel a lot of physical attractions usually imagine that, after age fifty, the only difference between men and women is the degenerative diseases we get. They are wrong, of course, but most of them won't believe how wrong they are before they're at least forty.)

And..."no [one] will ever look at [a teenager] because [s/he]'s overweight"? Parents might wish. Reality is that some overweight teenagers are vulnerable to the worst kind of "admirers"/predators because they think they won't be able to find True Love, because they're fat, when in fact their biggest obstacle to finding True Love is that they're still teenagers. But people look at overweight teenagers, for sure. And what some of them think they're looking at is "desperate, easy to get, easy to exploit, easy to enslave"--and if adults have told these kids that nobody will ever look at them, the predators may be right.

http://themillionhair.tumblr.com/post/129133320459/boylstonbabe-fall-and-imagine-im-going-to

Education 

It's Malala Yousafzai, so some readers may want just to skip to her petition and sign it already. But this web site recommends caution. I'm not seeing anything there about school choice. I'm not seeing any evidence that the U.N. scheme recognizes that schools operating as monopolies tend to trap and retain incompetent, even abusive, teachers. And, having gone to school during an era when home schools, church schools, charter schools, and almost all private schools were illegal, when hitting kids with planks was not illegal, and seen how even then quite a few teachers managed to be seen as abusive...I have to warn even Malala Yousafzai that schools without choice may or may not be an improvement over no school at all.

https://www.change.org/p/stand-withmalala-for-girls-education?alert_id=mXhrkLotLl_e623QQw%2F%2FqGGoMMII%2FC0TSMUf6nCu4ih1KaQnSp3esyRKcl6prrb8jvgyOy4D4dw

Today's example of an incompetent, abusive teacher comes from Morgan State University, which is not a bad school on the whole, although it used to employ one of the nastiest pieces of work I've ever known as a teacher. She was old at the time and is probably dead by now. She might have been one of Professor Brown's teachers...maybe. If so, he may have learned firsthand from her that those who exploit the race market are likely to be serious, dedicated, committed, full-time professional exploiters. The older M.S.U. professor was a loan shark who put many a Black family out of their home. Almost as bad as the racist Whites who cashed in on White fear during the riot years. Anyway, read the Tweets of this troubled mind, and ask yourselves whether this sounds like someone who is better qualified to teach children than you or any other parent is likely to be.

http://thelibertystandard.com/morgan-state-professor-lawrence-brown-calls-gop-fox-news-breitbart-white-supremacists-says-white-cops-lack-moral-capacity-more/

Gardening 

What I really wanted to share, from the Dave's Garden newsletter, was the quote, for which I'm not seeing a link:

"Your problem is not having too many slugs. It's not having enough ducks."--Unknown.

I've been feeling under the weather with an irksomely familiar reaction that I suspect is to glyphosate, and as it wears off I think how many other gardening and phenology situations are like the slug/duck situation.

You don't have too many weeds. You don't have enough goats.

You don't have too many mice. You don't have enough cats.

You don't have too many Japanese beetles. You don't have enough bantams.

You don't have too many flies. You don't have enough paper wasps or white-faced hornets.

About the only creatures for which it breaks down are the ones immediately below humans on the food chain. No other animal helps humans get rid of dog ticks, of coyotes, or of bears. If we see those, we have too many of them, because we've not been doing our job as their only reliable predators.

Human Rights 

Why some people are unsympathetic to Syrian refugees...This web site already did this topic, and intends to continue nagging. Yes, private organizations, especially religious organizations, and individuals if able, should be helping refugees. No, other countries should not just import masses of people who may or may not be refugees, may or may not be Syrians, may or may not even be Muslims--sounds as if Daniel Greenfield is hearing about some people who were probably outcasts from their own communities for sufficient reasons.

http://ntlconsulting.blogspot.com/2015/09/refugee-crisis-self-inflicted.html

http://ntlconsulting.blogspot.com/2015/09/europe-closing-borders.html

News of the Weird 

Not his mother, teacher, baby-sitter--for which this ten-year-old is undoubtedly grateful!--she takes it upon himself to teach him proper manners by hitting him.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/09/15/womans-reaction-to-10-year-old-boys-purported-bad-manners-caught-on-surveillance-video/?

Politics 

U.S. readers only: here's an election poll to help you choose from the plethora of candidates.

http://www.isidewith.com/elections/2016-presidential-quiz

This is quite a piece of quizcraft. It's detailed and calibrated, considers policy statements only and leaves no room for favoritism, and will explain exactly which candidates claim to represent which of your views and why. (Of course, in the case of BAHH, no claim should be taken seriously as this man is a well-known liar: if someone who initiates multiple divorces, repeatedly declares bankruptcy, and still claims vast wealth, tells you it's raining outside, you want a second opinion before you put on a raincoat.) I'm impressed by the skill that went into this quiz. I recommend not feeding your e-mail or social media details into it...but I guarantee you'll be fascinated by your results.

For the record, the quiz accurately showed I like this candidate...

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/09/14/rand-pauls-response-to-those-who-say-his-tax-plan-will-leave-the-government-under-funded/?

...and Ben Carson about equally, predictably predicted that I'd also like Ted Cruz (if he's ruled eligible), and surprised with the claim that Mike Huckabee might represent my views about equally well...and Scott Walker, by a hair's breadth, better than any of the four. This shows that the quiz writers have read more about candidates Walker and Huckabee than I have.

One interesting thing about the comments on this post is that somebody's come up with a better name for The Spoiler Bill Clinton Sent Out To Rescue Hillary than mine. I've been using "Bogus-As-His-Hair," or "BAHH," but either it's his real hair (pathetic) or it's superglued on (pathetic), and this web site would like to give him a worse nickname anyway. Try this one on for size: "Bankruptcy Billionnaire in a Ball Cap." It sounds like a swearword--points! It makes fun of the thing about him that most desperately needs making fun of--double points! I like it!

Now, for everybody...This chapter is often suppressed from history because it is no fun to read. Learn why, even in 1941, some were saying that Hitler and Stalin were equally evil and should be encouraged to destroy each other. This link probably contains every kind of emotional trigger in the known universe. Read only if you're braced for an intense gross-out. (I did. Then I reminded myself that it's all in the past, almost beyond living memory. Then I took a long shower.)

http://deprogramyourcollegestudent.com/2015/09/15/the-human-cost-of-socialism-in-power/