Trump, Ozymandias, and the Hubris of Ambition

MAGA cultists / Politics / Rightwing claptrap / US Politics5 Comments

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Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! wrote Percy Bysshe Shelley in his 1817 poem, Ozymandias, the ancient king who called himself in the poem, the ” king of kings.” I was thinking about that poem as I watched the news that an AR-15-wielding, fellow MAGA Repugnican had shot at the convicted felon and wannabe-dictator Donald Trump at one of his hate rallies. Do you know the name of the person the shooter actually killed? Or the two people seriously wounded? Of course not, Trump made the media coverage all about him and his scratch and the sycophantic media ……… click below for more ↓

Council Screws Collingwood Residents. Again.

Collingwood / Council / Ineptitude and bungling / Planning & Policies / Wacky WTF ideas5 Comments

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Like many other residents in council chamber yesterday, I was deeply disappointed but not surprised by our council’s decision to continue with staff’s anti-resident/anti-environment plan to deforest Sixth Street to make it a better speedway for cars passing through town. The council chamber was full to capacity with people upset with the plan, hoping council would recognize their anger and distress, hoping council would listen, would prefer 21st-century pro-resident, green-street planning, and reconsider the previous pro-vehicle/anti-tree plan. But they didn’t. The majority of council sided with the archaic 1950s’ cars-before-people staff plan to chop down all the beautiful, mature trees ……… click below for more ↓

Review: The Design of Books

Books & Reviews / Books about books / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

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Like with so many other technologies in our lives — computers, cars, bread machines, flushing toilets, DVD players, convection ovens — most consumers don’t know or appreciate how books are made, or why they are made in such familiar shapes and structure. In more than four millennia since humans invented writing, the way that writing has been recorded and shared has evolved from clay tablets to the modern paperback and hardcover. Because we are so used to seeing and reading books, few of us stop to consider how that evolution happened and why. Debbie Berne’s The Design of Books (University ……… click below for more ↓

Christofascists Make Their Move in Oklahoma

MAGA cultists / Talibangelists and pseudo-Christians / US PoliticsOne Comment

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The MAGA pseudo-Christians in the USA have recently been making bold moves toward implementing their oppressive theocracy and making Gilead a reality in their states. Louisiana required one of the two biblical Ten Commandments to be posted in every classroom (albeit without identifying which of the two even though they have significant differences). Now Oklahoma has decreed that “all schools must incorporate the Bible and the Ten Commandments in curriculums.” No one is surprised that when ranking education in the 50 states, these are always rated among the lowest: in recent scores Oklahoma ranks 49th in K-12 and Louisiana 40th. ……… click below for more ↓

The Litter That’s Killing Everything and Everyone

Collingwood / Environment / Ineptitude and bungling / Manners & Civility / Politics / Social Order & DisorderOne Comment

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Four and a half trillion. That’s how many cigarette butts are estimated to be littered every year on our streets, sidewalks, parks, downtowns, parking lots, lawns, and everywhere else smokers feel entitled to leave them. That’s 4,500,000,000,000 pieces of toxic, non-biodegradable, chemical-soaked plastic waste that smokers — and smokers alone — pollute the earth with every year. That’s litter deliberately left to poison the water, kill plants and wildlife, and remain in the environment for more than a decade, doing their damage. An estimated 1.69 billion pounds (845,000 tons) of cigarette butts are littered into the environment, every year. EVERY ……… click below for more ↓

Donald Trump and the Art of Victimhood

Christianity / Rightwing claptrap / Talibangelists and pseudo-Christians / US Politics6 Comments

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Persecution. It’s a deeply-ingrained core component of the myth of Christian history, and well-weaponized in modern times by rightwing politicians who depend on the support from both the faithful and the pseudo-Christian Talibangelists. We’re under attack, they claim, justifying their own attacks on other faiths and non-believers. They use the imagined threat of persecution against Christians to justify book banning and book burning, forced prayer in schools, cuts to education, closing libraries, cuts to healthcare, bans on same-sex marriage, and restrictions on women’s reproductive rights. Their legislators implement repressive and oppressive measures to “save” their faith from secularists, liberals, scientists, ……… click below for more ↓

Pro-Car Planning is Destroying Collingwood’s Environment

Collingwood / Council / Environmental issues / Ineptitude and bungling / Wacky WTF ideas11 Comments

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I warned you: Council would support the anti-resident/anti-environment/pro-vehicle attitude that pervades town hall. I warned you they would deforest Sixth Street to make it a bigger, faster speedway for vehicles. I warned you they would add more pollution, more noise, and more traffic on Sixth Street. I warned you that they would lower property values there. I warned you they would make it more unhealthy for residents, for our water, and for trees and wildlife. And they did. CollingwoodToday has the sad story of how our council has voted in favour of cars, not residents, with a headline that says ……… click below for more ↓

A 30-Year-Old Warning About Rising Fascism

Books & Reviews / Canadian Politics / Politics / Rightwing claptrap / US Politics6 Comments

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Convicted felon and insurrection supporter Donald Trump claimed in a media conference after his trial that, because the justice system works, Americans are “living in a fascist state.” It’s not the first time Trump has used the term to describe opponents or their accomplishments. Last month he told donors Biden was “running a Gestapo administration” and added that Biden is “surrounded by fascists around the Oval Office.” But Trump and his supporters have been using the term to describe opponents — including those in his own party who won’t bend the knee to him — for the past two or ……… click below for more ↓

May 30: The Day Justice Prevailed

Politics / Rightwing claptrap / US Politics4 Comments

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O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! He chortled in his joy. Thirty-four criminal charges and found guilty for every one of them. Thirty four! Of course, I don’t have to tell you the name of the person, since the whole world knows whose recent court case I’m writing about. And have been celebrating about, ever since the verdict came in.* May 30, 2024, was a historic day everyone will remember like they remember 9/11, the day Kennedy was shot, and the day the Canadian hockey team beat the Russians: it was the day when American justice was not subverted by the ……… click below for more ↓

The Anti-Environmentalists in Town Hall are at it Again

Collingwood / Council / Ineptitude and bungling / Planning & Policies / Wacky WTF ideas7 Comments

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WTF is wrong with town hall these days? Why do they dislike trees so much? Last week town staff presented another plan to make Sixth Street even more of a speedway than it already is, and in doing so they want to remove three dozen mature trees along the north side. The technical term for that is “deforestation.” You might remember how last term, staff had more than 50 mature trees chopped down along Hurontario Street so they could build a sidewalk on the east side because it was too inconvenient for one of the councillors to cross the street ……… click below for more ↓

The Rise of the New Fascists and Their Threat to Democracy

Canadian Politics / International politics / Politics / Rightwing claptrap / Talibangelists and pseudo-Christians / US Politics12 Comments

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I wonder if this was how my father felt in England, watching the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1920s and ’30s. By the time of my father’s 20th birthday, Mussolini had already secured his one-party-state in Italy; Hitler was elected and appointed chancellor. He would do the same in Germany within six months. While these two tightened their authoritarian hold on their nations, Stalin in the USSR would begin his Great Purge, and Franco would join the coup that led him to fascist power in Spain. Argentina went through a rightwing, military-backed coup in the 1930s. A far-right ……… click below for more ↓

The Death of Truth in the Trump Era

Canadian Politics / Political fads / Politics / Rightwing claptrap / US Politics5 Comments

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The ongoing criminal trial of Donald Trump (the first one; others are to follow) continues to expose the difference between what he and his followers believe and anything related to evidence, truth, or facts. Trump lies. Blatantly, shamelessly, openly, and frequently. He lies so often that quite literally nothing he says can be trusted as truthful or factual. It’s not simply opponents who are aware of his lies. His followers must know too, because his lies are so glaringly obvious and are debunked in all but the extremist, pro-Putin, rightwing media (Fox Newz and Breitbart at the top of that ……… click below for more ↓

On the Bay’s Libertarian Piffle

Collingwood / Ideologies / Local media / Politics / Rightwing claptrap5 Comments

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Less (sic) taxes is, for On the Bay‘s publisher David Loopstra, a “solution” for the problems of inflation. It’s certainly not the solution for correct grammar, where he should have written fewer taxes or the phrase “less in taxes.” You can only get away with saying less if the noun is singular (tax). Perhaps I expected too much of a former newspaper reporter and editor. But regardless of his foray into the bad vernacular, his opinion piece in the magazine is merely poorly-informed libertarian piffle. And, given that the magazine receives the “Special Measures for Journalism” federal grant money, he’s ……… click below for more ↓

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