US Politics – Page 6 – Scripturient

Why are Pickup Trucks so Anti-Pedestrian?

Take a look at the back of any of today’s pickup trucks. Notice the exhaust pipe, under the vehicle? It points to the right. The same side of the road that pedestrians and cyclists use.* Notice the bike lane in the photo – that’s where cyclists will be when this truck passes by them. No place to move to avoid the fumes. Yet I have seen vintage trucks with that design, as in the photo to the right (even here in town). Several, in fact in just the past week. I don’t know the date of the change from rear to … click below for more ↓

Creationism’s stench still lingers in American education

2013-06-08 2013-06-08 Atheism & Spirituality / Balderdash & Hoaxes / Religion / Science & Technology / US PoliticsLeave a comment

Creationism (and it’s dressed-up-in-drag younger brother, “intelligent” design) is the black mold of education. It’s an insidious infection of the mind, an intellectual parasite. And like real-life black mold, it creates a toxic environment – for learning and critical thinking. This week, creationism again came up in American school board discussions. According to the HuffPost, the American Taliban* – the Tea Party – is behind the debate at a Springboro, Ohio, school board, to add the pseudoscience of creationist claptrap to the curriculum. The school board president, Kelly Kohls, is also head of the local Tea Party. Hardly any surprises … click below for more ↓

Religion, Logic, and Tornadoes

2013-05-24 2013-05-24 Atheism & Spirituality / Religion / Social Order & Disorder / US PoliticsOne Comment

What has a tornado in common with prayer in schools and US President Barack Obama? Rhonda Crosswhite. Yes, the Oklahoma teacher praised as a hero for saving several children when a massive tornado ripped through her town of Moore, earlier this week. And no doubt she was. But there were many other teachers who were heroes that day, none of whom have become a rallying point for the religious right, as far as I can tell. Crosswhite was, from all accounts I’ve read, the only one to mention praying during the tornado. That comment made her a different sort of hero … click below for more ↓

The Missing Lines

2013-04-19 2018-03-20 Arts / Books & Reviews / Culture / History & Biography / Literary pretensions / US Politics / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

The National Museum of Iraq – known originally as the Baghdad Archaeological Museum – once housed some of the oldest works of literature in the world. Treasures from the origins of civilization, from the cities of Sumeria, Babylon, Assyria were on display*. In 2003, when the Americans invaded**, a battle was fought between US and Iraqi forces at the museum. The Iraqi troops fled, and looters came in. According to Wikipedia: According to museum officials the looters concentrated on the heart of the exhibition: “the Warka Vase, a Sumerian alabaster piece more than 5,000 years old; a bronze Uruk statue from … click below for more ↓

The Hobgoblins under the Lobbyist Bridge

2013-02-28 2013-02-28 Collingwood / Critical Thinking / Municipal Politics / US PoliticsLeave a comment

Lobbyist. For some, the word conjures frightening images of nefarious trolls and ogres in Armani suits lurking under the bridges and in the woods in the dark night, snatching unwary politicians and dragging them down to whatever hell the gullible and naive descend to (a hell cleverly paved with gold and champagne flutes). The very word itself is printed in bold and in colour in some comments, just in case you might miss it and the boogeyman-thrill the hiss of the word gives. Lobbyisssst… my precioussss…. That’s in part because the popular impression of lobbying derives from watching American TV … click below for more ↓

Musings on representational democracy

2013-01-30 2013-01-30 Canadian Politics / Collingwood / Municipal Politics / Social Order & Disorder / US PoliticsLeave a comment

Representational democracy, says Wikipedia, is “…founded on the principle of elected people representing a group of people, as opposed to direct democracy. All modern Western style democracies are various types of representative democracies…” And so is Canada, and by extension so is the Town of Collingwood; small cog it may be in the great machinery of democratic government. We elect people to represent us, to make decisions for us, to debate the issues for us. Some people mistake the point of this system. They believe we elect people to do what they’re told, to act as their delegates and represent … click below for more ↓

Is Tar Baby the new N-Word?

2013-01-05 2013-01-05 Books & Reviews / Canadian Politics / Internet & Social Media / Language & Grammar / Politics / Quotes & Mis-quotes / Social Order & Disorder / US Politics2 Comments

As far back as I can recall, the term “tar baby” was a metaphor in common political parlance for a “sticky situation.” It has no racial meaning in that context, any more than saying “honey trap” or “sticky wicket.” Both have similar, but not synonymous meanings. But in the last decade, “tar-baby” has become the new N-word on the political stage.* The tar-baby theme is common in mythology from many cultures (referenced, for example, in Joseph’s Campbell’s groundbreaking work, Hero With a Thousand Faces). It represents an apparently attractive situation that traps the beholder and, once you embrace it, the … click below for more ↓

America’s Intolerant WBC Fundamentalists

2012-12-10 2012-12-10 Faith / Religion / Social Order & Disorder / US Politics4 Comments

[youtube=www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JAErHl7lZ4] I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I watched this. laugh because Russell Brand* just runs circles around these guys from the Westboro Church and they don’t seem to realize when they are being mocked. Fish in a barrel, I suppose. Cry because they obviously believe their hatred; they obviously believe that their narrow, bigoted and violent take on their scriptures is not only right, but the only one. I don’t think they got the message Brand was trying to push on them: they are too righteous in their prejudice for alternative ideas. Or maybe they do and they just don’t … click below for more ↓

Tax the Rich – a video

2012-12-09 2012-12-09 Canadian Politics / Film & Reviews / Social Order & Disorder / US PoliticsLeave a comment

[youtube=www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6ZsXrzF8Cc] You really should watch this video. It explains in clear, simple terms the argument of the billionaires and the rest of us. I like it because – while it’s simplistic – it is succinct and presents its argument in a powerful story. It also clearly underscores the very polarized US arguments about both taxation and wealth. This was commented on the Daily Kos as well. Amusingly, it was immediately pounced upon by the rightists as “socialist” propaganda. Sean Hannity, talking head for the uber-right Fox News, was apparently “outraged.” It was titled “Villifying $uccess.” That they would associate success with money (the … click below for more ↓

Ten Lessons Learned From the Petraeus Affair

2012-11-19 2012-11-19 Arts / Books & Reviews / Culture / Media Issues / Memes; Internet & Social / Social Order & Disorder / US PoliticsOne Comment

After watching the recent, exaggerated – and sordid – upheaval over the story about an extramarital affair that the (now former) head of the CIA had with his biographer, I have come to several conclusions about America, sex, American media and publicity: 1. Americans, who bought millions of copies of “Fifty Shades of Grey“, a poorly-written, highly derivative, pornographic book, and then turned it into a national industry that includes home parties where BDSM equipment is sold to housewives, and dozens of spin-off blogs based on the book, are easily offended by “racy” emails between consenting adults. 2. Americans, who consume a vast quantity of online … click below for more ↓

Pondering the US election from a Canadian perspective

2012-10-30 2012-10-30 Canadian Politics / Media Issues / Politics / US Politics2 Comments

Canadians often find US politics mystifying, no more so than during presidential elections. It’s not just their byzantine electoral college system (which truly baffles us – even when explained concisely as in the video below). It’s not just the differences between America’s republican governance system and our parliamentary system (although they do contribute mightily to the confusion since they are so dissimilar). These are process issues that can be sorted out through reading and study. What baffles us – or at least me – is the increasingly vituperative language of the candidates, their advertising, and even of the post-debate analysts (not the … click below for more ↓