All posts by Phil

You Too May Be a Right-Wing Extremist

Man paying bills

As Lars pointed out yesterday, today could be dangerous. In fact, you could be a danger to yourself and the entire country without even knowing it. I’m not talking about being a carrier for a disease or a polluter. Friends, I’m talking about right-wingism.

The Federal Government, may it live forever, has raised the warning we all should heed. “Rightwing extremist activity,” as defined by the Feds, could be in your city; it could be in your heart. The Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis (DHS/I&A) has issued a report saying that while they have no evidence of an impending threat any in our country, “rightwing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about several emergent issues. The economic downturn and the election of the first African American president present unique drivers for rightwing radicalization and recruitment.”

Now before you start shaking your head, saying you may be conservative, you may agree with Rush Limbaugh and Victor Davis Hanson, but you aren’t an extremist by any stretch, let me quote the report from the DHS/I&A: Continue reading You Too May Be a Right-Wing Extremist →

When the Writer Gets in the Way

Frank links to short story blogger Charles May, who reviews a book by Robert Boswell in a post called, “Robert Boswell, Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards and The Half-Known World.” Charles notes that author Boswell teaches writing and that fact seems to come through in this book of stories.

In the story “A Sketch of Highway on the Nap of a Mountain,” Boswell uses the point of view of a woman who seems to have had a stroke, or maybe she is just a modern Mrs. Malaprop” who makes numerous language errors, such as “I get irrigated with my life,” “He begins happily dissembling our past,” “I’m at the car, divulging a black boom box.”

They are funny, and Boswell seems to be having a great time inventing them, but the story seems to be mainly an excuse for demonstrating his cleverness in inventing them.

‘Another Galaxy Photo’ or ‘God Is Awesome’

Hand of God NebulaThis is a pulsar named PSR B1509-58. Here’s a larger photo, taken by Nasa’s Chandra observatory in orbit. Matthew Moore writes, “Although the pulsar itself is only 12 miles in diameter, the cloud or nebula that it produces stretches across 150 light years of space. Neutron stars are created when standard stars run out of fuel and collapse, and Nasa believes that the one pictured is rotating around seven times a second.” The redness for which the hand is reaching is a neighboring gas cloud. Space is beautiful. What a wonder God has made.

From fairest creatures we desire increase

From fairest creatures we desire increase

That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,

But as the riper should by time decease,

His tender heir might bear his memory:

But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,

Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel,

Making a famine where abundance lies,

Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.

Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament

And only herald to the gaudy spring,

Within thine own bud buriest thy content,

And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding.

Pity the world, or else this glutton be,

To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 1

School Library Journal Battle of Books

The School Library Journal is talking up sixteen of last year’s best juvenile books in a type of book-on-book row, judged by fifteen authors of such books. I assume all conflicts of interest have been mitigated. Two of the matches have been judged so far. The Journal copied their idea from The Morning News, which has done a book battle for a few years.

Author and book battle judge Roger Sutton notes, “Much as we might wish it, books ain’t basketball. The thing about March Madness, which I only dimly comprehend after watching the last ten minutes of Michigan State over Connecticut, is that everybody is playing the same game. So not so with books, but given that proviso, let’s begin.”

Fair enough.

Tax Protest Parties Spur Product Sales

Rally for those that think Stimulus Act is wrong action

“Online retailers are recording hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales of mugs and sweats, buttons and bumper stickers, with much of the proceeds going toward organizing the tax-day tea parties, takeoffs on the original 1773 protest of British taxes,” reports Fox News. The head of Patriot Depot, Jay Taylor, says they’ve been so busy, he doesn’t know what their profit is.

Taylor is partnering with the Augusta, Ga.-based Reagan.org to send tens of thousands of tea bags north to Washington for a massive tax day tea dump. Though Reagan.org is asking for about $1 per bag, they estimate they’ll end up losing money in the transaction.

“What we figure is that we’ll probably end up losing a little bit of money on it,” said Joshua Bolin, executive director of Reagan.org, who told FOXNews.com that his organization accepted requests to send 30,000 tea bags packing in just the first two days of its promotion.

Now, can I brew you a cup of tea?