I’ve passed the 50,000 word mark in The Book and am working on the last chapter, so there will be an end sometime this spring. I’ve got four days left in my Indiegogo Crowd Source campaign, for any of you feeling generous or desiring of an autographed copy of the eventual print-on-demand paperback.
There’s an outbreak of measles in NYC, thanks to anti-vaccine hysteria. I got immunized the old-fashioned way, by coming down with measles when I was 10 or 11 or so, because they didn’t have the vaccine yet. I mostly remember this because I broke out with poison ivy at the same time.
I don’t know if anti-vaccine absurdity is exclusively leftist, but it does strike me that while righties are puritanical about sex, lefties tend to be puritanical about food and health remedies. I don’t know why that is, or which is more annoying.
It’s starting to look like the missing Malaysia jetliner is not missing because of an accident.
“Why Nothing Is Truly Alive” — food for thought.
“When the Crazy Drifts Toward the Evil” — there’s a lot of The Stupid mixed in there as well.
And speaking of stupid — Bobby Jindal is arguing that Obamacare, particularly expanding Medicaid, hurts the disabled.
Measles AND poison ivy – AT THE SAME TIME!!!
Thank goodness you were too young to contemplate suicide.
“We now live in a society where people are afraid to say what they actually believe,” Carson added, “and it’s because of the p.c. police, it’s because of politicians, it’s because of news — all of these things are combining to stifle people’s conversation.”
That’s Dr. Carson on how much like Nazi Germany we are now.
This quote was excerpted from Dr. Carson’s famous, “Letter From A Birmingham Nut-house.”
He is currently imprisoned there, aganst his will, by us evil Nazi Libtards here in America.
Yeeesh…
I would like to lock Bobby Jindal in a small room with my sister-in-law, who raised her 24-year-old son with spina bifida while one hand constantly battled their health insurance company.
Actually, I’d like to lock Bobby Jindal in a small room with Tony Soprano, Brienne of Tarth, Omar Little and Eric Northman, the HBO All-Stars. Death by fictional character seems appropriate because “Bobby” is one, through and through.
Love the HBO All-Stars
Joan,
HBO All-Stars!
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Re: Bobby Jindal
As I always say, it’s hard to figure stupid. That’s especially true for Jindal who was born smart enough but worked hard to make himself stupid.
The “Why Nothing is Truly Alive” argument is the materialistic view taken to the extreme. It’s also something I thought a lot about/was fascinated with in my 20s.
It doesn’t account for consciousness, or God, or miracles, all of which are palpable. I would argue instead, that it turns reality on its head: that the material is merely the visible, thin, outer surface of the invisible, of what’s really real, which can look completely mechanistic.
Carl Jung put it well: s/he who looks outside dreams, s/he who looks inside awakens.
David – Jindal is smart, but he’s out of his league trying to find the ‘buttons’ to push with willfully ignorant conservative voters. Bobby knows what his bosses want him to deliver – but he can’t work the magic with the voters. He has no sense of his ‘audience’.
Consider as a contrast, Jon Stewart, when he’s on his game. He has the audience in the palm of his hand. Politics, at the level Jindal wants to play requires the ‘touch’ Reagan had and Obama has. Jindal doesn’t and probably can’t ever learn to relate. While I’m out here, Huckabee has a limited reach – orthodox Christians who relate. The problem is – there aren’t enough of them to propel Huck into the bigs. I think it’s also true of the libertarians, Rand Paul and Paul Ryan.
Christie was supposed to be the savior – and his ship is on the rocks. If I had to bet, Jeb might shape himself as a populist moderate conservative over the next year. The problem is the milestone around his neck called ‘W’, but as a Bush, he has access to the machine that could get him the nomination. I think he will pass, because there’s no way he can get enough electoral college votes and he’s savvy enough to bide his time rather than launch a doomed campaign.
People who are against vaccines turn out to be neither particularly left-wing nor right-wing. Instead, the underlying unifying factor appears to be mild paranoia that affects opinions on many different issues:
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/10/vaccine-denial-conspiracy-theories-gmos-climate
Let us not forget that the Nazis came to power by casting themselves, and the other powerful in Germany, as victims. This devise is nothing new, though that certainly does not make it any less evil.
When the oppressors cast themselves and their constituents as the victims, there is great danger.
Anti-vax is not an exclusively liberal phenomenon — the first time I ran across it was on the local insane-John-Bircher radio program in the late 90s.
The thing about humans is, when they go in for conspiracy theories, they go for the ones that confirms their a priori assumptions about the world. Who’s more likely to be the heavy in your nightmares: big corporations, or government bureaucracies?
If it’s government bureaucracies that frighten you most, then “the liberals are funding so-called scientists to make up this global warming hoax so they can get control over what kind of cars we drive” isn’t a huge stretch, whereas “the oil companies are trying to sow doubts about a massive threat to planetary survival because it might threaten their short-term profits if we do anything about it” sounds ridiculous. If you’re more worried about corporations (like me and probably just about everyone reading this) then it’s exactly the opposite. So global warming denialism breaks pretty cleanly along partisan lines.
The thing about anti-vaccine bullshit is it clicks nicely into anybody’s paranoia. The bad guy in your nightmare could be the evil moneybags in Big Pharma or insidious left-wing FDA moles, no doubt working with the chemtrail-sprayers and the water-fluoridators. They’re all in it together, you know.
Dan-corporations came to power in the US by casting themselves as victims of greedy and lazy workers. What a hoot. Wall Street “investors” deserve tax breaks (the stock is already issued so the investors are just gambling) and billionaires earned their money through hard work.
As you say, it is nothing new.
Huckabee has a limited reach
Yeah, until you put a box of krispy krème donuts at the far end of the table.
Or your wallet’s in his limited reach, Swami.
It’s a cheap shot Swami. fat jokes about Huckaby are kind of unworthy of you. The only thing that shows is that, surprise, he’s addicted to sugar. Dunkin’ Donuts is clearly better because it is not sickly sweet.
As to measles, I too had them as a child. As well as various ‘poxes’ and as far as I and my Doctor and I can tell I am no more the worse for it now at 60 years. Are you worse off for having it? I can’t say that vaccination is that necessary for things like that. Polio is a different story of course. I am sorry New York has an “outbreak” but don’t the diseases mutate anyway? I don’t see anything wrong with limiting the different chemicals I ingest.
3ski
w3ski — I had hepatitis B once, too, and am no worse off for that, either, but that doesn’t mean other people haven’t died from it. Measles sometimes turns acute, which can be fatal, or leads to secondary infections that can be fatal, and it’s especially dangerous in younger children. See The Clinical Significance of Measles: A Review According to the CDC:
In short, do make an effort to stop being ignorant. Thanks much.
Those krispy kremes do call out to me from time to time , same with jamoca shakes at arby’s. I’ve been caught in a jamoca vortex while motoring on I -4 more than I like to admit. I’m not buying that “america runs on Duncan” hype.
“ignorant”? We have to use name calling now? There are also names for the kind of people that accept all that is told to them. I tried to share my feelings and partially as a question. I appreciate facts but why do we descend into name calling?
w3ski
No, just stating facts. I listen to science; you listen to rumor and think I’m the one being duped. That is ignorance. Just because most people recover from measles doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous, and people who refuse to be immunized are putting people at risk beside themselves, and that makes me angry. So do slink away and sulk all you like, but you’re still ignorant.
@ maha
” lefties tend to be puritanical about food and health remedies”
Yes! Thank you for saying that! That would be a good graduate dissertation.