How can one quarter of Americans be wrong? If a full twenty-five percent of Americans believe the sun revolves around the earth, the sun must revolve around the earth. That's simple democracy. Twenty-five percent of Americans outweigh seventy-five percent any day. That's simple math.
Americans are never wrong. Greed is good, and stealing from the poor is not a crime. "White-collar" crime is just good business. Murder isn't murder unless the poor guy kills the rich one. And twenty-five percent is better than seventy-five percent, because the twenty-five are on top, and they come first, and they are right: constitutionally right. As constitutionally right as Guantanamo--or the trial of Bradley Manning.
The truth will make you free. We believe that. And truth is a word for what I believe; it has nothing to do with fact. Americans are above fact.
(And Barack Obama isn't black. No self-respecting black person would ever let him be black. Anyway, he was born on the good old North American mainland, in Hawaii, USA.)
maandag 17 februari 2014
vrijdag 7 februari 2014
RACISM? HUMAN RIGHTS? IN THE USA?
RACISM? HUMAN RIGHTS?
The U.S. has generously agreed to let some Native Americans have some justice.
In ordinary White Man's justice, in the United States, white men can commit crimes on Indian Reservations without fear of prosecution. Thus crimes against Native American women committed by white males on Reservations are not crimes.
Now the U.S. judicial system has decided that for a few tribes--on a few reservations--Native Americans can have "equal protection."
Americans should be proud. White America is giving up just a little bit more of its legal racism. Not all, yet, but a little bit.
Maybe sometime soon it will no longer be legal for horny white males to rape Native American women on reservations.
(And maybe someday the United States will close its illegal concentration camp and torture facility at Guantanamo, in Cuba.
And maybe someday the United States will quit its illegal occupation of Guantanamo, and get out of Cuba. The U.S. lease on Guantanamo ran out more than ten years ago--but being a great freedom-loving, law-abiding nation, the U.S. refused to leave.)
The U.S. has generously agreed to let some Native Americans have some justice.
In ordinary White Man's justice, in the United States, white men can commit crimes on Indian Reservations without fear of prosecution. Thus crimes against Native American women committed by white males on Reservations are not crimes.
Now the U.S. judicial system has decided that for a few tribes--on a few reservations--Native Americans can have "equal protection."
Americans should be proud. White America is giving up just a little bit more of its legal racism. Not all, yet, but a little bit.
Maybe sometime soon it will no longer be legal for horny white males to rape Native American women on reservations.
(And maybe someday the United States will close its illegal concentration camp and torture facility at Guantanamo, in Cuba.
And maybe someday the United States will quit its illegal occupation of Guantanamo, and get out of Cuba. The U.S. lease on Guantanamo ran out more than ten years ago--but being a great freedom-loving, law-abiding nation, the U.S. refused to leave.)
vrijdag 17 januari 2014
THANK YOU, JOHN KERRY
The U.S. Secretary of State has assumed the role of world dictator. Mr. Kerry is quoted as saying that Syrian President Bashr Assad "has no place in Syria's future." If Mr. Assad "thinks he is going to be a part of Syria's future," Kerry is quoted as saying, "It is not going to happen." President Assad "has no place in Syria's future."
Is Mr. Kerry speaking for himself, or on behalf of his president? Mr. Obama convicted Bradley Manning before his trial: "He broke the law," Mr. Obama said. And now Mr. Kerry dictates the future of Syria.
Dictatorship at home, dictatorship in the world at large.
Were it not for China and Russia, American arrogance would know no limits. Even with China and Russia on the same earth, the United States still pretends to rule the world.
How many of us are there still alive who remember when the United States was a respectable
nation? The Marshall Plan? President Eisenhower?
Our gracious overlord, Mr. Obama, says that the United States government spies can only spy on citizens of the United States individually, not all at once--and not all the time. How decent he is!
And Mr. Kerry decides who can participate in Syria's future.
I won't defend President Assad. But the pot is calling the kettle black. And American self-righteousness is dictatorially presumptuous.
Bert Hornback
The U.S. Secretary of State has assumed the role of world dictator. Mr. Kerry is quoted as saying that Syrian President Bashr Assad "has no place in Syria's future." If Mr. Assad "thinks he is going to be a part of Syria's future," Kerry is quoted as saying, "It is not going to happen." President Assad "has no place in Syria's future."
Is Mr. Kerry speaking for himself, or on behalf of his president? Mr. Obama convicted Bradley Manning before his trial: "He broke the law," Mr. Obama said. And now Mr. Kerry dictates the future of Syria.
Dictatorship at home, dictatorship in the world at large.
Were it not for China and Russia, American arrogance would know no limits. Even with China and Russia on the same earth, the United States still pretends to rule the world.
How many of us are there still alive who remember when the United States was a respectable
nation? The Marshall Plan? President Eisenhower?
Our gracious overlord, Mr. Obama, says that the United States government spies can only spy on citizens of the United States individually, not all at once--and not all the time. How decent he is!
And Mr. Kerry decides who can participate in Syria's future.
I won't defend President Assad. But the pot is calling the kettle black. And American self-righteousness is dictatorially presumptuous.
Bert Hornback
donderdag 16 januari 2014
THURSDAY'S GRUMPS
Three headlines in today's news.
From CNN: "A gunman killed two women inside an Indiana grocery store Wednesday night before police rushed to the scene and gunned him down."
From WNDU-TV: "Three dead after gunman opens fire inside Martin's Super Market in Elkhart, Indiana."
From NBC: "A knife-wielding gunman killed two people at a grocery store in Elkhart, Indiana, before
being shot by police."
WNDU is the NBC station in South Bend, Indiana, which accounts for its identifying the grocery story by name. And factually, ithe story is correct in saying that there were three dead. But only two of the dead were the criminal's victims; the third was the assailant himself, shot by the police. Why should WNDU in effect exaggerate the crime? The crime wasn't a triple murder.
NBC is much more dramatic--in an almost ludicrously confusing way. "A knife-wielding gunman killed two people." Did he shoot them with his knife? But at least NBC doesn't elaborate the conclusion of the crime: the assailant was "shot by police."
CBS dramatises the whole story, shamelessly. The victims are identified as "two women"--that's an important marker on the titilation scale--and the scene is set: the villain shot the women "inside an Indiana grocery store [on] Wednesday night." Then the "police rushed to the scene and gunned him down." Action! Violence! Cops and Robbers! God bless America! The slang--"gunned him down": the man called Wolf Blitzer would be perfect, saying that. Sensation-station nonsense.
And yesterday. . . .
The New York Daily News had a headline which read, "Israeli Defense Minister Takes Shot at Kerry."
In English, shots have been with us, linguistically, for more than twelve hundred years. The earliest shots or shoots were rapid movements of one kind or another. And then, starting a couple of centuries later, there were shoots that grew swiftly off stalks or branches: "off-shoots," we might say today. By the fifteenth century we were shooting arrows--and then guns. In the nineteenth century the English started taking figurative shots at each other--and we followed them. Today, in the United States, real shots taken with guns--shootings--are constant.
Some years ago I was in England with my usual summer study group of university students on an academic excursion. One of our stops every year was the Sun Inn in Dorchester: that's Thomas Hardy country. In the evenings we often provided entertainment for the locals in the pub by trying to play darts--which is related to shooting, though that is not my point.
I had a student that summer--Jesse--who responded to mistakes, stupidities, bad jokes, discourtesies, and such by pointing his index finger, raising his thumb, and shooting the culprit: bang. One night at the Sun Inn, Jesse was playing darts, threw, and missed the board completely. His dart stuck in the wall. "Hey there, young fellow!" cried a voice. "That wall's an old friend of mine!" Everybody laughed.
Jesse looked at the man, and pointed his finger: bang. Silence in the room. Then the man said, "Oh. I forgot. You're American."
Jesse went to his room. And he didn't shoortanything or anybody any more.
When I read the headline in the New York Daily News that said "Israeli Defense Minister Takes Shot at Kerry" I thought there had been another assassination attempt. Most of the news from the United States seems to be about shootings--with guns--and I though this was yet another one. I have grown accustomed to reading about metaphorical shootings in sports stories, but wasn't expecting such in the news. The news from the United States is usually about real shootings, and I was shocked to find that this one wasn't such.
Is there a moral to the story?
Bert Hornback
Three headlines in today's news.
From CNN: "A gunman killed two women inside an Indiana grocery store Wednesday night before police rushed to the scene and gunned him down."
From WNDU-TV: "Three dead after gunman opens fire inside Martin's Super Market in Elkhart, Indiana."
From NBC: "A knife-wielding gunman killed two people at a grocery store in Elkhart, Indiana, before
being shot by police."
WNDU is the NBC station in South Bend, Indiana, which accounts for its identifying the grocery story by name. And factually, ithe story is correct in saying that there were three dead. But only two of the dead were the criminal's victims; the third was the assailant himself, shot by the police. Why should WNDU in effect exaggerate the crime? The crime wasn't a triple murder.
NBC is much more dramatic--in an almost ludicrously confusing way. "A knife-wielding gunman killed two people." Did he shoot them with his knife? But at least NBC doesn't elaborate the conclusion of the crime: the assailant was "shot by police."
CBS dramatises the whole story, shamelessly. The victims are identified as "two women"--that's an important marker on the titilation scale--and the scene is set: the villain shot the women "inside an Indiana grocery store [on] Wednesday night." Then the "police rushed to the scene and gunned him down." Action! Violence! Cops and Robbers! God bless America! The slang--"gunned him down": the man called Wolf Blitzer would be perfect, saying that. Sensation-station nonsense.
And yesterday. . . .
The New York Daily News had a headline which read, "Israeli Defense Minister Takes Shot at Kerry."
In English, shots have been with us, linguistically, for more than twelve hundred years. The earliest shots or shoots were rapid movements of one kind or another. And then, starting a couple of centuries later, there were shoots that grew swiftly off stalks or branches: "off-shoots," we might say today. By the fifteenth century we were shooting arrows--and then guns. In the nineteenth century the English started taking figurative shots at each other--and we followed them. Today, in the United States, real shots taken with guns--shootings--are constant.
Some years ago I was in England with my usual summer study group of university students on an academic excursion. One of our stops every year was the Sun Inn in Dorchester: that's Thomas Hardy country. In the evenings we often provided entertainment for the locals in the pub by trying to play darts--which is related to shooting, though that is not my point.
I had a student that summer--Jesse--who responded to mistakes, stupidities, bad jokes, discourtesies, and such by pointing his index finger, raising his thumb, and shooting the culprit: bang. One night at the Sun Inn, Jesse was playing darts, threw, and missed the board completely. His dart stuck in the wall. "Hey there, young fellow!" cried a voice. "That wall's an old friend of mine!" Everybody laughed.
Jesse looked at the man, and pointed his finger: bang. Silence in the room. Then the man said, "Oh. I forgot. You're American."
Jesse went to his room. And he didn't shoortanything or anybody any more.
When I read the headline in the New York Daily News that said "Israeli Defense Minister Takes Shot at Kerry" I thought there had been another assassination attempt. Most of the news from the United States seems to be about shootings--with guns--and I though this was yet another one. I have grown accustomed to reading about metaphorical shootings in sports stories, but wasn't expecting such in the news. The news from the United States is usually about real shootings, and I was shocked to find that this one wasn't such.
Is there a moral to the story?
Bert Hornback
donderdag 9 januari 2014
NEWS FROM THE CENTER FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF PERIPHERAL THOUGHT
NEWS FROM THE CENTER FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF PERIPHERAL THOUGHT
The Program in Philosophical and Mathematical Seemings has announced three new study courses of indeterminate duration.
1. In the Department of Applied Stigmatics, an undergraduate course in "The Use of the Stigmascope."
2. In the Department of Hypothetics, a postgraduate course entitled "Hemidemisemiotics:
The study of what may be 64ths."
3. In the Theoretical Institute, a weekly pondering on "Semiostigmatic Understanding."
For the Center fort the Advancement of Peripheral Thought,
Bert G. Hornback
Whilom Professor of Variable Whimsey
The Program in Philosophical and Mathematical Seemings has announced three new study courses of indeterminate duration.
1. In the Department of Applied Stigmatics, an undergraduate course in "The Use of the Stigmascope."
2. In the Department of Hypothetics, a postgraduate course entitled "Hemidemisemiotics:
The study of what may be 64ths."
3. In the Theoretical Institute, a weekly pondering on "Semiostigmatic Understanding."
For the Center fort the Advancement of Peripheral Thought,
Bert G. Hornback
Whilom Professor of Variable Whimsey
POPE ST. FRANCIS
During a New Year's meeting ourside St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, Francis, the Roman Catholic pope, was canonised as Pope St. Francis in the Neapolitan Catholic Church.
The Roman Catholic Church canonises only the dead, asserting that in death they have gone to heaven. Of course many other people not so canonised have also gone to heaven. In the Neapolitan Catholic Church living people who are especially and particularly good are canonised, in recognition that their lives are saintly.
Honor and love and gratitude to Pope St. Francis! He is worthy, indeed, both of his name and of our honor and respect.
For the founders, and in the names
of Neapolitan Catholics everywhere.
Bert G. Hornback
The Roman Catholic Church canonises only the dead, asserting that in death they have gone to heaven. Of course many other people not so canonised have also gone to heaven. In the Neapolitan Catholic Church living people who are especially and particularly good are canonised, in recognition that their lives are saintly.
Honor and love and gratitude to Pope St. Francis! He is worthy, indeed, both of his name and of our honor and respect.
For the founders, and in the names
of Neapolitan Catholics everywhere.
Bert G. Hornback
RACISM ON THE TRAIN
09:00, 31 December 2013. South of Freiburg, in Germany, on the train to
Rome. Two German policewomen awaken my travelling companion from a nap.
One stands, hands on hips, blocking the aisle.
The other wants to know who my friend is and where he is going, and why.
He is a twenty-three year-old master's degree student at thje University of
the Saarland, in Saabruuecklen, Germany. I am a professor of English
at the same university.
My companion is from India.
Questions, examination of student identity card, German
residency permit, passport.
"Is the suitcase yours?"
He answers, "It is ours."
A cellphone call to someone, somewhere.
My companion's documents are returned to him.
I ask for an explanation.
"He is leaving Germany, crossing into Switzerland."
I ask if she wants to interrogate me, see my papers.
"No. I am not interested in you. Only him."
She and her companion turn and walk away.
A man from further up the carriage comes back to our seats.
"I am sorry you had to go through that offensive procedure. Please,
please accept my apologies."
My friend shrugs, and says that it is okay.
The man shakes his head.
"It is not okay. I was about to about to ask her why she didn't
question me, when your friend spoke up."
My friend smiles.
"It's stupid," the man says, "and offensive. And it's just because
you don't look like us."
I nod in angry agreement.
"But you do look like us," the man continues. "Only you
have darker skin."
"You must go through this a lot," he says. "I'm sorry."
The man shakes my companion's hand, and returns to his seat.
I look at my friend.
"This is the first bad experience I have had in six years of
living in Germany."
We pass through a railyard full of DB engines, and several
flatcar-loads of Volkswagens. We are still in Germany.
An announcement tells us we must change trains at the border.
I am very disappointed, and angry. Angry to find that such
+conduct--such discrimination--is allowed and practiced in my
adopted country. I feel hurt, wounded, betrayed.
Racism, in Germany. I am ashamed for Germany, and
ashamed of myself for not objecting.
Rome. Two German policewomen awaken my travelling companion from a nap.
One stands, hands on hips, blocking the aisle.
The other wants to know who my friend is and where he is going, and why.
He is a twenty-three year-old master's degree student at thje University of
the Saarland, in Saabruuecklen, Germany. I am a professor of English
at the same university.
My companion is from India.
Questions, examination of student identity card, German
residency permit, passport.
"Is the suitcase yours?"
He answers, "It is ours."
A cellphone call to someone, somewhere.
My companion's documents are returned to him.
I ask for an explanation.
"He is leaving Germany, crossing into Switzerland."
I ask if she wants to interrogate me, see my papers.
"No. I am not interested in you. Only him."
She and her companion turn and walk away.
A man from further up the carriage comes back to our seats.
"I am sorry you had to go through that offensive procedure. Please,
please accept my apologies."
My friend shrugs, and says that it is okay.
The man shakes his head.
"It is not okay. I was about to about to ask her why she didn't
question me, when your friend spoke up."
My friend smiles.
"It's stupid," the man says, "and offensive. And it's just because
you don't look like us."
I nod in angry agreement.
"But you do look like us," the man continues. "Only you
have darker skin."
"You must go through this a lot," he says. "I'm sorry."
The man shakes my companion's hand, and returns to his seat.
I look at my friend.
"This is the first bad experience I have had in six years of
living in Germany."
We pass through a railyard full of DB engines, and several
flatcar-loads of Volkswagens. We are still in Germany.
An announcement tells us we must change trains at the border.
I am very disappointed, and angry. Angry to find that such
+conduct--such discrimination--is allowed and practiced in my
adopted country. I feel hurt, wounded, betrayed.
Racism, in Germany. I am ashamed for Germany, and
ashamed of myself for not objecting.
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