Both rum and beer. Porters and stouts are my preference for the latter, though they don’t list them. Probably off-the-scale manly.
Category Archives: Social Commentary
Are You Sitting Down?
It turns out that the flight attendant who went nuts on the Jet Blue flight was gay.
I know you’re all as shocked as I am. Who ever heard of such a thing?
It reminds me of a piece that Mark Steyn wrote years ago, in which he noted that if you wanted to see the worst-dressed gay men in America, to take an airplane ride.
A Disturbance In The Unicorn Force
Iowahawk has discovered a disturbing new brew, right in the heart of Hope’n’Change Land. What next, an Obamaville outside of Sausalito?
Amusing Suggestion
Facebook keeps suggesting that I add Michael D. Griffin as a friend.
Remembering History And The Fallen
And passing on the memories to a younger generation:
It goes without saying that re-enactors take what they do very seriously. But the mistake is often made in assuming that it is all about dressing up and playing army and searching for that transcendent moment when the present falls away and the past is once again alive. Just as important to these re-enactors is the act of honoring the fallen, of making sure their sacrifices — often the supreme one — are never forgotten.
As I watched through the day, this same spirit seemed to imbue the Scouts with a similar sense of pride and purpose. These were Silicon Valley kids after all, their lives filled with Facebook and World of Warcraft, MTV, and SATs. Many have seen their parents lose jobs in the last couple years; and many will soon choose a lesser, cheaper college because their families can no longer afford the tuition. And more than one Scout couldn’t join us on this trip because of tight family budgets. And yet, as difficult as times are, marching in the heat in a scratchy wool uniform with a rifle on your shoulder put things into context for the boys. It could be much much worse. They could be dumped into a grave in Ball’s Bluff, or standing at the Angle, watching as canister blew to bits boys their age on the other side, and nervously awaiting the bayonets of Pickett’s and Pettigrew’s on-rushing howling divisions.
This reality hit us all, men and boys, most deeply when Captain Mullin’s wife Katie, in her long, traditional dress, delivered to each of us packages “from home”: hand-addressed packets of string-tied butcher paper bearing replicas of stamps of the era. Inside, in an extraordinary effort by the ladies of the 71st, we found, wrapped in wax paper, gifts of lye soap, dried fruit, peanuts, shortbread, handkerchiefs embroidered with our initials (and a medicinal bottle of whiskey for me, the colonel) and, most touching of all, hand-copied versions of real letters from home of the era. No instant messages, no emails, not even a cellphone call from home — in 1862 this might be all that a young soldier might hear from home in months.
I don’t think that either side of that war was fighting for universal health care, mortgage bailouts, or bloated public-employee pension plans.
The Fading Murals
…of Flint, Michigan. Some poignant reflections on the sad decline of my home town.
Not Forever
I’m often annoyed by the straw-man argument/complex question (and aren’t all complex questions a form of straw man?) that opponents of life extension toss out: “Why do you want to live forever”?
It’s not about living forever — it’s about living as long as you want to live. Robin Hanson has the same problem.
I can’t say now that I won’t be tired of life in a hundred years or so, but give me a chance to find out. I do suffer from ennui occasionally as I get older, but I think that most of it comes from not feeling as physically good as I did when I was younger, and not having the financial resources to do all the things I’d like to do. Fix those problems, and I might in fact be willing to at least take a trip to Mars, if not a one-way one.
What Would You Do To Live On Mars?
Jon Goff is running a poll. The answer for me is none of the above. I’m not really a pioneer — I’m too hedonistic, and I’ve never had much of a lech for even going to Mars, let alone living there.
American Exceptionalism
…and its basis in Anglospherian culture. Thoughts from Jim Bennett:
Americans appreciate their exceptionalism at gut level. This is where the American Right is in touch with the nation, and the Left is not; John F. Kennedy was probably the last Democratic president with an instinctive feeling for it.
And none have understood it as little as Barack Obama.
Nobody Does Similes
…like Lileks:
…the power stayed on, damn the luck. In fact the entire storm skirted us – 60 MPH winds downtown, but here at Jasperwood we just got gusts and downpours, the far edge of the mayhem. I was stupid enough to put fresh batteries in one of the lights, too. Now they’ll be useless the next time I need them. They will sit in the lantern for a year and quietly drain themselves, like old men peeing in their pants while they sleep.
There’s a lot more where that came from.
[Update a few minutes later]
I know, I say to read the whole thing, and I didn’t before I posted this. So farther down, I found this:
And must we start with a rap song? Must we? It was like the trailer for “Nanny McPhee Returns,” which have “Everything Little Thing She Does (is Magic)” by the Police to remind you that, you know, Nanny uses Magic. Nevermind that it seems to take place in England in the 30s. I doubt it’s in the movie itself, but when they stick in the Obligatory Pop Song it not only takes you out of the world they’ve constructed, you feel like you’re being treated like a fool. Don’t worry! It may be set in the past, icky icky, but it’s hip as all hell! Here’s a 25-year-old pop song to prove it!
I watched a dumb Jennifer Aniston flick