tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64846182024-03-07T13:15:14.808-08:00As the Top of the World TurnsRuminations and Rants from Laguna BeachGrumpy Old Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06885003732996511989noreply@blogger.comBlogger1423125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484618.post-37506554842350246082010-06-04T10:34:00.000-07:002010-06-04T10:34:03.236-07:00Kent State and Palestine
Same shit, different century.
Left: the aftermath of shootings of demonstrators by the National Guard at Kent State University in the Vietnam era. Right: a peaceful American demonstrator (an artist, in fact) blinded by a tear gas canister shot by Israeli forces at a roadblock in Palestine.Grumpy Old Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06885003732996511989noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484618.post-79249718812850585552010-05-24T05:56:00.000-07:002010-05-24T05:56:45.457-07:00Hey, Dershowitz!You odious prick, how's your attempt to smear Goldstone workin' out for ya, now that this has come out again?Grumpy Old Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06885003732996511989noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484618.post-68905499763800032722010-05-05T11:58:00.000-07:002010-05-05T11:58:21.596-07:00Books By My BedGrumpy Old Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06885003732996511989noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484618.post-75777085808024548702010-03-27T03:52:00.000-07:002010-03-27T03:52:22.330-07:00The Ten-Book MemeThere’s a meme going around asking people to name ten books that have been influential in their lives, or views. You’re not supposed to think too much about it. Well, here are mine, with brief explanations. I left a great deal out, for example the works of Érico Veríssimo, which taught me a great deal about Brazil, or Mary Renault, whose early historical novels I liked so much.
If I did it Grumpy Old Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06885003732996511989noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484618.post-65032487095304357582010-01-01T13:44:00.000-08:002010-01-01T14:00:39.981-08:00Three New Year's ScenariosWm. Safire having bought the farm, someone had to make New Year's predictions. Here are mine, in three variants: quasi-apocalyptic, benign, and realistic. Or: really bad s**t, pretty good news, what's most likely to happen. We'll check in a year. Here goes:
Apocalyptic:
1. Iran starts executing dissidents.
2. Yemen-based Al Qaeda succeeds in downing planes. Americans attack Yemen. ObamaGrumpy Old Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06885003732996511989noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484618.post-24004611584569205232009-12-30T09:57:00.000-08:002009-12-30T09:57:26.850-08:00A Low, Dishonest DecadeRod Dreher lists five changes he thinks significant in the last decade:
* The Islamic threat
* The humbling of American power
* The humbling of market capitalism
* The collapse of American conservatism
* The rise of gay marriage
* The globe is going to warm, no matter what
I came up with four more:
1. The rise of new economic powers in the former Third World: China, India, Brazil. This change Grumpy Old Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06885003732996511989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484618.post-36629460409280387132009-12-24T13:27:00.000-08:002009-12-24T13:27:58.070-08:00If Your Christmas Gets Too Saccharine, Watch This
One of the few songs I know about disillusionment (as opposed simply to torch songs).
There's no redemption for us without recognizing our fallenness.Grumpy Old Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06885003732996511989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484618.post-66391402609028474202009-12-06T08:28:00.000-08:002009-12-06T08:29:02.653-08:00The Return of the Player The Return of the Player by Michael TolkinMy rating: 3 of 5 starsThis book is a send up of the Hollywood and associated New Rich. There are some very funny insights and scenes, but the book is not nearly so profound as the author thinks. His views, alas, are often quite tiresome.View all my reviews >>Grumpy Old Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06885003732996511989noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484618.post-46021541296294113922009-11-27T14:41:00.001-08:002009-11-27T15:11:14.603-08:00Och Rocks On: Thanksgiving DebateThe Ochlophobist is a Memphis blogger. He has posted a screed on Thanksgiving that is well worth reading and pondering. The latter part of the post is a good story about bullying and other antics at a Mennonite school. Well worth reading but hardly food for debate.The former part questions Thanksgiving, among other things because it is surrounded by patrioteering mythology. Our kindergarteners Grumpy Old Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06885003732996511989noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484618.post-30612667888007512492009-11-27T14:03:00.000-08:002009-11-27T14:12:36.825-08:00The "Russian Whore Test"Like a freeway gawker looking at a crash, or a spectator at a bum-fight, I am drawn to Commentary Magazine's contentions blog, to see how degenerate neoconservatism and hasbara can become. Max Boot, usually one of the site's less-deranged bloggers, posting about the importance of Dubai, despite its financial troubles, today blew my weak mind:But still for all of Dubai’s excesses it is a wonder Grumpy Old Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06885003732996511989noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484618.post-25289326363778667512009-11-13T12:26:00.000-08:002009-11-13T12:31:46.888-08:00Things Are ChangingAs Netanyahu knows, there is consensus support among Israelis for his plan to ensure that the country retains defensible borders in perpetuity. This involves establishing permanent Israeli control over the Jordan Valley and the large Jewish population blocs in Judea and Samaria. In light of the well-recognized failure of the two-state solution, Hamas's takeover of Gaza and the disintegration of Grumpy Old Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06885003732996511989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484618.post-29014051451475769782009-11-11T04:12:00.000-08:002009-11-11T04:13:31.037-08:00The Sergeant Nails It: "Amazing Grace" at the Ft. Hood MemorialGrumpy Old Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06885003732996511989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484618.post-87423551722169811252009-11-10T12:26:00.000-08:002009-11-10T12:27:33.079-08:00These Children Deserve to Have Someone Ask Why They DiedA brave and eloquent Congressman.Grumpy Old Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06885003732996511989noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484618.post-15673285780173253022009-11-09T07:36:00.000-08:002009-11-09T07:49:29.335-08:00Hofstadter AgainPaul Krugman invokes the ghost of Richard Hofstadter. Hofstadter was a Columbia historian who wrote an essay on "The Paranoid Style in American Politics."A reaction to the perceived abused of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, Hofstadter's essay was a middlebrow version of the Frankfurt School's "authoritarian personality" concept. In essence, the argument is that the people whose views one dislikes aren't Grumpy Old Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06885003732996511989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484618.post-72388546507353855692009-11-02T09:07:00.000-08:002009-11-02T13:22:58.006-08:00We Are, Indeed, DoomedI just finished John Derbyshire's We Are Doomed.The style is sprightly and witticisms abound, concealing the fact that the arguments are deep and the conclusions founded in considerable erudition.The conceit is the familiar one that conservatism is founded in a belief in the fallenness, or at least the imperfection of human nature, and the complexity and proneness to error inherent in social Grumpy Old Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06885003732996511989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484618.post-11483790900843091632009-10-24T12:25:00.001-07:002009-10-24T12:28:36.085-07:00Nanny State'll GetchaHere's a story that creeped me out--how far surveillance by local bureaucrats has gone in Merrie Olde England.Totalitarianism creeps in under the guise of benevolence. Beware your local gummint, the local enviro police, the school board, the zoners. It's not the hobnailed boots that'll getcha, it's the helping professions. They'll brainwash you in your childhood, therap you into conformity in Grumpy Old Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06885003732996511989noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484618.post-81512213927795179952009-10-03T12:56:00.000-07:002009-10-03T13:21:05.147-07:00African ConundrumA Bolshevik whose blog I read regularly is Louis Proyect. Louis writes good review of foreign films from places such as Turkey, films we don't get to see very often. He writes interesting personal reminiscences (he grew up in what used to be called the Borscht Belt) and on anthropological topics, such as the controversies about the studies of the Yanomami and the pecadillioes of the ethnographersGrumpy Old Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06885003732996511989noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484618.post-88719669251448255612009-08-30T07:52:00.001-07:002009-08-30T08:13:05.053-07:00Health Care Realities No One Wants to FaceNo blogging for many weeks. Much going on and the seduction of "Facebook."The healthcare debate is hardly a debate. It seems full of slogans and anecdotes, and no doubt will no be freighted with Kennedy nostalgia.There are home truths about healthcare that no one wants to face. Fundamental is that people will want more healthcare than any system can provide. If you make it free or lower the cost Grumpy Old Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06885003732996511989noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484618.post-78338048312477017892009-07-09T19:12:00.001-07:002009-07-09T19:25:20.767-07:00Neocons Chicken Out, Give Me My Life BackThe crazed Zionofascists at contentions have closed the blog to comments.This decision reflects Commentary's continuity with the Trotskyism of its forbears. Once the party line is laid down, a split is inevitable, and discussion is verboten. For a while, in spite of its odious, warmongering politics and its support for every trope of Israeli propaganda (hasbara), contentions commendably allowed Grumpy Old Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06885003732996511989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484618.post-74124940467168667732009-07-01T23:12:00.000-07:002009-07-01T23:55:08.710-07:00Gay TranslatorsAn Arabic Army translator from Tustin who announced to the world his homosexual predilections has been recommended for discharge by an Army panel. He invited this decision by making his genital inclinations into a cause, but still, discharging him seems unwise. Arabic translators are scarce as hen's teeth.A Facebook friend (and relative) took offense at a comment of mine on this issue (I do Grumpy Old Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06885003732996511989noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484618.post-62872765016165202002009-06-24T12:07:00.000-07:002009-06-24T12:08:00.074-07:00Trita Parsi's Book on the US, Israel and Iran Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States by Trita Parsi My review rating: 3 of 5 starsFascinating, if too academic account, of the Iran-Israel-US triangle. Things are not what they seem. Both Israel and the US did business with Khomeini, and later Israel managed to scuttle a rapprochement between the US and Iran.Although the régime in Iran is currently Grumpy Old Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06885003732996511989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484618.post-71272216368855939722009-05-15T11:54:00.000-07:002009-05-15T12:04:53.076-07:00The Worm Will Turn Here in Barackistan, But Who Cares?The admirable Daniel Larison explains the eclipse of the GOP as follows: Of the three GOP factions he identifies, social, economic and national security conservatives, he blames the national security conservatives. The GOP in power under Bush did little or nothing for the social conservatives, and followed corporate welfare policies, not economic conservatism or libertarianism. It did, however,Grumpy Old Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06885003732996511989noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484618.post-58750498121030996082009-05-11T17:30:00.000-07:002009-05-11T17:41:12.179-07:00More on ZionismSinner that I am, and easily provoked, too, I have been back on contentions. A commenter challenged me thus:The enemies of Israel and of the Jews lie shamelessly about them. To “grumpy old man”: It is the Muslims (and maybe some Christians) who want to destroy Israel and the Jews. The war against the Jews in Eretz Yisroel was started by Haj Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who organized Grumpy Old Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06885003732996511989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484618.post-77196322401129917972009-05-11T08:09:00.000-07:002009-05-11T09:17:12.147-07:00The Boots Are Always On the StaircaseThere was a time that the central story of the Jews, commemorated in ritual and prayer, was God's freeing of the Hebrew slaves of Egypt, let by the prophet Moses, followed by wandering in the desert and the reception of the Law. The Passover Seder, the last ritual retained by secularizing Jews such as my own family, commemorated and discussed this.No more. To be sure, observant and semi-observantGrumpy Old Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06885003732996511989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484618.post-80660896950977437352009-04-11T17:58:00.000-07:002009-04-11T18:02:23.885-07:00Bumper Sticker of the DayHT: American Digest.Grumpy Old Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06885003732996511989noreply@blogger.com0