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Who are we?

Political comment below the fold….

This, I am afraid, is what our country now is.

We don’t welcome the world’s oppressed who are seeking freedom; no, we’re all about shutting the borders and denying freedom to those already here. We’re Pepper Spray Nation now, when a cop can just casually walk back and forth pepper spraying peacefully-gathered activists as calmly as if he was walking his dog.

And anyone thinking, as apparently does FOX News idiot Megyn Kelly, that pepper spray is benign stuff because hey, it’s made of pepper, let this article disabuse you of that notion.

This is a chemical designed to repel humans by causing them intense misery and pain and discomfort. Hmmm…the key word there is chemical. I’m pretty sure we took a dim view, ten years or so ago, of governments that used chemicals on their own citizens. I wonder why we’ve decided otherwise now that it’s just those dirty hippies who we’re spraying.

I dunno…I just have zero idea what kind of country we are anymore. We don’t believe in providing healthcare to all citizens, and we instead believe that it’s OK for most people to be one serious health crisis away from utter disaster. We don’t believe that government spending can create jobs and help stave off economic calamity, but we do believe that when the military wants to close a base or two, it’s time to demonstrate because of the jobs. And we don’t believe in governments quashing protests in other countries, but here, it’s just fine.

Just who the hell are we, anyway? I wish I knew.

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Well-manicured

Actor John Neville, of Baron Munchausen and X-Files fame (wherein he played the ‘Well-manicured Man’, one of the conspirators and ally of the Cigarette Smoking Man), has died. He was a fine actor and will be missed, even if he did help pave the way for the alien colonization of our planet.

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Classics in 2012!!!

Over at Book Scorpion’s Lair, Jedediah points out a nifty-sounding thing called the “Classics Challenge”, which I will sign up for in 2012. Huzzah!

Here’s how it works:

Read seven works of Classic Literature in 2012
Only three of the seven may be re-reads

Instead of writing a review as you finish each book (of course, you can do that too), visit November’s Autumn on the 4th of each month from January 2012 – December 2012.

You will find a prompt, it will be general enough that no matter which Classic you’re reading or how far into it, you will be able to answer. There will be a form for everyone to link to their post. I encourage everyone to read what other participants have posted.

So, the next step is to pick out my seven books. Which ones? After some thought, I’ve arrived at the list below. I think I may be taking a more liberal definition of “classic literature” than some others, but here are my chosen books:

Spoon River Anthology, by Edgar Lee Masters
The Arabian Nights, adapted by Jack Zipes from the Richard Burton translation
Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo
Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad
The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas
Watchmen, by Alan Moore and (re-read)
Dracula, by Bram Stoker

So, I only have one re-read listed. I think that everything here qualifies as “classic literature”, in some way or other, even Watchmen, which is indisputably a classic of comics (or graphic novels, or ‘sequential art’, or whatever you want to call it). I also have different genres represented, and there is a classic work of poetry in the Spoon River Anthology. I also have mixed up my lengths of books, with three legit doorstops (Arabian Nights, Count of Monte Cristo, and Les Miserables) mixed with shorter works. Variety rules!

I will be reading these books concurrently with other stuff – my usual genre reading, nonfiction stuff, and whatever else trips my trigger as the year goes on. But there’s the plan for 2012. Now, to track down my copies of all these books! I’m not sure that I own Spoon River Anthology or Heart of Darkness. It’ll take some digging into the archives to find them, if I do….

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Sentential Links #270

Linkage….

:: If the United States truly is, as I’ve always been told, the richest country on earth, the best country on earth, how can we in good conscience abandon a human life in this way? The dirty truth behind our for-profit insurance industry is that insurers are more concerned with the dividends of their shareholders than the needs of their policy holders. People carry insurance as a hedge against anything really bad ever happening to us, but if anything really bad does happen, the insurance companies fight like hell to not actually help you, and that is just wrong. No… it’s obscene. (Stuff like this sickens me. Not doing the obvious thing about health care in this country because we’ve been conditioned to have this infantile fear of “the government” will be judged harshly in the light of history.)

:: If you’re flying on an airline that doesn’t have reserved seating never sit next to anyone who is already eating or reading Ann Coulter. (And speaking of Ann Coulter, I wonder what she’s been up to lately….)

:: Note to cable television bookers. This is not humor. This is not commentary. This is eliminationist rhetoric from a career white-supremacist. This is not a fit person to bring into the public discussion of anything. This is a vicious evil woman who would sell her grayhaired granny to the Somali pirates for 15 minutes worth of airtime. This is someone who should be shunned, permanently, by anybody with a sense of human decency. (Well, that answers that, doesn’t it?)

:: One of my long time pet peeves… No wait, this is more than a peeve; it borders on outrage. This really pisses me off, folks. What I’m sputtering about is the lack of different inseam lengths in women’s pants. (I’ve been clothes-shopping enough with The Wife to know that the way womens’ pants are sized is madness.)

:: Now if there’s one employee ID card out there that’s likely to summon less immediate respect from yours truly, or carry less moral weight, it’s one that says I’m a stock broker down on Wall Street. And take that how you will. And this guy was showing this not just as a badge of honor but a means of intimidation. Like “little old drink maker me” should be shaking in his boots.

:: Do I know style or do I know style? (Errrr….)

:: Embrace the change. Go all-star. Produce nothing but brilliant, compelling, gotta-have-a-copy work. Make or develop stars, yes, but do so in an enlightened manner, as fairly, equitably, honestly and intelligently as possible. Go for or real talent, not flavor-du-jour or one-hit-wonder people. Use the small companies as your farm system,or start one of your own. Do not publish anything except the best of the best.

More next week….

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International Overalls Day!

Today was International Overalls Day, which is a day set aside by various crazies afflicted with the enjoyment of bib overalls to…well, wear overalls and commiserate with one another online. This year’s event was less eventful than last year‘s, but hey, any day in overalls is a better day than a day not in overalls. Or something like that.

(I’m not at my most eloquent today, I’m noticing.)

Anyway, I chose to go with vintage Lee overalls today. Here’s to next year!

More images on Flickr.

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Dolphins 35, Bills 8


What it feels like to be a Bills fan these days, originally uploaded by Jaquandor.

Yeesh. The Bills don’t mess around with small things, like replacing brake pads or putting a new muffler on. No, when things go wrong for the Bills, we’re talking “all four wheels fall off at the same time the engine throws two rods” bad. This is starting to spiral out of control.

:: Ryan Fitzpatrick is playing poorly. This is a combination of a number of things. First, it must be admitted, he’s not the most physically talented guy under center in the NFL. He’s good, but he’s not that good.

Second, he’s not throwing to that great a group of receivers. We have to admit this. Every week now we’re seeing large numbers of passes that really should be completions either being missed by the receivers or, worse, bouncing off receivers and into the arms of defenders (this happened twice today). Now, maybe he could do better at putting the passes right on the numbers, but he does put the ball where they could catch it. And they don’t.

Third, the Bills, either by design or not, have little to no deep passing game. This means that defenders can come up nice and close to the line of scrimmage.

Fourth, the offensive line has sustained so many injuries that now guys are being moved all over the place in an effort to just field a line of any kind, at all. As a result, blitzes are getting through with ease, forcing Fitz to throw the ball before he’s ready.

All of this adds up to Fitzpatrick having a very rough time of it.

:: The afore-mentioned offensive line problems are making the running game a lot less effective.

:: On defense? They’re just playing badly. Across the board. Once again, the Bills generate no pass rush, and they don’t cover very well. That is a foolproof recipe for continued disaster. I remain convinced that the Bills’ primary need in the draft needs to be the very best pass rusher available when they pick, whether that’s a defensive end or a linebacker.

Other than that…the game looked awful, and the Bills are on the road yet again next week to face the Jets, who thumped them two weeks ago at home. Ugh!

Oh well, enough of that.

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A random observation

We’re watching a UK-edition episode of Kitchen Nightmares on Netflix right now. It’s amusing that the swear words aren’t bleeped. It’s even more amusing that I often don’t even recognize the swear words as swear words, owing to pronunciations and accents. I hear these folks say things like “Give me the fookin thing”, where ‘fook’ rhymes with ‘book’, and I wonder, “What is a ‘fookin’ thing”?

Anyway….

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The official site of Kelly Sedinger: Reader, writer, photographer, and dreamer

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