Category: Culture
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The Emperor Is Naked And So’s His Gun
California experienced at least two mass shootings yesterday. One in Monterey Park (near LA), the other in Half Moon Bay, not far from San Francisco. Both, it appears, were angry men using firearms (instead of therapy) to resolve their emotional issues. That’s a pretty regular part of many (if not most) mass shooting incidents –…
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Skepticism v Cynicism – They’re NOT The Same Thing!
Not a revelation: our news media sucks. It’s broken. And “both sides do it” (BSDI) brand journalism broke it. Not all journalists practice BSDI but enough do that their journalism prevents We The People from ever getting the truth in real time. Healthy journalism depends on skepticism. Doubt. But, hey – bring receipts? Doubt can…
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Know Who Loves The Unvaxxed? Pathogens!
Listening to an anti-vaxxer insist they can’t trust science because they know better can make your head explode. More often than not, these aren’t dumb people; many are highly educated and, really, very well meaning. But anti-vaxxism has gotten under their skin like a religion. Or a cult. They embrace this mania with every fiber…
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We’re Having The Wrong Debate About The 2nd Amendment And Guns: “Own” Isn’t In The 2A
This is very much an “Emperor’s New Clothes” situation. America watches a naked king ride by every day while pretending that this bloated, pink-skinned, pimply-and-pock-marked monarch is clothed. As we sit here today, we have it in our heads that the Second Amendment guarantees all Americans the right to own all the guns they want.…
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New Year’s Day Is A Great Day To Recall: Kevin McCarthy Is A Traitor!
Current GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy desperately wants to be Speaker Of The House. Even if somehow he manages to scrape together the votes, McCarthy won’t be Speaker for long. There are a thousand different inglorious ways for McCarthy’s speakership to crash and burn. And, quickly, too. That’s what happens when you’ re a traitor like…
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We’re Making It All Up
I am a huge fan of the human imagination. I’m a huge fan of all imagination; I’m convinced plenty of other animals and creatures have imaginations, too. They use them – same as we humans do – to problem solve both small and big problems. Finding food, a safe place to sleep, our place in…
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Why E Pluribus Unum Matters
Most Americans – if they think about the country’s founding – focus on “All men are created equal”. Alas, when our founders wrote those words, they didn’t mean them. Oh, they meant the “men” part. Only men could be other men’s equals. But by “men”, they meant only men like themselves: white, wealthy, land owning…
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Does the 2A Really Guarantee Individual Gun Ownership? No, It Does Not!
Sandy Hook… Uvalde… Las Vegas… Orlando… Marjory Stoneman… Columbine… Every-damned-day-in-America! How the hell did it come to this? True Fact: we have been bamboozled into accepting a bullshit framing of the Second Amendment. We have it in our heads now that the 2A is a gun *rights* amendment. It’s the exact opposite – there is…