tumbroglio
assemblage of digital lint
“It’s the birthday of another writer from the prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder, born just north of Pepin, Wisconsin (1867), author of the wildly popular children’s book Little House on the Prairie (1935) and several other books about growing up in the Midwest in the late 1800s. They’re all part of the Little House series, which she began writing when she was in her 60s. Since her death, about a hundred different titles have appeared in the Little House series that she created.”
It’s fun to read something like this fun little fiction the 1990-self talking to the 2010-self to point out how amazing and wonderful today is compared with 20 years ago (also via DF). (It’s not fun to think that 1990 was 20 freaking years ago! Geez. It doesn’t seem possible.) It’s true. We need to appreciate the good and wonderful things about our lives and our world and not just focus on the negative.
Of course, then there is the apparent truth that our president, this good president who is so much better than the last president, apparently believes he has the right to order the assassination of American citizens without charge, trial, or anything. Just because he, or one of his deputies, decides the person needs to die. That kind of awful makes those little wonders and good things in our world seem rather pale, doesn’t it? Especially when one of the “good things” is supposed to be this same president who thinks he has this power to play god.
This is part of what Dahlia Lithwick has called America’s “own special brand of terrorism-derangement syndrome.” If we label someone a “terrorist,” we magically make them not a person but something else, something to which we owe less than an animal, and certainly not something that has any rights. Lithwick quotes Adam Serwer to summarize: “This is the new normal for Republicans [and Obama, too, apparently]: You can be denied rights not through due process of law but merely based on the nature of the crime you are suspected of committing. “
Seriously?
Talk about awesome.
Corporations are people, too! (via DF)
He’s just awesome at analogies.
