Archive for the ‘opinion/news’ Category

The reality of the 60’s

Posted: January 18, 2011 by datechguy in culture, opinion/news
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There is a lot of talk about how the 60’s was the summer of love and all the great stuff that came from it. Virginia Ironside had a different memory:

To be honest, I mainly remember the 60s as an endless round of miserable promiscuity, a time when often it seemed easier and, believe it or not, more polite, to sleep with a man than to chuck him out of your flat. I recall a complete stranger once slipping into bed beside me when I was staying in an all-male household in Oxford, and feeling so baffled about what the right thing was to do that I let him have sex with me; I remember being got drunk by a grossly fat tabloid newspaper journalist and taken back to a flat belonging to a friend of his to which he had a key, being subjected to what would now be described as rape, and still thinking it was my fault for accepting so much wine. I remember going out to dinner with a young lawyer who inveigled me back to his flat saying he’d got to pick something up before he could take me home, and then suggested we have sex. ‘Oh no,’ I said feebly. ‘I’m too tired.’ ‘Oh, go on,’ he replied. ‘It’ll only take a couple of minutes.’ So I did.

You mean to say that all of that bit about fornication in Christianity and waiting till marriage although religious might have a non religious benefit? Who woulda thunk it. And who would have ever thought that if you give men, who naturally want sex, particular young men no reason for restraint they will show none. Her conclusion:

After a decade of sleeping around pretty indiscriminately, girls of the 60s eventually became fairly jaded about sex. It took me years to discover that continual sex with different partners is, with very few exceptions, joyless, uncomfortable and humiliating, and it’s only now I’m older that I’ve discovered that one of the ingredients of a good sex life is, at the very least, a grain of affection between the two partners involved.

In the rush to reject traditional Christianity a lot of people did a lot of damage to themselves. My advice, find a nice young man who goes to Church and warn your daughters of making it too easy. People tend to rise to the level of expectations that you set for them so let’s make the exceptions high.

Morning Joe today: “Sarah Palin is not a serious person”: Update they find Fuller!

Posted: January 18, 2011 by datechguy in media, opinion/news
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Again the transformation from the “when is she going to speak out” before she talked to the “she shouldn’t’ make it about herself”.

Guys I like you but are you actually listening to yourselves? You have given 10 minutes to Sarah Palin because it is your attempt to boost ratings. Remember MSNBC + CNN doesn’t manage to manage to draw as many views as Fox, so you go all Sarah Palin to fire up the niche market and to draw eyeballs of folks like me to see what you guys are going to say.

Mike, I love you, we are both guys from the kingdom, but if you decide that if you are tweeting you are not a serious person that places you in firmly in the middle of the 20th century (when you are born) c’mon Mike.

The problem is people on the right who don’t support her for president see this totally differently:

I continue to believe that Sarah Palin is not yet qualified to be president, but my admiration for her continues to grow. Her interview with Sean Hannity, just aired, was almost pitch-perfect. It was dignified. It was well-modulated. It was strong. And it was thoughtful. She kept her composure even as Hannity put on the screen some of the vilest, most vicious attacks against her — the sorts of things that were so bad that if they were said about me they might shake me to my core. She explained her thought process after hearing about the shooting in Tucson, and explained the timing of her videotaped message, and explained her use of the term “blood libel.” She insisted, rightly, that strong and honest — but respectful — political debate should not be stifled, and noted that it only seems like the right is asked to stifle its views. She was correct on all counts.

Guys, I understand your job is to draw ratings but c’mon guys is there no other way to get audience?

Oh btw I was checking school cancellations so I missed a few min, I don’t know if they mentioned the Fuller Brush man’s apology, but I’ll watch through the 7 a.m. hour to see if that changes.

Update: They find the brush man at 6:33 a.m. in headlines at the bottom of the hour, they give him 30 seconds and Joe throws a comment or two.

Update 2: Does anyone remember the advice that Joe Scarborough & company gave the GOP all during 2009 & 2010. It was the opposite of what they did. If the Republican’s took your advice they would be the minority party in the house now.

Update 3: Joe unexpectedly tears into Carl Bernstein over the “ignorant” business. Carl quotes republicans who didn’t like her but plays the phony geography card showing that he, not Palin is the ignorant one. What on earth happened? He is really going after him on the Palin ignorant and demagogue stuff. What did they inject him with over the break?

Update 4: Joe has actually compared the way Palin is treated by the MSM to the way Reagan was treated in 1980 by the MSM. Am I actually awake and seeing this? This is what you call a 180.

Way too early reports on the apology

Posted: January 18, 2011 by datechguy in fun, media, opinion/news
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I fell asleep on the couch last night and work up at 5 a.m. Much to my youngest’s dismay I don’t see Fitchburg schools listed as canceled but I did turn on Way Too Early with Willie Geist and I see they have discovered Eric Fuller now that he has apologized.

That delay resulted in this post which resulted in my single best day since the blog opened, so I guess I should thank the MSNBC crew for delaying.

I presume Morning Joe will have it as well, but the focus is likely going to be another Palin derangement syndrome day.

(I think the battle hymn song is over the top, I think it enters Palin cult territory. I’m sure they are very nice people but I thought it was shall we say…amusing. )

Sudan and Tunisa two changes in government

Posted: January 17, 2011 by datechguy in opinion/news
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The referendum in Sudan is over and the vote is independence:

International observers gave south Sudan’s independence referendum their seal of approval on Monday and said a vote for secession was now “virtually certain” in their first official judgment on the poll.

Early results from last week’s plebiscite suggest people from Sudan’s oil-producing south overwhelming voted to split away from the north after decades of civil war.

Might be a tad premature to say independence but this is now the best shot for the Christians in Southern Sudan to enjoy a modicum of peace.

If they manage to pull it off I would not be surprised to see Christians who are being slain elsewhere on the continent to head in that direction.

Meanwhile in Tunisia although there is violence Michael Totten thinks there is a real shot for shot for Democracy:

Unlike in war-torn Afghanistan or fanatical Saudi Arabia, Tunisian democracy is a real possibility. It’s a bit unlikely as it’s only one possible option of many, but it could happen. Mebazaa himself is now promising, perhaps even sincerely, “a better political life which will include democracy, plurality and active participation for all the children of Tunis.”

I’ve spent time in more than a dozen Muslim countries, eight of them Arab, and Tunisia is — or at least was before this month when things fell apart — one of the most advanced and stable. The majority of its citizens belong to a well-educated middle class, the infrastructure seems no worse than Europe’s, and a high percentage of women in the cities have discarded the veil and the headscarf and dress like Europeans. The latter may sound like a small thing, but in a Muslim country, it visually indicates how much women’s rights have advanced. The overwhelming majority live near the coast in cosmopolitan cities that have traded and been in cultural contact with Europeans for millennia. It’s not a Western country, but it fully belongs to the Mediterranean region and is oriented more toward the West than most Arab countries.

Beirut was once a cosmopolitanism place too. This will be a real test, can an Islamic country when removing a dictator create a state that has freedoms that other Islamic states avoid, or will it become a place where Sharia is either officially or unofficially enforced?

These two stories are going to tell us an awful lot. Let’s make sure we pay attention.

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