Slothrop's Dream
Monday, May 31, 2004
Memorial Day
11:00:58 AM 
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Sunday, May 30, 2004
Gas Prices Be DamnedMost Americans are not buying all the hype about an increase in gas prices. Travel is way up and Slothrop's Dream is no exception. For a shot of the woman and I on the shore of Lake Michigan and a Beer Blog post preview, check out this story. 6:13:35 PM
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Wednesday, May 19, 2004|
Yesterday a man filling his tank next to me chatted away on his cell. Today I read this:
2:14:06 PM
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Tuesday, May 18, 2004
QOTDQuote of the Day:
1:40:59 PM
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Monday, May 17, 2004
WMD foundThe jokes can stop now. A 155-millimeter round containing the nerve agent sarin detonated Saturday as part of a roadside bomb. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt stated, “The round had been rigged as an IED (improvised explosive device) which was discovered by a U.S. force convoy. A detonation occurred before the IED could be rendered inoperable. This produced a very small dispersal of agent.'' Sarin was developed by the Nazi’s in the 1930s and was used by the Aum Shinrikyo cult on Tokyo’s subway in 1995. That attack killed 12 and injured thousands. The exploded ordinance in Iraq appears to have killed no one, although two soldiers were treated for chemical exposure. Of course the first question CNN’s Daryn Kagan asked was about the origin of the shell, implying that it could have come from outside Iraq. Their expert though, quickly corrected her stating that it was almost certainly of Iraqi origin due to its make and size. The shell was unmarked and the terrorists likely did not know its contents, making it probable that many other unmarked shells, as yet untested and scattered throughout the country also contain hidden chemical weapons. 4:41:39 PM
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Tuesday, May 11, 2004
You Are GayThe other night in an NBA playoff game the Timberwolve's Kevin Garnett elbowed Denver's rookie center Francisco Elson below the belt. Proving that basketball is a child's game at any level, Elson retaliated with repartee straight from 5th grade recess. In a press conference following the game he recounted how he had retaliated in-game, "You don’t do that. That’s gay on his part. I told him that he was gay, too, for touching me in my private parts." Here was a refreshing moment where someone in public came off unaffected, sharing what he actually thought. He had no agent or lawyer or p.r. girl there to tell him what to say. He simply repeated what he had told Garnett during the game. The statement was rash, raw, and immature (what grown man says "private parts"?) but wholly refreshing in its candor. And it didn't take long for the P.C. police to jump. The NBA senior vice president quickly warned teams about volatile remarks in the media and an AP story said that gay and lesbian groups "chastised" Elson. I've seen no actual quotes to back up this statement by the AP, but I'll take them at their word.
Elson quickly apologized under the criticism saying that his remarks were out of character and "insensitive". In fact, it was the use of words like insensitive that felt out of character for the guy who likely uses "gay" as an insult. Am I out of touch or don't lots of people use this slur? Why pretend otherwise. Had he called KJ a Frenchman, a mullet lover, or a Republican, there would be no outcry. Identity politics is a discriminating deamon. And the issue is wholly political, not economic.
Its not as if a boycott of the NBA --even 100% effective-- from the homosexual community would hurt ticket sales, its just not their audience. Hypersensitivity flares up again, and to what end? Surely no one believes the apology, as forced as all public celebrity apologies are. What is accomplished is a reinforcing of the rules; there are things one can say in public, and many things one cannot. These forbidden words are censorship by a new name, relabeled marxism.
To fight this new oppression we must, as they say, control the dialogue. So get out there and say what you feel in public without checking over your shoulder. Call your friends car bughetto, tell the boss his son is queer bait, or call that date that cant hold their liquor a Native American. No GLAAD awards will come your way, and many people will revile you, call you unenlightened and bigoted or worse, but the life of a free speech revolutionary has its own rewards. 8:18:31 AM
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Thursday, May 06, 2004
Saeva IndignatioA recent editorial , published by The Daily Collegian, the University of Massachusetts's student newspaper, was titled 'Pat Tillman is not a hero: He got what was coming to him' The author, a grad student named Rene Gonzalez writes that Americans are too stupid to know what a hero is or much of anything else. His unique perspective makes him the purveyor of an insight he feels compelled to share: However, in my neighborhood in Puerto Rico, Tillman would have been called a "pendejo," an idiot. Tillman, in the absurd belief that he was defending or serving his all-powerful country...decided to give up a comfortable life to place himself in a combat situation that cost him his life. This was not "Ramon or Tyrone," who joined the military out of financial necessity, or to have a chance at education. This was a "G.I. Joe" guy who got what was coming to him. That was not heroism, it was prophetic idiocy. The rancor here is far beyond the usual unbathed, jam-band loving types that have become more common than designer "trucker hats" on campuses. His nescient foreign affairs analysis is just as dull as those hippies however, "After all, whether we like them or not, the Taliban is more Afghani than we are. Their resistance is more legitimate than our invasion...". The Imperial Japanese were certainly "more" Japanese than the US soldiers that occupied Japan after WWII as were the Nazis more German than the Allies. But it is not in contests of comparative ethnicity that we judge legitimacy. To question the legitimacy of America's coalition to go into Afghanistan after Sept 11th is sophomoric anomie backed by nothing. So much hate for America and Pat Tillman the man, and resentment towards the appreciation paid to a soldier who embodied bravery and patriotism. The far left has always hated patriotism because they see it as jingoistic and another crutch, like religion, of the small minds. Convinced of their superior intellect, these liberals will proffer moral relativism and other postmodern philosophy as evidence that most people--those below them--are lemmings who need to be told what think. Emerson though, reminds us that "character is higher than intellect". Were this one piece in a collegiate daily though, it could be explained away by drugs, drinking, or X-Box withdrawal. Unfortunately, Tillman and America bashing have made the mainstream press as well. MSNBC and Slate both recently published a cartoon by Ted Rall, a syndicated cartoonist and writer, that espouses the same nonsense. The two websites have since pulled the cartoon. In it, the author describes Pat Tillman as "a cog in a low rent occupation army that shot more innocent civilians than terrorists to prop up puppet rulers and exploit gas and oil resources". The final frame shows three men at a publication offering the one word that comes to mind when hearing the Pat Tillman story. The first man says "idiot", the second "sap" and the third, the tie wearing editor is the only one who says "hero". Not before he was buried Ranger Corporal Tillman, a man who never sought publicity for his service after giving up a 3 million dollar football contract, was being used as a political punching bag. The left--there are more examples--has gone to painting him as nothing but a dumb jock, worshipped by people too stupid to realize that the war on terror is a sham to cover up a diabolical scheme to lower gasoline prices. At times like these I wonder at how powerful their hatred of America must be to make them so ghoulish and benighted. Have you seen the price of gas recently? I ask you, who is the idiot, and who is the hero? 9:14:17 AM
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Last update: 3/24/2005; 1:49:04 PM .
