My RSS reader just ain’t giving me enough of a fix lately. I suppose this means my blog reading addiction is getting worse, since I need more and more bloggity goodness, more and more often.
Who should I add to the blogroll? Any good reads out there? (No A-listers, please. They get enough attention already.)
It seems I’ve fallen into a small book budget, of which about $50 to $75 remains to be spent. What should I get?
Progressive Ink quotes the GnR front man talking about growing up Pentecostal:
I had to go to church anywhere from three to eight times a week. I even taught Bible school while I was being beaten and my sister was being molested. We’d have televisions one week, then my stepdad would throw them out because they were satanic. I wasn’t allowed to listen to music. Women were evil. Everything was evil… Someone can say, "Dude, just get over it." Yeah? F?!k you! Whether I wanted it there or not, that incident was locked into my unconscious mind.
1) Hate is a choice. Education does nothing to help adults who choose to hate.
2) Every liberal should know how to raise hell at city hall. Look where it got the Religious Right.
3) Unless you’re a pacifist, you need to know what you’re willing to fight and die for.
4) If you are a pacifist, you should be able to explain to your loved ones why you wouldn’t have fought for the Allies in WWII, knowing what was at stake.
5) Every liberal should know how to handle a firearm and know how to get one. Click to continue reading “Illiberal wisdom for liberals”
Author Mark Leonard makes an optimistic and methinks persuasive case for the ascendancy of the European Union over the next century. (Hat tip.) While the article doesn’t deal explicitly with the recent French "non" toward the EU constitutional treaty, its May 27 dating makes it an obvious rejoinder.
Why EU ascendancy? The EU’s power is understated and much desired (precisely the opposite of the US). Countries willingly transform themselves to receive EU assistance and, possibly, even membership.
Aside from the post-WWII transformations of Germany and Japan, the US model for the last half century has been "love ’em and leave ’em." Contrast that to the EU’s involvement in the former Yugoslavia. Those countries are rapidly improving themselves to curry favor with the EU. Afghanistan and Iraq are not nearly so enthusiastic nor, I suspect, so permanent in their transformations.
Leonard notes that Europe’s sphere of influence covers 1.5 billion people and 80 nations linked intimately to the EU for their trade viability. That’s about a third of the planet. And I’d bet most of those nations would join up if given the opportunity. Meanwhile, the US hasn’t admitted any more states to the Union since Alaska and Hawaii immediately following WWII. And no one wants to join, not even Puerto Rico. And certainly not Canada. Click to continue reading “Imagining a European Century”
Quick article about my hood. But they fail to mention the imminent opening of Graveyard Tavern, soon to be my favorite bar.
