The pocket is political

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On the uneasy satisfaction of prescience


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The following is from the Livejournal blogger Sabotabby, one of the best political minds I know. Their thesis is not a happy one, but because of that, is even more worth reading and thinking about that it otherwise would be. Originally posted by Sabotabby at Frog, meet boiling water

While you're at it, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (yes, that Abdul-Jabbar) ( Read more... )

On the inter-connectedness of some things

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sabotabby notes that Canada has just lost a war. "The empire is naked, again. We (Canada, that is), got our asses handed to us in Afghanistan by a bunch of dudes who live in caves." In case you missed it, we helped to invade a country half-way around the world, we lost the war, and nobody here is paying much attention at all.

"I wouldn't even mind the lack of originality if they weren't so heavy-handed about it. Apparently we're supposed to believe that in the middle of the war the Germans attacked their allies the Russians, starting an unwinnable conflict on two fronts, just to show how sneaky and untrustworthy they could be? And that they diverted all their resources ( Read more... )

"One small step ..."
Pondering Apollo 11, 40 years later

Magicians and astronauts

Some time in 1969 or 1970 - I was about five years old - my maternal grandparents paid a visit to our small 2-floor apartment, where we lived above my aunt and uncle and three cousins.

Naturally (I was only five after all!), I don't remember a great deal about that ( Read more... )

In honour of the coming U.S. "withdrawal" from Iraq and concommitant "escalatio" in Afghanistan
When will they ever learn ...?

The following was printed in the June 2009 issue of Harper's Magazine, and was taken "from a May 10, 1988, letter from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to all Party members. The withdrawal of ( Read more... )

I've long maintained that, while far from the being the "best of all possible worlds", socially, Canada in the late 20th and early 21st centuries arguably represents the best humanity has had to offer thus far, with legal equality for all races and between men and women, close to legal equality for gays and lesbians and, on the street, an ( Read more... )