In particular, about a GOP congressman’s hypocrisy concerning his son’s gay marriage, how the Republican witnesses at the Jan. 6th hearing abandoned their jobs only at the last possible minute, and how people in red states have a distorted view of life in blue states.
This is a 2019 book, self-published, subtitled “A Brazen Guide for Sane Americans to Bypass Trench Warfare and Win Our Life or Death Struggle for Civilization.” This is a book full of sound and fury, an expression of Brin’s rage and frustration at the current political situation. It’s derived largely from his blog, Contrary Brin, which has been running since 2004, and was put together in something of a rush apparently in order to be published before the 2020 election.
Imposter Christianity, imposter conclusions, imposter patriots, imposter politicians.
CNN, John Blake, 24 July 2022: An ‘imposter Christianity’ is threatening American democracy
A take on the obvious observation that so many Christians say they believe one thing while in fact doing exactly the opposite.
The Hollywood Reporter, Ryan Fish, 21 July 2022: William Shatner Sounds Off on ‘Star Wars,’ Latest ‘Star Trek’ Shows During Lively Comic-Con Appearance
Heavy.com, Eric Pesola, 22 July 2022: Is Shatner right? Is Roddenberry ‘Turning In His Grave’ Over New ‘Star Trek?’
Slate posted this long list and several sidebar articles/interviews on Wednesday. (I’m guessing they compiled it a while back and waited for a relatively slow news day to post it.)
Slate, Dan Kois, 20 July 2022: The 50 Greatest Fictional Deaths of All Time
Subtitle: “The most tearjerking, hilarious, satisfying, and shocking death scenes in 2,500 years of culture.”
Here is something that honest journalists (and scientists) understand and do, but which conservatives and the religious never do: admit they were wrong, and change their minds. That’s intellectual honesty.
Today’s NYT has a set of eight essays by its regular columnists explaining what they were wrong about, why, and how they’ve revised their opinions.
The motivations of those who think most harshly of abortion, homosexuality, transsexuals, and so on, are enacting the harshest strategies for species survival and growth of a process they don’t believe in: evolution. Happiness and well-being of actual living individual human beings have nothing to do with it.
Two items today by Adam Lee.
OnlySky, Adam Lee, 17 Jul 2022: How to tell if you’re in a bubble
OnlySky, Adam Lee, 19 July 2022: My humanism comes from the stars
NYT, 16 Jul 2022: Putin Aims to Shape a New Generation of Supporters, Through Schools, subtitled, “Sweeping changes in the curriculum will soon cast the Russian president as a pivotal historical figure and mark an end of openness to the West.”
Print title (front page of Sunday’s paper): “Putin’s Mission to Indoctrinate Schoolchildren”
The New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert, January 3 & 10, 2022 issue: How Politics Got So Polarized
Subtitled: “In a new era of hyperpartisan identities, can anything bring ‘us’ and ‘them’ together?”
