For the first time in 23 years of polling.
Source: The US military is the world’s strongest. Half of Americans think it’s not. – Vox
Another reason we’re in so much trouble.
Chart of the Day: SCOTUS appointments in election years
It is far from unprecedented for a President to nominate someone this far away from the election.
Source: Presidents have appointed Supreme Court justices in election years. This chart proves it. – Vox
Subverting Stereotypes on the Fury Road
I just finished rewatching Mad Max: Fury Road. I have to say, I can understand why the film earned the online ire of the so-called men’s rights activists (MRAs). It takes all the high-octane testosterone-drenched tropes of the typical action flick, ramps them up to 11 and, in so doing, exposes the madness that lies at the heart of the culture.
Review: The Man in the High Castle (TV)
amazon’s The Man in the High Castle (2015)
Insta-score: 4 out of 5.
Short form: After a slow start, this builds to an excellent show.
Spoilers below the fold.
Review: Agents of SHIELD season finale
I caught up on the end of the season for Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD. (Yes, it’s that time of summer when I get to catch up on the shows I missed.) The first season ended with the fallout from Captain America: The Winter Soldier, when the entire Marvel universe was scrambled. Could Season Two match it?
Short answer: Surprisingly, yes. Spoilers ho.
… and a movie?
I finally caught the last episode of the weird Season 6 of Community as streaming on Yahoo! Stream, called “Emotional Consequences of Broadcast Television”. As could be expected of Community, it was wonderfully meta and self-referential. As could be expected of a series finale, it was actually quite touching.
Regarding >> “America has a simple ideology”: how one of Russia’s top US experts tries to explain America – Vox
A couple of observations:
- What might underlie this Russian perception — which I think is over the top — is something far more threatening to the Russian psyche than the idea that America is scheming and plotting to topple them. Far worse indeed is the truth, which is that since the end of the Cold War we’ve more or less ignored them. A lot of what Putin has done, seems to me, to be the geopolitical equivalent of a moody tweener screaming for attention from the once-idolized cool kid who nows ignores them. Going from being one of two superpowers, where every time the Kremlin caught a cold, Washington sneezed, to a perceived backwater minor power, is bruising.
- Having said that, from one point of view, they’re not entirely crazy. While I think they overestimate the coherence of any “American worldview”, there is a certain evangelizing tendency in American politics. We’ve solved it, many Americans think, and of course everyone else should reap the benefit of our leadership. It’s cloying and positive but threatening in its own way. And the ongoing cultural ascendancy of American media — where our action films and pop fashions rule the world — can’t help anyone feel secure.
- It’s hard to see what to do about this. You can’t convince someone you’re on their side by simply repeatedly telling them that. And our actual attitude — dismissive neglect — is unlikely to generate either the evidence of a benign attitude or reciprocal respect. The nigh-complete breakdown of the American political machine implies more neglect and drift, with sporadic and counterproductive engagement mixed with saber-rattling for domestic benefit. It’s a bind.
Regarding: “America has a simple ideology”: how one of Russia’s top US experts tries to explain America – Vox
On riots, protests, and the legitimacy of violence (short)
For everyone who has counseled the citizens of Baltimore (and Ferguson and…) that “violence is not the answer” and that it would be better if everyone just protested peacefully:
1) As has now been documented extensively, the protests were by and large peaceful — and even more by and large, ignored by the national media.
2) Violence certainly is an answer — and one which history shows can be quite effective in prompting change. See for proof the French Revolution, or the American Revolution, for that matter. Of course violence is a random and uncontrolled beast, and the odds are that the reaction it prompts will not be the outcome desired… but usually, something will change. For people who’ve spent their whole lives trapped in a system crushing them without end, any change might be welcome, at least at first.
Would you prefer peaceful protest to violent outbursts? Would you see people advocate for the redress of grievances without resorting to threats or damage to property or even lives? Then address the systemic evils, the in-built hardships and unspoken oppressions, the things done not through active racist thought but through the far worse passive racist without-thought. You want people to respect the police? Then demand that the police behave respectably. You want your cities to be bastions of peace? Then save them from being cauldrons of hopelessness.
Above all, if you want this problem to “just go away”, pay attention to it — and for love of all that is true, pay attention even when the fires have gone out and the windows have been repaired and the next big distraction comes down the tube. This problem has been centuries in the making and we’ve squandered five decades or more in addressing it — it won’t ever go away until we finally put it away.
re: Sexism in science: Peer editor tells female researchers their study needs a male author – The Washington Post
Apparently the study was so flawed that only a man could fix it.
Just ’cause, you know, it isn’t science without at least a trace amount of testosterone spilled on it.
Or — and this seems more likely to me — the editor is himself hard up for papers with his name on them, and desperately hopes that he’ll be the man they chose for co-author.
Regarding “Huckabee: The Supreme Court ‘Cannot Overrule God’ On Gay Marriage”
Gov. Huckabee is entirely correct: SCOTUS cannot overrule God. The justices can’t make a gay marriage sanctified. But then, they can’t make a straight marriage sanctified either. It’s really quite simple: To the extend that marriage is a sacrament, the government cannot have an opinion, and the marriage-equality suits do not speak to this. To the extent that marriage is a social contract for the transmission of and management of property — i.e., its historical role in society — then the government can regulate and must ensure equality. Anything else is sophistry.
That means I happen to agree with the loons in Oklahoma and elsewhere, though I disavow their motives: Get the state out of marriage entirely. Enact universal civil union laws that any pair of consenting adults may enter into, and leave the sacraments to the churches.
From Talking Points Memo:
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), no stranger to mixing religion and politics, might have outdone himself on Wednesday night when he greeted the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.”I do not come to you tonight with the ability to speak Spanish. But I do speak a common language: I speak Jesus,” he said, according to CNN.
Full article: Huckabee: The Supreme Court ‘Cannot Overrule God’ On Gay Marriage