Curtis Dahlgren
Random thoughts: The year 2018; someday we'll probably laugh about this!
By Curtis Dahlgren
"There is a challenge, in that we are obliged to strive for a degree of seriousness to which we are no longer accustomed. We have come to rely in our discussions of political things upon the exposes and the superficialities of journalism and upon the abnormalities and irrationalities of psychology – so much so that is is difficult to avoid either irrelevance or sensationalism." – George Anastaplo, on correctly understanding history ("Abraham Lincoln, a Constitutional Biography," 1999)
THE YEAR 2018 IS IN THE "HISTORY BOOKS," but will future generations be told the truth? Will they read e-books written by real historians or by fanatics weaned on the superficialities of news, entertainment, and sports media of the popular culture? Will they be told that Venezuela and North Korea are doing well, but America is the land of "social injustice"? Some people get really "serious" about sports, whether they are for or against the national anthem.
History? I just read that even now, 60 percent of Americans know nothing about the suffering in Venezuela. And almost none of them have heard of the Monroe Doctrine, not even graduates of our "elite" institutions of (Lower) Learning. Today I'm writing partly to show you how far the Ivy League has fallen since its beginnings. Dig this, from a NYT article by a Harvard "professor of sociobiology":
"Darwin's dice may have rolled badly for Earth. It was a misfortune for the living world in particular, many scientists believe, that a carnivorous primate and not some more benign form of animal made the breakthough. Our species retains hereditary traits that add greatly to our destructive impact . . . Cooperation beyond the family and tribal levels comes hard." – NYT Magazine, May 30, 1993 (cited by Rush H. Limbaugh, III in "See, I Told You So," 1993)
Our "best and brightest" aren't just anti-American, anti-Christian, and anti-Israel; they're against the whole dam species, including themselves? And the title of the article was, ironically, "Is Humanity Suicidal?" When the earth comes first, you come last, as someone said. As for blaming DICE for our origin and selection, that's the kind of thinking that got the human race off the track in the first place. But as Vicki McKenna said on WIBA the other day, "What works on 80 percent of college kids will work on [about] 100 percent of 6-year-olds."
I just saw MSNBC in a restaurant (almost enough to spoil one's appetite), and one "panelist" said that this President "is out of his mind." That's what you call projection, but don't quote me. My new year's resolution is to be nicer to self-righteous turds. The ones who tell your kid, "When are you going to quit believing that crap your parents tell you?" Rookie Congresswomen who wax profane on their lust for impeachment (I don't even want to allude to that word). And she said it to her own son.
Yes, someday we'll laugh about the days when they said Donald Trump is a white supremacist, a bigot, a racist! Why would he want to keep black people poor? We want to sell them stuff. Like food, clothing, and housing. Someday we'll laugh about the days when half of Congress claimed they had a monopoly on caring and sharing. We'll laugh at the way record low minority unemployment was called "oppression." We'll laugh at how they hoped for a 1929-style crash, just so they could say "Told you so." How the Donald was called "unfit."
If he were as unstable as they say he is, their bullying would have driven him crazy a long time ago. He must be just about the most thick-skinned person in America right now. Someday we'll laugh.
P.S. Funniest thing I've seen all week: On a Facebook Friend's timeline was a cartoon of God talking to a guy. God says, "When you see just one set of footprints, that's where I was carrying you. When you see the long groove in the sand, that's where I was dragging you kicking and screaming."
PPS: Final thought: How many "non-essential" people are there "working" for us taxpayers? Do we really need that many non-essential employees?
© Curtis Dahlgren
January 5, 2019
"There is a challenge, in that we are obliged to strive for a degree of seriousness to which we are no longer accustomed. We have come to rely in our discussions of political things upon the exposes and the superficialities of journalism and upon the abnormalities and irrationalities of psychology – so much so that is is difficult to avoid either irrelevance or sensationalism." – George Anastaplo, on correctly understanding history ("Abraham Lincoln, a Constitutional Biography," 1999)
THE YEAR 2018 IS IN THE "HISTORY BOOKS," but will future generations be told the truth? Will they read e-books written by real historians or by fanatics weaned on the superficialities of news, entertainment, and sports media of the popular culture? Will they be told that Venezuela and North Korea are doing well, but America is the land of "social injustice"? Some people get really "serious" about sports, whether they are for or against the national anthem.
History? I just read that even now, 60 percent of Americans know nothing about the suffering in Venezuela. And almost none of them have heard of the Monroe Doctrine, not even graduates of our "elite" institutions of (Lower) Learning. Today I'm writing partly to show you how far the Ivy League has fallen since its beginnings. Dig this, from a NYT article by a Harvard "professor of sociobiology":
"Darwin's dice may have rolled badly for Earth. It was a misfortune for the living world in particular, many scientists believe, that a carnivorous primate and not some more benign form of animal made the breakthough. Our species retains hereditary traits that add greatly to our destructive impact . . . Cooperation beyond the family and tribal levels comes hard." – NYT Magazine, May 30, 1993 (cited by Rush H. Limbaugh, III in "See, I Told You So," 1993)
Our "best and brightest" aren't just anti-American, anti-Christian, and anti-Israel; they're against the whole dam species, including themselves? And the title of the article was, ironically, "Is Humanity Suicidal?" When the earth comes first, you come last, as someone said. As for blaming DICE for our origin and selection, that's the kind of thinking that got the human race off the track in the first place. But as Vicki McKenna said on WIBA the other day, "What works on 80 percent of college kids will work on [about] 100 percent of 6-year-olds."
I just saw MSNBC in a restaurant (almost enough to spoil one's appetite), and one "panelist" said that this President "is out of his mind." That's what you call projection, but don't quote me. My new year's resolution is to be nicer to self-righteous turds. The ones who tell your kid, "When are you going to quit believing that crap your parents tell you?" Rookie Congresswomen who wax profane on their lust for impeachment (I don't even want to allude to that word). And she said it to her own son.
Yes, someday we'll laugh about the days when they said Donald Trump is a white supremacist, a bigot, a racist! Why would he want to keep black people poor? We want to sell them stuff. Like food, clothing, and housing. Someday we'll laugh about the days when half of Congress claimed they had a monopoly on caring and sharing. We'll laugh at the way record low minority unemployment was called "oppression." We'll laugh at how they hoped for a 1929-style crash, just so they could say "Told you so." How the Donald was called "unfit."
If he were as unstable as they say he is, their bullying would have driven him crazy a long time ago. He must be just about the most thick-skinned person in America right now. Someday we'll laugh.
P.S. Funniest thing I've seen all week: On a Facebook Friend's timeline was a cartoon of God talking to a guy. God says, "When you see just one set of footprints, that's where I was carrying you. When you see the long groove in the sand, that's where I was dragging you kicking and screaming."
PPS: Final thought: How many "non-essential" people are there "working" for us taxpayers? Do we really need that many non-essential employees?
© Curtis Dahlgren
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