Saturday’s Forum

FILED UNDER: Open Forum
Steven L. Taylor
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog). Follow Steven on Twitter

Comments

  1. CSK says:

    Well, Trump’s lawyers have told the DOJ that they can’t fing the document hewas discussing on the tape.

    1
  2. OzarkHillbilly says:

    ‘I can’t’: Georgia gun shop owner to close store as US reels from mass killings

    A Georgia gun shop owner said he is closing his store in the wake of several mass shootings targeting young children, as the country reels from recent attacks and an escalating rate of killings. Jon Waldman, a gun shop owner in Duluth, Georgia, said that he had already closed his store and will have the gun inventory cleared out by 15 June, NBC News reported.

    Waldman told NBC that recent mass shootings, one at a Christian school in Nashville and another attack at an Atlanta hospital, have weighed on his conscience as he has no control over what a customer could do with a purchased weapon. “I’m not against the second amendment. But just with my conscience, I can’t sell it, because I don’t know who it’s going to affect and hurt,” Waldman said, referring to the constitutional right to bear arms in the US.

    “That’s what eats at me,” Waldman added to NBC. “If it can happen, it’s only a matter of time until it does happen.”
    ………………………….
    “That really affected me,” Waldman told NBC, referring to the Covenant school shooting. “And then the shooting at midtown [Atlanta] – this just has to stop. Dude killed a woman from the CDC who only wanted to help others. So I just can’t. That was the final straw.”

    5
  3. Sleeping Dog says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    While I’m not optimistic, let’s hope that Waldman is the leading edge of a trend. Unfortunately, he’ll be the exception.

    1
  4. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Sleeping Dog: Yep, still I applaud his decision to no longer be a part of the problem.

  5. CSK says:

    Test

    ETA: The edit button AND the like button function simultaneously! Yay!

    4
  6. CSK says:

    Ivanka Trump apparently now wants to be known as Ivanka Kushner. Isn’t that like locking the barn door after the horse has escaped? And what good will it do? The Kushner name is nearly as rancid as the Trump name.

    3
  7. Kathy says:

    Too tired to look for something new, so I’m going with a quick unconventional:

    Bach’s Toccata and Fugue interpreted on a piano

    1
  8. Mr. Prosser says:

    @Kathy: I first became interested in classical music when my Dad took my brother and me to Disney’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea in 1954. Captain Nemo played it on the organ aboard the Nautilus.

    1
  9. OzarkHillbilly says:

    Uh oh… Now they’ve done it. Arkansanians have pissed off the librarians.

    2
  10. daryl and his brother darryl says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    CT is beefing up our already strict laws.
    https://apnews.com/article/connecticut-gun-control-bill-passage-sandy-hook-e876f348662416522794093493824fb0
    In an insane world there are pockets of sanity.

  11. Daryl says:

    test

  12. Daryl says:

    Conquered the moderation bug by using a new-ish name and a different email.
    No longer shall you be denied my pearls of wisdom.

  13. Gustopher says:

    @Daryl: is this the brother Daryl, or the first Daryl?

    1
  14. Kathy says:

    @Mr. Prosser:

    I lack an origin story for my taste, such as it is, in music.

    Just as well, seeing the intermittent nature of my desire to hear any music.

    Anyway, here’s Nemo

    1
  15. CSK says:

    I regret to inform you all that Chick-fil-A no longer sells the Lord’s chicken:

    http://www.rawstory.com/chick-fil-a-woke/

  16. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @CSK: Yowie kazowie! And she switches to even more woke chicken than the chicken that she was eating. I would be SMH, but I grew up with the PNW version of the same rationales (and rationalizations).

  17. Mister Bluster says:

    @Mr. Prosser:..Disney

    I know I saw 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I just don’t remember when. Maybe some Disney TV production.
    I know I read the Jules Verne novel but it was long enough ago (50 years ?) that my faded memory is limited to the vivid descriptions of the undersea life.
    When I was very young my parents took me to the RKO Palace in Rochester, New York to see Fantasia. I’m pretty sure my brother was not yet born so I was probably 5 years old. All I remember is being scared by the Sorcerer’s Apprentice when Mickey’s plan goes awry and hundreds of brooms are carrying buckets of water that flood the castle! I’m sure the music contributed to my fright.
    One thing I noticed watching the scene again was that in the end the Sorcerer did not need to be wearing his hat to use his powers to repel the flood and fix Mickey’s catastrophe.
    Cartoon Magic!

  18. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Mister Bluster: When I took my Science Fiction for Physics credit class (to compliment my previous acoustics and photography for physics credit classes), our professor noted that Verne’s writing emphasized description of the natural and physical phenomena over detail about setting, mood, and other more traditional elements. So I’m not surprised. In 20,000 Leagues, my professor claimed that about 50% of the total text was dedicated to description of what was underwater. For me, that explains why I don’t care for Verne’s novels very much. All of the arcanum detracts from the story.

    1
  19. Mister Bluster says:

    The other reason that I remember reading 20,000 Leagues is that I tried to get my friend John to read it. He was extremely depressed. One thing that kept his intrest was his fish tank full of exotic specimens that he talked about all the time. I thought that the Verne story might distract him from his despair. He never read it. A few weeks later he was dead by his own hand.
    And yes it was 50 years ago. 1973.
    I still think of him to this day.

    3
  20. CSK says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker:

    I’m not, and never hve been, remotely whst you csll religious, but isn’t referring to “the Lord’s chicken” a trifle blasphemous?

    1
  21. SenyorDave says:

    @CSK: Maybe one definition of woke is any act or policy that is not bigoted.

  22. Kathy says:

    @CSK:

    Wouldn’t Satan’s chicken be flame-broiled and tastier anyway?

    In related developments, people who are not without sin shouldn’t throw stones.

    2
  23. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @CSK: Given that blasphemy is giving to God traits that he doesn’t have or ascribing actions to him that he did not do (with the principle example from the Bible being that someone said that Jesus casts out demons by the power of Satan), I’m not sure that “the Lord’s chicken” counts as anything other than idiotic. Then again, if you hadn’t asked (i.e. simply stated that it seems a trifle blasphemous), I probably wouldn’t have volunteered a comment on it. After all, it’s not anywhere near as inflammatory as when members of Westwood Baptist Church hold up signs that say “The angels in heaven rejoice every time a faggot is thrown into the fires of hell.” Either way, it seems to be a reflection on the quality of spiritual training this young woman is getting in her church (assuming that she actually attends church–not all “evangelicals” do).

    3
  24. Mr. Prosser says:

    @Kathy: @Mister Bluster: The Disney film made a deep impression on me. Before then my movie experiences were Snow White, Pinocchio and Cinderella and Treasure Island (Long John Silver, what a guy) and a ton of Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. But the sets, the design of the Nautilus and the way it glided under water. The characters, fully adult and the language was not simplified. A real change.

  25. SenyorDave says:

    This is the person Elon Musk is pushing these days:
    “The goal is to make ‘pride’ toxic for brands,” Walsh tweeted. “If they decide to shove this garbage in our face, they should know that they’ll pay a price. It won’t be worth whatever they think they’ll gain. First Bud Light and now Target. Our campaign is making progress. Let’s keep it going.”
    Matt Walsh is making a career of hating LGBTQ+ people.
    Maybe Musk can go all in and officially join the Proud Boys. A few months ago Bill Gates said something to the effect that he expected one day Musk would be a major philanthropist. I think he may be right, the klan is severely underfunded, Musk’s billions could do wonders.

    2
  26. Kathy says:

    @Mr. Prosser:

    I recall seeing it. Whether at a theater or on TV, I’ve no idea. I recall very little about it.

    I never got into XIX Century science fiction, either*. I read From the Earth to the Moon. I recall pieces, but not much of the story. It’s a classic for space travel enthusiasts with any interest in the history of space travel.

    *I sometimes wonder how backwards present SF will seem to people some decades from now. A lot of earlier XX Century SF is laughably outdated already.

  27. Kathy says:

    Who’d have guessed opening the exit door while taxiing could be so expensive?

    I wonder why people do things like that, knowing there are bound to be consequences. The report does not say whether the passenger was drunk or high.