Posted in Politics, tagged election, politics, vote on 08 Nov 2016| 3 Comments »
Posted in Culture, Politics, tagged boys will be boys, locker room talk, sexual assault on 18 Oct 2016| 5 Comments »
Locker room talk. Harmless braggadocio. Boys will be boys.
If you’re a hetero male like me, you might feel that we’re getting a bad rap, that we’re being slandered and libeled, being painted with a big stinking brush. We don’t talk that way. We don’t even think that way. OK, sure, we like looking at women and yes, we are guilty of crudely expressing our opinions about female anatomy, but that’s different. Isn’t it?
Is it? (more…)
Posted in Culture, Politics, tagged cognitive dissonance., freedom of speech, Harsch Investment Properties, hate speech, Orlando shooting, Pastor Roger Jimenez, Verity Baptist Church on 23 Jun 2016| 11 Comments »
[Updated: 24 Jun 2016 — see postcript.]
Know how people say that no one has ever changed their mind because of an internet post?
Well prepare to be amazed, because I have an example of someone who did: me.
Often — and I’m guilty of this myself — when we encounter a posting that runs counter to our opinion it only reinforces our currently held belief. This cognitive bias has been studied repeatedly; we tend to dismiss items that refute our position and, even when faced with factual evidence that we are wrong, we tend to hold onto our opinions with even greater fervor.
In some cases, we’ll even hold two completely contradictory positions, which can lead to discomfort — cognitive dissonance — as we try to maintain our illogical stance.
This happened to me last night. (more…)
Posted in Culture, Politics, tagged #enough, #filibuster, #holdthefloor, @CoryBooker, Christopher Murphy, Cory Booker, gun control, Senate Filibuster on 16 Jun 2016| 13 Comments »
From Sunday morning until late last night, I spent my time in a vortex of pessimism.
Why? Because despite the media’s assurances, it seemed as though the massacre in Orlando had not “shocked the nation.” Rather, it seemed as though we, as a society, barely looked up from our breakfast cereal to acknowledge the tragedy. As always, we offered our thoughts and prayers, and then went to our respective corners and came out demagoguing. The Left added the cry for an assault weapons ban to their litany, and the Right responded with a full-throated chorus of “From my cold, dead hands”. The progressives blamed the NRA. The conservatives blamed the president. The president wept. Everyone talked. No one listened.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
And I lost all hope. I entered a state of despair. (more…)
Posted in Books, Culture, Politics, tagged Good-Bye to All That, Robert Graves, the nature of war, war memoir on 31 May 2016| 6 Comments »
I spent this Memorial Day reading about war; specifically, about the “Great War,” the First World War.
One hundred years ago, Robert Graves, fresh from school, left his home in Great Britain and went to war in France. He recounts his experiences and observations in Good-Bye to All That, lauded as one of the best memoirs of the Great War. Graves, if you don’t know of him, is best known for his biographical novel, I, Claudius (or, as we pronounce it in this house, “Eye Clav Divs,” because of the Imperial Roman font used on the BBC dramatization). If you haven’t read I, Claudius, put it on your TBR list, as it’s well worth reading.
But my intention here is not to write a review, because in reading Graves’s memoir, the thing that struck me most was how much the nature of war has changed, just in my lifetime. The public’s attitudes have changed as well, but not always for the better. (more…)
Posted in Politics, tagged avoiding politics, blogging, Clinton, Cruz, FeelTheBern, generating ideas, presidential politics, Trump, Writing on 17 Mar 2016| 11 Comments »
I’ve been having difficulty selecting topics for my blog posts lately.
I’ve been having difficulty not because I don’t have ideas. I have plenty. My problem is, the topics that have been consuming me of late have been political, and I really really try to avoid partisan politics on this blog.
Why avoid politics? (more…)
Posted in Culture, Politics, tagged Gen X, Gen Y, Millennials, voter turnout on 08 Feb 2016| 4 Comments »
To my young friends:
You’ve posted a lot of memes about how my generation (Boomers) really screwed up things for you, like education, the economy, the environment, and the world in general.
And you’re right. (more…)
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 