Some of the things that are going on in my home country of the USA, make me wonder if the inmates have taken over the asylum. As I have said before, the idea of returning to a “suburban” existence in the USA, makes my skin crawl. I suspect I might be forced into it, if for some reason my job here were to go away (always a risk these days in the DOD…..), but I won’t go quietly.
So in the interim here are two more reasons why I’m glad I’m here and they are there:
Cindy Sheehan. This media circus makes absolutely no sense to me. The woman met with the President already. He’s not going to change his mind and neither is she. Her husband is divorcing her. Her family thinks she has gone nuts. Right wing wackos like Bill O’Reilly think she is an agent of the devil himself. How crazy is all of this?
Actually, Lex posted the most common sense argument that I have seen: just ignore her and leave her alone. If this brings closure to her and makes her feel useful, then go ahead and let her knock herself out. So long as no laws are violated, which I guarantee you the Secret Service and the Crawford authorities are going to make sure of, let her rant in the wind. Hell, here in Japan we get right wing speaker trucks out on the street at least once a week. Nobody thinks anything of it except them:
The loud-speaker-mounted trucks of the uyoku , or ultra-nationalists, are an inescapable and noisy feature on the streets of every Japanese city. These mobile ghetto blasters, decorated with Rising Sun flags and screaming slogans, blare out distasteful right-wing messages or stop outside large companies and banks, broadcasting embarrassing statements about them. There are estimated to
be around a thousand such ultra-nationalist groups in Japan, and to a startling extent, the police turn a blind eye (and deaf ear) to their activities. Politicians and the media who openly criticize the ideals and institutions they hold dear, such as the imperial household, set themselves up for some kind of nasty retribution.
Another thing I am thankful for:
Michelle Macaglang does not live here. ( you know her, she’s the C**T). Although of Asian descent she would never , ever, admit it. During my research about Cindy Sheehan, I remain just mystified at the strength of the vitriol she spews forth every day. The Duck has a nice post pointing out the nice looking lady’s sins and misdemeanors as well as some good links to sites that do nothing but monitor and fact check her every word. Actually The Duck has a pretty good analysis of her very warped thought processes:
“It’s sweet to see Ms. Maglalang getting her comeuppance for her Macbeth-like plotting, conniving and prevaricating. All over the blogosphere, you’ll see references to her outrageous efforts to demolish the character” of anyone who has opinions contrary to hers. .
What of course is really interesting is her bio and some history of how she got to be the “uberblogger” that she is, and more importantly makes a handsome living doing it too.
“There’s the question of how mediagenic an author is. That’s looks, partly, and Malkin is making the most out of that. It’s also a question of how quote-friendly or talk-show articulate an author is, and here Malkin has comes off fairly poorly, but certainly better than most academics might. On television, Malkin simply appears to be not terribly bright. Most academics have a different problem in the media, and that’s an inability to compress what they know into digestible, amusing bits and to know when and how to take a joke and roll with the punches. “
From the History News Network…….
Its frustrating. I can write just as badly as she can, and my readership is in the 1000 range, hers is in the hundreds of thousands. Its just not fair! Especially since her only main talent seems to be stirring the pot:
Now, both O’Reilly and Malkin claim, erroneously, to be journalists, but neither seemed inclined to dig a bit deeper into claims made by a notorious almost hit and entirely miss outfit like
Drudge before they slime the mother of one of the troops they constantly claim to support. Nope, they just ran with it, for gosh sakes. Let’s not call them journalists, but admit that they play them on TV.
From my view in the cheap seats, Malkin is not a critical writer at all. As I said before, she uses no critical thought , she just prints it out with strength. On average, she puts out 6-7 posts a day. Not bad for a supposed homemaker. There are those who say she has a ghost writer, although she denies it vehemently.
Of course, if Michelle ever decides to remember her roots, there is a place where she can work. After all, she’s already established what she is, this is just a matter of haggling over the price!
Skippy-san
P.S. While doing the spell check for this post, every time the word Malkin came up, the alternative Blogger gave me was “malign”. Who said computers can’t think?
