Category: The Shadow Knows
Oh Jesus Christ
This is someone who was a DJ here for years. Disgusting.
Broken hearts, on exhibit (via GlobalPost)
ZAGREB, Croatia — A German husband and wife divorce after 13 years of marriage before moving to different countries. To help her cope, he allows her to keep their dog. Later, she sends him a light she would attach to the dog’s collar to ensure it…
The burning man
MOUNT LAUREL — The Mount Laurel veteran who died by setting himself on fire in Washington, D.C., Friday served his country during the Vietnam War, officials say.
John Constantino, 64, was an active-duty Marine from December 1968 until May 1973, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. President Richard Nixon ordered U.S. forces to withdraw in 1973, and the war ended in 1975.
Constantino was also receiving veteran benefits, a Veteran Affairs spokesman said.
The Courier-Post reported earlier today that property tax records indicated Constantino was a disabled veteran. It’s not clear at this time what that disability was.
However, Constantino’s family members said he had long struggled with mental illness.
The day after police in Washington confirmed Constantino’s identity, Virginia-based attorney Jeffrey Cox issued a statement on the family’s behalf:
“John Constantino was a loving father and husband. His death was not a political act or statement, but the result of his long battle with mental illness.”
Everyone hates people who take things seriously
Like environmentalists and feminists!
Why don’t people behave in more environmentally friendly ways? New research presents one uncomfortable answer: They don’t want to be associated with environmentalists.
That’s the conclusion of troubling new research from Canada, which similarly finds support for feminist goals is hampered by a dislike of feminists.
Participants held strongly negative stereotypes about such activists, and those feelings reduced their willingness “to adopt the behaviors that these activities promoted,” reports a research team led by University of Toronto psychologist Nadia Bashir. This surprisingly cruel caricaturing, the researchers conclude, plays “a key role in creating resistance to social change.”
Writing in the European Journal of Social Psychology, Bashir and her colleagues describe a series of studies documenting this dynamic. They began with three pilot studies, which found people hold stereotyped views of environmentalists and feminists.
In one, the participants—228 Americans recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk—described both varieties of activists in “overwhelmingly negative” terms. The most frequently mentioned traits describing “typical feminists” included “man-hating” and “unhygienic;” for “typical environmentalists,” they included “tree-hugger” and “hippie.”
Another study, featuring 17 male and 45 female undergraduates, confirmed the pervasiveness of those stereotypes. It further found participants were less interested in befriending activists who participated in stereotypical behavior (such as staging protest rallies), but could easily envision hanging out with those who use “nonabrasive and mainstream methods” such as raising money or organizing social events.
I was just talking about this with a friend the other day. I said people prefer the short, inaccurate explanations conservatives give for problems over the complex, accurate ones given by activists because the complicated ones make them feel stupid — and no one likes to feel stupid! So they also hate the people who make them feel stupid by given those complicated explanations.
Why do I bother blogging?
The Great Persecution
Krugman on what the plutocrats want next: adulation!
Sometimes, in fact, members of the 0.01 percent are explicit about their sense of entitlement. It was kind of refreshing, in a way, when Charles Munger, the billionaire vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, declared that we should “thank God” for the bailout of Wall Street, but that ordinary Americans in financial distress should just “suck it in and cope.” Incidentally, in another interview — conducted at his seaside villa in Dubrovnik, Croatia — Mr. Benmosche declared that the retirement age should go up to 70 or even 80.
The thing is, by and large, the wealthy have gotten their wish. Wall Street was bailed out, while workers and homeowners weren’t. Our so-called recovery has done nothing much for ordinary workers, but incomes at the top have soared, with almost all the gains from 2009 to 2012 going to the top 1 percent, and almost a third going to the top 0.01 percent — that is, people with incomes over $10 million.
So why the anger? Why the whining? And bear in mind that claims that the wealthy are being persecuted aren’t just coming from a few loudmouths. They’ve been all over the op-ed pages and were, in fact, a central theme of the Romney campaign last year.
Well, I have a theory. When you have that much money, what is it you’re trying to buy by making even more? You already have the multiple big houses, the servants, the private jet. What you really want now is adulation; you want the world to bow before your success. And so the thought that people in the media, in Congress and even in the White House are saying critical things about people like you drives you wild.
It is, of course, incredibly petty. But money brings power, and thanks to surging inequality, these petty people have a lot of money. So their whining, their anger that they don’t receive universal deference, can have real political consequences. Fear the wrath of the .01 percent!
You see this with just about every compulsive behavior. If you’re not at peace within yourself, you’re always going to be looking for a fix somewhere. Whether you’re an addict, an alcoholic, a sex addict, or whatever else, it’s really a hole in your soul. You’re the only one who can fill it.
Priest arrested on sexual abuse charges
I’m glad this guy will finally face the music:
PHILADELPHIA The Rev. Robert L. Brennan’s name loomed large in the “Secret Archives,” the guarded personnel files of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
Brennan also figured prominently in Philadelphia grand jury reports in 2005 and 2011. In last year’s trial of a church official for covering up clergy sex abuse, witnesses detailed allegations that Brennan sexually abused about 20 boys while being transferred from parish to parish over a span of 15 years.
Brennan, however, was never charged because the allegations happened too far back to be prosecuted.
Until Thursday, when District Attorney Seth Williams announced the arrest of Brennan, 75, for allegedly raping an altar boy between 1998 and 2001, while he was assistant pastor at Resurrection of Our Lord parish in Rhawnhurst.
The charges came about after a 26-year-old man reportedly encouraged by last year’s trial of Msgr. William J. Lynn – the first Catholic church official convicted for a supervisory role in covering up the conduct of pedophile priests – contacted archdiocesan officials in January.
That same day, Williams said, church officials called his office and relayed the man’s allegation: Brennan sexually abused him from ages 11 to 14, within the statute of limitations.
Williams said Brennan was arrested late Wednesday at the private home in Perryville, Md., where he has lived for much of the last eight years.
Brennan was being held Thursday in Cecil County, Md., awaiting extradition to Philadelphia. When he returns, he will be charged with rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, and aggravated indecent assault, Williams said.
Creepy, controlling and dangerous
I went out with a guy like this once. Right from the beginning, I should have known: He was bragging how, if anyone fucked with him, he could ruin their credit record.
Why I gave him my phone number, I’ll never know. I guess I was just bored, and he was good-looking, tall and was employed.
But I did, and he called before I was home from work, and my son answered the phone. When I came in, my kid said, “Mom, some weirdo called for you.”
He called back a few minutes later. “Oh, that’s the game you’re playing? You tell me you can’t see me tonight because you already have somebody there? That’s the kind of whore you are?”
Believe it or not, this did not endear him to me.
“Who do you think you’re talking to, you creep? Don’t ever call me again.” I hung up on him.
I never told him my last name and he didn’t know where I lived. Thank God.
Also: I was just reading this Breaking Bad review, and wanted to add a variation on this theme:
I thought a lot about the parallels between this storyline and the endless, idiotic discourse about “family values” in our society. “Family values” is a code word for maintaining a patriarchal society where men rule over women and children. Like Walt, those invested in this system justify it by pretending that they just want what’s best for everyone—that it’s about making men take responsibility blah blah blah. But this is the reality: The responsibility for providing for the family is all too often a cover story for a system that is actually geared towards protecting male egos and power. If there’s a conflict between women and children’s actual well-being and maintaining the system of male power, then male power will win. If there’s a conflict between men’s emotional and human needs—like the need for love and companionship that we all have—the men’s needs will be sacrificed. Everyone loses in a system geared towards preserving the power structure.
Look how many times we’ve seen this in action, where an abandoned husband kills his wife and kids because they can’t exist unless it’s within the framework of his existence. (Some women kill their families, but it’s usually because she’s mentally ill.) But this story, we see every holiday season: The man goes back and kills the family for the sin on continuing without him. It’s what happens when society denies male vulnerability and forces everyone into rigid gender roles.
Stranger than Strangelove
I was back at the shack, beside myself with angst, reading to the swamp rabbit about a catastrophe that almost happened a half-century ago:
A secret document, published in declassified form for the first time by the Guardian today, reveals that the US Air Force came dramatically close to detonating an atom bomb over North Carolina that would have been 260 times more powerful than the device that devastated Hiroshima.
The document, obtained by the investigative journalist Eric Schlosser under the Freedom of Information Act, gives the first conclusive evidence that the US was narrowly spared a disaster of monumental proportions when two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs were accidentally dropped over Goldsboro, North Carolina on 23 January 1961. The bombs fell to earth after a B-52 bomber broke up in mid-air, and one of the devices behaved precisely as a nuclear weapon was designed to behave in warfare: its parachute opened, its trigger mechanisms engaged, and only one low-voltage switch prevented untold carnage.
I reminded the swamp rabbit that we live a hop and a skip from Philadelphia. The bomb might have wiped out Philly and the rest of the mid-Atlantic region faster than you could say “Duck and cover.”
“‘Almost’ don’t count,” the swamp rabbit said. He was drinking Wild Turkey and Coke, a rustic concoction that brings out the philosopher in him. “The Germans almost took Stalingrad. Dylan almost died in a motorcycle accident. What’s your point, Odd Man?”
I threw an empty bottle of Guinness at him and said, “The point is that real life is stranger than fiction. Even Stanley Kubrick, in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, couldn’t have made up a story this strange. If not for one measly switch, that bomb would have gone off.”
The swamp rabbit gulped his drink, spilling some on his greasy coat, and said, “So what? If the bomb had gone off, then you wouldn’t be sitting here worrying out loud like some old lady with rheumatism. That was Kubrick’s point, don’t you know? In an absurd world, why worry?”
I watched the Guinness bottle bobbing in the swamp and said, “You stupid rodent. Dr. Strangelove was a cautionary tale. Kubrick was trying to wise people up to the danger of nuclear war.”
“Dr. Strangelove was a comedy,” he said. “Ain’t no way nobody like you could have done nothin’ about no nuclear war, not when the Cold War was on. You might just as well laugh. If you want to worry, then worry about where you’re gonna sell them stories you write. Worry about where you gonna git money for food now that there ain’t no jobs.”
I almost tossed him in the swamp by his ears but resisted the urge. What good is angst if you don’t have an audience for it?
They’re so squeamish
When they’re not wearing rubber wet suits and choking themselves, aren’t they?