By Dennis Hartley

From the mouths of babes. After three days of non-stop war mongering, demagoguery, and hysteria, someone finally hits the right notes:

Posts with related themes:

Child’s guide to war: a film troika

Tangerines

By Dennis Hartley

“To Ellis Island!”

Oh dearie, dearie me. So as if it wasn’t appalling enough that over half of ‘Murca’s state governors (Republicans all, save one) have banded together to stand their ground against the invading Syrian hordes, esteemed Republican presidential hopeful Cardinal Richelieu Ted Cruz has suggested that we take in Christian Syrian refugees only. Because, you know, there’s no such thing as a Christian terrorist.

Except for maybe, this guy:

On Friday, July 22, 2011, at around 3:30 p.m. local time, a 2,000-pound homemade fertilizer bomb planted in a car exploded and ripped through the central area of Norway’s capital, Oslo, blowing out windows in government offices, killing 8 people, and wounding dozens more.

As police and rescue crews rushed to the scene, 33-year-old Anders Behring Breivik had already begun to make his way to a small island called Utoya, which is about 25 miles northwest of Oslo and was at the time hosting a camp for youth members of a Norwegian political party. […]

At approximately 6:34 p.m., he surrendered without a fight to police. He had killed 67 people and wounded 33 more by then. Two more people eventually died in the hospital. He later said in court he had hoped to kill all 600 on the island.

Remember him? Interestingly, he and Sen. Cruz share some views:

In Internet postings attributed to Breivik, he blamed Europe’s left-wing parties for destroying the continent’s Christian heritage by allowing mass immigration of Muslims.

Yeah, but that was Europe, you may be thinking.  There’s no history of God-fearin’ members of  America’s religious right engaging in acts of terror, right?! OK, a few. Alright…maybe enough for a top dozen list.

But aside from the 2009 Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting, and the 2010 Texas IRS attack, the assassinations of abortion clinic doctors Barnett Slepian (1998) and George Tiller (2009), the 2014 Jewish Community Center murders, the 2012 Sikh Temple shooting, the 1997 Olympic bombing, and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, etc., what have you got? Surely those are  anomalies; merely hiccups.

Besides, what good could ever come from taking in a Syrian refugee?

A real son of a (you-know-what)

Oh, Lord (in the event that you actually do exist)…give me patience.

By Dennis Hartley

Bless me father, for I have sinned. I did a bad, bad thing. Something I haven’t done in a long, long, time. Something that made my thumbs go numb, and left me feeling so…dirty. Out of morbid curiosity, I recorded all of those circle-jerk pundit shows this morning. I wanted to confirm that the Republican candidate reaction to the Paris attacks was on schedule. It was. Now I’ve worn out the “FF” button on my DVR remote. I should have stuck with my default, which is to turn to my pal Digby for a recap, instead of suffering the tortures of the damned (she’s made of sterner stuff than I). To save you even more time, here’s a distillation of all the right wing nuttery this morning:

https://youtu.be/vuP6KbIsNK4

By Dennis Hartley

The Paris attacks. There are no words. That’s why we have anthems:

…and we’ll always have Paris:

By Dennis Hartley

Jeb can fix it! Clearly, this was his campaign strategist’s inspiration:

By Dennis Hartley

Did the prime minister of Israel really say that? The Washington Post:

In a speech here Tuesday evening, Netanyahu sought to explain the surge in violence in Israel and the West Bank by reaching for historical antecedents. He said Jews living in what was then British Palestine faced many attacks in 1920, 1921 and 1929 — all instigated by the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who allied himself with the Nazis during World War II.

Then Netanyahu dropped his bombshell. He said: “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time; he wanted to expel the Jews. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, ‘If you expel them, they’ll all come here.’ ‘So what should I do with them?’ he asked. He said, ‘Burn them.’ ”

Netanyahu, the son of a historian, said the mufti played “a central role in fomenting the Final Solution,” as the Nazis termed their plan to exterminate the Jews.

The prime minister is  “The son of a historian”? Really?  Is he out of his fucking mind? Even the Germans are scratching their heads:

The controversy erupted on the eve of Netanyahu’s state visit to Germany, where Holocaust denial is a crime. The Germans pushed back, telling the Israeli leader — politely — that the Holocaust was their responsibility alone.

Uh, yeah.  In fact, Hitler never waffled on that particular agenda. Eight years before he even came to power in 1933, he published this little book you may have heard of, called Mein Kampf…in which he pretty much spells out exactly what he was planning to accomplish once he came to power. And he eventually was able to check off nearly everything on his to-do list, before he checked out (except for that “1000-year Reich” part). That’s one thing about the Nazis that blows my mind…they loved to make lists, and keep records. As I noted in my 2011 review of the documentary Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today:

Through the course of the grueling 11-month long proceedings, a panel of judges and prosecutors representing the USA, the Soviet Union, England and France built a damning case, thanks in large part to the Nazis themselves, who had a curious habit of meticulously documenting their own crimes. The thousands of confiscated documents-neatly typed, well-annotated and (most significantly) signed and dated by some of the defendants, along with the gruesome films the Nazis took of their own atrocities, helped build one of the most compelling cases of all time.

Unless every history of WW II I’ve ever read is part of a vast cover-up conspiracy, there were no Palestinians among those defendants. Sounds like the prime minster needs to brush up on the history of his own people. His revisionist stance reminds me of a movie character:

“Hitler…there was a painter! He could paint an entire apartment in one afternoon! Two coats!!”

–Kenneth Mars as “Franz Liebkind”, author of the musical  Springtime For Hitler: A Gay Romp With Eva and Adolph at Berchtesgaden (from the original 1967 film version of The Producers, screenplay by Mel Brooks)

By Dennis Hartley

The first sure sign of the Apocalypse appeared on TV  the other day: The newest trailer for the upcoming Star Wars installment. “Sign of doom”, you ask? Actually, I’m not the one to ask, but there are some who apparently take umbrage at the diversity of the film’s cast:

Hours before the release of the new, eagerly anticipated trailer for Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens, a group of ‘fans’ of the franchise have been urging others to boycott the series.

The phrase #BoycottStarWarsVII began trending heavily on Twitter and a depressing foray into the hashtag revealed that a small minority of people are not happy with the inclusion of John Boyega in the film.

One small mercy is that the majority of the tweets in the hashtag are actually calling out the trend for its bigotry, but it still contains mind boggling comments that make us simply want to leave this planet and head to a galaxy far, far away. Or perhaps send the tweeters to it.

Obviously anti-white! People of color…in outer space?! I never…

Yeah, OK. But that’s a commie liberal fantasy! Would never happen!

Okay, so there’s Mae Jemison, with her dual degrees (chemical engineering and African-American studies) at Stanford and doctor of medicine degree from Cornell, and her fluency in Japanese, Russian and Swahili, and her time serving in the Peace Corps, and her 8-day mission on the shuttle Endeavor in 1992 that made her the first African-American woman in space…but seriously folks, in real life, are these really the types of qualities we  look for in our heroes?

Oy.

By Dennis Hartley

Is there no end to this?

A Salina [Kansas] theater was evacuated after a man apparently shot himself in the leg with his concealed handgun. […] Tim Coleman says he was sitting nearby when he heard a pop, smelled gunpowder, and the man said, “Oh my God! I shot myself!” […] Coleman fixed a tourniquet to stop the bleeding and made sure the weapon was secured. Police say no charges have been filed, and the man’s injuries were not life-threatening.

I also understand this 2nd Amendment worshippin’ theatergoer had only recently received his concealed carry permit (I’m shocked, shocked to learn this!). Look on the bright side…at least he wasn’t there to shoot everyone else in the auditorium. How refreshing.

Jesus. I need to rethink this movie critic gig. I should get hazard pay.

By Dennis Hartley

Breaking news from George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Breaking news on CNN (October 18, 2015)

There is an oft-repeated lament that Hollywood and/or television has “run out of original ideas”. Which is (mostly) true, but not necessarily indicative of a dearth of talent or creativity in the business. The blame for this particular writer’s block, I believe, can be laid fairly and squarely at the feet of…Reality.

-from my post The Death Hour: How Hollywood tried to warn us

“We didn’t know if it was real or fake.”

-a  Zombicon participant on  her initial reaction to the gunshots

Sadly, I don’t think I can tell the difference anymore, either.

By Dennis Hartley

A brain is only capable of what it could conceive; and it couldn’t conceive what it hasn’t experienced.

-Graham Greene, from Brighton Rock

No one, it seems,  is exempt from Mr. Greene’s axiom, not even a brain surgeon.  Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson brought this home a few days ago in a Fox News interview, with his comments regarding what he “would have done” had he been present at the scene of the recent mass shooting in Oregon.  As I was pondering what could possibly be going through his mind, a scene from Bob Clark’s 1983 film, A Christmas Story, popped into my head:

For a guy who knows everything there is to know about the human brain, it  appears he still has much to learn about having a heart.