Blog Archives
The Make America Great Again movement is *Hyper-Traditional. Nothing more needs to be learned. American ideals about more perfect unions or created equal need not be updated to apply to minorities, immigrants, and homosexuals. *Instinctual. Praise is heaped on spontaneous instinct without reflection, action without rationale, and “telling it like it is” whether true or false, with or without evidence. *Hyper-Masculine. Guns and violent takeovers are highly valued; assaults against women are not disqualifications. *Super-Nationalistic. Fortress America needs no justification for its actions, and non-Americans of all sorts are not to be trusted. *Anti-Difference. People with brown, black, and yellow skins are a source of suspicion and a demographic threat; and different opinions that oppose the party line are not tolerated and Read on »
Bad Housekeeping: The Obsession with Cleanliness in American Political Life By Tom McBride I grew up with a couple of clean-freaks, and they would often say that their entire marriage was happy based on their mutual obsession with sanitation. They were also neat-niks, but this was just another version of their love for cleanliness. This is also an addictive theme in American politics and probably in politics overall. We’re all familiar with the struggle in American cities to rid New York or Chicago of corrupt political machines, with their dirty ward heelers and cops. Good government types, or “goo-goos,” as Tammany Hall derisively called them, were all for clean, transparent government–an emphasis on transparency that Windex itself would envy. But the drive for cleanliness Read on »
he Always-Never List for the Class of 2027 Born in 2005 (Please send comments/questions to mcbridet@beloit.edu) While this year’s new college students were being born, Johnny Carson and Rosa Parks were dying; ice caps at the North Pole were slowly moving towards what may be a summer devoid of ice; The 1918 flu strain was being revived in a lab; George W. Bush was preparing for what would prove to be a rocky second term; Hollywood was going nuts on sci-fi and fantasy flicks; the Chicago White Sox were suddenly unbeatable; Saddam Hussein sat helplessly in a courtroom; and a video called “Meet Me At the Zoo” was uploaded to an upstart new internet site called YouTube. This is all but Read on »
The Po-Mo Putin The alleged war criminal isn’t so bad once you see what he really is. Vladimir Putin would not like Post-Modernism, a trend from the decadent intellectual salons of France that quickly spread like a domineering blob to the rest of Europe and North America. He would see its slippery relativism as perilously consistent with non-binary-sexual preferences and other germs that America and the European Union wish to smuggle into the Motherland and that might be lurking, even now, in Nazi Kiev. He would not like this sort of thing. It is unclear whether or not he knows what it is. Less mysterious is what he would think of it. But can he do without Read on »
SECRETS: The Mindset List® of UNDERWEAR You ae likely wearing undergarments while you read this. What’s in an undergarment—mindsets, that’s what. The history of underwear is a history of mindsets—about outer versus inner, about discretion versus convenience, about civilization versus comfort, about sex appeal versus repression of same, and about men versus women. Go backstage with us now to consider, say, the Victoria’s Secret Mindset of Fruit of the Loom! 1 As he began his life of crime in Breaking Bad, Walter White found it so hot in the meth lab that he had to strip down to his jockey shorts—yes, they were white. 2 The loin cloth was the earliest type of underwear, but only the rich could afford Read on »
These poems trace days in the lives of such cats as Meo, Joe, Ophelia, and Big Boy. They also illustrate some lively feline wisdom. I’ve long thought that, the more like cats we are, the better off we will be, and will add to this verse at least once a week. –TM A BLIZZARD OF CATS We couldn’t tell even one from all the others, De-itemized by sheer numbers as they were. The wind blew them all from side to side. A very few motorists braved the storm. A Maine Coon or Siamese walloped their windshields. Eight lives remained. They blocked out the phone poles and swank cafes. An endless feline deletion Erased the prairies and the hills. They filled Read on »
God’s Three Rules Or, Why Margaret Thatcher is the True Enemy of MAGA Tom McBride It is a cliché in enlightened circles to muse that God’s list of responsibilities has dwindled. Sean Carroll, the famed physicist and podcaster, has put it precisely this way. God is no longer required to throw lightning bolts. Magnetic electricity can do that. No progressive would disagree. What the secular observer doesn’t get, though is that God is required more than ever. Throwing lightning bolts and raising the dead were never His main line of work—and yes, the masculine pronoun is sociologically correct. Throwing and raising were just commercials. The real work of God has been to establish and enforce rules, and this Read on »
Barbie’s Very Own Mindset List® All Dolled Up One of the great philosophical puzzles is called “Theseus’ Ship.” This ship over the decades has to be repaired so many times that finally there is not a single board left from the original vessel. Is “Theseus’ Ship” still THESEUS’ SHIP? It’s a question of continuity and identity—and it is relevant to the thousands of makeovers of Barbie Dolls over the past 6o-plus years. Is Barbie still BARBIE? You be the judge. Here’s a little list to help you decide! 1 Barbie is 64 but has never looked her age. 2 There are over a billion Barbies. 3 She has been on cable and streaming for nearly 20 years. 4 She and Read on »