I like this piece, from the book by Margaret Atwood that I am reading right now, Payback: Debt and the shadow side of wealth.
Some people are in the habit of saying, “What would Jesus do?” Which sounds admirably pious, though sometimes the questioners get curious answers — bomb Iran, screw the poor, burn a church, tell smear-tactic lies about your political opponents, try a little torture, and so forth. It’s kind of hard to imagine Jesus standing over a tied-up prisoner of war and zapping him or her with a cattle prod. Call me an old-fashioned stickler, but in the official texts about him, Jesus is on the receiving end of such tactics, not the doling-out end.
According to MSNBC, there is a mysterious dearth of acorns in parts of the US, and nobody really knows why. So what, you say? Well, the problem is, fewer acorns means “starving, skinny squirrels” rampaging through garbage, pumpkin patches, and bird feeders. Now, we’ve got plenty of fat and sassy squirrels in this neck of the woods and they are a king-sized pain in the butt, tearing bird feeders apart and digging up the few measly tulip bulbs I planted some years ago, in an uncharacteristic burst of gardening. I hate to think what they’re like when they’re starving – pretty damn’ mean, methinks.
I rubbed my eyes when I read the headline, thinking I must be losing my sight. Then I thought it might be an elaborate send-up. But no, it was real – Shrub’s getting a PEACE medal, not a peace medal. Now I know I’m not losing my mind. Although I was amused to read the following:
The “International Medal of PEACE” is given for outstanding contribution toward alleviating the five global giants recognized by the Coalition, including pandemic diseases, extreme poverty, illiteracy, self-centered leadership and spiritual emptiness.
Doesn’t he exemplify at least the last two, if not the last three?
… to see this disgusting boil on the arse of humanity receive a taste of his own medicine:
And I wouldn’t worry about his face, either. There’s no way he could be made more ugly to this jaundiced eye.
#1 Son found this 2007 video clip on Videogum, via Buzzfeed, and sent it to me, drily noting “Something to make your blood boil … and maybe inspire a vitriolic blog diatribe.” I’d be happy to oblige but, really, what can one say, in the face of such consummate evil?
It’s “Cyber Monday” today, the ceremonial kick-off of the holiday online shopping season in the United States. Do you do much online shopping, holiday or otherwise?
Yes, I do. I buy the majority of my books online, from major booksellers but preferably from indy bookshops who are online – it’s worth paying the postage to support them. I also buy gifts and gift vouchers online – I’d rather go hang-gliding naked in a snowstorm than tackle the holiday crush at the mall.
Are you a Mac or a PC user? Why? I became a confirmed, dyed-in-the-wool Mac geek some years ago, when #1 Son lured me away from my PC. He’d been nagging me for yonks, but I finally made the switch after watching him effortlessly download an app to his iMac, and then spend hours trying fruitlessly to download the same app to my PC before he finally gave up. I am still using the Mac Powerbook that I bought as my first Mac – in the same period, I would have gone through two, maybe three PCs. I also have a sweet little Macbook Air, which I take everywhere with me, like a purse pooch, as well as an iPod Touch and an iPhone, on which I can listen to music, email, do crosswords, read ebooks, Twitter, and find out where the heck I am when I get lost, which I frequently do. Oh yeah – colour me Apple.
What website do you spend more time on than you care to admit? Probably my own site, Nuts and Mutton, through which I catch up on my Favourites blogroll every day, followed closely by Facebook, on which I keep up with the kids and various nieces and nephews abroad. And my NewsFire RSS feed manages to take up an inordinate amount of my time every day.
