Various & sundry ramblings

I intended to write a long (and no-doubt Deeply Profound) meditation on the above. And on how, even if we were all flying around in those personal gyrocopters the futurists of the 1950s were all so certain we’d own now, life would still be pretty much life, humans would still be oh-so-very-human, and time would still be pretty much wasted.

But my brain has been feeling soggy and loggy the last few days, as if somebody left it in tepid bathwater and it got all pruney.

That may be a good sign. Sometimes I get like this when Ye Olde Braine is cogitating on something Vitally Important that it just hasn’t informed me about yet. But for now …

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All that fancy pocket-tech isn’t only for looking at pictures of cats.

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I also thought I’d write something reflecting on this rather interesting essay on how modern brains are being programmed to destroy logic. (Very long but thoughtful; the bit toward the end about new-minted gun-banner and former Vatican attorney Alexis Haller is an eye-opener.)

But go. Do your own reflecting. You’re better at it than I at the moment. (H/T to WL for the link.)

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And here’s a charming monkeywrench for you folks who plan to bury guns — or not bury them. (Thanks JB!)

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And while these are not exactly the height of fashion, it’s encouraging that clever people are still concerned about privacy.

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It may be stuff like this that’s got my brain feeling as lively as a bowl of cold oatmeal this week. Obama worship. Not sure. But you’ve got to admit that when a large part of the nation thinks in these Obama-as-Jesus terms even after seeing him in action for four years, we are surrounded by some scary, scary people for whom logic and facts are definitely not factors.

I agree with Joel; Monday’s coronation ceremony (or re-re-coronation ceremony, as Bear pointed out) was weirdly inescapable even for those of us who usually manage to avoid all such rot.

Even the little bits of it I heard or heard about on the radio made it seem as though something far worse than usual has crawled into the heart of the land. I couldn’t decide whether the Second (or is it third?) Coronation of King Obama was more like a Roman spectacle or more like Germany in the 1930s. All it needed was Leni Riefenstahl.