Interesting piece at WSJ, which basically makes explicit what most people have known all along: The Clintons will say anything if it'll help them win--true, false, or in-between. Sometimes they say true things: because it'll help them win. Sometimes they tell downright lies: because it'll help them win. Veracity is wholly irrelevant. They only tell the truth to the extent necessary to continue to get away with telling lies. The only test is: "Will it help us win." And if people catch on, they merely claim everyone plays the same way.
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Talk about a Hobbesian choice: A man is in hospital after he was accidentally shot by a rescuer who was trying to free him from the jaws of a crocodile. I think I'd take the bullet.
It kinda reminds me of that old joke about two buddies out hunting. One of them gets bitten on the mojo by a poisonous snake. His friend frantically calls a doctor. The doctor says, "There's no time to get him to a hospital. You have to suck the venom out yourself or he'll die!" The man turns to his friend, "Bummer man, the doctor says you're gonna die."
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This is fascinating: Last July, China's State Administration of Religious Affairs issued regulations banning reincarnations of living Buddhas, or holy monks, who failed to seek government approval, ostensibly to manipulate the centuries-old practice and legitimise future appointments by the atheist Communist Party. I tend to think that this issue is more nuanced than it appears, that there are things about Tibetan Buddhism I simply don't understand, etc. But then again, we're dealing with Communists. The greater the ideologue, the brassier the maneuvers.
Hence my problem with the Clintons' outright fabrications.
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I think I've heard of this before, but maybe not: There's a new inter-gender skirmish called "Daddy Wars". According to Dr Caroline Gatrell (author of Hard Labour: the Sociology of Parenthood), professional men are trying to muscle into mothers' "sphere of influence", i.e. the nursery, as they become increasingly dislodged from their traditional role as primary breadwinner. Sounds believable. There's an easy fix, but it pertains to moderate tastes, living within one's means, tempering greed, and other things that merely irritate people.
The last time an economic stimulus package like the $800 boon was announced (we received, what, $500 per adult?), a friend of Marie's asked what we were going to do with our extra refund. Marie said, "Just save it, I suppose." The friend replied, "I hate people like you." The friend wasn't mad and she doesn't hate Marie, but she was honestly disgusted that we weren't going to blow it on, say, a weekend in Vegas.
