Saturday, February 19, 2011

RatCave Book Club—2/19/2011

No reviews this time, just masterpieces of book cover art from my personal collection (click to enlarge—most of them)...






This one isn't actually book, it's a sleeve containing a visual aid and a booklet of Bible stories to be aided. When I was in Sunday School they used a felt board instead...



I have no fucking idea, I don't read Hindi (although I've worked with it, textually). Somebody help me out here...










There's a list of all my books reviews here.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Evangelical assimilation

Bryan "Douche" Fischer just can't seem to let go of a certain topic. He thinks that the rest of them us just don't get it when it when it comes to the clash between native peoples and white Europeans. Here's his idea of how it should have gone down:
It’s arresting to think of how different the history of the American settlement and expansion could have been if the other indigenous peoples had followed Pocahontas’s example. She not only recognized the superiority of the God whom the colonists worshipped over the gods of her native people, she recognized the superiority (not the perfection) of their culture and adopted its patterns and language as her own.
You can just sense his blood racing at the thought. Fischer has the classic blind spot of ignorance about history, culture, and what constitutes "religion" in general even when he's thinking about his own. He has no more conception of the spiritual beliefs—much less the culture and values—of native Americans than they did of the white colonists. What he's really saying here is, "if only people who had for no rational reason stopped being themselves and become "us" it would have been so much better for us."

All it takes is an enormous and utterly vague sweep of the imagination and all of "our" problems with native Americans are solved, if only for a fleeting instant. It's easy for him to imagine this happening and impossible for him to grasp why it didn't, nay, couldn't happen.
The rotunda of the United States Capitol since 1840 (before political correctness began radically distorting American history) has featured a huge mural by John Gadsby Chapman which pictures the Christian baptism of Pocahontas.
"Political Correctness" is a shibboleth invented by you-know-fucking-who because they don't like their perennial lies being exposed. But fortunately for them, this story has a happy ending:
Early in 1617 Pocahontas and her party prepared to return to Virginia. However, she became ill while in the village at Gravesend. Pocahantas had developed a case of smallpox, an infectious and dangerous disease caused by a virus and leading to high fever. Pocahantas died from the disease and was buried in Gravesend Church.
I guess the Lord decided it was her time to go. Along with millions of other native Americans, thus making the rape of the Americas much simpler than Fischer's surprisingly naïve vision of assimilation, which would have left way too many undesirable, subhuman Christians around. Disease killed off the vast majority of them. The fool hasn't even thought of this yet. Maybe he'll get around to it in his next post.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Our Wacky World—2/15/2011



Suzanne Mettler's piece in Perspectives on Politics has many fascinating arguments about the political consequences of public ignorance about the benefits that people receive from the state. But this table is jawdropping. It shows the percentage of people who (a) benefit from various programs, and (b) claim in response to a government survey that they 'have not used a government social program.'

The Monkey Cage
As bad as the Super Bowl ticket fiasco ended up being for the NFL, it could have been much, much worse. Documents released by the City of Arlington on Friday indicate a concern by at least one Arlington official that the Cowboys were willing to roll the dice and take their chances that seats not cleared by the local officials wouldn’t, you know, collapse.
NBC Sports

It gets even wackier...

Psychic FAIL

Unforeseen Circumstances
Isn't it funny how no psychic predicted 9/11? How about the Boxing Day tsunami? The collapse of communism?

(cue sound of crickets chirping)

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Henry Rollins, ancient curmudgeon

It's 2/13/11 and Henry Rollins (2/13/61) has reached 50. The famous "Eric the pilot" routine isn't on YooToob but since Iggy Pop is his idol this rant is perfect (fucking hilarious, too):

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

I tried to get tickets to his birthday show but after twelve minutes of pushing the button up came the message "tickets sold out". Crap. At least I've seen him twice already. He always talks for at least 2:30 and not one second of it is boring.


Here's one of the best songs Rollins Band ever did—Illumination

I saw them do it live. It was even better than the album. The concert took place on 9/27/2001 at the Nightclub 9:30 in Washingtion DC. Just sixteen days after 9/11. My girlfriend, the world's biggest Rollins fan, was too scared to go but at the last minute changed her mind.

About halfway through the set the band went into an instrumental bit and Henry rapped about patriotism. Where were all the fucking patriots in America before we were attacked? (I'd been wondering the same thing). Where were they when a black guy was being dragged around by the neck from the bumper of a pickup truck? The take-away line was, "If you want to be a racist move to Fuckheadville."

It was eery driving past the Washington Monument at 2:00 AM with the streets empty of traffic.


I hate tattoos. Henry has the best tattoo I've ever seen.