Easy, there. Don’t drag Dimitri into this. That guy’s a saint.

What did you expect from the John Roberts court? This is the guy who wrote the majority opinion for the Orwellian Citizens United case. He’s a zealot who was installed precisely for this purpose. I used to think he was the most dangerous man in the world, but I think Mitch McConnell has lapped him. He’s only 62 years…

How I wish it were otherwise, but he’s impossible to escape. I live overseas, and the lead story, every night, on every channel, from every country, is Kim Jong Trump. I promise myself I won’t let it happen, but every day I get sucked into the swirling vortex of misery on the internet.

Did you come up with Covfefe’s…

The flip side of the Ship of State parable is our current government, which is a kakistocracy, a state or country run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens. Which would be funny if the consequences weren’t so dire.

This is bad Kinja. Orwell, Huxley, Zamyatin, et al were speaking out against dehumanization across the political spectrum. Henry Ford is God in Brave New World and Zamyatin, who was writing in Soviet Russia, named his dystopian society the United State. The current culture of intolerance is overwhelmingly coming from…

You’re reading an awful lot into my comment that simply isn’t there. I am not referring to traditions that were bolted on later. I’m talking about central ideas, images, etc. that were already in existence. The iconic Madonna and Child image is Isis and Horus. The five daily prayers of Islam come from Zoroastrianism.…

If I had a nickel for every time I was able to do a pull up and avoid death in a blimp accident...

He did it, but he feels justified. As another geriatric predator pointed out, when you’re famous you can get away with anything.

The Cosby enablers are the same as the Trumpanistas. Only the details are different. An utterly irredeemable piece of human offal that supporters will stick by no matter what.

Yes, it’s a lot more complicated than people want it to be, but I am comfortable with the simplification that Christianity was cobbled together from various religions/practices/festivals/etc. that existed at the time. The same for Islam, which did not spring magically from the desert fully formed, but came into being…

He thinks that about everything. This salad is tasty, but it’s missing something... Ah, yes. JAY-SUS.

I recently turned 50, and as I’ve grown older and seen more of the world, I have become convinced that the vast majority of people want a strong leader to tell them what to do. I’m simplifying greatly, of course. But look at Erdogan, Duterte and Putin. I live in Cambodia, which has been under the absolute,…

In 1984, Winston Smith’s job is to rewrite history. If we are at war with A today but yesterday we were at war with B, he goes back and changes all the texts. “ “We’ve always been at war with Eastasia”. We’ve always been BFFs with Russia! If the government cuts the chocolate ration to 30 g, the news says the…

Definitely re-read it. I go back to it every few years and it always speaks to me differently. This time I was struck at how precisely he describes our current predicament. It’s a pretty brisk read.

There is a reason Orwell’s name became an adjective and Huxley’s did not.

Thanks to the Citizens United case we can add:
CORPORATIONS ARE PEOPLE.

To me, this is the money quote.

Heh. As if they read.

I’m beginning to think this guy might not be entirely trustworthy....