Yarn on Trees in Cincinnati

If you’ve driven down Central Parkway in downtown Cincinnati recently, you may have noticed colorful (and elaborate) yarn decorations on the trees along the way.  You may have wondered, What’s going on?

What’s going on, apparently, is a “yarn bombing”.  Last week, in an Art Works project named “Operation Bomb Central”, a group calling themselves the Bombshells went downtown and painstakingly wrapped yarn around trees, other fixtures, and even a Metro bus!

How to Argue, How Not to Argue

Check out this flowchart about how to have a rational discussion.

I don’t entirely agree with the framework it presents; if nothing else, I think it’s sort of too legalistic, if meant literally—but that’s probably intentional, and part of the humor.

In any case, I think it’s pretty great, in that it articulates (and calls out) some of the ways that discussions can fall victim to sloppy thinking, perhaps usually without the participants’ noticing or understanding what’s going on.  

People Should Marry Earlier: Continuing Conversation

My entry yesterday began when I read an entry on someone else’s blog, and has in turn led to the writing of two other entries on others’ blogs.  In case they’re of interest, I offer them with no further comment:

“Publicity! Or: How a Conservative Hater Made My Day!”, Amee Bohrer, Unrelentingamee

“The words of a Conservative man…”, Emily Sixx Rants

People Should Marry Earlier

And they have no idea.

I was reading some of the blogs featured on the WordPress* main page today.  Among the comments on one, I found this:

. . . I’ve been doing online dating off and on since college! It worked better for me when I was younger—possibly because that was before most people have really been burned and they were more optimistic and open.  

September 11th

What can I say that hasn’t been said?

Ten years ago this month, some Muslims hijacked planes and crashed them into both towers of the World Trade Center and into the Pentagon.  Passengers in a fourth hijacked plane learned what was going on from friends, by cell phone, and fought back, losing their lives but saving untold others when the fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.  

Union Army Attacks Security Guards, Takes Hostages

When I wrote about Hoffa’s uncivil remarks earlier this week, my friend Professor Tevyeh reminded us that some of unions’ history “suggests that violent ‘rhetoric’ isn’t just rhetoric.”

He’s not kidding.  Hoffa said, “this is your army,” and as if on cue—in case any of us thought unions only meant it as a metaphor for bloc voting—an army of five hundred union workers invaded and forcibly took over a port facility, taking hostages and destroying property, to protest the company’s using not even non-union workers, but workers belonging to another union.  Via the Foxhole and Big Journalism, here’s the story from the Associated Press: 

Planned Freeloading, Theft

Rarely is a liberal this explicit about it:

America is productive enough that it could probably shelter, feed, educate, and even provide health care for its entire population with just a fraction of us actually working. 

Democrats: Happy Labor Day, Son-of-a-bitches

Teamsters’ Union president Jimmy Hoffa opened for an Obama speech yesterday (video at bottom of story).  Hoffa said, among other things,

We’ve got to keep an eye on the battle that we face: the war on workers.  And you see it everywhere:  It is the Tea Party.  And you know there’s only one way to beat and win that war.  The one thing about working people is, we like a good fight.  And you know what?  They’ve got a war, they’ve got a war with us and there’s only going to be one winner—it’s going to be the workers of Michigan, and America!  We’re going to win that war! 

Political Kryptonite

Heard on Sean Hannity’s radio show this past Monday, when Hannity was talking about President Obama’s unpopularity dragging many of his fellow Democrats down to defeat in 2010—and in 2012? (quote is approximate):

. . . who then becomes the political equivalent of kryptonite, if you will, for all of them.

I think Political Kryptonite would be a good name for a band.