Monthly Archives: August 2011

Burning down the country? Robert M. Shelby, 8-21-11. [1102 txt wds]

The American people were referred to as a sleeping giant by Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto after the indecisive attack on Pearl Harbor and the Hawaian airfields. In truth, it is as if a vast number of Americans are perpetually half asleep. Liken their brains to nuclear piles in atomic energy plants, you would have to […]

Biblical truth? Literalism? –Robert M. Shelby, 8-19-11. [1236 txt wds]

Putting it most generally, biblical truth is aspirational rather than literal. Nor is the Bible even factual to any large degree, though it affords glimmers of history shining through generations of creative story-telling and anciently reported hearsays with all their distortions of personal or group interest and cultural limitation. However much expert religiosi claim divine […]

Economic Dysfunction? –Robert M. Shelby, 8-16-11. [252 txt wds]

Development doesn’t require “mastery” of technique more special than salesmanship. It requires turning loose those who want to push it, and opening the way for them, whatever the reasons. Practical steps occur in necessary sequences. It’s never been rocket science. It’s always been pocket science. Someone has always needed to ask, “Whose pocket?” City government […]

The Wild Bunch! –Robert M. Shelby, 8-15-11. [583 txt wds]

A minor, untypical state like Iowa is scarcely a political bell-wether to the national temper. Whatever happens at the annual Ames Straw Poll is similar to what happens in a large cowbarn twice a day. No, not what the cows do but what’s done to them at milking  time. At $30 dollars a throw, the […]

Obstacles to clear vision? –Robert M. Shelby, 8-11-11. [750 txt wds]

People with mere dollar-signs in their eyes may be less dangerous to our future than half-baked Christians with holy crosses in their eyes. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, but if the crosses in my eyes impair my view, I shall not see the hills. Too many so-called Christians, I mean imaginary […]

Omniscience eludes us all. –Robert M. Shelby, 8-10-11. [1090 txt wds]

Humans naturally see and understand inaccurately and incompletely. We see trees half a mile away but, without telescopes, not the leaves or needles on their twigs. Farther away, we see only their vaguely approximate color and a partial shape of the grove in which they stand. Maybe, to our view, that grove of trees modifies […]

The “Principles” of Illiberalism? –Robert M. Shelby, 8-5-11. [266 txt wds]

1.)  Liberalism is bad, unreliable, doomed to fail because ignorant of its Socialist nature. 2.)  Illiberals must always distrust, detest, denigrate and work to overcome Liberalism. 3.)  Illiberals will always be dissatisfied with anything said, proposed, enacted or even thought by Obama or any other Democrat. 4.)  Progressivism is still worse, leading inevitably to national […]

The “Not-so-good” Ol’ Boy’s & Gals? –Robert M. Shelby, 9-4-11. [665 txt wds]

Will Gregory’s timely exposé of interest networks in Benicia politics, shown today in: “Does Benicia have a ‘good old boys’ network?” immediately raises the thought of “not so good” networks. Nationally, each state has cabals both of Republicans and Democrats working hard to impact legislation and enforcement or neglect. Some cabals work against the real […]

The Beyond-Right Cult of Regression! –Robert M. Shelby, 7-22/23-11. [741 txt wds]

Events now demonstrate that everything to the political right and its Far Beyond have become transformed into a culture of ingrown backwardness and a cult of regression. Left to its own vicious devices, the fascism-usurped Republican Party would take our country back to the 19th century era of novels by Walter Scott and Charles Dickens. […]