Dr. Q. of CopBlock posts a note about my post on Hiroshima last night. Gets the following reply from one of the readers: KEN CHAMP: “Sorry that was retaliation, not terrorism” Seriously, what the fuck is this even supposed to mean, other than, “I approve of it; therefore, it must not be terrorism”? Back in empirical reality, how many acts of terrorism have there ever been in the entire history of the world that *weren’t* explicitly carried out in retaliation for an earlier attack or policy? Often one directly named in public communiques by the terrorists?

To-day @ Rad Geek People’s Daily [radgeek.com]: http://radgeek.com/gt/2013/08/08/by-the-book/ “By the book”

“Mais ia por diante o monstro horrendo Dizendo nossos fados, quando alçado Lhe disse eu: Quem és tu? que esse estupendo Corpo, certo, me tem maravilhado! A boca e os olhos negros retorcendo, E dando um espantoso e grande brado, Me respondeu, com voz pesada e amara, Como quem da pergunta lhe pesara: “Eu sou aquele oculto e grande Cabo, A quem chamais vós outros Tormentório, Que nunca a Ptolomeu, Pompónio, Estrabo, Plínio, e quantos passaram, fui notório. Aqui toda a Africana costa acabo Neste meu nunca visto promontório, Que para o Pólo Antárctico se estende, A quem vossa ousadia tanto ofende. “Fui dos filhos aspérrimos da Terra, Qual Encélado, Egeu e o Centimano; Chamei-me Adamastor, e fui na guerra Contra o que vibra os raios de Vulcano. Não que pusesse serra sobre serra, Mas conquistando as ondas do Oceano. Fui capitão do mar, por onde andava A armada de Neptuno que eu buscava. . . .” (Os Lusíadas, Canto V)

FYI if you read this and you come away thinking something like “Well, I don’t agree with everywhere you’ve gone with this, but I see the concerns you’re trying to raise here, let’s talk about whether there’s anything we can do to deal with them better,” then you may be part of the solution. If you read it and you come away thinking, “Good riddance! Statist!” or “Kill the apostate!” or similar, then you are probably part of the problem.

iRad #3 now on the shelves at Firestorm Cafe and Books

(Answer: Y’all are all wrong. And y’all are all right, too.)

Incidentally, “Irene and me went down to bijou” is also perfectly good English and its use should be encouraged over the anxiously pretentious sounding and intensely overcorrection-prone “Irene and I.” Insisting on “… and I,” no matter what the cost to the sound or the scansion of the sentence, makes no more sense than walking around Paris telling people that their French is slovenly because they say “Irene et moi allâmes au cinéma” instead of “Irene et je.”

The use of singular “they” is good English and should be encouraged. In fact its use should be widened.

To-day @ Rad Geek People’s Daily [radgeek.com]: http://radgeek.com/gt/2013/08/08/non-lethal-force-israel-hernandez/ Non-Lethal Force (Cont’d).

Facebook just asked me whether or not I had seen Ralph Bakshi’s animated film of Lord of the Rings, pt. I; which of course I have, so I said that I had. Then they asked me to rate the movie on a scale of 1-5 stars, but the problem here is that on these star scales there is never any option for “Risible and bizarre far beyond the point of absurdity” or “This does not really seem like the kind of thing for which a rating of quality is appropriate; it should not so much be considered a film as a fact, or perhaps an object.” So instead of a star rating, I offer a link to this: http://www.flyingmoose.org/tolksarc/bakshi/bakshi.htm