Parsing Trumpian Piety.

CREDIT: AP/Patrick Semansky.

CREDIT: AP/Patrick Semansky.

Religious blather is part and parcel of politics, unfortunately. Christians everywhere have a fucking fit if “god” isn’t mentioned enough, or christianity, or the big book of bloody tales. Normally, all of these mentions in Trump’s inaugural speech would not be remarkable, but in the case of our wannabe emperor, it pays to think things through a bit more.

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Let’s set aside for a moment the historical fact that patriotism has long been co-opted as a tool for prejudice, and focus on how Trump is referencing Psalm 133 here. His broader point—that societies function better when people are unified—makes sense generally. But things take a sharp turn when grokking what Trump is communicating theologically.

Take Trump’s use of “God’s people.” He didn’t have to use this phrase, since it varies depending on the Biblical translation— it’s “God’s people” in the New International Version, but others read “kindred” (New Revised Standard Version), “brethren” (King James Version), or “brothers” (English Standard Version). It’s also not clear if he or his speechwriters understand the original Old Testament/Hebrew Bible meaning of the term, which was specifically referencing the Jewish people.

Regardless, Trump parrots “God’s people” anyway, implying that all Americans — or at least all Christian Americans — are somehow chosen by God. And more importantly, he intentionally conflates the spiritual unity of “God’s people” with patriotism, merging commitment to country with a devotion to the Almighty.

[…]

“Let your favor be upon this one nation under God,” White prayed, referencing the Pledge of Allegiance. “Let these United States of America be that beacon of hope to all people and nations under your dominion, a true hope for humankind.”

This interlacing of nationalism and faith was quickly flagged by experts. Peter Manseau, author of “One Nation, Under Gods: A New American History,” told the Washington Post that Trump’s inauguration rhetoric reflected a “desire to fuse the languages of faith and nation.”

[…]

But another paragraph of Trump’s inauguration speech hints that he and his advisers are crafting a new version of this America-focused Christianity—one that keeps Trump at the center.

After suggesting there should be “no fear” while he is in office, Trump assured Americans they will be safe because they will be protected by the military, law enforcement officials, and God.

[…]

It’s not uncommon for presidents to praise the might of the American military, which is, without question, the most powerful fighting force in the world. Nor is it unusual for people of faith to implore God to protect the United States and its citizens—both liberal and conservative religious groups pray similar orisons each week.

But Trump drags both concepts into a very different—and highly unusual—theological space: he appears to be arguing that America will be protected by God because he is president.

[…]

But Trump, flanked by his menagerie of loyal faith leaders, is already preaching a nationalist gospel from the largest of pulpits. And while the exact parameters of this developing theology remain to be seen, it’s clear a revival of American Christian nationalism is on the horizon—with Trump as its high priest.

It’s hardly a secret that the religious reich has been salivating over the prospect of a brutal and bloodthirsty theocracy for a very long time. I highly recommend reading the full article. This is yet another facet of the new fascism to be very worried about.

Full article at Think Progress.

Kemeri Bog.

Absolutely awe-filled, stunning photos of an 8,000 year old Latvian bog. A place of amazing diversity and beauty. Living history. Just a few photos here, there are many more at the link.

Jekabs Andrusaitis/REX shutterstock.

Jekabs Andrusaitis/REX shutterstock.

Jekabs Andrusaitis/REX shutterstock.

Jekabs Andrusaitis/REX shutterstock.

Jekabs Andrusaitis/REX shutterstock.

Jekabs Andrusaitis/REX shutterstock.

Jekabs Andrusaitis/REX shutterstock.

Jekabs Andrusaitis/REX shutterstock.

Jekabs Andrusaitis/REX shutterstock.

Jekabs Andrusaitis/REX shutterstock.

See and read more here.

Word Wednesday.

words

Twaddle.

Noun.

1 a: Silly, idle talk. b: something insignificant or worthless. Nonsense.

2. One that twaddles: Twaddler.

Verb.

Twaddled; twaddling. – Prate, babble.

Origin: probably alteration of twattle (1550s), idle talk.

1782.

“What ineffable twaddle!” I cried, slapping the magazine down on the table; “I never read such rubbish in my life.” – A Study in Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle.

Oh Gods. More Assholes.

Credit: Youtube.

Credit: Youtube.

The Charlotte Observer reports that Sen. Dan Bishop, a Charlotte Republican, has proposed a new measure that would make it a crime to “threaten, intimidate, or retaliate against a present or former North Carolina official in the course of, or on account of, the performance of his or her duties.”

The measure came in response to a video in which several protesters followed Ex-Gov. McCrory down a street in Washington, D.C. while chanting things like “Shame!” and “Anti-gay bigot!”

“If Gov. McCrory were a former official of the District of Columbia, this incident might have been a crime punishable by five years in prison,” Bishop in an official statement. “So should it be in North Carolina. This is dangerous. Jim Hunt, Bev Purdue and other governors never faced riotous mobs in their post-service, private lives, without personal security.”

Chanting “Shame!” and “Anti-gay bigot” are not dangerous. They might be embarrassing, yes. And a shameful bigot like McCrory certainly would have his little ears burning, but it’s still not dangerous. Five years in prison? Unfuckingbelievable. Is there any redeeming feature to self righteous rethuglicans? Just one? Because I never see one. People are fighting for basic human rights and the rethug answer? Prison! If there are any repubs who think they are chock full of redeeming features, you’re staying awfully quiet.

At no point in the video did any protester physically touch McCrory or make any threat against the former governor.

And since issuing threats to public officials is already a crime, the scope of Bishop’s bill would likely depend on how it defines “harassment” and “retaliation” against current or former government officials.

And there’s the heart of it. In the new Fascist States of America, you should not have the right to criticise. So much for those vaunted frozen peaches.* Full story here. *Free Speech / Freeze Peach / Frozen Peaches.

And in Louisiana, all that matters are blue lives, the rest of us can just go to hell or prison, whichever comes first:

Following suit with the Trump administration’s law enforcement platform, police in Acadiana, Louisiana have used the state’s new “Blue Lives Matter” law. Louisiana is the first state to enact such a law, which aims to protect the conduct of police officers by slamming people who resist arrest with hate crime charges.

“We don’t need the general public being murdered for no reason and we don’t need officers being murdered for no reason. We all need to just work together,” said the St. Martinville Police Chief, Calder Hebert in defense of the new law. “Resisting an officer or battery of a police officer was just that charge, simply. But now, Governor Edwards, in the legislation, made it a hate crime now.”

CBS News correspondent David Begnaud clarified on Twitter that the police chief’s language was inaccurate, according to Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards’ communications director. However, the Blue Lives Matter provision has already been used to charge someone with a hate crime.

If the response to protesters at Donald Trump’s inauguration is any indication of what’s to come from police, any Blue Lives Matter law that seeks to slap felony hate crime charges on people for resisting arrest is just another component of a serious crackdown on dissent.

Based on Louisiana’s Blue Lives Matter law, anyone who resists arrest or uses physical force against an officer can now be charged with a felony hate crime, a serious offense that will only further criminalize those most affected by abusive policing. Hate crimes are punishable by ten years to life in prison.

Again, the only answer: prison. And that’s for lawful dissent. Dark days. Full story here.

Insufferable Assholes.

Texas Rep. Tony Tinderholt (Facebook).

Texas Rep. Tony Tinderholt (Facebook).

A short while back, I read about one Tony Tinderholt, and his quest to imprison women and strip their right to vote, if they had an abortion in Texas. (I can’t believe dude goes with that photo. Really.) Apparently, Tony hasn’t given up on his dream, because you know, it’s all about responsibility, yes. That horrid abortion availability, it just makes people terribly lax about sex, after all, you can just fit a termination in between the mani-pedi and lunch at the club, right?

In an interview with the Texas Observer, the Republican lawmaker explained that women need to know there are “repercussions” for their actions.

It’s always right up front. Women. Women must…Women need…Women should. There’s never a word about how men need to know there are repercussions for their actions. There’s never a word about how Men must…Men need…Men should. It’s women who end up pregnant, so naturally all the responsibility rests on them. Nary a word about all the semen six guns out there.

“Right now, it’s real easy,” Tinderholt said. “Right now, they don’t make it important to be personally responsible because they know that they have a backup of ‘oh, I can just go get an abortion.’ Now, we both know that consenting adults don’t always think smartly sometimes. But consenting adults need to also consider the repercussions of the sexual relationship that they’re gonna have, which is a child.”

There hasn’t been a backup of “oh I can just go get an abortion” ever. It’s never been that simple, even when it was much easier and accessible, like it was in the 1970s. All medical procedures cost money, and most of them are inconvenient. A termination is seldom a blithe, off the cuff decision. Most people who are capable of getting pregnant and don’t want to be take steps to see that doesn’t happen. Unfortunately, shit happens. Now I note it’s a case of ‘they’ and ‘consenting adults’. Interesting how in Tony’s world, the law he wants would not put ‘they’ in prison, nor would it strip ‘their’ voting rights.

The repercussions of the sexual relationship, a child. I don’t know anything about Tony’s personal life, but I think he needs a proper sex investigator following him around, because god knows, he wouldn’t want to commit the sin of having sex for fun or anything. When you’re done having sproggen, no more sex!

House Bill 948 has been named by Tinderholt as the “Abolition of Abortion in Texas Act” and will likely draw another costly lawsuit for Texas taxpayers to fund in court. Under this bill, there would no longer be any exception for women who are abused, raped or have fetal abnormalities. If a teen is raped by her father she would be forced to carry the child under this law under penalty of jail.

Tinderholt explains that the women should be forced to carry the child because he’s “a firm believer that God creates children in his own image, regardless of how that child is brought into the world, it’s created in his image, and how can someone want to destroy that?”

Oh, I can think of all manner of reasons someone might want to rid themselves of a blastocyst. My decision to do that is no more germane to public opinion than a decision to have spinal shots or to kill a tumor. It’s a private medical procedure, which isn’t anyone else’s business, especially not that of an asshole god botherer, who thinks they have a divine right to intermeddle. I don’t believe in any gods, but the idea of beings created in the image of various gods is an amusing one. Given that christians believe there are two distinct genders, and made in god’s image is amusing, too, but they seldom think that far. I’m surprised Tony the Asshole doesn’t go full court biblical, with rapists made to fork over money to the victim’s father, then getting to legally shackle the victim to them for life. Why not go full hog? Of course, that only applies to single virgins.

If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days. — Deuteronomy 22:28-29

Tinderholt said that since he announced the bill he and his family have received death threats and Department of Public Safety officers have been outside of his home for days for his own protection. DPS won’t confirm that.

I imagine Tony is quite proud of that. Asshole. Full story here.

Moving on to Ohio, and one Bruce Jones:

Bruce Jones (Facebook).

Bruce Jones (Facebook).

An Ohio township official refuses to apologize for calling a woman mentally ill during a contentious Facebook argument over the Women’s March.

Bruce Jones, the fiscal officer for West Chester Township, shared a post by conservative blogger Matt Walsh about the march Saturday that challenged women to name a right men have but they don’t — besides the right “to kill their kids,” reported the Cincinnati Enquirer.

One of the official’s Facebook friends told Jones she faced inequality every day and complained that he had “mansplained” women’s rights to her.

That’s when Jones launched an all-caps tirade.

“YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING TO CENSOR ME BECAUSE I’M A MAN! YOU are ILL!” Jones responded. “Now be off – back to the asylum.”

If someone had the ability to censor you, sir, you wouldn’t be able to have all caps tirades published on the ‘net. Also, this is more of a “you’re an asshole” issue than a “you’re a man” issue. I know lots and lots of men who are fine people and not assholes. Most women do.

The township official, who’s up for re-election in 2019, complained about liberals’ “obsession” with equal rights.

“They’re obsessed with equality above all else, as if they’d recognize it though it’s all around them,” Jones wrote. “Something happened to them and now they’re jaded, broken people with varying degrees of mental illness, impairing their ability to be rational.”

When you’ve had to fight, every step of the way, from the mists of time, yes, you can get preoccupied with rights, especially as assholes like yourself are so damn determined to never step off your privilege perch and see reality from a different perspective. Calling women names and impugning their rationality is not new. The ancient Greeks and Romans were doing the same thing. So y’see, it’s been a long fucking time. We’re tired. And more than a bit pissed off.

Jones then complained that “servicemen” had given their lives to ensure the woman’s right to “Affirmative Action, free access to judicial recourse, child abortion on demand, and organize protests where you drag your (living) child around, dressed like a vagina, while carrying a sign, “F__k Trump.”

Oh look, an old, white guy who doesn’t know jack shit. Women have fought in wars from time immemorial, and in many cases, led. You want to complain that women can’t recognize what’s all around them, while you don’t recognize chauvinistic sexism falling from your own brain. Affirmative action? Oh my, does that ever say it all. Abortion on demand? No, I’m afraid not. By the way, no one is busy aborting children. All the children I saw at various marches were enthusiastic participants, happy to be involved with their parents. Children aren’t stupid, y’know, most of them knew what they were doing there. I didn’t see people dressed as vaginas, that would be a somewhat awkward costume to march in. Lots of people in pink pussy hats, yes. Y’know, pussy like in cat, you dumbfuck. I also saw lots and lots and lots of signs, many of which were brilliant, and the majority of them were much more clever than “fuck Trump”, although there’s nothing at all wrong with saying “fuck Trump”. Most signs didn’t, and I have to say that wouldn’t be my choice, because Trump is a serial sexual assaulter and a rapist. Most people wouldn’t want to be in grabbing distance, let alone give any impression they might fuck him.

Full story here.

Snowflakes Rising.

Sign from Saturday's Women's March on Washington (Twitter.com).

Sign from Saturday’s Women’s March on Washington (Twitter.com).

WASHINGTON — The day after the Women’s March brought half a million people to Washington, 500 women from across the country spent Sunday learning how to run for office.

The candidate training held by EMILY’s List, the largest Democratic women’s group in the country, focused on overcoming the “intimidation factor” when navigating political campaigning, especially for women of color. It was the group’s largest training event.

“We still have ceilings to break, even inside our Democratic Party,” said Muthoni Wambu Kraal, senior director of state engagement and development at EMILY’s List.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., told the women about breaking through as the first Indian-American woman in the House of Representatives.

“As a woman of color in particular, barriers are high. They’re very high,” she said, encouraging women to pursue their point of view in elected office.

“It’s important, not only because of the color of our skin or anything like that, (but) because of the experience that we bring in from our different perspectives,” she said. “Don’t think that because you’re not connected to the wealthiest people in the world that you can’t run for office.”

GO SNOWFLAKES!

Full story here.

Wax That Ass.

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Wax That Ass, Allison Bouganim. Images courtesy of the artist.

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What do laundromats, bus stops, and supermarkets have in common? Besides being everyday locales, these seemingly innocuous sites are also hotbeds of sexual harassment. Wax That Ass, a project by artist Allison Bouganim, fuses sculpture, photography, and on-site intervention to explore the everyday discomfort felt in public places.

Bouganim began the project by making a series of sculptural butts cast from actual butts. The results were a series of plaster and wax butts (hence the project title, Wax That Ass) in a variety of different shades that seem to represent a spectrum of skin tones. Once these were made, Bouganim went to a series of sites that are not only breeding grounds for sexual harassment, but are also places where the artist herself has been sexually harassed before, to enact the performative aspect of her project.

You can read and see more at The Creators Project.

Thierry Bornier.

"Hani Terraces". Images courtesy of the artist.

“Hani Terraces”. Images courtesy of the artist.

 

"Floating Nets"

“Floating Nets”

 

"Huangshan Falls"

“Huangshan Falls”

Thierry Bornier started out as an amateur photographer. The story of his journey is an amazing one, you can read all about it at The Creator’s Project. About that last photo:

…the second, and perhaps even more evocative, is “Huangshan Falls.” Bornier recalls his conversation with several older, local Chinese men after he snapped the photograph. They told him that this type of weather effect occurred only once every hundred years. They had been coming for decades waiting for this moment and he had captured it. It is additionally profound that this photograph has zero post-production. It is the wild, Chinese landscape alone that resides in the beauty of this natural, unadulterated image and it is why Bornier loves what he does: clouds flowing over the hills without the aid of a slowed shutter speed or the manipulation of a blur effect. It is landscape photography in its most basic, and yet ironically most surreal, form.

Thierry Bornier at The Creators Project. *  Thierry Bornier’s website.