Zinke on wife’s birthday: Wouldn’t you agree our anniversary is coming?

By Dan Brooks in Montana Politics 3 Comments
Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) and a gun in the living room

Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) and a gun in the living room

Montana’s man in Congress, Representative Ryan Zinke, unleashed a novel argument last week: the President shouldn’t have attended the Paris summit on climate change, because ISIS is the bigger threat. Commander Zinke pestered Secretary of Defense Ash Carter on that subject in a House Armed Services Committee meeting shortly after Thanksgiving.

“We have ISIS, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda, North Korea, an emerging China and Russia. Mr. Secretary, where would you rack and stack global warming with that list?” he asked. Although Carter initially declined to order that list of terrorists, nations, and weather patterns, Commander Zinke pressed on. “Would you agree the imminent threat, the 5-yard, 5-meter threat—the most damaging threat facing us today—would be ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and the non-nation state terrorist activities?”

Carter agreed ISIS was the imminent threat, probably because hearing “rack and stack” and “5-meter threat” made him dive into a combat roll and shout “affirmative!” But man, I’m pretty sure another two feet of sea level will dampen us whether they’re beheading apostates in Raqqa or not. And I’m pretty sure the number of people who will starve, steam, or thirst to death in 2080—probably in the billions, if our grandchildren ever meet somebody nice—is more than ISIS could kill with a whole battalion of radicalized health inspectors. But the immediacy of ISIS makes global warming a bullshit problem, as Commander Zinke explained on Facebook:

I agree with President Obama that his climate summit will “send a message” to ISIS. The message is crystal clear: Obama is out of touch, he doesn’t understand the threat of radical Islamic terrorism, he is more concerned about his legacy than anything else, and he is willing to do anything to avoid confronting ISIS head-on.

It was kind of a stretch. I submit that Commander Zinke would rather talk about ISIS than global warming or virtually any other subject because it’s the kind of problem you can shoot at. They are bad and we are good, which makes them easier to discuss than how to get billions of people and dozens of industrialized nations to sacrifice money and comfort on behalf of animals and people who haven’t been born yet. You can read all about it in this week’s column for the Missoula Independent. We’ll be back tomorrow with Friday links!

Meanwhile, in Clown Town

By Dan Brooks in Church People 1 Comment

Jerry Falwell, Jr. and the top frown in downtown Clown Town [left]

Jerry Falwell, Jr. and the main frown in downtown Clown Town [left]

Donald Trump may be grabbing up all the headlines and shoving them into his mouth with his fat toddler’s fist, but one great leader does not a fascist movement make. You need armed thugs. What’s more, those armed thugs must be absolutely convinced they’re doing it for god and country. Otherwise their wives get after them. It was in that spirit Jerry Falwell, Jr., merit-based president of Liberty University, told his convocation of Christian college students to apply for concealed weapons permits:

“I’ve always thought that if more good people had concealed-carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in.”

Props to Ben al-Fowlkes for the link. Junior Falwell subsequently explained that by “those Muslims” he meant terrorists, and I guess that’s better than the preacher president of America’s largest online university instructing students to shoot Muslims just walking around. Still, I don’t feel like we’re in quite the same register as the Sermon On the Mount.

You know who loves it, though? Fox News radio host and probable automaton Todd Starnes. He stands with Liberty University’s Jerry Falwell, Jr. on guns; the “why” in the headline is a typo. Kombat! Kids! See if you can detect the professional writer trick Starnes uses in this sentence:

President Falwell is facing criticism from Democrats and jihadist sympathizers after he urged students at the nation’s largest Christian university to carry concealed weapons on campus to counter any possible armed attack from jihadists.

Yup—those are the two kinds of people who are criticizing him. You’d have to be a jihadist or at least a Democrat to find something unsavory about a Christian telling people to get guns so they can “end” Muslims. Fact: nowhere in the Bible does it say you can’t kill people. Starnes considers the very idea absurd:

Get a load of the crackpot theory offered up by one left-wing newspaper:

“Some theologians believe that Jesus would call on Christians to put down their weapons in the face of violence.”

I only wish the Washington Post had named the lunatic theologians who believe that Christians should gladly offer themselves to the Islamic radicals as sacrificial lambs.

Lunatic theologians probably cite Matthew 5:39-40: “But I say unto you that ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.” But you’d have to be shit-bathing crazy to think that means you can’t shoot a guy who breaks into your house. Look for Todd Starnes humping a rifle across Syria this time next year.

Fuck it, Trump figures, how many of them can there be?

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates 2 Comments
nbc-fires-donald-trump-after-he-calls-mexicans-rapists-and-drug-runners

Donald J. Trump appeals to the better angels of our nature.

Character in a journalism student’s fantasy Donald Trump made headlines yesterday, because he said the United States should close its borders to Muslims. At press time, he keeps saying it. Finally, someone has the guts to tell it like it is. America has gone without a strong, loud, stupid leader for too long, and it’s also been too long since we made laws about kinds of people. Every time we made a law about a kind of people in this country—Indian removal, Jim Crow, Japanese internment—was a time Trump voters consider better than now. Yes, even Japanese internment. “What I’m doing is no different from FDR,” Trump told Good Morning America, referring to the worst thing FDR ever did. I know we recently said Trump had gone full racist, but now that he’s accused a domestic religious minority of conspiring with foreign enemies to obstruct his plan to make America great again, he has technically gone full Hitler. Unless, of course, he doesn’t really mean it.

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Regarding the singular “they”

By Dan Brooks in English Usage 1 Comment
An Ettin, who is like to get upset whatever you call them

An Ettin, who is like to get upset whatever you call them

Last week, the Washington Post announced that it would begin using the pronoun “they” for people who identify as neither male nor female. The WaPo will also allow singular “they” to avoid gendering impersonal pronouns. Here’s Bill Walsh:

It is usually possible, and preferable, to recast sentences as plural to avoid both the sexist and antiquated universal default to male pronouns and the awkward use of he or she, him or her and the like: “All students must complete their homework,” not “Each student must complete his or her homework.” When such a rewrite is impossible or hopelessly awkward, however, what is known as “the singular they” is permissible.

Unlike Spanish, English does not have a singular impersonal pronoun. The APA recommends writing around this deficiency in the language, just as Walsh does. Props to Miracle Mike Sebba for the link. The combination of these two guidelines—call a person “they” if they want you to, but rewrite a sentence to avoid singular “they” if you can—suggests an odd but commendable system of values. Guideline number two insists the singular “they” is not correct. We’re willing to fudge it, says guideline number one, but not for your stupid sentence—only for people.

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Friday links! Foreseeable alternatives edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 0 Comment
Gottfried Leibniz and his wig

Gottfried Leibniz and his wig

Gottfried Leibniz famously theorized that we are living in the best of all possible worlds—a striking assessment from a man in a wig who lived in a world where someone else invented calculus. But Leibniz never said the world was perfect. He only said there was no better alternative. In this he joins a tradition of resignation that runs from Epictetus through Nietzsche, who wrote that it was foolish to say this world was good or bad when no other one exists. Today is Friday; thank God if you want, but I have a feeling he was going to do it anyway. Won’t you ponder the alternatives with me?

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