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#1
Laid Back Lounge / Re: On the "obsession" with in...
Last post by Ecurb Noselrub - Today at 07:59:16 PMThe stop-filming-everything-woman was filming everything.
#2
Laid Back Lounge / Re: Reasons to be cheerful!
Last post by zorkan - Today at 04:22:12 PMIt's a reason to be cheeseful, for sure.
I know this place well. It's a hill adjacent to a walking route called the Cotswold Way.
Take a slight diversion and you can scramble up it.
Even then it's scary.
I know this place well. It's a hill adjacent to a walking route called the Cotswold Way.
Take a slight diversion and you can scramble up it.
Even then it's scary.
#3
Politics / Re: Dominionists in the United...
Last post by The Magic Pudding.. - Today at 01:49:18 PMQuote from: Icarus on Today at 06:12:46 AMMy nation has some serious problems wrought by millions who know no better.
Did it used to be better?
If so what happened?
#4
Politics / Re: Dominionists in the United...
Last post by Icarus - Today at 06:12:46 AM My nation has some serious problems wrought by millions who know no better. #5
Laid Back Lounge / Re: Reasons to be cheerful!
Last post by Icarus - Today at 06:02:56 AMCrikeys! What a dumb ass contest.........But it looks like great fun.
#6
Politics / Re: Dominionists in the United...
Last post by Recusant - Today at 04:25:25 AMOh yeah it's time for another installment of "Appeal to Heaven" ~or~ "The Plausibly Deniable Banner." It's been mentioned previously in this thread, and now has another appearance in the political headlines of the US.
Samuel Alito, one of the vociferously right wing Catholic justices on the US Supreme Court, has been trolling the secularists and their fellow travellers with his choices in vexillary expression. That is, flying the US national flag upside down at his house in Virginia in apparent support for the mob who stormed the Capitol Building. Also, flying the "Pine Tree" flag at his other house, in New Jersey.
It's been the case for several years now-- There is a logical inference evoked when a known Christian zealot flies that flag, which is that they believe in Dominionism regardless of whether they call it that. The United States has always been a Christian Nation, and its laws should better reflect that fact (etc.). The article gives a synopsis of how this came about.
Former vice president to Trump, Mike Pence, who sounds like a Dominionist (he's repeatedly expressed Dominionist sentiments), says that the flag symbolizes "our proud heritage of Faith and Freedom," and therefore "every American should be proud to fly it." A near perfect example of Pence's way of signifying.
The thing is, the majority of citizens of the US do not want to live in a right wing Christian theocracy. The Dominionists would prefer not to admit that but they know it's true.
For now, apparently a number of public figures who want to maintain plausible deniability in regard to their Dominionist sympathies while still signalling those same sympathies by flying the "Appeal to Heaven" flag have chosen a party line. "I'm just a patriotic American who thinks George Washington was a great man."
"A Benign 18th-Century Foam Finger" | Slate
Samuel Alito, one of the vociferously right wing Catholic justices on the US Supreme Court, has been trolling the secularists and their fellow travellers with his choices in vexillary expression. That is, flying the US national flag upside down at his house in Virginia in apparent support for the mob who stormed the Capitol Building. Also, flying the "Pine Tree" flag at his other house, in New Jersey.
It's been the case for several years now-- There is a logical inference evoked when a known Christian zealot flies that flag, which is that they believe in Dominionism regardless of whether they call it that. The United States has always been a Christian Nation, and its laws should better reflect that fact (etc.). The article gives a synopsis of how this came about.
Former vice president to Trump, Mike Pence, who sounds like a Dominionist (he's repeatedly expressed Dominionist sentiments), says that the flag symbolizes "our proud heritage of Faith and Freedom," and therefore "every American should be proud to fly it." A near perfect example of Pence's way of signifying.
The thing is, the majority of citizens of the US do not want to live in a right wing Christian theocracy. The Dominionists would prefer not to admit that but they know it's true.
For now, apparently a number of public figures who want to maintain plausible deniability in regard to their Dominionist sympathies while still signalling those same sympathies by flying the "Appeal to Heaven" flag have chosen a party line. "I'm just a patriotic American who thinks George Washington was a great man."
"A Benign 18th-Century Foam Finger" | Slate
QuoteWhen the New York Times reported last week that Samuel Alito, an associate justice of the Supreme Court, had been flying an "Appeal to Heaven" flag at his vacation home on the New Jersey shore last summer, the legal world was confronted with yet another classic case of how to deal with the current warring textual methodologies for interpreting the law. One could either "read" this obscure-to-some pine-tree flag in the way the New York Times and its experts did—as a signifier of insurgent Christian nationalism. Or you could read it as a kind of benign 18th-century foam finger: "Gooooo George Washington!"
In the week since, most defenders of the flag have doubled down on the foam-finger defense. In much the same way they claim that the right to bear arms is codified in the Second Amendment and has not acquired any new popular understanding since ratification, they urge that the Appeal to Heaven flag means only what it meant to the founders, because history ended on that day. Welcome to the world of flag originalism, in which the only winning answer is ... 1775!
Most commentators understand that flags, like words, have changing meanings over time. "Until about a decade ago," notes the Times, "the Appeal to Heaven flag was mostly a historical relic." That meaning shifted fairly recently, when it was "revived to represent a theological vision of what the United States should be and how it should be governed," according to Matthew Taylor, a religion scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies.
Per the Times, Dutch Sheets, a right-wing Christian author and speaker, and a leader in the New Apostolic Reformation, rediscovered the almost forgotten flag in 2013 "and made it the symbol of his ambitions to steep the country and the government in Christianity." As Sheets laid it out in his 2015 book: "Rally to the flag ... God has resurrected it for such a time as this. Wave it outwardly: wear it inwardly." Sheets has since made it his business to present the flag to people like Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, and others. When Trump lost in 2020, Sheets and "a team of others formed an instant, ad hoc religious arm of the 'Stop the Steal' campaign, blitzing swing state megachurches, broadcasting the services at each stop and drawing hundreds of thousands of viewers." At that moment, one might contend, were one being truthful, the flag took on a new, let's call it "evolving" meaning. And of course on Jan. 6, the Appeal to Heaven flags were everywhere. We know this because the Times has photos. As do others.
This suggests that a clear look at rather recent history reflects precisely what this flag means. But that assumes recent history holds value to you. The problem is that there is a second interpretive methodology being deployed to read the Appeal to Heaven flag. And, surprise! It's originalism. Mike Johnson, for instance, hung it at his office last fall shortly after becoming speaker of the House. A spokesman for Johnson explained, amid the outcry, that Johnson "has long appreciated the rich history of the flag, as it was first used by General George Washington during the Revolutionary War." Johnson himself told The Associated Press that he did not know the flag had come to represent the "Stop the Steal" movement. "Never heard that before," he said, because mumble, mumble, George-Washington-and-the-Sound-of-History roaring in his ears. Instead, as Johnson then explained, "I have always used that flag for as long as I can remember, because I was so enamored with the fact that Washington used it." Originalism Translator: Let's all agree to ignore the contemporary meaning of this flag in favor of broad, outlandish claims that the centuries-old meaning is the only reasonable one.
[Continues . . .]
#7
Laid Back Lounge / Re: Reasons to be cheerful!
Last post by zorkan - May 28, 2024, 11:33:50 AMGood to know some people are just plain mad. This time it's the English, as stated by a German competitor.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-gloucestershire-69065807
Broken bones and concussion. Been going since 1800, despite the objections made by the health and safety people.
Nobody catches up with the cheese.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-gloucestershire-69065807
Broken bones and concussion. Been going since 1800, despite the objections made by the health and safety people.
Nobody catches up with the cheese.
#9
Introductions / Re: Hello, again...
Last post by billy rubin - May 26, 2024, 04:07:40 PMbob dobs?
that brings back memories.
that brings back memories.
#10
Laid Back Lounge / Re: animals in your life
Last post by billy rubin - May 26, 2024, 03:54:16 PMyesterday i saw something i have never seen. bird-surfing.
its spring here in appalachia, and so lots f passerines have nestlings. the parents are intolerant ofpredators, and harrass them whenever they can. so the crows gang bang the owls, the mockingbirds chase the cats, and so on.
turkey vultures arew a common scavenger and opportunist feeder here, and the blackbirds hate them. yesterday i was driving home and watched a blackbird chasing a crow. typical. then watched a brief encounter where a blackbird was chasing off a vulture about 100 times its size, trailing behind and darting in to beat on the back of its head. typical
but then the blackbird actually landed on the pygidial region of the turkey vulture, folded its wings, and surfed the flying bird, standing erect for the few seconds i watched until ithey passed out of sight.
even after decades of paying attention, nature does new shit to me whenever im paying attention.
people talk about shotgunning flying raptors at sea and elsewhere, and fiding smaller birds nestled in their feathers. its one of those things that sounds weird until you think about it. but i have never seen a bird ride another in flight until now.
its spring here in appalachia, and so lots f passerines have nestlings. the parents are intolerant ofpredators, and harrass them whenever they can. so the crows gang bang the owls, the mockingbirds chase the cats, and so on.
turkey vultures arew a common scavenger and opportunist feeder here, and the blackbirds hate them. yesterday i was driving home and watched a blackbird chasing a crow. typical. then watched a brief encounter where a blackbird was chasing off a vulture about 100 times its size, trailing behind and darting in to beat on the back of its head. typical
but then the blackbird actually landed on the pygidial region of the turkey vulture, folded its wings, and surfed the flying bird, standing erect for the few seconds i watched until ithey passed out of sight.
even after decades of paying attention, nature does new shit to me whenever im paying attention.
people talk about shotgunning flying raptors at sea and elsewhere, and fiding smaller birds nestled in their feathers. its one of those things that sounds weird until you think about it. but i have never seen a bird ride another in flight until now.