Quick hits on a sunny Friday afternoon *UPDATED*
It’s the first day of summer for my kids, so I’ve been in mommy mode all day (expect when I was in martial arts mode, which was, frankly, more fun). Things cross my radar, though, and there are three things that came my way that I wanted to put onto your radar. In no particular order:
An homage to Medal of Honor winner Robert L. Howard, who died with no fanfare last year, but was an American warrior, first, last and always.
A few days ago, I did a silly little post called “man caused disaster,” in which I intimated that we, the American voters (not all of us, but a majority), created a “man caused disaster” in the form of . . . well, check it out here. Mike, a fellow Watcher’s Council member who blogs at The Provocateur, liked what I did, but thought I stopped too soon. He therefore ran with the idea (which is, as you know, one of the great things about the blogging community), and came up with this.
Lastly, Bob Etheridge, who looks like Lurch after a bad, boozy night, has suddenly gone from being the clear favorite to being the “hanging in there by his fingertips” candidate. What’s really great about all this is that his opponent, a Tea Party nurse named Renee Ellmers is worthy on her own terms to go to the House. She just needed a little traction, and Etheridge’s assault gave her the media presence she needed. You can read an interview with her here, at Right Wing News.
I just want to say one other thing, which sounds shallow and frivolous, but can also be scary or uplifting, depending on how you view it: In our modern age, things change with incredible speed. There. I’ve said it. It’s obvious, but it’s also important.
As I mentioned the other day, while I was reviewing my old blog posts it became clear to me that the extremism that is Climate Change, a hysterical approach to our climate that managed to move apocalyptic climate fears from the fringe to the center, was only coming into being in 2006. Climate Change concerns existed before, but they didn’t dominate political and social discourse.
By the beginning of 2009, a mere three years later, every Leftist government in the world (including Obama’s) was using Climate Change hysteria to force vast economic changes on the world, and the masses were in a panic of Armageddon-like proportions. By the end of 2009, however, that house of cards was collapsing, destroyed by truth and a bad economy. It was a short, intensive, painful run, but it seems to be over.
The same holds true for anti-Israel animus (or at least I hope so). The open letter from Spain’s former prime minister warning the world against abandoning Israel reflects the mindset of a leader who left office only six years ago. In 2006, despite gross media malfeasance, the American public supported Israel during the Hezbollah war. Up until January 19, 2009, America had a fiercely pro-Israel president.
In other words, the dramatic and active hostility towards Israel (as opposed to the passive disdain that’s been building on the Left for years), is a fairly recent phenomenon, and that’s despite the fact that it seems, at an emotional level, to have been around forever. If Israel is unlucky, much badness will happen to her in the near future. However, if she is lucky, this cycle will collapse as quickly as the Climate Change hysteria faded away. People have short memories and, if something happens to slow or, better, destroy the momentum of a false ideology, that’s the end of it.
UPDATE: Here’s a perfect example of an April 2007 post in which I note, as a new phenomenon, the rising Climate Change hysteria.
