A Cast Iron Statue, A Liberal Blogger, And Irony

I had thought that the biggest irony I would encounter during 2013 would be my visit to the Birmingham, Alabama 50 ton cast iron statue of Vulcan, the Roman god of smith and forge. A visit to the gift shop revealed the souvenir statues were composed of plastic or some other non-metallic material. None were cast iron. I doubt that I am the only visitor to expect that replicas of a giant cast iron statue should be made of metal.

This little news item, however, may be even more ironic. On the day that Cory Heidelberger, one of South Dakota's most outspoken atheists takes Horace Greeley's advice and heads west, KELO reports that secular humanist reinforcements are on the way:

A national effort to reach out to atheists and agnostics is showing up on some South Dakota billboards.

The South Dakota Coalition of Reason says it's a group of seven non-theistic groups that used funding from its national organization and an anonymous donor to put up the billboards.

They're located in Brookings, Vermillion, Sioux Falls, Rapid City and Spearfish and will be up until Sept. 15.

I would have expected that South Dakota's remaining secular humanists would have worn black armbands today. Instead, they erect billboards.

Quotation Of The Day: Bill O'Reilly Supports Paganism Edition

From Bill O'Reilly:

Secular progressives are running wild with President Obama in the White House. They feel unchained, liberated, and they’re trying to diminish any form of religion. The goal is to marginalize religious opposition to secular programs. For example, in Canada and China a woman can have an abortion for any reason at any time. Secular progressives want that here. But traditional forces in America are in opposition. Therefore in this country, you can’t terminate a baby about to be born without a damn good reason. And if you do abort a late term baby, you could be charged with murder. SPs hate that. In Scandanavia, there are laws that say you cannot criticize minorities and if you do, you could be arrested. Secular progressives want laws like that here. Also the legalization of drugs, well under way in many places, and that is a secular cause. So, if the far left can marginalize Santa and the Easter bunny, of they can tell the children those symbols are obsolete and unnecessary, they then set the stage for a totally secular society in the future.[Emphasis in original]

I'm certain there's no reference to either Santa or the Easter bunny in the Bible. Both have some roots in pagan myth. I had no idea that O'Reilly was open minded enough to endorse paganism over secularism; that's an impressive display of courage for a Fox News celebrity. (Snark intended)

HT: This Think Progress Post

America's Election And Unintended Irony: European Election Monitors Edition

Rod Dreher points out that Europeans seem confused by Americans' political angst:

It’s hardly an original observation, but watching the last month of the American presidential contest from Europe really brings home how crackpot Americans are about their elections. From here, there appears to be very, very little difference between Obama and Romney. Obama is generally more conservative than the French conservatives, for crying out loud! Hell, he’s more conservative than Richard Nixon. And for American liberals who think Romney is a right-wing whack job, and that crazy crypto-fascists are steadily advancing, they should be in a country where the National Front is a major political player.

Meanwhile, Tod Kelly reports that the ACLU, the NAACP, and other liberal groups have asked"the UN-affiliated watchdog Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)" to supply election monitors. The American groups believe that European observers will “help to improve  [American] citizen’s trust and confidence in election results.” These observers will come come from noted liberal democracies like "Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Albania and Bosnia," so I, for one, am certain that our elections will not be tainted.

Kelly concludes:

I understand liberal activists’ desire to make sure that electoral shenanigans don’t disenfranchise the poor, minorities and the elderly – especially after the voter ID law measures the GOP has taken.  But honestly, what do they expect is going to happen by bringing in monitors from freaking Kazakhstan?  If there is a better way to make sure that Americans actually ignore legitimate instances of fraud or intimidation than having it reported by Eastern European nationals, it’s not coming to mind.  Bringing in the OSCE doesn’t strike me as a way to solve a problem; it strikes me as a way to fire up your base at the possible expense of making it worse.  If I had to think of one word to describe it, it would be “Rovian.”

As for the Republican Talk-Radio crowd using this as a method to get their base to pull out their checkbooks because UN black helicopters are just over the horizon, all I can say is…  ah, fish it.  Why even bother at this point?

Am I the only one who thinks it ironic that people who think Romney may be a fascist are asking Albanians to monitor polling places or that people who think that America's political parties are nearly identical are going to monitor US elections and by doing so give ammunition to a political fringe that believes that Obama and Europe represent the Anti-Christ? Something about these stories makes me believe that a bunch of folks didn't get the memo that the Cold War ended in the late 1980s.

America's Election And Unintended Irony: European Election Monitors Edition

A Minor Musing On Generational Conflict And Ironical Politics

Noreen Malone takes a shot at Paul Ryan contending that Ryan "was voted the biggest brownnoser in his high school class" and that Ryan is the politician GenX deserves:"

It’s an economic philosophy that is driven by, in a very different way, the same self-interest and self-regard that was endemic to those GenXers who identified more strongly with Slackers than Dockers. Both mindsets were a response to the early ‘90s recession that many GenXers graduated into, but while those then-twentysomethings were busy staring at either their navels or copies of Atlas Shrugged, the country entered a decade of unparalleled post-war prosperity. So what’d you do with that, GenX? Bought stock in Pets.com and perfected your CD collection? Cooool.

So add Paul Ryan—along with the Internet boom/bust, rigorously documented mopey slacking, and I dunno, glowsticks?—to the list of things GenX can count as its legacy. He might not be the politician they want to represent them, but he just might be the politician they deserve.

I've seen several articles and blog posts contending that baby boomers  have squandered the legacy that the Greatest Generation bequeathed them, but this is the first return salvo that I have seen.

The United States Constitution reflects regional conflicts. Over the past 225 the nation has developed the tools to deal with regional disagreements. These generational conflicts seem to have the potential to be more divisive especially given the current budget woes and battles over entitlement spending. I can remember the slogan "never trust anyone over 30," but that was during the Great Society debate when the nation believed it could have both guns and butter. Now, the Republican neocon wing seems to want to wage perpetual war to avoid maintaining a societal safety net. Democrats, meanwhile, pay lip service the safety net and support every defense project that will bring Washington bacon to the congressperson's home district.

Malone continues:

This, GenX, is what you get if you are too cool to actually, like, do anything. This guy becomes your standard-bearer. You cannot, unfortunately, run for the White House ironically.

She may be wrong on that account; people have run for the White House cynically or because they believed it was their turn to run. Ryan certainly seems to know how to use cynicism; his budget makes all sorts of claims but offer no specific cuts. Compared to that cynical political activity, a truly ironical politician might be a God-send.

A Beer Commercial As Vocab Lesson

Equanimity

Colleagues

Vernacular

Substantiate

Not bad for 30 seconds.  Hooray big word usage and stuff!

Lewis Black Helps Teach Irony

Lewis Black shows the irony of a woman with the surname of Grace having nearly a total dearth of that quality.  Like a good teacher, Black extends the lesson to show that other news celebrities have even less grace than Nancy.
   

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Irony: May 20, 2011 in Opt Outs

Yankton Citizens for Sustainable Education (CFSE) continues to challenge my understanding of irony.  Neither a graduate seminar over Jonathan Swift nor a lifelong appreciation of pop culture irony such as Saturday Night Live, The Onion, The Daily Show, or The Colbert Report has prepared me to deal with the intricate irony that CFSE promulgates.  Even familiarity with purveyors of religious irony such as Lark News has left me ill-prepared.

The group claims that it has organized itself  to sustain education, but members have hired Paul Dorr, a man who has dedicated his life to speeding public education "on towards its certain demise."  This act seems the epitome of irony.  One does not attempt to kill that which one hopes to sustain.   Yet, events indicate that the group is not being ironical.  

It strikes me that I am left with two alternatives.  Both seem as flawed as the belief that the group is attempting a heretofore unknown subtle formulation of irony.  First, Mr. Dorr overstates his dislike of public education in order to drum up business for his consulting firm.  This possibility has merit; hyperbole is frequently used as an advertising tool.  The other option, one I have heard mentioned by certain Yankton residents who could charitably be called skeptics, is that Messrs. Murphy and Wurth, CFSE officers both, are being disingenuous when they assert they hope to nurture Yankton's public education.  (I must confess that I took the term nurture from a list of synonyms for sustain. Honesty forces me to admit that I have not personally heard Murphy or Wurth claim that they wish to nurture Yankton's public schools.)

Today, my mailbox contained a mailing from CFSE.  It was addressed to my wife's previous husband whom she divorced over a decade ago.  He has been living near St. Louis, Missouri for the entire time.  My wife and I have been married for nearly eight years.  Both of us have taught in the Yankton School System for over fifteen years, so it's a bit disheartening that a group dedicated to sustaining local education did not care enough to address a mailing to us.  I probably have accept part of the blame for this confusion; I don't socialize much during the school year.  Still, it strikes me as ironic that the group would not send their material to teachers since they claim that they are opposing the opt out because they owe it to the district's "good teachers."  I also find it ironic that I have not met the group's officers at a school board meeting, especially since this group "has supported our school through thick and thin."  Perhaps CFSE members believe that my wife and I are not good teachers.  I find such a possibility too hurtful to seriously contemplate.

I hope a good night's sleep will help me make sense of these conundrums.