Home » Open thread 3/28/23

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Open thread 3/28/23 — 22 Comments

  1. We’ve been to the cemetery where he and his brother are buried. The countryside is beautiful, as are his paintings.

  2. Big Brother sicced the rabid dogs on Matt Taibbi. https://www.nationalreview.com/news/jim-jordan-demands-irs-explain-unannounced-visit-to-matt-taibbis-home/

    There is no way to spin the behavior of Democrats in a way that isn’t evil. NO. WAY. This is vile. Nasty. Vicious. Hateful. Totalitarian.

    And fully in keeping with and consistent with hundreds of other similar actions. This isn’t an anomaly. This isn’t unusual. This is what they do. This is who they are.

  3. And so the spin begins: I usually drop by the CNN website each day to see what’s up over there. Their coverage of the Nashville tragedy was as expected. Not a single mention anywhere of the shooter being transgender.

    Funny how it also correlates with the story a few days back of how it’s “so wonderful” that trans people are taking up arms and learning to shoot. And just in line with the upcoming “trans vengeance day” on April 1. My God this country is so eff’ed up.

  4. Legal Insurrection has a post on the school shooting – https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/03/what-we-know-about-the-transgender-nashville-christian-school-shooter/

    There are several videos – one shows the shooter driving up to the school, shooting out the doors, and then walking the hallways. It seems weird that she parked the car instead of driving up to the door. Then shooting out the door probably warned people of an active shooter, so hopefully that means someone called 911. I noticed flashing lights, implying some type of alarm. The hallways were empty, so did they have an alarm sound for shelter in place vs one to evacuate? I vaguely remember the ability to have voice options on alarms, such as “fire, please leave”.

    A second video has the police cams with audio. You can hear the alarms going off. The police were going up stairwells and coming up against closed doors, so those were probably fire exits. But, the police still had to check the doors, in case they were propped open. You can hear one officer say “one down” and then later there is a body on the ground, blurred out. I assume that the procedure was to have the first officers continue moving forward and someone in the back then check on the person on the ground. The officers did seem to be well trained in the active shooter routine.

    The woman was shooting at police from a second story window (large one) and that is where she was killed. This seems like a suicide by cops incident. Too bad she decided to kill innocent people along the way.

    The police were very fast in getting the videos out. I hope the rest of the story comes out just as fast.

  5. Stan, this one’s for you…
    “McCarthy blasts Jan. 6 Democrat investigators for tarring GOP lawmaker when evidence vindicated him;
    “Speaker says authorities, video footage exonerated Rep. Barry Loudermilk even before he was accused.”—
    https://justthenews.com/government/congress/tuemccarthy-blasts-jan-6-democrat-probers-tarring-gop-lawmaker-when-evidence
    Key grafs (RTWT):
    ‘…Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), the chairman of the House Administration Oversight Subcommittee, is planning to release evidence later this week showing House Democrats last year had Justice Department information, videotaped evidence and witness testimony that contradicted their high-profile and later debunked claim he helped Jan. 6 defendants case the Capitol a day before the riot.
    ‘ McCarthy, who has authorized the release of all the Capitol security footage from the attack…found it troubling that the committee led by then-Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and since-defeated Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) were willing to tar a sitting member of Congress when knowing the evidence showed he was innocent.
    ‘…”[T]hey tried to blame Barry Loudermilk for something he didn’t do…. But we proved that it’s not true. They said he led a tour over in the Capitol. He never went in the Capitol the day before.”….’

    “Troubling”, eh? (A tad more than that, I’d say…)
    But nothin’ to see here, move along.
    Democrats just doing what Democrats do…
    To quote the esteemed Harry Reid, “It worked, didn’t it?”….
    https://apnews.com/article/c634697959cd4430aba93971e7353fa2

    BTW, if anyone’s still wondering why the country just happens to be in the shape it’s in, all ye’ hafta do is remember that lovely quote and remember…that “it’s working”. In fact “it’s working” all too well.
    (I’d say, “to perfection”….)

  6. sdferr:

    Thanks for the Strauss/nihilism link. I’ve been wanting to touch base on Strauss and nihilism.

    The pdf is 28 pages, and dense they are as well, so it will take me a bit.

    The Internet Archive is a marvel.

  7. And those laughs keep on coming…
    “Biden on Israel: I’m very concerned, Netanyahu won’t be invited in the near term”—
    https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/369362
    Key grafs:
    ‘US President Joe Biden on Tuesday commented on the recent goings on in Israel.
    ‘ “Like many strong supporters of Israel, I’m very concerned. I’m concerned that they get this straight. They cannot continue down this road. I’ve sort of made that clear,” said Biden, according to a CNN report….
    ‘…”I slept well last night,” [US ambassador to Israel] Nides said. “I congratulate the Prime Minister on the announcement. As President Biden has said several times, we are in favor of compromise and dialogue.”…’ [Emphasis mine; Barry M.]

    As they say, Malice in Wonderland…

  8. If you live today you breathe in nihilism…it’s the gas you breathe.
    –FLANNERY O’CONNOR.

  9. Art Deco,

    Have you heard of Washington and Lee’s Cadaver society? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Society#See_also

    Interesting organization. They still seem able to maintain a high level of secrecy. There is a persistent and widely believed rumor that any member who does not achieve a net worth of $1M or more by his 30th birthday will find the necessary sum to get him to that level wired into his account on that day.

  10. “At Eternity’s Gate” is a recent film, a meditation on the last days of van Gogh’s life.

    Willem Dafoe portrays van Gogh beautifully, as well as or better than any other contemporary actor I can imagine. The Philp Glass soundtrack is wonderful too.

    Back in the day when a man with a straw hat, a paint box and a grand vision could change the world … and never know it.

  11. My best friend in college chose to become a painter, so he learned about modern art and he passed on some of that to me. He encountered a quote of van Gogh’s last words, along with a reproduction of that great black crows painting, vG’s last:
    _____________________________

    There will never be an end to human suffering.
    _____________________________

    We both nodded ruefully to that sentiment in the worldly manner of 19 year-olds everywhere.

    Looking up that quote today I discover it’s more personal than absolute. Here is his beloved brother Theo’s account:
    _____________________________

    He did not wish to stay alive and his mind was so calm because he had always fought for his convictions, convictions that he had measured against the best and noblest of his predecessors. His love for his father, for the gospel, for the poor and the unhappy, for the great men of literature and painting, is enough proof for that. In the last letter which he wrote me and which dates from some four days before his death, it says, “I try to do as well as certain painters whom I have greatly loved and admired.” People should realize that he was a great artist, something which often coincides with being a great human being. In the course of time this will surely be acknowledged, and many will regret his early death. He himself wanted to die, when I sat at his bedside and said that we would try to get him better and that we hoped that he would then be spared this kind of despair, he said, “La tristesse durera toujours” [The sadness will last forever]. I understood what he wanted to say with those words.

    A few moments later he felt suffocated and within one minute he closed his eyes. A great rest came over him from which he did not come to life again.

    –Theo van Gogh
    https://anitalouiseart.com/were-van-goghs-last-words-the-sadness-will-last-forever/

  12. However, “At Eternity’s Gate” only shows Theo arriving too late to his brother’s death bed.

    Vincent is dead. No words are exchanged. Segue to an open casket scene of Vincent wrapped in white linen in an art gallery, surrounded by many of his last paintings.

    It appears that a gentleman in a top has bought a painting and leaves the building.

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