Just Deserts

I can't really add anything to this:



With thanks to commenter Doug105 at Joe.My.God.

Poetic Justice?

Or just the universe's comment on the substance of the Trump regime?

A sinkhole has opened in front of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club, according to an email alert from the Town of Palm Beach.

The sinkhole is just west of Mar-a-Lago’s southern entrance, where workers are gathered.

The 4-foot by 4-foot hole is in front of the club and appears to be near a new water main on Southern Boulevard, the alert said. Utility crews from West Palm Beach secured the sinkhole and likely will be doing exploratory excavation today.

A sinkhole has opened near President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach. Eleanor Roy / Daily News

Via Joe.My.God., where you will also find the Twitter reaction -- because nothing happens these days without a Twitter reaction.

Karma's a Bitch

Via Joe.My.God.:

As we are repeatedly instructed, God uses hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, and lethal diseases to punish people for sinning. This week the Lord Almighty aimed his Holy Wrath at Louisiana, where among the thousands of people made homeless by flooding is hate group leader Tony Perkins, who reports that he had to escape his destroyed home by canoe.

Perkins is on vacation this month, but today he called into his own radio show to lament the “biblical proportion” disaster that will allegedly force his family to live in a camper for the six months it will take to rebuild his home.

So, can we assume that Perkins will get the message?

Nah.

Maybe they can find a nice double-wide for rent nearby.


The photo was posted to Facebook by Perkins. Via New Civil Rights Movement. There's also this little tidbit:

Perkins, who was on vacation when the flood hit, is currently serving as interim pastor at Greenwell Springs Baptist Church. He said the flood damaged the church and has affected 80 percent of its members.

There's a lesson there.

The Culture of Suffering

Interesting post by David Atkins at Hullabaloo on what I can only call the culture of suffering in America:

Why do so many Americans feel so strongly that pain is morally good?

Assisted suicide is in the news again after Stephen Hawking came out in support of it. For some reason it remains a controversial question whether people wracked with terminal illnesses should be able to bring an end to their own suffering. Apparently many Americans feel it's the the greater moral good for dying people to spend an extra few months excruciatingly experiencing every organ failure until a painful, convulsing release finally sets them free. Why is that?

That's just the beginning -- he hits the war on the poor, police terrorism, torture as a legitimate tool of war, and ends up with this:

What is it in the American psyche that seems to be in love with the idea of forced pain as an instrument of terrestrial and divine justice?

I have an easy, one-word answer: Our so-called Judaeo-Christian culture. (Well, OK, it's not exactly one word. Say "Christianity" then.) We tend not to realize the way the basic thought patterns of that religious tradition have infused our entire world view. We see things in terms of absolute dichotomies: good/evil, either/or, black/white. The universe doesn't work that way.

And it's a tradition built on the idea of suffering as a moral good. Christianity itself is centered on the Passion: the pain and suffering of the Christ.* The goal of the good Christian is to be as much like Christ as possible. And not incidentally, there is a strand of Christian thought that holds that the purpose of life on earth is to endure suffering in the hope of eternal reward. (Lest you think Judaism is exempt from this idea, think of Job.) Both Judaism and Christianity rest on the idea of punishment: we are all born sinners, and therefore deserve to be punished. (Needless to say, that's not an idea that appeals to me -- my own take is that new lives are born pure, and I'm not too keen on the idea of being punished for something that a theoretical ancestor did way back when, especially when it was more breaking the rules than being absolutely evil.)

Of course, people being what they are, all this pain and suffering are even more enjoyable when they're happening to other people. That ties into the whole tribal nature of the Judaic base of Christianity: it's Us against Them, and they deserve whatever we can dish out. (Interestingly enough, Christianity dropped the exclusivity of Judaism early on, and wound up being fairly syncretistic in many respects -- the timing and trappings of Christmas and Easter, the appropriation of Pagan holy sites, the tendency to co-opt the gods of other religions by canonizing them -- St. Brigid comes to mind, not to mention St. Nicholas. But some sects, at least, seem to have backtracked to that insular mentality.)

It seems fairly obvious to me that the "punishment and suffering" culture that Atkins decries can be considered a feature, not a bug. It's just part of our cultural foundation out in the open.


* I take Christ as an avatar of the Sacrificed God, who shows up in just about every religious tradition I can think of. The difference is that Christianity denies the existence of any of the other gods, and it's their stories that tend to bring the whole thing back into some sort of perspective.

Stunned (Updated)

One thing I've noticed about the reports on the Romney camp -- and the right in general -- post-election is that they are really, truly stunned by the loss. There's lots of speculation as to why -- Maha has what I think is a good take on it:

The right-wing world view is based on a faith in several unsupported assumptions, one of which is that a solid majority of American citizens share their views, and liberal/progressive beliefs are held only by a shadowy elite fringe of egghead academics and aging hippies (never mind that “elite hippie” is something of an oxymoron) plus angry and demanding nonwhites, various “pervents” like gays and feminists, and foreign infiltrators. In the rightie mind, all of those groups added together make a big enough minority to be of concern in a national election, especially with that voter fraud thing going on. But still, a minority.

After all, the press has been telling them for years that America is a center-right nation. They just decided to ignore the "center" part of it. I'm not even sure about the "right" part -- I suspect that most Americans are like me: we want responsible government that doesn't spend itself into a hole regularly, or at least not a very deep one, and that stays out of people's personal lives.

Update: They just don't get it. Here's Peggy Noonan on what the Republicans need to do to recover:

Noonan, however, says Republicans don't need to rethink their principles such as limited government, but how to present such ideas. . . .

"One of the things I think the party will have to do now is listen to certain voices, such as up here in New York, Heather Higgins of IWF (Independent Women's Forum). She has been some time to party political professionals the answer is not to drill deep into the base; the answer is to expand the base. And that is through going to people, that is through conversation, that is through talking to them about the issues that they case about. It is not operating from 'up here' with big ads that just press people's buttons; it's operating in a way like the Obama campaign did. It's going down on to the ground and talking to people. It's labor intensive, but it's a way of growing. It's a wake of persuading people, which I think Republicans have gotten kind of bad at," she said.

"Kind of bad at." Yeah, you could say that. What's key here, and where Noonan is missing completely, is that part about not rethinking their principles. Granted, she's probably thinking of the stated principles -- the small government thing -- but not about the actual principles -- small government for the 1%, Uncle Sam peering over your shoulder for everyone else. She doesn't get it. (I fail to understand why Noonan is considered a "respected political commentator.")

David Atkins has a better take on it.

But did the Republicans really believe that women, youth, minorities, and educated folk wouldn't recognize a visceral threat to our existence when we saw it? That we wouldn't turn out to vote? That we wouldn't do everything in our power to prevent the measures of our lives from being determined by these people?

Of course, they could always respond with threats.

Footnote: Digby has what I have to consider the cherry on top.

He's Out

From ABC News.

Cue the Obama-bashers.

Sow, and You Will Reap

Somehow, being the mean sort of bastard I am, I find stories like this one heartwarming. From WaPo:

A year ago, the Mortgage Bankers Association was thrilled to sign a contract to buy a fancy new headquarters building in downtown Washington. Interest rates were low, the group's revenues were steady and the prospects for quickly renting out part of the structure were strong.

But since then, the association has fallen on tough times as many of the subprime mortgages dispensed by some of its members proved dicey. Borrowers discovered the loans were more costly than they had anticipated. Foreclosures soared, and cheap, inexpensive credit dried up, slowing the economy.

The result: The trade group is about to find it harder than it imagined to pay its own mortgage.

Scheduled to close on the building in the coming weeks, the association will have to pay millions of dollars more than it would have a year ago when it contracted to buy the 160,000-square-foot structure -- millions of dollars it is now less able to afford.

I can't hardly add to that.