Trump, July 2017: Tweet more

The 'says who?' guy has his troubles:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/02/us/politics/michael-cohen-donald-trump.html

But learns from the master:

Like Mr. Trump, he lashes out at critics on Twitter, where he also spends quite a bit of time fighting with anonymous critics, or trolls — calling them “haters” and “idiots,” sometimes within the comment threads of Mr. Trump’s tweets.

In one such exchange last week, a Twitter user named Corvetteman, who has 88 followers and a profile photograph of an orange cat, called Mr. Cohen “a joke.” Mr. Cohen replied: “Reminder...@realDonaldTrump won! Wake up #hater.”

I am also now remembering a while back (post 9/11, pre-Obama) my dad had a neighbor who was nasty to him about being Muslim in a series of escalating incidents (my stepmother does wear hijab). I remember telling him he needed to make a big stink about it and that his other neighbors would have his back. he seemed less confident about that than I was. now I wonder if I was wrong. he's a pediatrician and he had cared for some of those neighbors' kids. at the time I couldn't imagine they'd be okay with him getting harassed on the daily.

Speaking as someone who is currently required to read the Bible (mostly double-checking quotes) for a freelance project, uh, fuck no they shouldn't.

― grawlix (unperson), Monday, 3 July 2017 04:00 (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Is it the mandatory nature that you're against, or do you consider it, like, a dangerous book?

more that it's really boring

Genesis, Judges, the Chronicles, and the Kings are where it's at imo.

I think it also helps to read what Biblical scholars have to say (both the religious folk and the agnostics like Bart Ehrman). the latter is really eye-opening and he writes in a very easy to follow format for laymen.

the Bible is great

I suppose I could imagine reading an annotate edition, like "The Annotate Alice" or something. We're talking the Old Testament, right? I'd totally read that or the Koran, thought just a lifetime of Jew stuff, however casual, as exposed me to most of the former, I suspect.

I just read the dirty parts.

Well, yeah. I bet the copy fell right open to them.

The Bible contains both great literature and "pernicious nonsense" (I think that's a Penn Jillette quote, someone I'm generally not apt to quote)

it's more for me that I got my fill of it the 4 years I spent in a Fundie church and their stupid interpretation of it ruined the parts I liked even though I knew the Methodists (where I grew up) had a far more forgiving look at things.

but understanding what Fundies think about it, or Baptists, or any of the fire and brimstone crowd does allow you some deeper insight into why these people are so impossible to appease on everything.

When I started buying music in my teens, I was amazed at how many lyrics are straight lifts from or homages to Old and New Testament verse.

"Turn, Turn, Turn"!

"harvester of sorrow - language of the dead!" or wait was that lovecraft

"what you got i want to give it put it in you". no?

Metallica did have "Creeping Death" tho that was more the Bible by way of C.C. Demille

i.e. how most people know the Bible.

bible by way of cc deville

Didn't Jesus say "every rose has its thorn?" I think so.

it was close enough to get bill and ted into heaven iirc

I think I first heard the line that goes "wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever" in Portishead. Then I read saw the same lines in Innocents Abroad, and thought it interesting that Mark Twain was into Portishead. It comes from the Book of Jude.

the Bible is what it is, people have used it for good and for evil. it's not a collection of magical words that turn normal people into assholes. it's been a cultural channel for thousands of years for all kinds of people spanning power structures from slave to king. if a Bible-literate atheist were to be politically active they would be far more effective in debating/illustrating the nuance than wholly rejecting it. seceding it wholly to fundies is the stupidest move possible but i know dems are all about them idiotic culture wars rn.

it's an arbitrary selection from thousands of Xtian writings.

personally I wish everybody's read the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which is of course nonsense but p hilarious:

Most Delightfully Evil Thing Young Jesus Does in "The Infancy Gospel of Thomas" - a POLL

and god said unto moses 'it is what it is'

and Jesus said to the adoring crowd: "give a fan a fish and he will be fed for a day. Teach a man to fish, he'll be fed for a lifetime. This of course will not do, privatize fish IMO".

thou shalt not kill - and here's why

So, this Charlie Gard thing. He's going full fundie, right?

the prospect of trump helming a terri schiavo reboot is not a promising one, right enough

Unlike Schiavo, there's a natural limit, the 15 neonates with RRM2B-related encephalomyopathic mitochondrial DNA depletion have all died in months.

Glad the NHS is misspending scarce funds (keeping the kid on life support) to spare these parents of the circus of hope US Fundies would put them through.

I open the Trump thread and get 35 straight posts about the Bible? Fellas, he doesn't read.

http://www.academiccomposition.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/pot-kettle.jpg

preferring the Old Testament is fine but it's kind of a played-out opinion that ppl love to trot out for whatever reason. The New Testament is a fantastic read. The Gospel of John is a total headfuck to read right after the Synoptic Gospels. And the Pauline epistles are unrelenting.

The Old Testament gave me huge anxiety as a child

Like legit trepidation and fear.

uh yeah. on balance I wish I had never even heard of the bible.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/513Xw6c1nAL.jpg

Adam otm

Xps

to swing things back toward the political zone a bit, i'm finishing up reza aslan's Zealot and would recommend it for anyone interested in actual jesus. it's written at about an 8th grade level so it's possible that someone like trump could actually get through a few paragraphs

people have used it for good and for evil

And to swat flies, and to prop up uneven table legs...

the thin pages of your typical gideon edition make reasonable rolling papers when you're in a jam iirc

LIFEHACK

it's written at about an 8th grade level so it's possible that someone like trump could actually get through a few paragraphs

Does it also have pictures, and include his name in bold print every third sentence or so?

his special edition will replace all mentions of jesus with 'trump'

YOU MENTALISTS

the point is that the doctor is being forced by his circumstances into reading a scripture he may well have little interest in sorting out

yet all around him are people with zero inclination to do that with his

> It is difficult to place Trump squarely within any of the known religiopolitical movements of his time. He was a man of profound contradictions, one day preaching a message of racial exclusion, the next, of benevolent universalism; sometimes calling for unconditional peace, sometimes promoting violence and conflict.

war is peace, iirc

he is large, multituding is easy.

cool party

Per Playbook, Jared and Ivanka were at a party in the Hamptons yesterday with George Soros and Schumer, hosted by a former owner of WaPo pic.twitter.com/xbOXPdQb33

— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) July 2, 2017