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Andrew Sullivan today writes of “The Palinite know-nothing neurotic nationalism.” (He also links to a very interesting article in that post, so check it out.)

I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say “know-nothing neurotic”–the Republicans, the Tea Party and Palin seem to exhibit rather typical, run-of-the-mill nationalism to me. But you gotta love the alliteration, and the important thing is to recognize the driving force of the Tea Party–and thus, the Republican party–for what it is.

Incidentally, The Eclectic Iconoclast has a good post today about the Tea Party’s idealization of the Founding Fathers that helps explain this behavior. Basically, from what I can tell, nationalists usually believe that in their nation’s past it was a splendid paradise, and that the present-day imperfections are the result of a decline in National spirit and traditions and the rise of decadent cosmopolitanism, which must be stopped before the country can return to its past glory.

As the Iconoclast mentions, it’s an old, old idea; obviously calling to mind the story of the Garden of Eden and the supposed “fallen” nature of humanity. Perhaps that’s why it resonates with so many people–it’s a “universal theme”. (I’ve read about this sort of stuff before, somewhere–the works of Joseph Campbell, probably–though I can’t remember all the details.)

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Okay, that’s probably too fancy a term for what I did to this blog just now. Anyway, I’ve been meaning to add a list of my favorite blogs on here for a while now, and since P M Prescott and thingy both link to me, I realized I ought to return the favor.

But once I did that, it made for too much stuff on the right side of blog, so I moved the archive down to the bottom of the page.

It seems like a minor change to me, but if for some reason you hate it, feel free to say so in the comments on this post.

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Writes Andrew C. McCarthy:

“The energy and the logic on the right wants Big Government dismantled. Very simply, it has been tried for almost 80 years, it does not work, it cannot work — not if you accept that there is a human nature and that it will always assert itself.”

Really, it just “does not work”? Like, at all? So, everything has just been rotten for us since 1933?

Economically speaking, from about 1953 to 1968 was about as good as it got for the USA, or really anywhere in the world. And, of course, “Big Government” did win us a little thing called World War II.

I’m not a big fan of “Big Government”. I think FDR was and is rather overrated as a President. But you can’t just ignore history.

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Via Andrew Sullivan, a very interesting interview with Tom Bissell, author of Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter. He’s arguing for why video games should be seen as an art form. I’d never heard of him before, but he’s clearly a very smart guy, and he’s doing good work to combat anti-video game bigotry.

There’s just one problem: he doesn’t realize just how right he is about games. For example, he says:

“A lot of video game storytelling is phenomenally good: BioShock, Portal, Left 4 Dead, Red Dead Redemption, Mass Effect.”  

I can’t vouch for Bioshock, Left 4 Dead or RDR. ME and Portal are both better than average game stories, for sure. But why the hell isn’t Planescape: Torment in there? That game towers over those other titles.

At the end of the interview, Bissell describes his ideal, not yet in existence, video game:

“I’d love to see a game in which problems were spread out before the gamer that did not have easy or even obvious solutions. A game in which decisions were largely irrevocable, and made you commit to the choices you make. A game in which characters seemed something more than nth-generation Xeroxes of action-movie heroes. A game that offered a world with no good guys and bad guys, but people with equally intricate and complicated belief systems. A game that left people stunned by the variety of human experience, in other words. A game in which not every obstacle was a puzzle or an enemy, but something spiritual, maybe, or moral, or personal.”

Then get thee to the work of Chris Avellone, posthaste! He has made several such games. In fact, basically every game Obsidian Entertainment has ever made fulfills at least some of those requirements.

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I’ve been reading through this collection of Christine O’Donnell quotes. Some of them don’t seem very odd, but others seem like something Steven Heck, the insane secret agent in the game Alpha Protocol, would say.

What especially interested me though, was this:

 “Appearing on Political Incorrect with Bill Maher, O’Donnell explained the importance of truth-telling, refusing to even entertain the notion of lying when a gust [sic] asked if she would tell the truth Nazis looking for Jews hiding in her home. “I believe if I were in that situation, God would provide a way to do the right thing righteously. I believe that! … You never have to practice deception””

Quite a stupid answer, no doubt. To be fair to O’Donnell, though, I’m not sure what the point of such a question is, other than to bait her into a can’t-win situation.

And seriously, why do people feel a need to bring the Nazis into all political discussions?

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I have a nice new pair of headphones sitting beside me as I write this. I bought them because I would love to open them and use them to listen to some music.

The problem is that they have been hermetically sealed inside some sort of seemingly impenetrable material. The layman will tell you the material is plastic, but I am pretty sure it is some kind of translucent Chobham armor.

If, when the headphone case had first been forged in the fires of Hell, it had been molded into some normal shape, such as, oh, I don’t know, let’s say a square, they would still be accessible to someone equipped with the necessary, (though as yet uninvented) super-powerful cutting device.  

But it was not so shaped. Instead, it was shaped so as to fit snugly around the headphones, so that even if I had something powerful enough to cut through the damn stuff–for example, a lightsaber–no matter what angle I cut from, I will be cutting towards some vital part of the headphones, such as the cord or the cloth coverings over the earpieces.

I give up. There is simply no way of gaining access to the headphones without destroying them.  I shall leave them alone and allow them to be puzzled over by the physicists of some future civilization.

Okay, in all seriousness now, who decided that everything must now be so damn hard to open? I know, nobody wants some kid hurting himself by opening things he shouldn’t, but this is ridiculous. A person’s more likely to get hurt trying to open things then by actual thing.

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…or, more appropriately perhaps, “blogger’s block”. I like the sound of that better.

I don’t know why. It isn’t for lack of things to blog about, that’s for sure. It’s more that I lack the energy to write about any of them in a way that contributes something meaningful to the issue.

Usually when this happens I fall back on just posting a favorite quote. But I’ve done a lot of those lately, and since it is my blog I feel like it ought to contain mostly my thoughts, no matter how much better other people’s may have been.

Oh, well. I’m sure I’ll get over it. I have already managed to thwart it for one day by blogging about being unable to blog.

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Quoted in Der Spiegel, the German business daily Handelsblatt says of the Tea Party:

 In the US…  ‘Right-wing’ represents Reagan, religion, the free market, individualism, patriotism and small government. In reality, it is an impossible mixture: National pride, God and tradition are conservative ‘us’ values. The profit motive, competition and a weak state are ‘me-first’ sentiments .

Quite right. This is the major fault line that runs through the Republican party, and has ever since Nixon.

If the Tea Party does gain much power, I expect quite a struggle between these two groups.

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Summer is just about officially over.

I have to confess, I don’t really like the Summer; which I think puts me in the minority. Oh, sure; there are great things about it–the long days, the fact that you’ll almost never be prevented from driving somewhere by bad weather–but it’s my least favorite of all the seasons.

Part of it is simply that I don’t much like the heat. But another part of it is the way it’s always so damned bright and cheerful. Long days are good, but there’s something so clear and carefree about them that it frankly annoys me.

I have kind of a melancholy sensibility, and so I like days that have a tinge of that about them. Thus, I love the Fall because there are hints in the changing of the leaves and the cold winds that suggest the coming winter.

Yes, I know I’m a strange person. Thanks for asking.