» Are liberals crazy? Keep reading | ABQ Journal By Leslie Linthicum / Of the Journal on Thu, May 2, 2013

From a study published in “Biology,” MRIs of self-reported liberals found more volume in the anterior cingulate cortex of the brain, which provides tolerance to uncertainty, whereas self-reported conservatives had more volume in the right amygdala, where fear is processed.

From another study published in “Current Biology”: “In general, liberals are more open-minded, creative, curious, and novelty seeking, whereas conservatives are more orderly, conventional, and better organized.” And another study in the journal “Dreaming” that is even less responsive to your question but still interesting found conservatives slept more soundly and had mundane dreams while liberals were more restless sleepers with bizarre dreams.

» Are liberals crazy? Keep reading | ABQ Journal

I resisted linking to a study that showed that when packaging compared energy efficient bulbs to wasteful bulbs without comment, conservatives and liberals both bought energy efficiency. But when packaging added environmental messages, conservatives shunned those bulbs. peace, mjh

Are liberals crazy? Keep reading by Leslie Linthicum is a post from: mjh's blog. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh

On hate mail and the state of the Union – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com

“We stand together,” I had written. “We stand defiant. And we stand with Boston.”

You disagreed.

“Your wrong pal we do not STAND TOGETHER. OH MY GOD we need a CIVIL WAR. The American people against the LIBERAL DEMACRAT SCUM that we have let allow SCUMBAGS like those that would BLOW UP people in BROAD DAYLIGHT to be here . . . WE NEED A CIVIL WAR. Those demacrats that happen to still be breathing after that CIVIL WAR will have a choice. BECOME NORMAL or you are LEAVING with the 11 million illegals that ARE GOING HOME . . . THIS IS SO CLOSE TO HAPPENING THAT EVERY LIBERAL IN THIS COUNTRY SHOULD START LOSING SLEEP . . . THERE IS A CLEAR REASON WHY WE ARE ARMED TO THE TEETH . . . ”

And you know, there was a time, not so long ago, I’d have laughed off your semi-coherent, misspellings-riddled rant. But I don’t laugh so much anymore, because you concretize a question I have been struggling with: Is America sustainable? Can a nation pulling so energetically in opposite directions survive? …

[Liberals] have nothing on the army of Hannitys, Coulters, Savages, Santorums, Limbaughs, Palins, Bachmanns, Malkins, Nugents, Trumps and Becks trolling the sewers of American disunion.

Now, to them, we add you, my nameless countryman, advocating for war. War. …

[i}f it is really beyond us now even to stand shoulder to shoulder with stricken fellow citizens, then we have lost more than bombs could ever destroy. And secession has already occurred.

On hate mail and the state of the Union – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com

On hate mail and the state of the Union – Leonard Pitts Jr. is a post from: mjh's blog. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh

RIDERS OF THE WHEEL: A New Look At Wheat…And Our Plans

“I would like to see every single soldier on every single side, just take off your helmet, unbuckle your kit, lay down your rifle, and set down at the side of some shady lane, and say, nope, I ain’t a gonna kill nobody. Plenty of rich folks wants to fight. Give them the guns." ~ Woody Guthrie

RIDERS OF THE WHEEL: A New Look At Wheat…And Our Plans

Of course, rich folks got the guns, and the soldiers and police to shoot them.

“Plenty of rich folks wants to fight. Give them the guns.” — Woody Guthrie is a post from: mjh's blog. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh

Suddenly, Americans in large numbers (and the media, too) started noticing how extreme, even wacky, the rhetoric of the gun manufacturers’ lobby has become. Its talk about representing the “real America” was exposed as a fraud: “Real” Americans don’t resist pragmatic solutions to the problems of mass violence.

Oh, yes, and it was also finally noticed that a majority of Americans doesn’t own guns, that gun ownership has dropped over time and that this real majority does not want to be forced to live in a world in which everyone is terrorized into buying a weapon.

E.J. Dionne Jr.: The miracle on guns – The Washington Post

“Suddenly, Americans … started noticing how extreme, even wacky, the rhetoric of the gun manufacturers’ lobby has become.” is a post from: mjh's blog. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh

It’s hard to think of a position that’s more mainstream than Hoover’s. Universal background checks are supported by 91 percent of Americans and 92 percent of Republicans. One of the only groups that publicly opposes universal background checks are the NRA’s lobbyists.

If Congress succeeds in passing universal background checks and other commonsense gun laws, it will be because it’s not a polarizing issue, but one that’s nearly universally supported.

Transcript below the fold:

HOOVER: We’ve had so many issues over the years, so many killings, and for us just to say we’re not going to do anything is unacceptable, because we’ve been doing nothing up to this point. We’ve been given the right to own and bear arms, but we also need to show that we are responsible in how we deal with the gun issue. We need a framework to say that we need background checks on every individual that buys a gun. If you are a reasonable and responsible gun owner—as I am, and I’ve grown up hunting, shooting, my daughter, I take her out shooting—she’s been taught that with the right comes responsibility. Nobody wants somebody to purchase a firearm that shouldn’t have a firearm. And that includes sales that happen currently on the Internet, and private sales. It’s just responsible. This is not something about [Republican and Democrat], this is about doing what’s responsible and right for our communities and our country. If anybody can be prevented from getting that phone call that I got at 2:37am from my sister, it’s worth it. You gotta stop this.

WATCH: A Republican Whose Nephew Was Killed In Aurora Explains In 80 Seconds Why We Need Stronger Gun Laws | ThinkProgress

Universal background checks are supported by 91 percent of Americans. is a post from: mjh's blog. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh

Editorial: Pity Rick Perry; his big state has big needs – Editorials – The Sacramento Bee

Check out a state [Texas] that ranks dead last in the percent of its population with high school diplomas. Come check out a state that is last in mental health expenditures and workers’ compensation coverage. Come check out a state that ranks first in the number of executions, first in the number of uninsured, first in the amount of carbon dioxide emitted and first in the amount of toxic chemicals released into water. …

Gov. Jerry Brown, visiting a UPS distribution center Tuesday to celebrate a new fleet of all-electric vehicles, suggested that media hounds find something else to cover than the Perry ads. "It’s not a serious story, guys," the governor told reporters. "It’s not a burp. It’s barely a fart."

Actually, we think it’s more than a fart. It’s a cry for help. Perry can’t create jobs, he can only steal them from other states. …

As the late Molly Ivins said of her native Texas, "It’s a low-tax, low-service state – so shoot us. The only depressing part is that, unlike Mississippi, we can afford to do better. We just don’t."

Editorial: Pity Rick Perry; his big state has big needs – Editorials – The Sacramento Bee

As the late Molly Ivins said of her native Texas, "… unlike Mississippi, we can afford to do better. We just don’t." [ht @edbott] is a post from: mjh's blog. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh

Gun debate should be about facts, not fantasy – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com

This “serious conversation,” remember, got started on December 14, with a massacre in a quiet little New England town. Since that day, the shooting has not stopped, nor even slowed.

In Miami Gardens on Jan. 17, a 15-year-old boy was shot and killed.

In Albuquerque on Jan. 19, a 15-year-old boy allegedly shot his parents and three of his siblings to death.

In Houston on Jan. 22, three people were shot on a community college campus.

In Chicago on Jan. 29, a 15-year-old girl who’d performed at President Obama’s inauguration was shot to death.

And in that same city, six days later, Shirley Chambers buried her last child. Ronnie Chambers, like all three of his siblings before him, was killed by gunfire. How must it feel to have lost all your children to guns? That is not hypothetical. It is one woman’s tragic reality.

Too many deranged or criminal people have access to too much firepower and we are paying the price in carnage and blood. This is the ordinary everyday of American life — and death. That’s what we should be talking about. Not LaPierre’s doomsday scenarios or Trotter’s old movie plots.

They ask us to consider what could happen. Better we consider what does.

Gun debate should be about facts, not fantasy – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com

Gun debate should be about facts, not fantasy – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com is a post from: mjh's blog. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh

I don’t hate responsible gun owners. Several of my friends have guns. I have fired a rifle more than once and wasn’t bad at target shooting, though I much prefer archery or throwing rocks.

I believe corporations exist for one reason above all others: to make a few people rich. They make the top executives rich while screwing labor. They make the board rich, while bribing the watchdogs. Corporations pretend to serve their customers, but they actually serve a few people at the top.

To my mind, the NRA is a corporation. Its board is the Gun Industry, which only profits by selling weapons of destruction — the more, the better. The NRA funnels vast amounts of money into a few hands. In the process, the NRA claims to represent the interests of all of its members, in theory, the interests of every single gun owner. The NRA does NOT represent the interests of reasonable people.

If you own a gun, if you like guns, if you love guns, peace unto you. If you are a member of the NRA, kick some sense into its leadership.

I have a rhetorical style that is less moderate than I am, taken in my entirety. I don’t apologize for my passion, but I do regret that my anger puts some people off. Sometimes, I agree that “if you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.” People are dying. Other people are growing rich off of that death — why would they try to reduce it or tolerate anyone who did try?

I don’t hate responsible gun owners. I hate the Gun Industry. is a post from: mjh's blog. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh

The Strangest NRA Story Yet – The Daily Beast by Michael Tomasky

It virtually goes without saying that the keepers of such lists are always the bullies who survive by fomenting hatred and making sure that their constituents stay in a state of constant agitation. And so it was no surprise to learn over the weekend, via Josh Marshall, that the National Rifle Association has a little list of 497 people and organizations who are in some way, shape, or form anti-gun. It makes for hilarious reading, although it’s sort of frightening to think about the demented minds of the people who assembled it. …

It’s funny, isn’t it, how it’s always people on the right who keep these lists. … [T]he swamps in which these fevers have arisen in our history have been almost entirely right wing. …

The good news is that paranoid psychotics usually do themselves in. McCarthy and Nixon certainly did. I know everyone keeps talking about how powerful the NRA is, and that’s true. But the more they’re in the spotlight, the worse they look. …

The Strangest NRA Story Yet – The Daily Beast

The NRA: armed and paranoid is a post from: mjh's blog. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh

That distinction goes to one Larry Ward, who claimed in an appearance on CNN that Martin Luther King would have supported Ward’s call for a Gun Appreciation Day “if he were alive today.” In other words, the premiere American pacifist of the 20th century would be singing the praises of guns, except that he was shot in the face with one 45 years ago.

Thus do social conservatives continue to rewrite the inconvenient truths of African-American history, repurposing that tale of incandescent triumph and inconsolable woe to make it useful within the crabbed corners of their failed and discredited dogma.

On guns, conservatives rewrite, disrespect African-American history – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com

“the stupidest thing anyone has said recently about the Civil Rights Movement…”- Leonard Pitts Jr. is a post from: mjh's blog. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh