Wednesday, September 05, 2012

TENDING TOWARDS THE PECULIAR

"We’re not going let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers," Neil Newhouse, the Romney campaign’s pollster, said last week during a breakfast discussion at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, sponsored by ABC News and Yahoo News. He said that fact-checkers brought their own sets of thoughts and beliefs to their work. Link
cf.The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.” George Orwell
Cartoon Tom Toles, here

Tending distinctly towards peculiar, for me at least, was the reaction of a majority of The Great Unwashed from both sides of the political divide, to the speech/performance of Clint Eastwood at the Rebublican Convention last week, it ranged from determined po-facedness to outright nastiness. I guess I have to excuse native-born Americans, who weren't, unless exceptionally lucky, brought up on a diet of The Goons, Monty Python, and Spitting Image. The only response to Clint Eastwood's contribution to the Republican Convention anywhere near my own reaction, after having watched a video recording, was at a blog called Corrente: Two Cheers for Clint Eastwood. ...Anyway, Clint's monologue reminded me of the photograph (above left) - we found the old seat in the foyer of an abandoned theatre somewhere in Texas.


And....spotted in (would ya believe?)Sweetwater, Texas:



From elsewhere on our past travels: messages (from the Twilight Zone?):







"I gess they're hart is in the write plase" (hat-tip to husband for the caption - and he changed name of the BB-que joint to protect the innocently spell-check-less ):


Must I?



Seen in a local supermarket carpark. Erm....in time honoured tradition ... "You might very well think that; I couldn't possibly comment."




This (below) wouldn't seem peculiar in some locations - but in deepest bible-thumping, Tea-partying Texas it stood out like a sore, topless thumb. Evidence of a Texas Resistance Movement?



The Beetles, in a field in the middle-of-nowhere:



8 comments:

mike said...

Regarding your introduction about fact-checkers and objective truth, the adage "history is written by the victorious" comes to my mind. Thanks...

mike (again) said...

The current politics of creating lies and deceit are tremendously abetted by a large fraction of the public too eager to accept the dispositions of truth in support of their own rancor. I assume that to be a vibration of the current Uranus square Pluto aspect.

Twilight said...

Mike ~~ Hi! Yes history, especially political history, needs to be read with extreme caution!
:-)
Re 2nd comment - agreed. Good point! The Uranus/Pluto square could be what is helping to highlight these non-truths, make us more sensitive to them and aware. At other times crafty lies and half-truths could have slipped quietly under the radar.... no doubt many have done so in the past.

JD said...

oh!
Topless Lunches :)
that made me laugh out loud or should that be LOUD!!
:)

p.s.
might steal some of those for NourObsc :)

Twilight said...

JD ~~ Me too, at the time. I spotted the sign as we drove past, then insisted we should go back to get a shot of it.

Yes, do steal away - have at it, JD! :-)

James Higham said...

Quite clever really - after all, he is an empty chair, a dissembler and largely unknown. At least the chair was what it was.

Twilight said...

James Higham ~~ It was clever, true! Those who scoffed at Clint Eastwood and his advanced years, put it down to "dementia" were actually missing a few switches themselves. The guy could buy & sell most of 'em mentally.

R J Adams said...

Thanks for reminding us how nutty and eccentric America is (Like, we needed reminding!).

;-)