Saturday, March 19, 2005

19 March 2005

For My Sister, Nefertiri.....
Valet Chariot Parking - 85 shekels....
Love ya, Babe!

The Dogs of War
This blog wasn't up when the excerpts from James C. Dobson's The Strong-Willed Child: Birth Through Adolescence were being drawn out last December. (You can get it at amazon now for, like, 9 cents, used and new! The customer reviews are insightful.). Posting about our dachshund, however, reminded me of this post from Digby. And then Eugene Volokh pops up with a defense of the satisfactions of torture and executions for the edification and entertainment of the mob (or the masses or the volk - I get lost there...), from which he seems now to withdraw. It's difficult to say what Volokh is defending, with all the caveats and defenses, but I don't think he's in favor of beating doggies - just, under certain circumstances, men and women and children if we think they are bad. I don't know what new class of bad people these villains constitute, but they must be worse than any Commies or Nazis we have ever seen in nearly a century, or we wouldn't even think about subjecting them to common 16th or 17th century executions - public celebrations of retribution, revenge, and moral catharsis. The feel-good ceremony of the day, exclusively on FOX. And bring the kiddies.

Where the fuck did this notion come from? [I have a good idea, but I'm leaving the field open until the next post.]

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