tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4053290565134797872023-11-15T08:15:37.317-05:00Provocateur at Large"Provocateur" is Jack Feldman, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He has also been employed in the Departments of Management at the University of Florida, Gainesville (1972-1985) and the University of Texas at Arlington (1985-1986.) He is a Fellow of The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology and a Charter Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science.
ProvocateurAtLargehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04056243275456158111noreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-405329056513479787.post-2324060934938771492015-05-06T15:19:00.000-04:002015-05-06T15:19:36.687-04:00Two Topics: Baltimore and Anti-Semitism
Things fall apart; the
centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon
the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is
loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is
drowned;
The best lack all
convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate
intensity.
...And what rough beast,
its hour come round at last,
slouches toward Bethlehem to
be born?
<!--[if gte mso 9]>
<![endif]-->ProvocateurAtLargehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04056243275456158111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-405329056513479787.post-83583920236847680882015-04-30T09:09:00.000-04:002015-04-30T09:09:31.052-04:00American Spirit
"The only good Indians I ever saw were dead."
Attributed to William T. Sherman
I smoke, and I like it, and have no intention of quitting. As the "Joe Camel" laws, akin to Jim Crow, multiply, I accommodate and simply don't go where I'm not wanted. I do sometimes wish my fellow smokers would show some courage and stage "smoke-ins" on, say, college campuses, where even outdoor ProvocateurAtLargehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04056243275456158111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-405329056513479787.post-18407903286734046612015-04-23T15:06:00.001-04:002015-04-23T15:06:26.532-04:00Why I Won't Watch Daredevil Again
“The object of terrorism is terrorism. The object of oppression is oppression. The object of torture is torture. The object of murder is murder. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?”
― George Orwell, 1984
If you've read my earlier essay about "Comix" you know that I've always liked superhero stories, albeit with some serious recent reservations. I've ProvocateurAtLargehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04056243275456158111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-405329056513479787.post-50428527072272842622015-04-20T23:10:00.000-04:002015-04-27T18:00:56.967-04:00Free Speechifyin' At Valdosta State: Update
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
All you conservatives and libertarians who worry about the Second and Fourth Amendment's survival have evenProvocateurAtLargehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04056243275456158111noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-405329056513479787.post-16039984142655305042015-04-15T11:07:00.000-04:002015-04-16T16:08:35.825-04:00In Loco Parentis
"Liberals claim to want
to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover
that there are other views." --William F. Buckley Jr.
<!--[if gte mso 9]>
<![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 9]>
Normal
0
false
false
false
EN-US
JA
X-NONE
<![endif]ProvocateurAtLargehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04056243275456158111noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-405329056513479787.post-48334683084223959662015-04-10T18:56:00.000-04:002015-04-10T19:03:45.219-04:00I'm Back; Sheepdogs Revisited, AgainPreface: I'm back. Why the long hiatus? Because I felt that I didn't have anything unique to say. Amidst the multitude of crimes, horrors, disasters, humiliations, and follies visited upon the world by preening elites, spittle-spewing ideologues, and their mass-murdering followers, words failed me. So why now? Because several people, all at least as smart as I am and all demonstrably more ProvocateurAtLargehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04056243275456158111noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-405329056513479787.post-18371195530452936102013-09-06T18:42:00.000-04:002013-09-06T18:42:02.557-04:00Syria
<!--[if gte mso 9]>
Normal
0
0
1
15
87
1
1
106
11.1539
<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]>
0
0
0
<![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
“Don’t
hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft.”
Theodore Roosevelt
I hesitated to write about Syria, because I have neither military nor foreign policy expertise.* ProvocateurAtLargehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04056243275456158111noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-405329056513479787.post-77915100283257350912013-08-28T14:59:00.000-04:002013-08-28T14:59:19.657-04:00Talking About Race
If you're not a part of the solution, there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem.
Despair, Inc.
We hear a lot, recently, about the need to have a "racial conversation." Some use the Zimmerman/Martin case and its aftermath as the immediate stimulus, although those people have been conspicuously silent about Christopher Lane, Delbert Benton, and the beating of a white 13 yearProvocateurAtLargehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04056243275456158111noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-405329056513479787.post-82808953217916388392013-08-14T07:24:00.000-04:002013-08-14T07:24:25.702-04:00I Love Big Nanny<!--[if gte mso 9]>
Normal
0
0
1
73
417
3
1
512
11.1539
<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]>
0
0
0
<![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
"The dignity of man is
not shattered in a single blow, but slowly softened,
bent, and eventually
neutered. Men are seldom forced to
act, but are
constantly restrained from
acting. Such power ProvocateurAtLargehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04056243275456158111noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-405329056513479787.post-38955807415366352612013-07-22T10:45:00.000-04:002013-07-22T10:45:15.421-04:00The Zimmerman case, by someone who really knows.
I felt the need to write more about the Zimmerman case until I read Michael Yon's essay:
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/race-baiting-and-lies-in-america.htm
It's better, more thoughtful and more truthful, than I could have written, better than anyone else has written, and deserves your attention.ProvocateurAtLargehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04056243275456158111noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-405329056513479787.post-52391230972789078402013-07-13T22:38:00.000-04:002013-07-13T22:38:41.793-04:00Trials and Errors, Part 2
"Even when you win, you
get kicked in the head."
"Blinky"
Rodriguez, former world kickboxing champion
<!--EndFragment-->
A few minutes ago, George Zimmerman was acquitted of all charges. My prediction was wrong, and I'm delighted to have been wrong.
Of course, it's not over. There'll probably be a wrongful death suit. There'll be pontificating by "activists," and they might inspireProvocateurAtLargehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04056243275456158111noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-405329056513479787.post-47731353585617657512013-07-04T11:51:00.001-04:002013-07-04T23:04:50.550-04:00The Tax Men
<!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 0 1 47 271 2 1 332 11.1539 <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]> 0 0 0 <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment-->
"The apportionment of taxes...is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party ProvocateurAtLargehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04056243275456158111noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-405329056513479787.post-44853191703842862472013-06-27T12:51:00.000-04:002013-06-30T08:25:38.417-04:00Gay Abandon
"My dear, I don't care what they do, so long as they don't do it in the street and frighten the horses."
Mrs. Patrick Campbell, British actress
"Who do you love?"
George Thorogood
Yesterday 55.5% of the Supreme Court justices revealed their decision that same-sex marriage is a civil right, and by the way, if you disagree you're a nasty homophobic Kluxer. Further legal wrangling ProvocateurAtLargehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04056243275456158111noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-405329056513479787.post-80650615917061059082013-06-25T16:59:00.000-04:002013-06-30T08:31:04.749-04:00Trials and Errors
Jury selection is strictly an emotional process. They're looking for people they can manipulate. Both sides are.
Joseph Wambaugh
George Zimmerman will be convicted. I'm making this prediction based on inferences from one fact and 30 seconds of TV news coverage. Details follow.
The fact: The Zimmerman jury is all female. Women, for better or worse, are more easily persuaded by emotional ProvocateurAtLargehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04056243275456158111noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-405329056513479787.post-10161836232074048222013-06-24T17:00:00.000-04:002013-06-27T19:27:53.586-04:00Moral Panic
“Someone has said that it requires less mental effort to condemn than to think.” Emma Goldman
Once again the American public is being treated to a festival of gibbering and arm-waving over the statements of a semi-public figure. Charges of bigotry are flying like arrows in a 1950's cowboys-and Indians movie. Their target this time is Paula Deen, the chunky, (formerly) smiling ProvocateurAtLargehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04056243275456158111noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-405329056513479787.post-6012475685680158802013-05-14T17:33:00.000-04:002013-05-14T17:33:36.447-04:00Waiting for Photosynthesis
"In the strict scientific sense we all feed on death---even vegetarians."
Mr. Spock, Star Trek, "Wolf in the Fold."
It's common for us carnivores to stereotype vegetarians either as sissified, ineffectual wimps or self-righteous Puritans trying to impose their abstemious ideology on the rest of society. I did, too, when I was young and ignorant. Being no longer young and slightly less ProvocateurAtLargehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04056243275456158111noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-405329056513479787.post-14629877539398170622013-04-29T16:07:00.000-04:002013-04-30T07:32:38.905-04:00The Rat Model of Terrorism"By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation."
Edmund Burke
Consider the rat. Honed by natural selection, it is superbly adapted to its environment. It prospers in sewers, woods, deserts, plains, jungles (concrete or vegetable) and just about everywhere else. Its senses guide it through dark, narrow places. It gnaws or wriggles through most barriers. It eats ProvocateurAtLargehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04056243275456158111noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-405329056513479787.post-31148519382682339142013-04-23T07:34:00.000-04:002013-04-23T14:46:21.500-04:00Thoughts About Boston
Winning and Losing
"Another such victory, and we are undone."
Pyrrhus
Almost as soon as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was taken into custody, Bostonians ProvocateurAtLargehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04056243275456158111noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-405329056513479787.post-18863981308269707552013-04-13T17:16:00.000-04:002013-04-13T17:17:26.334-04:00Torches and Pitchforks
My plainness of speech makes them hate me,
and what is their hatred, if not proof that I am
speaking the truth?
Socrates
It's been a while. I haven't written because, frankly, I didn't feel that I had anything to say about current issues that someone else hadn't said first and maybe better than I could have.
There's no point in adding to the general clamor. But it's about time I provoked ProvocateurAtLargehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04056243275456158111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-405329056513479787.post-46316441626917316192013-03-22T23:07:00.000-04:002013-03-22T23:07:16.860-04:00Teens and Guns
<!--[if gte mso 9]>
Normal
0
0
1
18
106
1
1
130
11.1539
<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]>
0
0
0
<![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
"It ain't so much the
things you don't know that get you in trouble. It's the things you know that
just ain't so."
Artimus Ward
I'm a strong supporter of gun-rights initiatives, and adamantly opposed to ProvocateurAtLargehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04056243275456158111noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-405329056513479787.post-73742536892610679982013-03-14T22:30:00.003-04:002013-03-14T22:30:37.028-04:00Droning on....
It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself—anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face ... was ProvocateurAtLargehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04056243275456158111noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-405329056513479787.post-80866364560495645282013-03-06T15:26:00.003-05:002013-03-06T16:11:12.016-05:00Oy! Wilderness!!
"A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and ThouBeside me singing in the Wilderness--Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!"
The Rubaiyat of Omar Kayyam,
Quatrain XII: FitzGerald, 5th Edition
Sometimes ideas for these essays come from unexpected places. For instance, in the April Cycle World there is a paragraph in the "Roundup" section about the 1964 ProvocateurAtLargehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04056243275456158111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-405329056513479787.post-42675375774072779082013-02-26T18:48:00.002-05:002015-04-25T10:11:25.088-04:00Crime and Punishment, Part 4
"Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent."
Adam Smith
In Part 3 I discussed punishment for property crimes involving violence. Here I'm concerned with crimes whose goal is violence committed on an innocent person: rape, aggravated assault, murder, terrorism and other political/ideological violence, murder for profit, any crime in which people are injured due to "depraved ProvocateurAtLargehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04056243275456158111noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-405329056513479787.post-91803046304129230012013-02-19T13:45:00.001-05:002013-02-19T13:46:40.858-05:00Crime and Punishment, Part 3<!--[if gte mso 9]>
Normal
0
0
1
49
281
2
1
345
11.1539
<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]>
0
0
0
<![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
The gods
had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain,
whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some
reason that there is no more dreadful ProvocateurAtLargehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04056243275456158111noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-405329056513479787.post-90791217039560720542013-02-12T19:30:00.000-05:002013-02-13T09:36:46.251-05:00Crime and Punishment, Part 2The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.H.L. Menken
My first essay on this topic discussed punishment for relatively minor offenses, recommending public discomfort, shaming and humiliation rather than jail time or fines. This leaves open the question of more serious, perhaps violent crime. First, I think we should separate purely property crimes (ProvocateurAtLargehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04056243275456158111noreply@blogger.com1