Or God "knows"...take your pick. Here we go!
"Best-selling 'God' author faces plagiarism claim".
www.msnbc.com/id/28538509/
I thought all of these "god" writer people were born knowing that God had already written and read everything (Intelligent Design?), but apparently they are not beneath stealing from one another to sell books. Shocking.
"For Eastern Orthodox, gas crisis means chilly Christmas".
www.msnbc.com/id/28515983/
For most people in the US, we look forward to a white Christmas. But it seems that Russian energy moguls are not content unless Jesus freezes his little swathed ass off. Praise the Lord and pass the gasline.
"Fighting resumes In GAZA after truce for aid." Both sides mull cease fire plan; three hour pause for humanitarian supplies ends."
www.msnbc.com/id/28404637/
"What God hath wrought, let all men put asunder? " There will be a slight pause for food, water and penicillin before we resume pounding the living crap out of you, you filthy heathens." Is this the pause that refreshes?
This just in:
Obama announces the appointment of a "Waste Czar". A Chief Performance Officer. The pres-elect says his pre-election campaign promised more change, but that the way things are (not) going, we need "more change than that."
www.msnbc.com/id/28538966
I am not certain I like the idea of a government official (should be Czarina, anyway?) to oversee or manage waste. There is a company here called "Waste Management" and all they do is haul mountains of trash to the land fill, down the road. Maybe waste eliminator? Or "terminator"? Maybe we need Arnold? Maybe it should the Office of "Waist" Management. Then she could logically talk about tightening our fiscal belts and reducing our pork intake?
Then Harry called:
An email from Give 'em Hell, Harry. "Yesterday was a terrific day to be a Democrat". Seated seven new Senators (screw Roland Burris). But we have a slumping economy. OK. Got that part. Then down at the bottom:
Contribute
These miserable jerks just don't get it, do they?
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
The Three Witches
For a very long time now, I have lamented, railed against, screamed about and been oftentimes completely incensed by the (almost impossible to ignore) fact that the United States of America has been and is being run by gray-haired, old men, in expensive suits (Barack Obama excepted, although I hear the gray hair thing is already started.). Bill Clinton and George W, Bush, our two most recent top dogs, didn’t start out their tenures with gray hair, but would you look at them now! Wow!
A note, here: I have seen countless portraits and portrayals of the founding fathers; Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, Adams; (old guys?), almost always wearing one of those silly gray or white powdered wigs they carried over from England. It could have been that there was some intent to set a standard for future hair styles of the members of the legislative branch, but somehow I don’t think so. Of course, the first group to give their King George the boot also tried to make it clear that ours was NOT to be a Christian nation, but we have screwed that up, as well. So who the hell knows?
As for the “old” part of the description, I give you the likes of Strom Thousand-Year-Old-Egg Thurmond, Jumpin’ Joe Biden, Give ‘em Hell Harry Reid and Ted The-Bridge-to-Nowhere Stevens. These guys are but just a few of the current standard bearers of the coiffes which are salt-and-pepper hair to gray to barely there. But I know the Capitol building has a whole raft of “guys”, not many years on the junior side, just waiting to take up their places as the aging keepers of the public trust. (I also believe that there are more walkers and wheelchairs parked outside the doors of the Senate chambers than any of us imagine).
The expensive suit observation is partially speculative, but during the vice-presidential debates (with all due respect to Sarah Palin and Nieman-Marcus) and Democratic nomination acceptance speech celebrations (somebody finally bought Barack a new tie), Joe Biden’s threads hardly looked like they came off the rack at the J.C.Penney store in Dover, DE or Scranton. And I don’ think you will find Ted Kennedy or Barney Frank picking up their wardrobes at the thrift shops in their local home environs. (I don’t recall seeing any thrift stores on Martha’s Vineyard…although I vacation there often, as I am certain you do…but I’m sure Martha must have some old grape-stained dresses lying around somewhere).
However…
(You’ve been wondering where the three witches come in, haven’t you?)
Now come the three women of the epoxy-snit. I say this because they seem to be glued together in a permanent state of whining and hormonal minstrel misery. Who are these women, you ask? Why, I give you the Pugilist and Pecuniary Barbara Boxer, the Indignant Feisty Feinstein and the Nasal Nancy Pelosi. As a trio of malcontents, they have trumped my contempt, disdain and disavowal of the gray-haired old men, as they stand together and stir the cauldron of Washington politics, like characters from a modern day MacBeth. They appear, all too often, as a boil on the complexion of the political landscape, and seem intent on stirring up toil and trouble. They are a triad of dis-chord in the nearly atonal harmony of the rakes regress across the business of Capitol Hill. They just piss me off.
I think it all began
Sometime during the latter part of the recent election cycle. For some seemingly inexplicable reason, I began to perceive all women as relentless, nasal, gold-digging, petulant opportunists, and I knew I couldn’t blame it all on the Governor of Alaska. As I recall, there was not a lot of Fein-steining going on, but Boxer and Pelosi had set several repugnant practices into motion. I have no proof that the three of them actually sat and plotted out this attack on the general populace, but they may well have. It did (and does) seem like a concerted effort, a sort of gender-based maliciousness.
Please bear in mind that two important and indomitable movements were afoot at that time: the first was of course the all-out campaign by the Democrats, liberals and the progressives to sweep all manner of Republicans (especially that Shrub fellow) from office. Doing that would require heroic amounts of effort and mountains of cash. Nearer the end of the cycle, we were beset by the Paulson-Bernanke-October-Wall Street surprise: we had all been robbed and would starve to death any moment, only Congress and the Treasury could save us, the sky was falling while hell was freezing over and we were all going to freaking die in the next 11 minutes. Other than that, everything was fine. Except…
Almost as nicely formatted as a country-western female duo from Nashville, Boxer and Pelosi both attempted to take and steal the national stage. The only elements missing were tin cups and twangy guitars. While on the one hand, I was receiving emails, almost daily, from Boxer, asking for cash (in our national time of dire straits) for some of her projects that were absolute musts if she were to save the world, poor people and medical aid programs in CA (hell, I don’t even live in CA), Pelosi was front and center before the press cameras, warbling about what “she” would and would not let Congress do or not do to save the financial futures of America. Boxer (thankfully) remained largely invisible, save her picture and plaintive messages in the emails, but these belied her expensive suits and carefully coiffed hair (remember the old guys?). Meanwhile, Pelosi was highly visible (and shrill), standing up next to ( and trying, it seemed, to be on top of) Harry Reid, making pronouncements about how powerful she was while acting like this was all monopoly money, playing both politics and her side of the sad song record on the jukebox she shared with Boxer. She always looked gaunt, but she always had a nice suit and her hair looked fabulous (remember the old guys?) Later on, Boxer stopped asking for cash (because the Dems had won) and Pelosi settled in to a more complacent demeanor after she and the Congress let Paulson slip $85B to AIG. Talk about hiding the salami.
I was beginning to get over this (these two women had almost turned me against women) until Obama’s team leaked out the news that Leon Panetta had been selected to run the CIA. Feinstein went as indignantly ballistic as a Sec. of Defense, and threw a linguistic plate of matzo balls against the walls of the intelligence committee hearing room:
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/01/05/1732447.aspx
Then we got this:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/06/panetta-feinstein-rockefeller/
Some time later, the Obama camp apologized for the leak, saying they had fully intended to consult Feinstein before hand, but, as Rumsfeld might say, “Stuff happens”. (I am quite certain that Feinstein would have said “s$#@ happens, but it would not go well with her suit. Besides, it is hard to say “s@#^” and sound whiny and California at the same time).
I had a grandmother like Feinstein once. Even now I can hear, “Well, I declare!”, and “Well, nobody asked me before they did that!”, and, “That was very inconsiderate and I don’t appreciate it one bit”. I always wanted to say to my grandmother (as we would say today), “Get over it”. I should like to say the same to Ms. Feinstein. And I saw her picture today. She was not hiding her displeasure, but she had on really nice clothes and her hair looked great, too. (Old guys, again)
And so it seems that I must back down somewhat, from my disdain and disappointment when it comes to my views about “gray-haired old men in expensive suits” running the country. I must, it seems, temper that ire with the added knowledge of the activities of the female contingent (at least as regards this trio) whom equal gender opportunities hath wrought. Perhaps you can cage a chauvinistic leopard but you can’t change his (my) spots.
I was reminded today of the movie, “The Witches of Eastwick”. Those ladies were fun until they decided to join forces and go after Jack Nicholson with a vengeance. I don’t know what “aspirational horizons” Boxer, Feinstein and Pelosi have their eyes on for the next four years, but they are all living together in the same cottage on Capitol Hill, and if I were Michelle, I’d watch my Barack.
Life Goes On In Texas.
A note, here: I have seen countless portraits and portrayals of the founding fathers; Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, Adams; (old guys?), almost always wearing one of those silly gray or white powdered wigs they carried over from England. It could have been that there was some intent to set a standard for future hair styles of the members of the legislative branch, but somehow I don’t think so. Of course, the first group to give their King George the boot also tried to make it clear that ours was NOT to be a Christian nation, but we have screwed that up, as well. So who the hell knows?
As for the “old” part of the description, I give you the likes of Strom Thousand-Year-Old-Egg Thurmond, Jumpin’ Joe Biden, Give ‘em Hell Harry Reid and Ted The-Bridge-to-Nowhere Stevens. These guys are but just a few of the current standard bearers of the coiffes which are salt-and-pepper hair to gray to barely there. But I know the Capitol building has a whole raft of “guys”, not many years on the junior side, just waiting to take up their places as the aging keepers of the public trust. (I also believe that there are more walkers and wheelchairs parked outside the doors of the Senate chambers than any of us imagine).
The expensive suit observation is partially speculative, but during the vice-presidential debates (with all due respect to Sarah Palin and Nieman-Marcus) and Democratic nomination acceptance speech celebrations (somebody finally bought Barack a new tie), Joe Biden’s threads hardly looked like they came off the rack at the J.C.Penney store in Dover, DE or Scranton. And I don’ think you will find Ted Kennedy or Barney Frank picking up their wardrobes at the thrift shops in their local home environs. (I don’t recall seeing any thrift stores on Martha’s Vineyard…although I vacation there often, as I am certain you do…but I’m sure Martha must have some old grape-stained dresses lying around somewhere).
However…
(You’ve been wondering where the three witches come in, haven’t you?)
Now come the three women of the epoxy-snit. I say this because they seem to be glued together in a permanent state of whining and hormonal minstrel misery. Who are these women, you ask? Why, I give you the Pugilist and Pecuniary Barbara Boxer, the Indignant Feisty Feinstein and the Nasal Nancy Pelosi. As a trio of malcontents, they have trumped my contempt, disdain and disavowal of the gray-haired old men, as they stand together and stir the cauldron of Washington politics, like characters from a modern day MacBeth. They appear, all too often, as a boil on the complexion of the political landscape, and seem intent on stirring up toil and trouble. They are a triad of dis-chord in the nearly atonal harmony of the rakes regress across the business of Capitol Hill. They just piss me off.
I think it all began
Sometime during the latter part of the recent election cycle. For some seemingly inexplicable reason, I began to perceive all women as relentless, nasal, gold-digging, petulant opportunists, and I knew I couldn’t blame it all on the Governor of Alaska. As I recall, there was not a lot of Fein-steining going on, but Boxer and Pelosi had set several repugnant practices into motion. I have no proof that the three of them actually sat and plotted out this attack on the general populace, but they may well have. It did (and does) seem like a concerted effort, a sort of gender-based maliciousness.
Please bear in mind that two important and indomitable movements were afoot at that time: the first was of course the all-out campaign by the Democrats, liberals and the progressives to sweep all manner of Republicans (especially that Shrub fellow) from office. Doing that would require heroic amounts of effort and mountains of cash. Nearer the end of the cycle, we were beset by the Paulson-Bernanke-October-Wall Street surprise: we had all been robbed and would starve to death any moment, only Congress and the Treasury could save us, the sky was falling while hell was freezing over and we were all going to freaking die in the next 11 minutes. Other than that, everything was fine. Except…
Almost as nicely formatted as a country-western female duo from Nashville, Boxer and Pelosi both attempted to take and steal the national stage. The only elements missing were tin cups and twangy guitars. While on the one hand, I was receiving emails, almost daily, from Boxer, asking for cash (in our national time of dire straits) for some of her projects that were absolute musts if she were to save the world, poor people and medical aid programs in CA (hell, I don’t even live in CA), Pelosi was front and center before the press cameras, warbling about what “she” would and would not let Congress do or not do to save the financial futures of America. Boxer (thankfully) remained largely invisible, save her picture and plaintive messages in the emails, but these belied her expensive suits and carefully coiffed hair (remember the old guys?). Meanwhile, Pelosi was highly visible (and shrill), standing up next to ( and trying, it seemed, to be on top of) Harry Reid, making pronouncements about how powerful she was while acting like this was all monopoly money, playing both politics and her side of the sad song record on the jukebox she shared with Boxer. She always looked gaunt, but she always had a nice suit and her hair looked fabulous (remember the old guys?) Later on, Boxer stopped asking for cash (because the Dems had won) and Pelosi settled in to a more complacent demeanor after she and the Congress let Paulson slip $85B to AIG. Talk about hiding the salami.
I was beginning to get over this (these two women had almost turned me against women) until Obama’s team leaked out the news that Leon Panetta had been selected to run the CIA. Feinstein went as indignantly ballistic as a Sec. of Defense, and threw a linguistic plate of matzo balls against the walls of the intelligence committee hearing room:
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/01/05/1732447.aspx
Then we got this:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/06/panetta-feinstein-rockefeller/
Some time later, the Obama camp apologized for the leak, saying they had fully intended to consult Feinstein before hand, but, as Rumsfeld might say, “Stuff happens”. (I am quite certain that Feinstein would have said “s$#@ happens, but it would not go well with her suit. Besides, it is hard to say “s@#^” and sound whiny and California at the same time).
I had a grandmother like Feinstein once. Even now I can hear, “Well, I declare!”, and “Well, nobody asked me before they did that!”, and, “That was very inconsiderate and I don’t appreciate it one bit”. I always wanted to say to my grandmother (as we would say today), “Get over it”. I should like to say the same to Ms. Feinstein. And I saw her picture today. She was not hiding her displeasure, but she had on really nice clothes and her hair looked great, too. (Old guys, again)
And so it seems that I must back down somewhat, from my disdain and disappointment when it comes to my views about “gray-haired old men in expensive suits” running the country. I must, it seems, temper that ire with the added knowledge of the activities of the female contingent (at least as regards this trio) whom equal gender opportunities hath wrought. Perhaps you can cage a chauvinistic leopard but you can’t change his (my) spots.
I was reminded today of the movie, “The Witches of Eastwick”. Those ladies were fun until they decided to join forces and go after Jack Nicholson with a vengeance. I don’t know what “aspirational horizons” Boxer, Feinstein and Pelosi have their eyes on for the next four years, but they are all living together in the same cottage on Capitol Hill, and if I were Michelle, I’d watch my Barack.
Life Goes On In Texas.
As Then Economy Turns (Bad)
Dr. Reich is at it again, and rightly so. I recommend his blog today, 1/6/09.
Here is what I told him (he of course listens closely to me):
My concern is this: you have stressed repeatedly that the question is not whether the government will do too much or too little, and that 'too little" will be a big mistake, a waste of time. The problem is, that while that all makes perfect sense, we do not have economists and people looking out for the good of the country making these decisions: we have politicians.
The stink and discussion for the last 24 hours has revolved around what has come (to some) as a surprise that the Obama stimulus package will include a 40% portion devoted to tax cuts rather than cash infusions. Lefties are horrified and righties are gloating. Republicans have already vowed to assail, contort, delay and hamper all efforts to get a package signed unless they have their way and the Obama folks seem to be working toward a compromise which will be only a luke-warm solution which fails to do enough. I.e., it will do "too little" but the politicians will be happy because their side "won".
You are preaching to the choir, Dr., but the choir is still paying the salaries of the politicians,and they have the purse strings and the check book. Unless this paradigm is altered, you and Krugman, et.al, are pissing into the wind.
The stink and discussion for the last 24 hours has revolved around what has come (to some) as a surprise that the Obama stimulus package will include a 40% portion devoted to tax cuts rather than cash infusions. Lefties are horrified and righties are gloating. Republicans have already vowed to assail, contort, delay and hamper all efforts to get a package signed unless they have their way and the Obama folks seem to be working toward a compromise which will be only a luke-warm solution which fails to do enough. I.e., it will do "too little" but the politicians will be happy because their side "won".
You are preaching to the choir, Dr., but the choir is still paying the salaries of the politicians,and they have the purse strings and the check book. Unless this paradigm is altered, you and Krugman, et.al, are pissing into the wind.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
And Now For Something Completely Different
What good is a blog if you can't let your mouth run-over, occasionally?
This is Not Fun
This recurrent dream
Keeps playing again
And again
A peek-a-boo
Déjà view
About a part
Of life’s past
Particulars
That I wish had not been
A part of mine.
Particularly when they keep
Coming and going
And calling at Will
E. Nilly’s own proscribed time.
This can make a long sleep
Not worth
being had
And ruin completely
A short nap,
Cats or know.
There is always a holy
Of some grail of sorts
Or
A grail of some holy sort
Needing to be sought after,
Cleansed, found, rehabbed, delivered
Or
Retrieved
Or
Just plain nabbed, grabbed quickly
For
Redemption or salvation
Or
Kept from immolation, ordination
Interpretation, induction or inauguration.
But in the end
There is never resolution
Or
Absolution and I wake
Tired and confused.
Perhaps proseletyzed.
Always there is somewhere
Where I must get to
To pick up
Or
Deliver what I do not
Know as gospel
Or have as any
Tangible evidence of the quest
In question,
Any glimpse of what
I am in search of
(get your own damn preposition;
This one is mine).
After an Order has been given,
In the name of my father
The Sun or some Holy
Grail ghost sonuvabitch
Who talked me into
This,.
I then find to run
My errant errands
That there are always
Two cars,
One mine, the other
Something other than mine.
I leave the one
And take the other
Only to misplace it,
Myself and my way
Along the way
Along with all the keys
To both.
(If you have never been stranded
In a dream, I don’t recommend it.)
I have learned
That these are the keys
To my kingdom
But they always land
On a dirty floor
before
They open
Any door.
On one trip I drove an Audi
That had been fitted
For James Bond
And the scenery I passed
Exploded all along the way.
The last was black Saab
Turbo, of course
Another spirit-packed
Power-horse that got
Misplaced like the others,
In a sub-terranean dungeon
Which was really
A garage with many exits,
All of them
Old wooden doors
With writs tacked on them
That none of the keys
would open,
And then I then remember
That the view would be
Made fine all over
Again
If I could make my way
Back
To the other car-
The one less flashy-
That I’d left
Full of books
That I’d not read
Yet
Back
In the university parking lot.
But I can’t
And I’ve just dropped
The keys
To the menacingly black turbo
Down a drain grate
In the garage dungeon floor
And
It is cold and damp
In here
Where
I am all alone
And
I hate cars now
And
Unread books.
Every time I dream
This dream I learn
Again
I have learned so little.
Then this voice says
“Just shut up and give me
The fucking keys.
This time I’ll drive.”
This is Not Fun
This recurrent dream
Keeps playing again
And again
A peek-a-boo
Déjà view
About a part
Of life’s past
Particulars
That I wish had not been
A part of mine.
Particularly when they keep
Coming and going
And calling at Will
E. Nilly’s own proscribed time.
This can make a long sleep
Not worth
being had
And ruin completely
A short nap,
Cats or know.
There is always a holy
Of some grail of sorts
Or
A grail of some holy sort
Needing to be sought after,
Cleansed, found, rehabbed, delivered
Or
Retrieved
Or
Just plain nabbed, grabbed quickly
For
Redemption or salvation
Or
Kept from immolation, ordination
Interpretation, induction or inauguration.
But in the end
There is never resolution
Or
Absolution and I wake
Tired and confused.
Perhaps proseletyzed.
Always there is somewhere
Where I must get to
To pick up
Or
Deliver what I do not
Know as gospel
Or have as any
Tangible evidence of the quest
In question,
Any glimpse of what
I am in search of
(get your own damn preposition;
This one is mine).
After an Order has been given,
In the name of my father
The Sun or some Holy
Grail ghost sonuvabitch
Who talked me into
This,.
I then find to run
My errant errands
That there are always
Two cars,
One mine, the other
Something other than mine.
I leave the one
And take the other
Only to misplace it,
Myself and my way
Along the way
Along with all the keys
To both.
(If you have never been stranded
In a dream, I don’t recommend it.)
I have learned
That these are the keys
To my kingdom
But they always land
On a dirty floor
before
They open
Any door.
On one trip I drove an Audi
That had been fitted
For James Bond
And the scenery I passed
Exploded all along the way.
The last was black Saab
Turbo, of course
Another spirit-packed
Power-horse that got
Misplaced like the others,
In a sub-terranean dungeon
Which was really
A garage with many exits,
All of them
Old wooden doors
With writs tacked on them
That none of the keys
would open,
And then I then remember
That the view would be
Made fine all over
Again
If I could make my way
Back
To the other car-
The one less flashy-
That I’d left
Full of books
That I’d not read
Yet
Back
In the university parking lot.
But I can’t
And I’ve just dropped
The keys
To the menacingly black turbo
Down a drain grate
In the garage dungeon floor
And
It is cold and damp
In here
Where
I am all alone
And
I hate cars now
And
Unread books.
Every time I dream
This dream I learn
Again
I have learned so little.
Then this voice says
“Just shut up and give me
The fucking keys.
This time I’ll drive.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
