David Crisp prides himself on saying a lot with a few words. He’s pretty good at it too. I wish I could do that. I’ve been trying to think of a three or four-word remark that would convey my attitude that Crisp masks the many failings of American journalism behind professional condescension.

Ok. Here goes: …

Damn! Can’t do it. I do not have his economy of words, “addition by subtraction,” as he says.

We apparently agree that Dave Budge is a “schmuck” (Budge’s word). An exchange between the two David’s led me to the following exchange between Budge and Jim Larson. The subject at hand is a Scott Brown campaign video Budge posted, a collage of sound bytes surrounding Obama’s painfully obvious statement that no one makes it on his own*.

Larson I’m sure Dave, that we both disregard a lot of what we hear.

Neither Kennedy nor Reagan argued for higher taxes, and I am glad not to pay higher taxes, but what they argued for doesn’t change what was.

What I would like to hear is your cogent explanation of how the high tax rates of the sixties and seventies coexisted with a juggernaut American economy.

I don’t make the request rhetorically. It’s been awhile since I’ve visited the blog, but I can remember reading some illuminating economic commentary here when you took the time to write something other than a glib reply.

Budge: What I would like to hear is you finding me arguing for lower taxes in the current environment – ever. In fact I’ll pay you $1000 if you can find such an argument that I’ve made. In fact, read this.

What your doing is arguing a point that isn’t made either by me or in Brown’s ad.

I’m not in the mood to argue something that I don’t subscribe to.

Larson caught him in one of those moods. Budge exhibits an authoritarian nature, unwillingness to confront evidence that everything he knows is wrong, and clumsy deflection.
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*American campaigns offer up stuff like this to allow American journalists to talk about American campaigns without delving in substance.

Lizard, a bright young man of considerable depth, wrote a chancy post yesterday regarding the possibility that James Holmes, the accused shooter in the Aurora tragedy, might have been heavily drugged, and might not have been the only shooter. This sort of speculation usually brings out those of opaque mind frame who cannot embrace the thought of conspiracy. The others that usually chime in – those who automatically resort to ridicule, are absent in the comment thread under this post.

Conspiracies abound in this country, and it is not hard to understand why. The old chestnut says it best: If you like sausage, don’t ask how it is made. Americans are deeply indoctrinated in American exceptionalism. They will readily believe conspiracy theories about others* – a Soviet plot to kill the pope, 19 Arabs performing high-skill maneuvers in 757’s after learning to fly Cessna’s – but immediately cringe at the notion of Americans doing such deeds. That’s the mindset that Lizard entered. But I’m impressed with the bulk of the comment thread.
Continue reading “Aurora: Time to move on” →

The linked article is about two photographers who stumbled into the wrong camp in Syria and were taken captive for a brief while. It’s odd in that one of them, Jeroen Oerlemans, a Dutch photo journalist, claims that several of the men had British accents, “Birmingham”-like, and one he called “South London.”

The conclusion drawn by western media is that Syria is igniting a call for jihad from around the world, including Muslims from Great Britain.

Maybe so, but my own suspicion is that the two photographers stumbled on one of many camps where Western agents provocateur are posing as Syrian rebels for the sake of exacerbating that conflict.

After all, the Syrian “rebels” have to be on of the best-armed fighting forces in the region. Syria is one of seven countries* that, according to Wesley Clark, the Bush regime wanted toppled. Since it is clear that Obama is carrying forward the Bush agenda, and and since it goes without saying that the US is not truly interested in democracy or any other such window dressing, then I think it reasonable to be suspicious when one encounters the King’s English in a supposed rebel outpost.
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*Iran, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia and Sudan

Bernie Madoff sits in jail now, and deserves to be there.

It is a Saturday in July, and many other criminals of Madoff’s stripe are out today on their yachts, and will later today dine in fine restaurants, enjoy cocaine* and perhaps a call girl to top off the evening. In the meantime, there sits Bernie.

Why are so many called, but only one chosen? Why you, Bernie, and no one else?

It’s a no-brainer. Look at the victims. Bernie chose powerful people to scam. Others, say like Angelo Mozilo, former head of former Countrywide, chose weak people. It’s OK to scam weak people. That’s what the free market is all about. But rough up someone with money and connections, and you’ll wind up in jail.
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*There are no penalties for powerful people regarding use of drugs. However, a black person smoking a joint might easily end up in prison. That’s the American way. The “War on Drugs” is really a war on minorities.

Dear Neighbor:

Isn’t it a wonderful time of year? The mornings are cool, the scents of the forest invigorating. It must be wonderful for you to walk your dog each morning and take it all in.

But please, fellow human, clean up after him! This morning he left a pile on our newspaper at the bottom of the driveway. Some dignity, please!

Sincerely,
Mark
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Dear neighbor’s dog,

What a treat this time of year to be out taking in the smells each morning! I see your owner walks you, and if you are a normal dog, you’re checking out everything there is to check out. It’s dog heaven!

But please, when you take a dump, do it somewhere other than our driveway.

That aside, I am curious. We take two newspapers: The Denver Post and the Financial Times. You took your crap on the Denver Post.

How did you know?

Sincerely,
Mark

I was a subscriber to the Wall Street Journal in the early 1990’s and their editorial pages, then as now, were rabid right-wing. But every Thursday there appeared a man named Alexander Cockburn, a leftist. Things were a bit different in those days. People talked to each other.

WSJ described Cockburn, as I recall, as a writer for Village Voice (run by Rupert Murdoch, who never once censored him), and the “Anderson Valley Advertiser.” That was a bit of an inside joke, as AVA, run by another fine writer and wit and Cockburn’s friend, Bruce Anderson, was a small town newspaper in Boonville, CA with a circulation of maybe 3,000. Cockburn charged AVA $25 to run his weekly column. I subscribed for years, only drifting off after the Internet made everything available everywhere. I need to re-up.

Cockburn was loyal, fierce, original, insightful and witty. He had no admiration for powerful people who abused others. He angered many of them, and some will no doubt now crawl from their hovels to pay him back. Dealing with him in real-time was not easy. He was smart, quick, and did not suffer fools.

The best remembrances of Cockburn that I’ve read are at AVA, by Bruce Anderson.

This weekly poetry series starts here today, and will continue every Monday throughout July except for next week. It’s meant to show that I have depth too. Shhhhheeeeet! I’ve got lots of it. I go way down.

The poem that came to mind is not some obscure remnant of some insightful individual. That’s just not a good way to make mass market poetry, which is the only kind that makes a scalable financial return. Indeed, this is a Facebook entry of unknown origin, so that Facebook itself might someday be able to monetize it. (Facebook has indeed advanced its ability to monitor entries to provide carefully targeted ads to users.* Can it be long before it claims ownership of all content?)

I think of the poem as Homeric.

Roses are red.
Bacon is also red.
Poems are hard.
Bacon.

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*Perhaps this explains the emails I get from sexy, horny, lonely Russian women.

The tragedy in Aurora, Colorado is of course causing anxiety and angst throughout this country, laden as it is with weaponry and ammunition within reach of any citizen. James Holmes appeared weird to some, smart to others, and just a tad off kilter. One young woman who lives in his apartment building said he had a “stay away” quality about him, a feminine instinct she said. More likely it is that hair-standing-up-on-neck reaction we sometimes get being close to psychopaths. I remember clearly having that reaction to a much younger Dick Cheney as he spoke to reporters when we attacked Panama in 1989. Creepy.

Holmes’ lone recorded offense is, as I read it, a traffic citation.

Irony abounds. President Obama:

We never understand what leads someone to terrorize their fellow human beings like this. Life is very fragile and it is precious.

Obama, of course, never has to look into the eyes of his victims, the countless Afghanis and Pakistanis he has murdered, along with a few Americans. (“They were all bad guys!” said Schwarzenegger, speaking of Palestinians in his movie “True Lies.” Yes, dear reader, movie themes are coming to mind today. Just the fact that they are calling it the “Movie Massacre” rather than the “Dark Knight Massacre” speaks of the power at work behind the scenes to protect the franchise.)

Obama is, as Hannah Arendt coined a term, a “desk murderer.” He loves his own children beyond words, as we all do, and kills those of others with reckless indifference. And he cannot see it because just like the pilots who drop the ordnance, he is murdering from afar.

Further curiosity on my part: Why has no one mentioned the most grotesque scene of blood and mayhem in American film history, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, where a theater was sealed and everyone inside murdered. It came instantly to mind for me, along with the words “Ah, that’s just Tarantino.” Quentin, you should realize that not everyone out there is normal, like you. Be careful please.

And finally, we learned that Warner Brothers is “deeply saddened.” It is true then! Corporations are people.

In the news this morning about the tragedy in Aurora, we learn that President Obama is “shocked and saddened” and that Mitt Romney is “saddened” but apparently not shocked. Score one for Obama.

That’s important to know. But it would really be news worthy of print if either admitted that they were distant, uninvolved and indifferent, the likely situation.

We had a most unfortunate accident at our house this morning, but fortunately no one was hurt. As my wife and I survey the damage, wondering how it could have happened, experts have explained it to our satisfaction. They have impressive credentials.

I was cooking sausage in a frying pan. The heat from the fires underneath apparently weakens the steel they use to make burners so that it begins to bend. Even though the burners, partially made of tungsten, do not melt until they reach a temperature of 3,100 degrees, the fire marshall explained that the weight of the fry pan caused parts of it to slowly give way. The sausage had inexplicably collected on the NE side of the pan, and as I walked by, I dropped a knife I was using to cut up green pepper and onions, and it hit that side of the pan.
Continue reading “An unfortunate incident” →