Category: Agitprop

The band played ‘Waltzing Matilda’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments

This classic goes out as an homage to all who served and a caution to all who send them.

• Extra Credit Military History Reading: An adaptation from “The Fighters: Americans in Combat in Afghanistan and Iraq,” by Pulitzer Prize winner C.J. Chivers.

• Double Extra Credit WWI Poetry Readings: From the Poetry Foundation, whose editors note: “You may notice that more poems in 1914 and 1915 extoll the old virtues of honor, duty, heroism, and glory, while many later poems after 1915 approach these lofty abstractions with far greater skepticism and moral subtlety, through realism and bitter irony. Though horrific depictions of battle in poetry date back to Homer’s Iliad, the later poems of WWI mark a substantial shift in how we view war and sacrifice.”

It’s flat crazy out there

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments
Michael “McGet” McGettigan, director and owner of Trophy Bikes in Philly, doesn’t want any pesky punctures to prevent people from pedaling to the polls. | Photo courtesy Michael McGettigan, Trophy Bikes

Record-setting early and absentee voting numbers indicate “a great deal of enthusiasm and interest” among New Mexican voters in this midterm election, says one Duke City pollster.

This reflects what I heard from a poll worker when I threw the bums out the other day. Is it good news? Bad news? We’ll find out tomorrow evening, or Wednesday, depending on how close a thing it is.

Both parties were turning them out, but the Donks have the numbers in the early going, and New Mexico has a lot more registered Donks than Elefinks. You can get down in the Land of Enchantment’s political weeds over at Joe Monahan’s place.

Herself has been working the phones and going door to door, and she reports mostly positive interactions with The People, many of whom seem energized by the antics of Il Douche.

Charlie Pierce, meanwhile, is in Kansas, which he considers a bellwether for whether the ruthless avarice and ignorance that helped steer The Republic up to the hubs into a quagmire of orange sewage has overstayed its welcome.

All will be made known after the polls close tomorrow. Well, maybe not all. But we’ll certainly have a better idea of whether we’re still spinning our wheels or have decided to get out and push.

Oh, fudge

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 24 Comments

Is anyone else having trouble ginning up the requisite hope and enthusiasm for the midterms? Without resorting to actual gin, that is?

Election Day has a bit of a Christmas feel to me, but that’s not necessarily a good thing.

We were far from poor, but our parents had known Depression and war, so while Christmas around our house meant you were going to get something, it wouldn’t necessarily be whatever you wanted.

The folks had already seen plenty of surprises by the time we came around, and they were always on the lookout for the next one. So if we were compelled to endure the occasional Christmas-morning stunner as a consequence — jeans that weren’t Levis, some hardware-store bike instead of a Schwinn, and a dearth of official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifles — well, tough shit, kiddo. Welcome to the real world.

Some days, and especially lately, I feel half Ralphie and half his old man. Ginger bullies by day, flat tires by night. Hopes and dreams clash with doubts and despair, overlaid with a soundtrack in which “fudge” is never heard. There’s only “the word. The Big One. The queen mother of dirty words. The f-dash-dash-dash word.”

So, yeah. Go ahead and wish. Pit those hopes and dreams against doubts and despair. Get out and vote, unless you’re a Trumpetista, in which case you should stay home and shoot your eye out.

But keep a bar of soap handy in case you need to wash the fudge out of your mouth come Wednesday morning.