From Occupy Wall Street to Occupy Apple Store. I’m not quite certain we’ve achieved the IWW ideal of One Big Union yet. Ooo, look, there’s some bread, and there’s a circus!
Category: Deep political thought
Music soothes the savage breast
After a trying week it’s been pleasant to listen to a little live music from the Newport Folk Festival courtesy of NPR Music.
Yesterday I caught the Decemberists and Gogol Bordello; today it was Amos Lee, Mountain Man, Elvis Costello and Emmylou Harris. Elvis and the Imposters started out a little ragged — I think he used the first couple of tunes for his sound check — but still, it beats the mortal shit out of Prairie Home Companion, lemme tell you, especially when he does “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?” with a theramin for backup.
If you missed it, NPR Music is archiving audio and video from all three stages, so you can play catchup in the cube farm — assuming your particular business doesn’t get the business because Congress can’t do business, the miserable fucks. Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona is seriously pissed off, and I’m right there with him. Says Grijalva:
The Democratic Party, no less than the Republican Party, is at a very serious crossroads at this moment. For decades Democrats have stood for a capable, meaningful government — a government that works for the people, not just the powerful, and that represents everyone fairly and equally. This deal weakens the Democratic Party as badly as it weakens the country. We have given much and received nothing in return. The lesson today is that Republicans can hold their breath long enough to get what they want. While I believe the country will not reward them for this in the long run, the damage has already been done.
Preach it, brother, preach it. Where’s Steve Earle when we need him?
• Late update: Pete Seeger joined Emmylou and a crowd of other performers onstage for “Turn, Turn, Turn” and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” The old commie’s gone a little wobbly, but he kept up the struggle. When will they ever learn, indeed.
No, that’s not the debt ceiling being raised
Just a rainbow, courtesy of the afternoon monsoons, which have returned for a while. They sure do cool things down at night.
Meanwhile, in DeeCee, Weepy John Boehner is still leading from the rear, frantically trying to figure out which brand of tinfoil his Tea Bagger buddies want for their beanies. The gang at Talking Points Memo is on top of things as they happen, and for high-quality analysis and snark you can check with Steve Benen at Political Animal and Kevin Drum at Mother Jones.
Suffice it to say that the news is all bad. At least Kevin supplies cat-blogging on Fridays to lighten the mood.
Here in Dog Country we’ll engage in a bit of dog-blogging as a counterpoint. We’ve been crate-training Buddy and so far, so good. He’s (mostly) sleeping through the night and has had no more accidents in the crate since we pulled the bedding out of it. He’s getting at least one longish walk daily and plenty of backyard time. And today he even romped a bit with Herself, gamboling about the DogHaus like a happy pup and even barking a couple of times, just for the hell of it.
The Feline Caucus, of course, finds this incomprehensible. But so far they haven’t tried any nihilistic shenanigans, which goes to show you that pretty much any old four-legged furball is smarter than the average House Repuglicant.
Getaways, groceries and grifters
There’s nothing like that first day after the Tour folds its big yellow tent and life gets back to normal.
I got out early for a two-hour ride northeast on Highway 24 and enjoyed a tailwind to Falcon. The headwind on the homebound leg wasn’t outlandish, and I considered stretching the outing to three hours before remembering that there was nothing to eat in Chez Dog, someone having been a little lackadaisical about grocery-shopping lately.
So I rolled home, made a list and headed north to Whole Paycheck, pissing away a car payment on bits of this and that to keep flesh on the bones. Last night’s “dinner” involved a tin of smoked oysters, cheddar, crackers and a salad, and that’s just not enough to keep a renowned cycling journalist at the top of his game.
Now it’s raining for a second consecutive day, which is excellent. It’s been hotter than the high-flange hubs of Hell around here lately, and this takes the edge off, as does a little effervescent Austrian rosé.
Alas, we may all be reduced to drinking feeble American lager out of red-white-and-blue cans if the “mine is bigger than yours” contest ends badly in DeeCee, as seems increasingly likely.
These overfed, undereducated pustules afflicting the body politic should be compelled at gunpoint to hold their slapfests in small-town bars and beaneries, in the company of the simple folks these rich fucks profess to care about. Maybe after a few vicious beatings administered by work-hardened knuckles they’d realize their cushy gigs are about people, not politics.
• Late update: Kevin Drum sure wasn’t impressed by either Obama or Punkinhead tonight. I listened to the first few minutes of Obama’s bit while cooking dinner and I wasn’t exactly hearing a clarion call to arms. As for Punkinhead, I unplugged his ass before he even had a chance to start lying. My patience has its limits.
Riding the tiger
Longtime friend of the DogSite Jeff Cozad passes on this interesting read from Timothy Egan, a former reporter for turned weekly contributor to The New York Times.
The short story is this: Repugs rode the Tea Baggers to control of the House … or so they thought. Now they find themselves astride a retarded tiger that’s hell-bent on either eating up or pissing on everything in sight, and to dismount is to (a) end up inside the tiger, or (2) get pissed on.
What happens to the rest of us, naturally, is strictly between us and the tiger.
