Category: Deep political thought

Tom Joad lives

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments
Times have gotten so hard here in Bibleburg that even cute little kittens find themselves forced to live in drawers.
Times have gotten so hard here in Bibleburg that even cute little kittens find themselves forced to live in drawers.

If they’re not crowding into shitbag motels, they’re setting up tent cities by the river — welcome to “Grapes of Wrath II: From Hotels to Hoovervilles.”

In Sacramento, a tent city that has sprung up near the American River already has some 300 residents and is growing like the proverbial weed as working-class people join the chronically homeless in life in the great outdoors.

A spokeswoman for a Sacramento non-profit that provides “survival services” for the neo-homeless told The New York Times that the number of unsheltered people in her town rose 26 percent in one year:

“We have lots of folks living in their cars. People are buying storage units and living in them. People are trying to do what they can to put a roof over their head. Sometimes people romanticize camping, that they are free spirits. In fact, it’s an act of desperation.”

There are many such Hoovervilles in Bibleburg, albeit on a smaller scale. Walk 10 minutes north or west from Dog Central and you will see a cheap tent here, a ragged bedroll there; head south along the Monument Creek trail and you’ll see the po’-folks’ version of the RV camp — battered shopping carts and bicycles, and the soup kitchens and shelters just a short hop away.

Seven hundred people eat daily at the Marian House Soup Kitchen, up 40 percent from last year, according to the Gazette. And with unemployment up to 8.1 percent as of January — the highest level in nearly 17 years — they’re not likely to get lonely anytime soon.

Elsewhere, a Yale student is suing US Airways over a lost Xbox 360. He wants a million smacks for his pain and suffering, plus $1,700 to replace the hardware. A guy could buy himself a sweet little tent for that kind of money, and maybe a shopping cart to go with it.

Below the belt(way)

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
The Mighty Turk views with alarm as winter returns to Bibleburg, however briefly.
The Mighty Turk views with alarm as winter returns to Bibleburg, however briefly.

I’ve been trying very hard to ignore the Repuglicans’ screeching, holding of breath and stamping of pudgy widdle feet, reasoning that, like Oscar Wilde — or perhaps a gasbag with a microphone who is better fed than taught — they have decided that the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

But damn, am I sick of the racket.

I don’t agree with everything going on in the Obama camp, either, perhaps because I’m not smart enough to unravel the grand design. But after eight years of enduring that other guy, I’m willing to give Obama a little time to assess the situation and determine his response, free of snarky asides about how he’s already going gray or uses the teleprompter more than Honest Abe.

And seriously, if you voted for that other guy the last two outings, you really need to shut the fuck up for a while. Firefighters at work are not obliged to take criticism from arsonists.

Another advocate of reasonable behavior in the face of idiocy, Robert Sullivan, argues in The New York Times that cyclists have begun acting like cars instead of people. He never really defines himself as a cyclist (commuter? recreational rider?), though he does sneer weakly and tritely at Lance Armstrong wanna-bes and fixie kids. And his essay wanders around more than I’d like. But his basic point is one I support — treat others as you would be treated. It’s hypocritical to bitch about psycho motorists if you ride like a bonehead.

Ho, ho, ho

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
After a week of consuming nothing but sauerkraut, bratwurst, baked beans and non-alcoholic beer, The Decider blows one last, vicious, nucular fart in the White House before scuttling back to Texas.
After a week of consuming nothing but sauerkraut, bratwurst, baked beans and non-alcoholic beer, The Decider blows one final defiant, nucular fart in the White House before scuttling back to Texas.

Feels kind of like Christmas Eve, doesn’t it? What’s that over there under the Tree of Liberty? Why, yes, Virginia (and the other 49 states, too) — it’s a brand-new White House, one without shit all over it! It’s the gift that keeps on giving, when it’s not overrun by rats, roaches and other vermin, and you can open it tomorrow.

You know it’s time for a change when even Oklahoma is fed up with an executive branch besmirched by the sort of vicious dolt it usually sends to Congress. Leonard Nelson, 63, a 23-year military veteran of both the Army and the Navy, voted for Barack Obama’s opponent, Sen. John McCain. “But I’ve come to think the better man won,” he told The New York Times. And indeed he did.

But let’s not kid ourselves. Obama can’t walk on water, nor turn water into wine. If you must have mythology, look to the tale of Sisyphus and hope, as did the outgoing president’s favorite read, Albert Camus, that he will be happy in his ceaseless toil. There are a lot of rocks to roll, and nothing but mountains for miles around.

Greg, honey, is it supposed to be this soft?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments

Over at Political Animal Hilzoy delivers a farewell dope-slap to the “petulant lazy frat boy” who turned the Oval Office into Omega house — President George W. Marmalard. Examining his 2000 inaugural address, she notes:

He’s a small, small man, who ought to have spent his life in some honorary position without responsibilities at a firm run by one of his father’s friends. Instead, he ruined our country, and several others besides. He wasted eight years in which we could have been shoring up our economy, laying the groundwork for energy independence, making America a fairer and better country, and truly working to help people around the world become more free. Instead, he debased words that ought to mean something: words like honor, decency, freedom, and compassion.

To this day, I do not think he has the slightest conception of the meaning of the words he took in vain.

To repeat an old gag, he’s a man of few words — he only knows a few. Joe Galloway knows a few more, and he uncorks them with a vengeance here.

Meanwhile, it was another excellent day here in Bibleburg, and I enjoyed a third consecutive day on the cyclo-cross bike. This keeps up, it’ll be almost like training, only slower. And the unseasonable weather is supposed to hold, with temps in the 50s —and even the low 60s — forecast throughout the week.

Today’s ride with Dr. Schenkenstein went north into the Air Force Academy and back, and the contrast with Friday’s ride to Fountain was amazing. South of Woodmen the trail is drier than a popcorn fart. North of there it is a gooey, icy mess, with one particularly evil sheet of damp ice curb to curb on the concrete just before the trail turns to dirt.

On the way out, we both walked it. On the way back, I joked that if Dr. Schenkenstein got high enough on the concrete banking of the drainage channel, he could probably ride it. No sooner said than done. Up the wall he went, coming down just short of clearing the ice entirely, but keeping it up nonetheless. Think about going high on the velodrome, but with the high side to your left instead of your right. Pretty friggin’ impressive for a 50-something guy with a $10,000 deductible on his health-insurance policy.