Category: Deep political thought

Flower, child

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments
A little bit of sunshine against the back wall.

Wowsah. One minute it’s icicles on the wisteria, the next it’s SPF 70 on the arms and legs.

Yesterday was my first outing sans arm and knee warmers this spring. Didn’t even bother to bring ’em along. As a consequence this morning I am a slightly darker shade of pale. In selected PG locations, anyway.

Chihuahua.

Elsewhere, the weather remains unsettled. Finding Ukraine unwilling to roll over and play dead, Voldemort Poutaine, the old commie spook whose military education apparently began and ended with World War II, may be inclined to declare victory and settle for trying to choke down a smaller bite of the country that he’s been chewing on for a while now.

Then again, his purse dogs keep yapping about Dropping the Big One to See What Happens. So, let’s not start dancing the Hopak just yet.

Meanwhile, the less said about the Ketanji Brown Jackson job interview, the better. Jesus H., etc. How Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, and Josh Hawley can take three steps in public without getting kicked in the nuts remains a mystery to me.

No wonder everyone wants legal weed these days. The whiskey isn’t doing the job.

Oh, well. Today we’re looking at a high of 76° (!), so I can apply another layer of color to my carcass. But if Pat O’B ventures out today he’s gonna need a space suit. Tucson hit 90° about five days early this year and it’s only gonna get hotter.

‘Like a hell-broth boil and bubble’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments
Hellbroth? Nah. Just an interesting sunrise.

Well, it seems Europe’s largest nuclear power plant didn’t become Satan’s Hot Tub overnight. So we got that going for us, which is nice.

According to The New York Times:

International monitors said early Friday that there was no immediate sign that radiation had leaked from the Zaporizhzhia plant. The Ukrainian emergency services agency said the fire had been contained to a training facility on the perimeter of the complex.

Oh, good. But wait, there’s more:

The company that oversees the complex, Energoatom, warned that any statements being made by workers from the time of the [Russian] takeover could be being made under duress. The company also warned against trusting statements from local officials.

Clearly we are in for many more interesting early mornings pre-coffee as Voldemort Putin continues doing the bidding of the Union of Soviet Socialist Voices in his head.

Our collective ignorance about this fellow, his notions, motivations, and base of support, is maddening. Noting the attack on the Zaporizhzhia complex last night I kept my big yap shut, crossing my fingers and hoping that Europe would not find itself suffering the sort of steep decline in tourism that comes with your basic nuclear disaster.

Because what is there to say? Beyond “We don’t know what the fuck he’s up to” and “There isn’t much we can do about it,” that is?

Over at The Atlantic Tom Nichols makes the case for staying calm.

The day may come, and sooner than we expect, when we have to fight in Europe, with all the risks that entails. If we are to plunge into a global war between the Russians and the West, however, it needs to be based on a better calculus than pure rage.

Sanctions and military assistance short of actual war with Russia will not save Kyiv, he concedes. But neither will letting this smirking Cossack goad the West into giving him anything that will cause the Russian people to back him up instead of knocking him over.

Russians seem to have an endless capacity for enduring suffering. But every pot bubbles over sooner or later if the fire gets too hot for too long.

Will some hero let off a little steam by busting a cap between this devil’s horns? Stay tuned.

Out in the woods

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 20 Comments
After my chores I spent a couple hours exploring on the Voodoo Nakisi.

“Hello?”

Joe Biden woke me up this morning. Either him or Fred Willard, I can’t be sure.

It was a dream, of course. We watched both of them last night — first Fred in “Best in Show,” and then Joe in “The State of the Union.”

Fred killed, and Joe had to follow him, which is bad news for any headliner, especially when that headliner is Joe.

The poor sonofabitch. He finally grabs what he thinks is the brass ring and it turns out to be Voldemort Putin’s man-tanned-and-waxed, KGB-issued butthole. In a rebooted DC Universe edition of Robert A. Heinlein’s “The Crazy Years,” just to give it an edge like Oddjob’s bowler.

Out in the woods.

And then, after a year that must have felt like the first hot lap in the Lake of Fire Criterium, he gets trotted out to recite the Laundry List of Shit That Will Never Happen for the political equivalent of Principal Poop’s pep rally from The Firesign Theatre’s “Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers.”

Over my lifetime the State of the Union has devolved from a simple constitutional requirement — see Article II, Section 3 — into a low-rent show-and-tell for a politically insane kindergarten. An excuse for eejits to dress badly and act worse while popping up and down like prairie dogs crazed on ketamine.

We were streaming this mess via PBS, which looked like CCTV from a Topeka nursing home. That outfit needs new blood worse than Dracula.

Now, I’ve had a soft spot for Joe ever since he strangled Paul Ryan in his crib during their 2012 vice-presidential debate. And I think he’s doing his level best with both hands and one leg tied behind his back.

But still, god damn, etc. After he and/or Fred woke me up this morning the song playing in my head was an old Leon Russell number, from the appropriately titled album “Carny,” called “Out in the Woods.”

GFYS

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
The managing editor would like a word.

As a rootless former newspaperman turned blogger I have the unfortunate habit of doomscrolling the Innertubes as though I were still slumped at a copy desk, trolling for eye-grabbers to dump onto the front page.

This was bad enough when the choices were limited to The Associated Press, a smattering of lesser wire services, and the local sots slobbering into their keyboards after an early dinner of budget lager with a side of Marlboro.

Today the well is bottomless, and anyone with a cheap phone can haul up a bucket of something better left unseen and unremarked upon.

But now and then something of another quality entirely turns up, and the search proves worthwhile.

Case in point: At The Atlantic, Anne Applebaum writes that Ukrainians, like the Irish, have long been the subjects of other empires and have evolved something of a go-fuck-yourself attitude as regards authority, duly constituted or otherwise.

And according to The Guardian, that’s exactly what a baker’s dozen of border guards on Snake Island told the Russian navy when it came calling and ordered their surrender.

They died for their impertinence. But man, what a way to go.

Luna. See?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 20 Comments
Banana moon shining in the sky (h/t Tom Waits).

I arose in the dark of the morning to see a dusting of snow on the yard and the blinking lights of an aircraft as it traversed a slice of moon.

“Hell’s goin’ on around here?” I inquired of Herself, as is my practice.

“Fuckin’ Russians,” she grumbled.

“What are they doing?”

“Dominating the news cycle.”

And so they are.

I loathe the smell of fascism in the morning, whether it’s ours or theirs, and especially when it arrives before coffee. The overactive imagination screens a clip of some brass hat in the Pentagon going full George C. Scott (Buck Turgidson or George Patton, take your pick).

But as options go, our menu seems as limited as the bill of fare at a soup kitchen.

Sure, do what you can to choke off Russia’s income — Stoli sales will slump, theatrically, if only because we’ll need the money for gasoline. Africa is going to find itself short of grain. Lots of little people living in various valleys await the shit monsoon from above.

But I don’t expect the oligarchs are sweating much, unless they’re in the sauna.

Oh, they might not be able to strut their stuff on the Riviera for a while, but there’s always the Crimea. Plenty Krugerrands in the lockbox. Shop online from the dacha. Na zdorovye!