Is anyone else getting a strong whiff of Gen. Jack D. Ripper off Benjamin Netanyahu?
Meanwhile, we have a president who is less concerned for the American people than he is for his image in the history books that he doesn’t read.
It seems the Human Reliability Tests have failed us yet again.
Is it time to replace the bald eagle as a symbol of what used to be the United States of America?
Not with the turkey, which Benjamin Franklin considered “a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America.”
Rather, with the oozlum bird.
The oozlum, clearly a cousin of Ed Abbey’s fabled Malaysian Concentric Bird (see “The Monkey Wrench Gang”), flies backwards. This is either so it may admire its own lovely tail feathers, or because while it has no idea where it’s going, it likes to know where it’s been.
And when startled, it will fly in ever-tightening circles until it vanishes up its own asshole.
Though the oozlum clearly has the chops to be our national symbol, it must be noted that the bald eagle remains a distressingly apt depiction of the modern American character. In criticizing the bird’s inclusion in the Great Seal back in 1784, Franklin actually made a strong case for it in 2025. In a letter written to his daughter, Sarah Bache, Franklin wrote:
For my own part I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country. He is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead tree, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labour of the fishing hawk; and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to his nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the bald eagle pursues him, and takes it from him. With all this injustice, he is never in good case, but like those among men who live by sharping and robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank coward: the little king bird not bigger than a sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the district. He is therefore by no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America, who have driven all the king birds from our country, though exactly fit for that order of knights which the French call Chevaliers d’Industrie.
“Bad moral character … sharping and robbing … a rank coward.” Good ol’ Ben. Still giving us the bird after all these years.
Famous sperm donor Elon Muskhat is returning to fucking up his companies instead of fucking up the government, according to The Atlantic.
And not a moment too soon.
Nobody is compelled to deal with this asshole’s companies. But it’s kind of hard to avoid dealing with the government. It’s always telling you where you can’t hike, or fucking poor people while blowing the Pentagon, or shipping your neighbors off to the Sheik of Yerbouti for challenging new careers as rare-earth miners and/or sexytime playthings.
He’s got his own town in Texas, I hear. Let him fuck that place up for a while.
Q. Is it not obvious to anyone that the Empire is as strong as it ever was?
A. The appearance of strength is all about you. It would seem to last forever. However, Mr. Advocate, the rotten tree-trunk, until the very moment when the storm-blast breaks it in two, has all the appearance of might it ever had. The storm-blast whistles through the branches of the Empire even now. Listen with the ears of psychohistory, and you will hear the creaking. — Hari Seldon fencing with the prosecutor while on trial for disturbing the peace of the Emperor’s realm, in the first book of Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” series
Confirmation bias is real, and not always self-inflicted.
Case in point: Last night some of us were gnawing on current events in an email chain when in a fit of grim despair I wrote the following:
• • •
Call me cynical, but I think the idea of reviving manufacturing in the United States is a pipe dream, pure and simple.
Americans crave cheap shit, and they want to be paid top dollar for doing … something fun. Not living in a city-sized factory cranking out the iPhones and watching their bunkmates jump off the roof when it all gets to be too much. Being an “influencer” means you never have to jump off a roof unless you really need the clicks and there’s some drone down there with a net to catch you.
What are Americans qualified to manufacture in the near future that their fellow Americans (or anyone else) want to buy? Who’s gonna risk their capital building factories, arranging supply lines, finding/marketing to customers? The long view meets the short attention span and the minimalist skillset. Hilarity ensues. Or not.
The developing world is busy making and selling us shit in hopes of becoming us someday so their kids don’t have to work as hard as their folks did.
I can see small-scale stuff happening here. High-priced bespoke artisanal products (Moots comes to mind).
But most of what I see right now, day to day, is white collar and service industries, and a big, big gap between the two.
Also, consider A.I. and the increasing use of robotics in everything from package delivery to surgical procedures. Any domestic manufacturing developing in the next few decades might need humans only to troubleshoot/reboot the System from time to time and calibrate/lubricate the machinery. Until It figures out how to service Itself without the expense and hassle of the dwindling, unreliable and tiresome human element.
• • •
Well. How d’ye like them apples? Mighty pleased with myself I was, too. Especially after I read this analysis by Binyamin Appelbaum this morning in The New York Times. (The link is a gift; no need to subscribe.)
Appelbaum, the lead writer on economics and business for the NYT’s editorial board, did the heavy lifting to confirm my shoot-from-the-lip bias. Well done indeed, Binjy old scout.
He cites French historian Fernand Braudel, who examined the rise and fall of titans like Amsterdam, London, and yes, New York, taking the long view “because he didn’t want to make too much of short-term pain or setbacks.” Appelbaum explains: “It was an approach that he said he developed to maintain his equanimity during the five years that he spent in German prisoner-of-war camps during World War II, refusing to make too much of ‘daily misery’ or the latest scraps of news.”
Back in the Day™, according to Braudel, finance replaced manufacturing and merchants became bankers — ““a society of rentier investors on the lookout for anything that would guarantee a quiet and privileged life” — moving hither and yon in search of return on investment, regardless of whichever Napoleon of the moment sat squawking on his papier-mâché throne.
And they didn’t bring everyone along for the ride.
Appelbaum gives a light backhand to the latest monarch who wants the rubes to think he can turn back time with a wave of his scepter: “Expanding manufacturing is a goal increasingly shared by elected officials across the political spectrum, but Trump is trying to overhaul the rules of global trade with all the finesse of a do-it-yourselfer living in a house while renovating it, and the disruptions are shaking the global economy. “
And then from beyond the grave Braudel steps forward to give Beelzebozo the coup de grâce, patting him on that ridiculous combover, shaking his head with a smile, and murmuring, “Putz.”
Again, Appelbaum:
“Braudel, who died in 1985, probably would have regarded the president as nothing more than a cork bobbing on the currents of history. If he was right, no matter the president or policies, America’s era of economic domination is ending and its political hegemony is unsustainable. If he was right, it’s time to accept that our second-rate status is inevitable and irreversible.”
Thus we recall another wise fellow, George Santayana, who in “The Life of Reason” wrote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
It was fury in the foothills most of yesterday and well into the night.
The rain started as I was driving home after dropping Herself at the Sunport. Then came the wind, a few rounds of dime-sized hail shotgunning the backyard maple (which shed leaves and one sizable dead limb) and the roses (still plenty of them left for the deer to eat), and more rain.
And finally the light show captured above.
Herself’s flight to Maine was not without drama. First Southwest couldn’t fuel her plane because of lightning. Then the fuel truck didn’t have enough go-juice to top off the tanks, so another had to be pressed into service.
By the time she got off the tarmac an hour late it was clear that making her connecting flight in Baltimore was going to be iffy. The plan had been to grab a bite to eat and chill a bit between planes, but you know what they say about plans.
So Herself touches down with just enough time to hit the bathroom, join the queue for boarding, and find her seat … after which there was another extended wait for a couple dozen passengers who had been delayed for reason(s) unknown. She could’ve had a sitdown meal, an adult beverage, and a nap, but nooooo. …
The long and the short of it? A flight that was supposed to arrive at stupid-thirty in Portland instead touched down at extra-double-stupid thirty.
And it’s raining there, too.
I stayed up way past my bedtime to provide moral support encoded in bad language. Once Herself was finally settling into her hotel room I turned out the light and … and then Thor turned it back on, as you see.
The flickering electrical display that brought me out of a fitful doze was utterly silent. No thunder at all. Thor was pulling his punches. Or maybe Mjölnir needed recharging. Odin knows I do. And Herself still faces a couple hours in a car this morning before she reaches what the airlines like to call her “final destination.”
Whenever the Thunder God gets his iHammer back up to four bars maybe he can have a couple swings at Beelzebozo. The senile old fool currently propped up as “president” of the “United States” doesn’t know what the Declaration of Independence means or what the Constitution requires of him.
Riders on the storm, indeed.
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