• Shiny objects, si; child care, health care, no.
• Flipping burgers is the new black.
• Losing the spirit of May Day.
• Turks defy ban on May Day rallies.
• An uncomradely copyright on Marx and Engels.
• Tim Carpenter’s politics of radical inclusion.
More rabble-rousing as I find it.
Oh, Lord, the air must be thin up there in Dumbass Mountain, Nevada, where the peckerwood forest grows.
It’s not bad enough that we must endure the comedy stylings of Cletus Awreetus-Awrightus, Grand Wazoo* of the Holy Sheet Brotherhood & Posse Comatose.
No, we must hear from his daughter, too.
The wingnut didn’t fall too far from the tree there, now, did it?
I’m old enough to remember when we used to call people who stole things “criminals,” not “patriots,” and those who defended the practice by force of arms, “dead criminals,” or at the very least, “jailbirds.”
The times, she do change.
* And yes, I did manage to find a way to work in a cheap Frank Zappa gag there. Thanks for noticing.
“Man plans, God laughs,” goes the Yiddish proverb.
So, naturally, as I was contemplating the intricacies, logistics and amusements of a bicycle tour, Management reminded me that spring is only a word, an arbitrary date on a manmade calendar.
Yesterday I was motoring around Fremont and Custer counties with the windows down, scoping out various back roads between Florence and Weirdcliffe with a Colorado Atlas & Gazetteer in the passenger seat while tugging frequently from a water bottle. Today I awakened to a few inches of heavy, wet snow on the deck, with more on the way.
No complaints here, mind you. Water from on high is water I don’t have to buy from Colorado Springs Utilities. And it sure beats being on fire.
So it looks to be a fine day for hanging around indoors, viewing with alarm. For instance, I notice that the Supremes are trying to make it less onerous for the 1 percent to run the country the way they see fit. And a Colorado judge is intent on making it harder for the 99 percent to catch them at it.
I’m starting to think Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy and Alito are deserving of life terms after all. Not on the high court, mind you, but in Leavenworth, making little rocks out of big ones for their crimes against the people.
The inimitable Kinky Friedman, he of the Texas Jewboys, has made it into a runoff for the Donk nomination for Texas agriculture commissioner.
You may recall that Kinky, who favors legalization and cultivation of hemp and the whacky-terbacky, once ran for governor and got thumped despite winning slogans like “Why the Hell Not?” and “How Hard Could It Be?”, references to predecessors Alfred E. “Worry” Bush and Goodhair “Bad Head” Perry. His chances in the ag-commish race appear equally poor, since if he manages to beat his runoff opponent there is a Republican candidate waiting in the wings.
Still … why the hell not? Ride ’em, jewboy.
• Editor’s note: A tip of the Mad Dog Stetson to Ed Kilgore at Political Animal for noting that Kinky was in the hunt again, and for reminding me of the timely melody, “We Reserve the Right To Refuse Service To You.”
Herself and I were running down a list of worthy causes the other day, trying to decide which of them would get our limited financial support.
It was no easy task, in part because we are far from wealthy, thanks to our failure to capitalize on my globe-spanning fame. We have work, a roof over our heads and food in the cupboards, but still, damn; so many in need, so few dollars to go around. It was like spreading a pat of butter on a slice of toast the size of Kansas.
While we were crunching our pitiful numbers, the least productive Congress in the history of Congresses was busily fucking off, slinking out of town after having done less to “support and defend the Constitution” than any previous conclave of alleged lawmakers.
In their absence, which is preferable to their presence, 1.3 million Americans will lose their unemployment benefits in an economy hamstrung by catastrophic long-term unemployment. That at least three people are seeking work for every job available is a moral failure on the part of the job seeker, says Congress, albeit obliquely. If hungry schoolchildren wish to eat, well, let them become amateur custodians. Plus they’ll be learning a trade! Bonus!
“Millions in subsidies, from the same program that until this year was tied to the food-stamp program for sound political reasons, which is the way we take care of each other in a political commonwealth. But poor children, if they do not work, shall not eat. Not all the big clanging brass ones hang in bell towers this season.”
The Constitution to which these swine swear their oaths begins thusly:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
The Union has always been less than perfect, but lately it seems even more so. Where is the Justice, the domestic Tranquility? Who promotes the general Welfare, that the Blessings of Liberty may be secured?
“Fuck you, I’ve got mine, get yours,” doesn’t appear in the Constitution. Trust me. I checked.
So we write our little checks, and we send them off. And we hope. We hope for more than “four more years of things not gettin’ worse.”
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