Baltimore

Nina Simone performs "Baltimore" by Randy Newman (1978).

big bro

Remember, you're being watched.

Everything we say here is being picked up remotely by some fascist nerd in a shirt & tie.

If you live in or anywhere near the desert, the place I'm going to describe is close to you -- lots closer than you think.





























This, I remember, happened at Spa, for it was   last year at Marienbad.

The name on the blue sign, "Honda Resort and Spa," might have been either Spanish or Japanese, and the decor of the place, 20th-century outer space, offered no clue. And where was the office, anyway? Twice around the building we drove, and finally parked on the west side, in an empty lot, and stared up at a three-storey wall pierced with dark windows. For reasons I don't understand, the unrestrained monotony of that pale green and extraordinarily flat and bland surface, glimpsed in rapidly disappearing twilight, gave the impression of  concealing indescribable rage and violence. One window in the top row was missing its glass; the unmistakable sheen of plastic was a tell-tale sign, of a human body either flung from that height, or jumping to escape the violence within, and sustaining mortal injury when it struck the broken pavement below.

Despite our feelings of dread, we continued searching, and at last came upon what appeared to be the front door of the place. After parking, we approached it and saw another human, a tall, slender, immaculately coiffed older American man talking earnestly on a cell phone. His conversation was
business jibberish, having to do with purchase orders, some canceled, and some still apparently valid.

We peered into the windows of what may have been the lobby. Chairs and other furniture were promiscuously heaped along the window wall, and the door was locked. At the far end of the long room an old man was shooting pool. He seemed to take the same shot, over and over, from the same position at the end of the table. He'd shoot, then stand up, walk toward the other end of the table, which was obscured by a partition, then reappear magically at the visible end of the table, which he leaned over and sighted and shot. It was like watching a videotape loop.

I stood there disoriented & dizzy. ""Seven four three six eight seven seven zero zero one eight nine," said the phone man. The old man shot.

& then the fear was on me. We were being watched.The tremendous evil that had been done in that place, and which was yet to be done, was settling all around us, piling up in thick layers. I quit rattling the locked door and said "Let's get outta here" as we hurried back to our vehicle.

Now it's a year later & I'm still trying 2 figure out what all that was all about. 

homo hot lips

24. Great news!!!

Пятница котенок кошка

                                       Morning bath time.

bourgeois blues -- wealth of dirt

I've located this country's buttocks, and the anal fundament, which is parked along the Montana-Alberta  line. about 1/3 of the way from Montana's  eastern border.

That's the point at which phase 3 of the Keystone pipeline is slated to cross into the US.                                       

From world's biggest producer 2 takin it in the butt, in 45 yrs. -- that's how desperate we R.

Why don't we just get it from Vlad like every body else, you know, by buying it.

Leave those filthy tar sands where they are -- under the ground. Extend the Alaska Pipeline to east coast Sibieria.

Resources now going to the exploitation of increasingly expensive and difficult-2-extract petroleum should be directed to production and implementation of windmills and solar panels. Yes, it really IS that simple, and yeah, I'm dead serious.

Hey Folks, It's 2015. NOT 1915!

Wake up buttheads, lest ye beome pimples on the ass of progress.

раб-ing USA (Slaving USA)

Ben Affleck pressured PBS 2 edit out any reference 2 his slaver ancestors when he appeared on their show Finding Your Roots recently, and they went along with it.

PBS denies it, but Wikileaks emails released just this past week show they're lying.

He he. As if any of us have any control over what our ancestors did.

I'm neither ashamed nor proud of the fact that the Brices were slave owners, and also lived on land which formerly was the hunting-and-living ground of the Creek Nation. The guy on the $20 massacred the Creeks, nearly all of em, at Horseshoe Bend in present-day Alabama in 1814. Only  a couple hundred got out alive, and joined the Seminole in Florida.

The next year old 20bucks became a national hero when he "fought the bloody British at the Town of New Orleans." So it goes. 

Francis Brice was a slaver, as his parents had been. The parents came from England, and I think it was my great-great grandmother, Joanna Stallings, who was hot to take up the slave trade. Their kids followed their example until 1865 intervened.

My great Uncle David, for whom I am named, died in 1864 fighting for the slaveocracy. My folks considered naming me for my great-gradfather, Tim Brice, but he was a malingerer during the war.

I like the name David better than Timothy, but I'm sure I'd have gotten used to it. And I'm probably the first person in my family to beleve it's better 2 be a live malingerer than a dead war hero, especially one who gave his life for a buncha rich and disgusting slave owners, and their Kapital investment.  

Like most modern, industrial-age wars, the US Civil War was mainly about kapital. Don't believe it? I can back it up.

Пятница кошка блогов (pyatnitsa koshka blogov)

Sammy came home from the grooming parlor yesterday with her summer buzzcut. She doesn't like it, but she'll feel a lot better going into May and June.

Curled up in her chair she looks almost normal, except 4 her head, which now seems way 2 big for that skinny little body. A week ago she looked like this:

She appears to have shrunk by about 2/3, but in reality is simply without her typical Norwegian cat's overcoat.

The ladies at the parlour enjoy this annual ritual, and outdid themselves this time,  rendering my NFC into a little lion, with a hair clump at the end of the tail.

Here, as Sammy enjoys her freshly-catnipped  scratcher, you can see the total effect.

The overcoat remains on her face, the legs below the knees (but not the bottoms of the feet), and at the end of her tail. She's an old gal now, and her hind tits are sagging badly. 

Even cats have to obey the law of gravity. Yeah, I know, she's funny looking, but  It doesn't take 2 long to grow back, and I might have to get her buzzed again before high summer is here.

hogofogo

A Hogofogo, as I understand it, denotes a sort of rustic clown in some Balkan cultures, a bumpkin.

At least that's my impression. But it was also the name of the suave villain in "Lemonade Joe" -- the guy whose name sends a murmur of fear & admiration through the crowd in the saloon -- "Ho-go-FO-go?!"

Now, I'm not sure where this is going, but there's an antique unblog floating about in the ether called Hogofogo. the full citation is

http://www.hogofogo.blogspot.com

And on this unblog one finds a single entry from AD 2006 entitled "Testovaci."

One wonders how many millions of these artifacts are out there floating in the ether. Somebody puts up a title and goes "testing, testing," before deciding this blogging thing isn't 4 him, and closing the door 4 ever.

& How many more blogs are winging about aimlessly with no posts -- ø, zip, none -- such as      http://www.briney.blogspot.com   ?

This is the stuff of internet archaeology -- not a shovel-ready science. It does raise some interesting questions, however.

z cowboy jeezny

I yam here, a cowboy in Arizona, on my wrench, planning a big old bar-B-Q.

It'll be more like sides and a little barbecue meat, than a big meat orgy. Meat is like a lot of tings in life, i. e., a little is good for us, but a lot causes problems.

Instead of tons of carné, we shall have baskets full of hot corn on the cob, a tub of cold potato salad, and pinto beans in bbq sauce, as well as fresh breads & corn tortillas, and a big bowl of pullpork. byob.

I think everybody could have a bangup time B-ing a cowboy in Arizona. It's really kind of a cowboy place. The Population here is amazingly fluid & transient; everyone you meet just got here last month. 

The weather is grate here. Lately it's been considerably wetter than California, & the desert about PHX muchas verdantes.

So don't even think about it no more. It's kind of a spooky end-of-days party happening out here on a very large beach far from the sea, if your humble narrator is not mistaken.


Every One who wants 2 change the world & has some idea what he or she wants 2 do, and is able 2 do about it should be in Arizona. I've seen the future, & it's here.

Could some One please bring a salad?

Drawing: "me big tuff stinky cowboy" by shansa

...so my old evil spirit can catch a greyhoun' bus & ride...

I'm actually posting this on a moving greyhoun' -- will miracles never cease?

I'm heading home 2day 2 Mesa after a seriously fun weekend with a really nice willow tree of a lady. Never let it B said that Mr. Dave does not kinow how 2 B a perfect gentle man.

So, this is an uneventful late-morning ride through a tan desert rimmed by mountains all around.
I wish I could sleep, but w/ a 21-mg nicotine patch on it would B futile 2 try.

Actually,with all the winter & spring rains this year, the desert's looking pretty green -- 

Cross the line into California & the difference is scary.

Arizona is the promised land, flowing with Bud Light & money, hunny. And the food is fantastic. You can have an E-Z fruit orchard: 1 each of orange, grapefruit, lemon, avocado, almond, olive, bay leaf.

Can't beat it fresh off z tree. &. Don't forget the grapes, & all the pretty grils.

fried cat 2 days old

Forgive me, Sam, for not posting this on Friday as I usually do.

Pretty kitty.

grey houn' depot

Today I'll just list a few of my favourite hits.

Such as "Got to get You into my Jeezny." (Beatles)

"When a veck loves a Ptitsa." (Percy Sledge).

"I fall to Lomticks," and "Bezoomny." (Patsy Cline)

"Move that veshch." (Memphis Jug Band)

At the grey houn' depot (the real one, not the retired folks's park where I live & which I sometimes refer 2 as "the grey houn' depot.")

Waitin on z bus 4 Tucson 2 pull in2 la Mesa depot. Scheduled 2 leave in 0:15.

Grey Houn' depots never change.I've been riding the buses almost 60 yrs.  & they're Only marginally betta. They promise wi-fi, but that's a joke. If their wireless connection was about 4 times more powerful, passengers might B able 2 use it. As it stands, interstate wireless on z bus is jus' another bus', another council tenancy w/ a PTA mtg on the side. A nodder gyp.

We R pritty far south pf Phx now. I think in the far distance I see the cat-a-mount, the mountain by the side of the road that looks like large, predatory, catt.

I'm goin 2 Tucson 2 meet a gril, of course
a lovely gril as it turned out, w/ big, blue eyes and a long, slender body. Also 2, she'  got a voice like melting chocolate. I love the sound of mature pretty womens' voices. 

& who could forget the ever-popular "The 1st time ever I saw yr Litso"?

These & many other old chestnuts rattle through the metal storage bin of my mind this morning as I prepare  2 board the 11:10 4 Tucson.

plutocratic oligarchy

First, I apologize 4 my uncharacteristic absence this week. I was sick.

I wanted to ask all of you if there's any doubt in your mind that the United States 2day is a plutocratic oligarchy. We'll begin by defining terms:

Plutocracy is  government by the richest people.

Oligarchy is government in which all power is vested in a dominant class or clique.

Now, read this piece by the tireless blogger who  calls herself Digby. 

Monday, April 06, 2015

Rahm's Rich Guy Mandate

by digby

If liberals care about nothing else, they should at least care about education. We'll know tomorrow if Chicago Democrats do:

Rahm Emanuel’s refusal to seriously pursue any meaningful, progressive revenue solutions for Chicago Public Schools (CPS) funding needs will without question lead to further mass school closings in the city’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods if he wins re-election on April 7. As Emanuel’s economic policies prioritize the financial interests of billionaire campaign donors like Ken Griffin and other big business supporters, at the expense of public education in Chicago, the mayor is making a clear choice to drive the district into even further dire financial straits that he will use to justify additional school closings.

Griffin, one of the top contributors to Emanuel’s re-election campaign and the richest man in Illinois, has accused Chicago’s mayor of being “lackluster” for not closing 125 schools instead of 50, and recently reiterated to the New York Times that the number of closings, which disproportionately affected African American and Latino students and their families, “should’ve been 125.” Griffin also has claimed that the top 1 percent of income earners have too little influence in politics, which is seemingly why he has backed Emanuel with more than $1 million in campaign contributions. As Griffin’s influence on City Hall grows, future school closings are inevitable if Emanuel is re-elected.

“Rahm’s pledge not to close additional schools for five years, which he refused to put into writing or pass into law, will conveniently run out if he wins a second term,” said CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey. “In Ken Griffin, who is among the top donors to both Emanuel and his friend, Bruce Rauner, he has a billionaire puppet master for whom he’ll have to do a lot of dancing if he is fortunate enough to retain his office.”

In return for Griffin’s generosity, Emanuel has rejected holding the city’s most wealthy accountable for their growing untaxed income while he simultaneously fleeces working class families with regressive taxes. Emanuel also has committed millions of dollars in tax increment financing to one of Griffin’s hotel investments and remains silent on suggestions for a millionaire tax that nearly 2/3 of the state of Illinois voted to support.

That's the tip of the iceberg.

The election is tomorrow. If you have friends in Chicago give them a call tonight and urge them to vote. If you live there and are reading this blog, I'm pretty sure you already have or are planning to.

Emmanuel is the perfect representation of everything that's wrong with the Democratic Party. If his rival Chuy Garcia were to pull off an upset tomorrow it would reverberate all the way to the presidential campaign. It can happen if the progressives can get their turn-out. And if mainstream Democrats don't fall back on their idiotic reflex to run into the light. Rahm Emmanuel is the greater of two evils. They have a clear choice on this one.

digby 4/06/2015 04:30:00 PM

friday cat blogging