the dragon lady cometh

Yeah I feel pretty positive 2 day, even though I'm relatively certain we're gonna get at least 4 yrs under the rule of the Dragon Lady.

I don t see anything occurring betweeen now & the fall of next year that might shock the American electorate out of their habitual lethargy and timidity. Without gas shortages, food shortages, etc, they're simply not prepared 2 take a hard left.

But the split in the Democratic Party, which I thought would happen sooner, is finally under way. Plus, the marginalization of the Republicans on the national stage are now in full gear. 

The Republicans, even though they ve got Congress by the testicles right now, will remain only a regional force, in primitive rural backwaters where the people are inclined toward tent revivals and cornbread (though the former comes on TV now, & the latter in a box).

We'll work hard 4 Bernie this year. How well he does I believe depends on which side of the great divide Senator Professor Warren comes down on. She my be physically tiny, but she carries a lot of clout. 

I'll re-iterate -- so much of the Democratic picture during this primary season depends on what Senator Professor Warren decides. She's not a queen, but at this point she's a monarch-maker.

Will she choose her natural political inclinations (Bernie) or the solidarity of sisterhood (Hillary)? 

Hard 2 tell, eh?

sanders scandalette

You knew if they dug deep enough they'd come up with something they could inflate -- you know, blow it up like a ballon & then swing it around their heads. But this is really scrapin the bottom.

Back in 1972 (that's 43 yrs ago for those who think such things are relevant), Bernie Sanders wrote a thing for a marginal weekly, the Vermont Freeman, in which he thought out loud about gender roles, and what they might mean. Now people are saying what he wrote reveals a sick individual, etc. etc. 

Yawn. You always hope for "Bernie caught in love tryst with two 18 yo starlets in steambath- massage parlor." (Wow, hope that fantasy I just concocted doesn' t say too much about moi). But when the chips are down, you gotta take what you can get.

So whattya got?

Not much as it turns out. This story comes 2 us from a disreputable source, a media hoe named Dan Joseph who works for an outift called Media Research Center. Apparently he was given the assignment to "find something" the right wing can use against Sen Sanders.

So there's this revelation, & if that's the best they can do, we're in great shape. 

I know they're hoping to suck on this ball of fluff for 6 mos or so. It'll be sent thru the Action McNews™ cycle this coming week, but I dont think it's got any staying power.

The Media Ressearch Center, incidentally made over 12 mil last yr, has 80-some employees, and its list of funders also serves as its immaculate fascist credentials.

So we got a wingnut mouthpiece being paid to dig up dirt on a candidate who makes fascists everywhere wild with fear & hatred. is this a great country or what?

PREVIEW OF THE NEXT CHAPTER: We can't find anything, so I guess we'll have 2 make shit up.

friday cat blogging

Sammy is not with me at the moment. When Kit & I split, we negotiated joint custody of ye catt.

The feline enjoys her time at Dwamma's house, and likes sleeping and/or just hanging out in a dry sink. I've seen many cats & kittens do this before, but this is a first 4 Sammy as far as I know.

high water everywhere pt 1

Here's one for the folks in south Texas.

This tune Commemorates the Great Mississippi flood of 1927, until hurricane Katrina the Gulf Coast's worst flood disaster. Sung and played by the great and inimitable Charley Patton, who some find a bit difficult 2 understand. U can read it as U listen.

The black water done rose all around Sumner now, 

drove me down that line; 

Black water done rolled at Sumner, 

drove poor Charley down that line; 

I done tell the world the water, 

done jumped through this town. 

 Lord, the whole round country, 

Lord, the river has overflowed;

Lord, the whole round country, 

man, it’s overflowed;

( spoken: You know I can't stay here, 

I'll go where it's high, boy) 

I would go to the hilly country, 

but, they got me barred. 

Now look-a here now at Leland 

the river was risin' high 

Look-a here boys around Leland tell me, 

river was raisin' high 

(Boy, it's risin' over there, yeah) 

I'm gonna move over to Greenbriar
Bought a ticket, goodbye. 

Look-a here the water now, Lordy, 
Levee broke, rose most everywhere; 

The water at Greenville and Leland, 

Lord, it done rose everywhere;

(Boy, you can't never stay here) 

I was goin down to Rosedale 

but they tell me there's water there. 

Now, the water now, mama, 

done took Charlestown; 

Well, they tell me the water, 

done took Charlestown; 

(Boy, I'm goin' to Vicksburg) 

Well, I'm goin' to Vicksburg, 

for the higher mind. 

I am goin' up that water, 

where lands don't never flow; 

Well, I'm goin' over the hill where, 

water, oh don't never flow; 

(Boy, hit Sharkey County and everything was down in Stovall) 

But, that whole county was leavin', 

over that Tallahatchie shore.

 (Boy, went to Tallahatchie and got it over there.) 

Lord, the water done rushed all up, 
that old Jackson road; 

Lord, the water done raisin, 

over the Jackson road; 

(Boy, it starched my clothes) 

I'm goin' back to the hilly country, 

won't be working no more.

hello, june

It's late spring in AZ.

As Texas suffers from its worst floods ever and tornadoes scour the  midwest and southeast, the weather here remains predictable & somewhat boring.

& ya know, some like it hot. The first week in June will look like this here in the Valley.

take pictures!

From the website Think Progress:

To some, Wyoming’s Senate Bill 12 — otherwise known as the Data Trespass Bill — is merely a deepening of preexisting trespass laws — a way for private landowners to seek recourse from individuals trespassing on their property to collect data. 

To others, the law is nothing short of an unconstitutional ban on citizen science throughout the state.

Passed by the Wyoming state government and signed into law by Gov. Matt Mead (R) in March, the law makes it illegal to “collect resource data” from any land outside of city boundaries, whether that land be private, public, or federal. Under to the law, “collect” means to “take a sample of material, acquire, gather, photograph or otherwise preserve information in any form from open land which is submitted or intended to be submitted to any agency of the state or federal government.”

Imagine, for a second, a hiker who is taking a walk through a national forest in Wyoming. During that hike, she notices a visibly polluted stream within the area. The next day, she returns with a camera to take a picture of the stream, with the intention of showing those photographs to the local authorities as proof of pollution. Under the Data Trespass Bill, unless the hiker obtained specific permission from the land’s owner or manager — in this case, the Forest Service — to collect that data, she would be subject to prosecution that could result in up to $5,000 in fines and a year in prison.

(There's more at the link...)

This is a great opportunity for 2 things:

A massive civil disobedience campaign. Sierra Club is probably organizing one already.

1. In the process of taking pictures, it will be possible to catalog the environmental meltdown occurring in a typical western state comprehensively.

Photos should be e-mailed to the WY attorney genreral, along with the photog's (the perp's) contact info.

2. Don't pay the fine they offer you -- insist on your right to a jury trial.

The state's conention that they can foist such a ridiculous and patently unconstitutional law among us wouldn't survive the first 15 minutes of the first trial. 

friday cat blogging.

Sunday nite @ the movies.

Last week it was "Meet Mr, Cardinal" 




Maybe that bird is back here.

(Click on thumbnails for full-size views.)

diddy wah diddy

Sooo sweet...I'll bet Sears & Roebuck had no idea...

Blind Blake, late 20's

Uke rain

Excuse me, dear reader, if I get a little salty here, but I think that of all the crazy, weak-minded, overly-aggressive, SNAFU clusterfucks in American foreign policy history, this Ukraine thing, and consequent demonizing of Putin is the most ludicrous and totally useless veschsh I've ever seen.

Obama apparently decided some time back that he's gotta let the brass hats and the nutball wing of the State dept have their way, and go rooting around the globe like a bunch of truffle pigs looking for fungus. What a weakling!

So in front of the whole world, we're threatening Putin over a flat, agriculturally rich piece of ground that's been a highway 4 invasions & counter-invasions since before history began.

People see this & realize Uncle Sam's gotten so senile & stupid he'll go stickin his fingers in EVERY BODY'S pie.  

Putin is not an attractive personality.  He appears 2 B a domineering sort of guy, of the kind where if he meets someboldy who doesn't kiss his butt he gets annoyed. But he is competent, and Obama's vacillating, anemic, delicate, wimpy, and two-faced govoreeting Makes Putin look good in comparison.

I suspect the reason we're rootng & snufflling about over there is because John McCain and a foreign policy aide, Randy Scheunemann, have got us in so deep we can't just pull away. McCain is a bully who loves 2 tweak people and then beat em down 2 the bricks when they explode. 

The Ukranians are finding out 2 their chagrin that if you deal with crusty old fascists, you get crusty old fascism. You can't blame em for hating Russia -- it's in their genes. but I can & do blame them for thinking that top-down authoritarianism of any kind, including fascism is anything other than a recipe for national failure. 

We need to pull back miitarily all over the globe, and create the word's best land, sea, & air defense. Most of all, we need to get our hands off other people's stuff, and stop messing with things we don't understand.

let's give him a big hand

Bernie Sanders has said nothing radical, or even debatable so far. 

There are also a few obvous things he hasn't said. 

1) Social Security is a tried-and-true, effective method of redistributing income.

2) In a capitalist economic regime, income must be redistributed, to insure the survival of the society.

But the ruling class in the US today, not being the sharpest weapons in the history of aristocrocy, hasn't figured out either of thse obvious truths, or that a formerly free peple will never submit 2 slavery.

On the eve of destruction, a few of our more intelligent aristocrats will awaken, and come over 2 the people. At that point the revolution begins in earnest.

Calling Dr. Guillotine: the death penalty is a dead issue; We need a smaller version of the aristocrat separator you built 4 the French, 4 quickly & efficiently cutting the hands off thieves.   

luv it or leave it

Garry Wills has written a full-throated no-holds-barred defense of the Pope in this week's New York review of books .

I'm very glad to see it, since  Wills has long been a favorite writer of mine. He's also a dedicated Catholic and a historian. 

I thought the stuff would hit the fan this summer, when Francis's climate change encyclical is scheduled 4 release. But it's already happening. Catholic Gazillionaires are pissed, and apparently haven't heard that one must choose between God & mammon, or as I prefer to call it, Moloch. 

Personally, I'd like to see these idolaters run out of the Church, out of our country, and off the planet. I hope that won't be necessary, but dammit, the word is THE EARTH: LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT. 

bet it hurts

In Arizona the sun sometimes shines even during cloudbursts.

West African lore tells us that when this happens, the devil is beating his wife. That thought came to America on the slave ships & is still occasionally expressed today among a dwindling number of African-Americans. 

Friday cat blogging

U got 2 stop & smell the roses...

Der Rosenkatt

nadsat funnies

Tweedledum & Tweedledee
Decided they'd have a britva;
4 Tweedledum said Tweedledee
don't got no keeshkas.                                          
Thought jeb was the smart 1? This veck's got a good gulliver on his pletchoes, unlike his bezoomy bratty," they all govereeted.

So imagine me surprise when I open yesterday's gazetta only 2 viddy the gulliver-line, "Jeb flip-flops on Iraq."

After months of in insisting "I'm my own chelloveck," Jeb blows innocent Q's re: Iraq. At 1st, he says "Nobody would have done it different," meaning EVERY body wanted to go over there and tolcholck Saddum. By this, we know he's just as gloopy as his bratty. C+ Augustulus.  

Better clean those ootchkies, Jeb. We don't need another Arbusto, 4 U have privodeeted us 2 death.

But the thing is, the ptitsa in the race, Mrs Clinton, as a senator voted in favor of letting Augustulus run wild. I govoreeted at the time  I slooshied this, "I will never vote 4 any of these Bimbos what gave their assent 2 this prestoopnik enterprise, 4 they are part and parcel of a regime of grazhny prestoopniki. They should all have been millicents in Los Angle-lees.

This puts us on notice 2 that it's time to answer the question: "Would a vlagali-she American serve better in the office than the 44 veck-veshches we've had until  now?" That's easy: Did electing a chernyveck provide any part of a solution? 

Clearly, Race, gender, family connections -- none of these matters as much as finding an un-pwned candidate.

??? lost in translation ???

Check out these lyrics. If you're rilly up on contemporary music (i.e., music of the last 50 yrs or so) you'll be able to recognize the song while reading the first 2 lines. Those less knowledgeable won't recognize till toward the chorus. If you're still in the dark after the chorus, God help U.

The process by which these lyrics were derived was as follows: Using Google Translate, I copied the original lyrics and translated them in2 Spanish, from Spanish 2 Russian, from Russian 2 German, from German 2 Gujarati, from Gujarati 2 Japanese, and thence back 2 English.


Guess you could say I've got time on me 'ands.

In facing Toledo, bar of depot,
In bar stool, she took off her ring
So I close, I thought I'd get to walk on top of the above;
I sit down, I asked her name.
Drinks, finally when hit her,
She: I have said there was no a man to give up easily, I was living end finally to dream.
After I was until now, here that's hungry for laughter;
I am after whatever other life brings

My in the mirror to see him,  & I closely looked at him;
I thought he looked out of place;
He came to me to be female side was sitting there;
He had a strange look on his face.
Big hand was Mashi hard he looked like a penis;
In for a minute I I think died I
However, he began shaking and broke his big heart
He said to become a woman

(chorus)

After he left us, I ordered more whiskey
I think if he she he had little to show
From the fluorescent lights of the bar room
To rent a hotel room
I walked without all of the conversation
When she was a beauty, she came to me,
She must have thought I'd lost my mind.
I could not be held her words because told her
come time back held after the time has elapsed

(CHORUS)
You chose a fine time to leave me Lucille,
4 and the hunger of children and field crops.
When I some bad did must live some of the sad era,
However, this time, the damage is not healing you.
You chose a fine time to leave me Lucille.

friday cat blogging

Intense bunny watching.

Томми туалет говорит "Не забудьте вытирать задницу, люди."

Right!! I remember from my deepest childhood Tommy Toilet's happy admonition,"Don't forget to wipe your ass, folks."

Keepin a clean azzole, preventing pond scum from building up on the margins of the various sinks & basins in one's domicile -- these are matters of basic hygiene. It's not putting on airs to want a clean joint. 

Guess I got 2 hire some body. Not to police my body functions though. Just to keep away the pond scum and cock-A-roaches.                                     

reigning in aridzona

One reign has ended here -- that of Sheriff 
Joe Arpaio, the Duke of Maricopa County and top Arizona warlord got taken down by a judge named Murray Snow. Snow beats reign every time.

& Another rain has begun. During last night's episode I feared the monsoon had arrived 2 mos. early. But tonight's is definitely a spring rain, and the desert never smelled so sweet before.

*********************************
Bernie Sanders has declared his candidacy. The dispossessed R now in the game -- they have -- we have -- somebody 2 vote for, as well as a couple of people to vote AT this time around.  

There is no second estate this time around.

The noble clergy was always a scam anyhow, enabling a single, elite class of inbred spaniels 2 dominate the social order and take all the good stuff 4 themselves. Some took up the battle hammer, and some the Bible, and it didn't matter which, since both were used as weapons against the 90%. (The proportion has worsened since then; 2day it's the 99.9% v. the .01%).

Pat Robertson doesn't count, and this time it's just them and us. That makes things easier and clearer.

The revolution of 1798 supposedly ended that kind of privilege, and by the early 20th century had triumphed everywhere. Henceforth, civilization and meritocracy would  be synonymous, until Reagan got elected and we decided this civilization stuff had its limitations. 

What good is an election if U can't sell it?

illustration: What chance did the working man have once the priest and the knight had  conspired against him?  

friday cat blogging

It's106 degrees outside, and where does the damn cat wanna B?

On the hot sun porch, of course!

I finally found her hiding beneath the couch out there. She apparently doesn't like air conditioning, but she's decided 2 stay inside anyway, having found a nice, scratchy pair of woolen warmup pants 2 lie on.