secession

Writing under the title "The Second Secession Continues," Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog says:

Abortion is theoretically legal nationwide, but it's widely available in only some states, and it soon won't be available at all in some. Gay marriage will probably soon be legal in many states -- and will probably never be legal in others. Up here in the Northeast, we have gun laws; in most of the country, it's a firearms free-for-all.

And now, as ProPublica, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times have noted in the past couple of days, it's quite likely that many states of the Union simply won't go along with the Medicaid expansion in the health care law, thus continuing the process of turning America into two nations engaged in -- to use a phrase I didn't coin -- a cold civil war...

and he also quotes a Times article with states that Republican governors in Kansas, Nebraska, South Carolina, are opposed to expanding Medicaid on the grounds that the states will have to pick up a small portion of the costs.

A house divided against itself...

shave and a haircut

Andrea Vadrucci plays "The Barber of Seville." I can't find anything wrong with this guy's playing or with the way he's constructed his instrument. He has no weaknesses that I can see, and a number of noteworthy strengths.

good riddance

There will be no more plastic bags at Seattle's grocery stores, starting tomorrow, when the city-wide ban goes into effect. Numerous other communities around the Sound are following Seattle's lead. I believe Port Orchard, where I'm staying right now, is one of them.

You'll still be able to get a paper bag to haul your groceries home in, but it'll cost you a nickel. That, too, is a good thing. Though it's not much money, it will motivate people to finally carry that re-usable fabric bag to the store.

Remember, you'll need to put that cloth bag through the washer once in a while, now that it's no longer lingering in a kitchen drawer.

not that dumb

"It's amazing who shows up in the Rolodex," says Atrios, by way of linking to this story about the prevailing sentiment among small-business owners, as NPR heard it from good old Joe, down at Joe's Print Shop.

Joe, the humble, ink-stained workingman, gets around to a lot of places as it turns out. Fox Business News, NBC, where he appeared last evening after being heard on NPR the same morning, MSNBC, House and Senate committees, have all benefitted from hearing the testimony of this salt-of-the-earth tradesman, who just happens to be connected with the corporate-lobbying organization ALEC and Karl Rove's Crossroads political action committee (PAC).

How dumb do NPR (the "liberal" network) and NBC think we are? They think we're so dumb that if they don't tell us something, we'll never find it out.

This, gentle reader, is the essence of what they call "astroturf." Fake grass roots, abetted by a corporate media establishment arrogantly confident that they have a monopoly on information in the USA. Maybe in the old days, but not any more, suckahz!

promises, promises

Back in March, Bill O'Reilly said on his Fox News program that he would "apologize for being an idiot" if the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare.

Yah sure. I can't wait to hear it: "I'm sorry I'm an idiot."

So are we, Bill, so are we.

marcus aurelius, please don't fail us

Humble ingredients, combined in a certain way
You can't describe, but recognize
When it comes your way; you say,
"That's the fullback whose fullbackness
is the very essence of fullbacks. May
he play for our team, stay healthy all year,
And fill the Green Bay Packers with dismay.


Bronco Nagurski, age 35, Chicago Bears, 1943

photoshop grading

I give it an A-/B+ for creativity. There are a few detail problems. I'm sure that i-pods are never that big. No one has ever seen Obama wearing a double-breasted suit, and

how long hss it been since you saw a black-and-white news photo of him?

Otherwise, a great capture of an echo, and the screen shot on that big i-pad is genuine.

terrorists, beware!

For your daily video this afternoon, I've chosen a very short (0:44) speech by the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, who has teamed up with the friendly crew at your local Wal-Mart to keep us all safe.

dewey defeats truman!

OOPS!

Serves em right, for reporting the story before it happened.

I can't ID the miniskirt Mussolini with egg on her face in the picture, but if it's any consolation to her, the Wolf Man over at CNN did the same damn thing.

Fair, balanced, and full of bazonga. Remember folks, you heard it here first! On TV!

...in youngstown...

The Rude Pundit, who lives up to his name, has already produced a thorough takedown of David Brooks's New York Times column yesterday.

I would like to add one minor observation, however, concerning this silly analysis of Bruce Springsteen's œuvre, which Brooks honors by constructing a psychological landscape within the heads of old Bruce's audience:

My best theory is this: When we are children, we invent these detailed imaginary worlds that the child psychologists call "paracosms." These landscapes, sometimes complete with imaginary beasts, heroes and laws, help us orient ourselves in reality. They are structured mental communities that help us understand the wider world.

Over the years, Springsteen built his own paracosm, with its own collection of tramps, factory closings, tortured Catholic overtones and moments of rapturous escape. This construction project took an act of commitment.

Nice theory, except what Brooks fails to notice is that Springsteen's work is what painters call "representational." His "tramps and factory closings" are as real as a heart attack, and never more so than in a song like "Youngstown," which Brooks mis-heard at the Springsteen concert he attended in Madrid.

Having never been a Springsteen fan, I wasn't familiar with the song, but I appreciate its history of Youngstown's tragic fate, interwoven with Springsteen's ideology. Afte all, it's where my family lived when I was a small kid, and my earliest memories are of this dreadful place as it used to be.



David Brooks is the Times's useful-idiot-in-chief, employed to tickle and stroke that massive American audience seeking reality, as long as it's not too real.

Life on de Nile

Sliding through to primaries victories yesterday were a couple of our old favourites, as we posted earlier at Beliefnet's US Snooze and Politics bored. Sen Orrin Hatch of Utah and Rep Charlie Rangel of New York are both going to return to the august halls of Congress, after facing token opposition this fall.

Their retention of their seats was energized by Geritol™ and helped along by Metamucil™. Both these great statesmen were favored by older voters, who show up more often than their younger cohorts, and are more dependably predictable, which makes them a lot like the people they vote for.

Hatch was endorsed by Sarah Palin despite his opponent, Dan Liljenquist's, tea party credentials. Rangel's opposition was Adriano Espaillat, an up-and-coming young Dominican-American, and I doubt this is the last we'll hear of him.

For now, however, there'll be no significant changes in Congress this year. We'll see the same old faces returning in 2013, running their same old song and dance, passing jobs bills with no jobs in them, moaning and groaning that Congress (that's them) is spending too much, while at the same time they pass more tax cuts for their rich pals. Anybody who points out that they're under-funding government operations by about 18 per cent, year after year, will be ignored.

This looks really stupid, as if the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing, but appearances are deceiving. Orrin Hatch and Charlie Rangel and the rest of em know exactly what they're doing. That's why their campaign donors and the amounts they spend are big secrets.

This year, on the surface anyway, there will be no changes. Obama will win again, since the Republicans chose to nominate a dildo with hairspray. We'll get the same Congress back also, so it'll be status quo ante.

This entire crew of criminals and cretins, from Obama on down, are so numb with corruption they can't feel the ground shaking under their feet. There are huge changes happening in this country right now, and covering them up with the same old politics won't help. In fact the most significant political change happening now is the calcification of our institutions and the people filling them, as their roles and positions harden into stone.

I'm actually feeling somewhat optimistic.

loose talk costs lives

A teen-aged lesbian couple living in a small Texas town were shot by an unknown assailant this past Friday. Mollie Olgin, 19, was dead at the scene, and Mary Christine Chapa, 18, is in a local hospital in serious but stable condition.

Olgin's roommate told reporters the couple, who had been dating for about five months, hadn't received any threats or been harassed. (Portland, Texas Police) Chief (Randy) "Wright said that although the events did seem more like measured attacks than a random action, they were not currently investigating the murder as a hate crime."

Full story here.

Since Chief Wright has no suspects and the motive for this murder and attempted murder is thus not known for certain, his reticence to categorize it as a hate crime is understandable. However, Portland, Texas listeners can tune their radios to 88.5, KAYK, out of Victoria, Texas, Monday through Friday. One of the American Family Association's network of 200 stations in 35 states, KAYK features "Focal Point," a two-hour daily talk show hosted by Bryan Fischer, the AFA's "director of issue analysis" and one of the country's most strident opponents of what he calls "the homosexual-rights movement."

Fischer, profiled by Jane Mayer in the June 18 New Yorker, holds social and political positions Mayer describes as "far to the right of Fox News," and is dangerously obsessed with homosexuality. No one should be surprised if hate radio should bear, or has already borne, a bloody harvest.

whither the weather?

This is ludicrous. It's June 26, temp is 53 degrees and it's drizzly. The calendar says it's summer, but you could have fooled me.

My friend Dian posted the BC strip on F___eB__k (cross yourself if you said it out loud). Click on it to make it bigger.

scary mexicans

At last, the Supremes have delivered their decision on that Arizona anti-illegal-immigrant law.

So now this case finally comes up, and people continue getting all wrapped around the axle over all these dern furriners a-comin here, but I'd say the timing is inappropriate.

'Cause it's like those yahoos in AZ and the Supremes and everybody haven't even noticed that nobody wants to come here any more, because of the crappy economy mainly. Just as if two guys in a bar are fighting over some woman, and while they're at it she leaves with somebody else.

dept of culture

Cab Calloway sings the St. James Infirmary Blues, with animated art by Fleisher in this 1930's masterpiece. From a 7-minute Betty Boop cartoon sendup of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves."

vegetables and pasta

I was over at Miss Moneypenny's Saturday evening, and she cooked something the world should know about. (Or maybe it already does, and I was the last one to find out.) One great thing about it is it's real simple -- "EZPZ" as Ms. Moneypenny herself puts it. Another is how it tastes, and a third is that it's comfort food.

Use whatever kind of vegetables you want; tonight I'm using Roma tomatoes, an yellow onion, red bell pepper, broccoli, mushrooms, and zucchini. I'll cut em up bite size and toss em in a bowl with olive oil and spices, then dump em onto a pizza pan to bake at 400 for half an hour.

While that's goin on cook up your pasta in an amount appropriate for the number of food eaters on hand. After you drain it mix in a bit of pesto. Have a nice pile of Parmesan cheese grated, and after mixing vegetables & pasta together, top it with cheese while it's still very hot. The cheese will then melt. Yum, yum.

As you can see, it's a totally flexible recipe. Just pick whatever vegetables ring your bell, those can and should vary. If you're a garlic person, I don't know when or how you'd put the magic in. Maybe roast the cloves with the vegetables, then put em through a press?

small & bigger than small

A mouse is an animal,

Therefore,

A large mouse is a large animal.

the nada files

I'm still a political creature, but I don't know if I can write about politics and economics any more. Every time I read a politics or econ news story lately, I end up either angry or depressed. Sometimes both. Then if the story proves worthy of becoming a clump in the Catboxx, I'll end up writing an angry-depressed blog piece.

For example, looking at a few random news stories just today I come up with this.

Or maybe you prefer exotic and heavily-overdecorated fantasy to mundane, boring money-grubbing.

Or maybe you're afraid the Iranians are going to nuke us while we sleep with that bomb they don't have. Or maybe you're not. Either way, the standard story on this topic -- on all these topics -- is depressing and dumb. I don't know what's worse, the stories, or the stories about the stories.

The problem is, if I don't write about politricks and ecomics, what can I write about? Maybe I could just write about Jesus and the money. And you know, Jesus hasn't been doing too good lately. He's been striking out an awful lot. I hope he's OK, and just having a little slump.

Photo: Silvio Berlusconi

deep interior

This dispatch comes to you from far away, deep in the interior. I'm in the rain forest, where it's always cool and wet, in a gingerbread house full of living things -- dogs, cats, birds, plants, worms, intestinal microorganisms, humans.

It's like living in a dream, being in this place, dreaming of a better world, one that's at peace with itself, and men and women work together in the green fields with dignity, for the laborer is worth her or his hire.

I suppose I could wake up and escape -- if I wanted to, but where would I go then? Back to the city? The city is a racetrack; its narrow streets crowded with noisy vehicles rushing about aimlessly, full of concrete, asphalt, glass, and steel. I've had enough of the urban dream-crusher.

A better world begins with a dream.

ahead of his time

My grandfather, who was the oldest pinko in Spokane, Washington, invented his own TV mute button in the late 1950's. Actually it was a toggle switch, not a button.

He was decades ahead of his time, but had high hopes for this little device, which he modestly called "the greatest invention since the wheel."