Are We There Yet? -OR- Crossing The Rubicon

To oblivion and beyond!

We coulda had it all. We coulda been a contender. We coulda been that shining city on that hill. We coulda asked not what our country could do for you. We could skrimp and save and invest and put a little aside, on account, away for rainy days. We actually did these things; and more; for a while. Then Oprah RWR started giving out our favorite things. No big deal, we were hoarders anyway and had lotsa things. We weren't taking very good care of our things anyway. We entrusted care to caretakers. We selected these caretakers through a process we called elections. Every coupla years in a frenzy of hyperbole, begging and shallow sincerity, the electorate decided who would be elected in the elections. No big deal. We still had lotsa stuff that needed caretaking and who better? We didn't notice. Not at first. Then a funny thing happened. The hyperbole, begging and shallow sincerity folks started telling us that we really should care. They also thought they had the bona fides to direct our caring to the things about which they said we should care. While that was funny, it wasn't THE funny thing that happened. Nope, the funny thing was that the things we'd always thought were ours, that were being carefully cared for by our caretakers had be taken. Not all of them, mind you, but enough that the situation really alarmed the alarmists.

The caretakers were quick to say, "That's okay, there's bigger things to consider. There's perfidy afoot! Besides which, we still have most, some, enough a little bit of the hoard. See all the warehouses, full of crates and boxes and rows and shelves. That's all yours! And LOOK! We still have the keys!

Presto Change-oh! Transporters energizing. Welcome to Opposite World. We no longer care. We're your takers. Those other guys babbling about fairness and peace are the enemy."

Are we there yet? Oh yeah, we're way past there. From makers to takers to fakers. Right before your very eyes. Let's have a big round of applause for the steal of the century!



"How much money do I have to get? To get me set where the jet-set jets? Like up on the hill where they do do the boogie. I wonder what they're doing when they do do the boogie and I wonder what I'm doin' here?" -John Hartford

The Tell In The Trick -OR- Visible Smoke & Mirrors

My little avatar on the left shows Marvin the Martian peering through his telescope. If you remember the Bugs Bunny storyline, Marvin's driving ambition was to destroy the planet Earth. I assure you, that is not my intent. That frame of celluloid reminds me of how different everything looks from a distance. Perspective is -oh- so vital to understanding. Reconnaissance relies on vantage points that can observe strengths and weaknesses between where you are and where you need/want to be. It can provide the shortest distance between two points as well as the safest path between them. You can clearly see what obstacles are present and potential ways around them. This is my basic approach to life, the universe and everything. Connect the dots. Run the maze. Avoid the chasms. Get a piece of cheese. I don't want or need the whole chunk. Just a nibble or two.

So I have spent a good deal of my adult life marveling at the ease with which scams and schemes have triumphed over our alleged defenses against them. How the done has been undone so to speak. I can't be the only one who was aware? Yet thorough it all, rarely it has been pointed out and always deflected by paid shills. When any truth has managed to break through it is quickly overwhelmed and smothered under an avalanche of bullshit.

Mr. Rmoney has been a one-trick pony his whole life. Buy low; cash in, then cash out, leave the mess behind and move on to the next plunder. If you're seriously considering voting this as a winning strategy, perhaps you might enlighten me on how you reconcile your inner WTF!? Rmoney's "plan" isn't short on details. He spelled it out decades ago and has been working it ever since. He's now set his sights on the ultimate takeover and liquidation.



"Bain Capital My candidacy is an investment partnership scam which was formed to invest in startup companies and ongoing companies, then to take an active hand in managing them and hopefully, five to eight years later, to harvest them at a significant profit…The fund was formed on September 30th of last year. It's been about 10 months then. It was formed with $37 million in invested cash. An additional $50 million or so of what I'll call a call pool, which is money that we can call upon if the deals are large enough that they require more than a $2 or $3 million dollar initial investment. Why in the world did Bain and Company get involved in this kind of a business? We're not particularly noted for having years and years of experience in financing. Three reasons. We recognized that we had the potential to develop a significant and proprietary flow of business opportunities. Secondly, we had concepts and experience which would allow us to identify potential value and hidden value in a particular investment candidate. And third, we had the consulting resources and management skills and management resources to become actively involved in the companies we invested in to help them realize their potential value."

In 2002, he partnered with another OPM riches to even greater riches through "networking" luminary, G.W. The Shrub and Rethuglican congress to extract $1.5 BILLION from the American taxpayers for the Olympics, then leveraged that "success" into his fully legitimized criminal enterprise. He now needn't lift a finger to "EARN" $22 MILLION per year.

I've witnessed value and worth wholly transformed during my adult life. It was wrong when it started and now, through the miracle of compounding interest, it's catastrophically worse now.

Yet somehow, a solid 40% think this is the path to a bright and prosperous future for all? Fuck that!

So Many Stenches; So Little Time -OR- He Who Smelt It...

“I hate to say this, but if Ryan wants to run for national office again, he’ll probably have to wash the stench of Romney off of him,” - Craig Robinson, a former political director of the Republican Party of Iowa

Quote to a reporter of the New York Times no less.

The blogosphere had a field day. The "conversation" turned away somewhat from WHAT was said, to the myriad things that could be said about what was said and the person who said it. But nary a word about the truth contained within the quote. Filth by association? Ryan's own filth and stench won't hold him back, only Rmoney's?

Roger Simon at Politico riffed on the quote; initially without a satire disclaimer. Politico was compelled to add one. The author added another one at the end of his piece. It has tumbled and been polished from there.

Craig Robinson even felt compelled to write an explanation. He admits he said it, but allows that he could have chosen his words better. Look and listen. That disease is positively rampant in this election cycle. Misspoke? Misquoted? Misunderstood? Misplaced? Only external problems? Nothing wrong with the thought behind the words?

People say what they mean, then upon further review (the shit storm their words rain down on them and theirs) they say it was a simple poor choice of words. No harm; no foul? Words have meaning. Words have consequence, or at least they used to...

When the words are scripted, it means that one, or more, people had an opportunity to weigh, examine and parse potential interpretations of it all. The difference between effective words and words of effect?

I appreciate poor choices of words. My ears perk up, triggering my brain to say "Wait...What did I just hear? Did I really hear that? Did that person really just say that?" I find that illuminating. Especially when it reveals the stark-naked, bigoted, small-thinking, no thinking, cocksure knuckle-draggers behind the words. The ill-advised remark remains, intact, even if/after it's been blown out of proportion. Some words haunt longer than others. I'm not sure why. Maybe because sometimes the stench actually does wash off? Maybe sometimes the spine of the knuckle-dragger stiffens/straightens lifting their eyes to another perspective. Or maybe they just get better at choosing their words? more careful to hide their inner knuckle-dragger?; their true inner sociopathy? Who knows?

There was a time when the wrong word or phrase, in the wrong place or time, would get you killed, or at minimum, in fear for your health and well-being. There was a time when we didn't have the instant dissemination platforms, audio/video resources or all that many folks interested in outing the speakers; everywhere, all the time. That may or may not be fair. It just is.

There may come a day when we are privy to every thought and utterance. Until then we can only make what we will of the glimpses we get.

Republicans' Success -OR- LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!

When I jumped off and began watching this generation-spanning train-wreck, I honestly did not think it had a chance in hell of dominating the ethos of America.

I. was. wrong.

When factory towns, family farms and businesses were being gobbled up, sacked and plundered, I fully expected a groundswell of anger and demand for redress of grievance. I warned, I tsk-tsked, I shook my head in disbelief, but I never considered it transformative. The American Ethos was too strong for that. Too many had worked too hard for too long to give up without a fight. There would be a response, any day now...

When the malls, anchored by big box stores and temperature controlled environments, were popping up like pimples on prom night, when they replaced the community-focused community centers as our loci of life, when the food court replaced the diners, drive-ins and dives, when the cineplex usurped the Bijoux, when all these shifts in how we live were altering how we live, I believed we were smarter than this.

I. was. wrong.

Barnum and Pogo were RIGHT.

To what can we attribute the relative ease with which the switch was flicked?
How did we not recognize that this road we were on lead nowhere any of us really wanted to go?
What made us think our way of life would survive this kind of alteration?
What folly? What madness? What whimsy seized us? When did we wake to reality? Have we woken yet?
If so, how do we stop the insanity? How do we give up the comfort and convenience?
How do we wrest control over our lives and our choices from those who have taken over?
Get back to where you once belonged?

See, that's just it. Where did we once belong?

We Must Remember This... As Time Goes By -OR- Breaking The Cycle

I don't have eidetic memory, but I'm no etch-a-sketch head either. I'm a firm believer in memory. My 58 years are filled with all kinds of recollectables. Some are painful reminders of hard-lessons learned. Others are uplifting snippets of pure, unadulterated joy. Still others are abhorrence and abomination that I wish I could simply erase, but know that it's important to retain for future reference.

What I don't remember from times past is a period in which blunt-force ignorance was given prime-time, center-stage, center-ring to be validated; unchallenged, without any disclaimer whatsoever by LEGITIMATE broadcast journalism.
I remember local station "editorials" and the occasional "rebuttal". I remember Johnny Carson's "Floyd R. Turbo" crankily illustrating the wacky, borderline unhinged nature of our society's flip side. I remember Gilda Radner's send-ups over Soviet Jewlery. Ackroyd and Curtin's Point/Counterpoint. So I remember that their spoofs were loosely based on actual events. I also remember when this happened;



Now I like an unhinged free-for-all as much as anyone. I also like the challenge to absurdity to be strident. Notice how civility has to be put aside? How ad hominem is used, but also called out. See, our disagreements are nothing new.

Compare and contrast...


What the fuck is Georgie's function? Watch him as this exchange unfolds. Contemplatively stroking his chin, blankly accepting? Considering the after-show catering? Wondering if the curtains match the drapes? I smell an EMMY!!! This is great! I wonder if we can get her to come back next week for more of this fascinating banter...What?

The setup:
"You made some interesting comments in your new book Ann, why don't you spew for a while. Don't worry, the rest of the panel won't react uncivilly and call you a hate-filled harpie."

When the bullshit "Both sides do it" stalking horse is deployed, PLEASE consider the context. One person is spewing some dog-whistle fear-mongering warmed over Bircherisms and the rest of the "panel" is PAID to sit there and react as if this is a valid discussion of issues. Don't take my word for it, do your own study.

As you watch ANY of what passes for issue-based newsfotainment issue driven shows, identify the false premise as it is presented. See what the framing parameters are.
Then realize that what "both sides are doing" is pure Kabuki theater wherein no reasonable discussion can take place. Multiply that by the landscape of opportunity to stage these productions and the economy this product drives... [shudder]

I remember when the Sunday and evening talkies weren't pandering to a blood-feud audience. I remember when they weren't propping up a whole resource-sapping industry
based purely on reacting to the batshit crazy and knuckle-dragging dog whistles being booked as LEGITIMATE spokespeople for ANY rationally-based school of thought.

Meat and potato issues? Guns or Butter ideological battles? Paper or plastic? Mousse or Gel? Nope, lets waste some time talking about how Aynnie Coultergeist pwned `lil Georgie!???

We live in Opposite World because despite our constant plea to STOP this crap, the clown cars are backed up all the way to Oxnard.

Wither Thou Goest -OR- Strike The Root

It's a money trick folks. It's been a money trick since nineteen-sixty-nine. Whether you've bought into it matters not. The trick goes on. What happened in `69 you ask? Think about it. The fog of war. The Great Society. Riots in the streets. Uppity Negroes. Law and Order. DFHs and Flower Children -The Baby Boomers-, on the verge of "taking over". The Silent Majority, which was neither, exerted its influence, called in its chits; made sure that change would not imperil its unobstructed, unfettered control. There were enough willing heirs and wannabes to perpetuate the privilege of privilege. Sons and daughters of America's ruling class, would negotiate and manage the illusion of transition and transformation. With a knowing nod and wink, all would be taken care of, law and order would be firmly enforced. New laws would be crafted to quell the rabble. That's what the whispering minority insists is necessary. Preserve, protect and defend regardless of how offending it is to the founding principles.

Nobody would notice. Loyal Young Republicans, hired or appointed by Old Republicans, filled the ranks. Not a torch passing; more of an apprenticeship. They made their bones building the castle walls, battering rams and siege towers of modern political life. LBJ's Great Society Programs were handed to them as unshaped blobs that were intended to be formed into meaningful social programs. Instead they were rolled out as facades, just enough to still the beating liberal heart, but weaponized for future use. The Rube Goldbergian structure visibly accepting the raw materials (cash) and extruding minimal finished product at the spigot end. What a marvelous machine! The right people, (or mostly the preferred "People of the Right") spent eight giddy years making sure that the structure would stand up to future attempts to alter the purpose to which it has been designed. "All Show; NO Go!" Who's minding the store? Who's manning the customer service desks? Who's cooking doing the books?

The purpose of the exercise was to provide future conservatives enough tangible proof that social programs are a waste. Flinging around aggregate sums spent under the guise of this marvelous machine has been the life-blood of the conservative argument against the very government they've indicted as ineffective; to help them gain more control over its ability to enrich the rich, and make no mistake, the machine has made countless people wealthy beyond their worth to society.

Pure evil genius. Plain and simple. A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to implementation, but the history says it was LBJ's Great Society. The reality says it was Nixon's.

While that was where things went awry, they didn't become fully untethered until RWR
found that voodoo magic overdrive thingy that made sure there was no way back short of implosion and collapse.

I'm fairly confident that some future historians will reach the consensus that it all went to pieces from chasing a myth. It's the same myth that has crumbled empires since forever. Each time, the rebuilders pledge not to fall victim to the same venal human foibles, and each time the pledge is ignored.

It could have been different this time, but it wasn't. Maybe next time...

Warped Drives -OR- Disingenuous Framing for Dummies

The magical mystery tour is coming to take you away. Step right this way. Leave YOUR logic at the tent flap. When you enter our realm, we'll tell you what's logical. Public Education is a massive failure. Teachers and their UNIONS are EVIL. Charter schools run by for-profit consortiums run by past and present EXPERTS in the education field and vouchers to enable tax dollars to flow to these for-profit schools who can hire and fire teachers at will while picking and choosing from the pool of students, dispatching those who do not measure up... this is the bright future of education in America.

Really? Seriously? Wait a second. What the Fuck? At the end of this for-profit extruder process, where are the kids deemed unsuited to the ethos of charter schools? Oh, that's right, they're in the PUBLIC SCHOOLS. That'll teach them!

Regarding the Chicago Teachers' Strike of 2012... If your heart is telling you to side with the teachers, while your head is telling you that education is a mess from top to bottom, while your eyes and hears are being assaulted with conflicting images and sounds, FOLLOW YOUR HEART!

When Mayor Rahmses I (h/t: d r i f t g l a s s) steps to the microphone to point out that the remaining two obstacles to ending the Chicago Teacher Strike of 2012 are NOT subject to collective bargaining, ipso facto ILLEGAL, red flags and klaxon horns should be all that you see and hear. You haven't heard it for 25 years and those 25 years have been spent anally redefining what is and is not permissible for teachers to bring to the table for negotiating purposes. Teachers cannot, under any circumstances be allowed to run the schools, let alone have input into how schools are run.

When the CEO and Superintendent of CPS speak to the dictation takers saying "if Principals are to be held accountable for performance, they must be allowed to pick their own team" (teachers), but that doesn't extend to the teachers picking THEIR own team?

Teachers -MUST- be told precisely what to teach, how to teach it, where to teach it, with which textbooks (if they're that fortunate), in which classroom, to which students, yada yada yada, andonandon, based on the ideas, practices and procedures developed by experts in well-funded think tanks devoted to solving our education problem.... To permit otherwise disrupts the painstaking framing of our educational challenges. All that you really need to know is that education is a mess from top to bottom and that it's the fault of the teachers' UNIONS.

So what is a mother to do? Well, most of you don't live in Chicago, so your dilemma is lessened greatly. The implications and consequence of what happens, when it finally happens, in Chicago will be weaponized for use wherever public education defies the framing and succeeds. If you DO live in Chicago, the message is clear, get your kids out of the city; into those great suburban schools! Look at the test scores. That will tell you all you need to know about where you want and don't want to call home.

The only acceptable framework for public education debate is that which reinforces the premise that public education is destined for the scrap heap? That it is too expensive, too inefficient, too liberal, too rotted, too failed and too decayed to fix? Please don't be fooled into thinking this has anything to do with teachers or students or parents or the present/future of anything other than fear, money, power and control.

In the monkey see; monkey do mindset of school policy making, everybody is looking at everybody else's "answers". As the brain-drain continues unaddressed, as the nomadic search for greener grass cripples neighborhoods and communities, as the merciless pounding of square pegs into round holes marches on, as the next fad in education gets applied liberally as a salve, as the vulture capitalists measure their next school building for takeover, what you will not hear is an actual definition of what education is. What is its actual mission/purpose? Much of what is advertised as success and/or excellence, is pure projection. It's good because we say it's good.

The bumping and grinding, invasion/succession churn of students and families frantically searching for the ever more elusive, indefinable "good education" that will assure success is leaving destruction in its path.

The teachers in Chicago are trying to shed light on some of the obstacles. When they return to their classrooms, they can honestly say they tried. We're not prepared to have the kind of discussions that are needed?

I'll Take Blaming The Victim For $1000 Alex! -OR- Rmoney Finds Ass With Both Lips

Not one to miss an apparent opportunity for some low hanging fruit, the corporate candidate Willard Rmoney took aim at the Chicago Teachers who are walking picket lines to fight for their students. Wait, what? They're striking because they're greedy aren't they? Well, no, not exactly, although you'd never think otherwise by the coverage.

The Rethuglican candidate had this to say:
“I am disappointed by the decision of the Chicago Teachers Union to turn its back on not only a city negotiating in good faith but also the hundreds of thousands of children relying on the city’s public schools to provide them a safe place to receive a strong education. Teachers unions have too often made plain that their interests conflict with those of our children, and today we are seeing one of the clearest examples yet. President Obama has chosen his side in this fight, sending his Vice President last year to assure the nation’s largest teachers union that ‘you should have no doubt about my affection for you and the President’s commitment to you.’ I choose to side with the parents and students depending on public schools to give them the skills to succeed, and my plan for education reform will do exactly that.”

The teachers turned down the CPS offer of 16% raises! Not because it wasn't enough, but because they want their actual grievances addressed. Mister Rmoney can't fathom such a thing, and he sure hasn't spent much/any time in a Chicago school to gauge which side has been negotiating in good faith. Which side?

I'm actually hoping that the teachers stick to their guns this time. 100 degree overcrowded classrooms without textbooks, teaching to the pointless tests, no time for planning or articulation between teachers, leaking roofs, faulty wiring, peeling paint, inadequate lighting, lack of routine maintenance, windows that don't open, doors that don't close... That is what many of Chicago's teachers and students live with every day.

If I have a grudge against the teachers and their unions, not just in Chicago, but everywhere, it's that they've let people like Rmoney get away with boiling their grievances down to what's in their paycheck. I've heard the laundry list before. I LOVE the laundry list. I think what they say they're fighting for is the right fight. Addressing the daily obstacles to learning should not be the teachers' responsibility, but when the people calling the shots suck at running schools, the teachers have to speak for their students.

The "good faith negotiating" typically engaged by "management" is to determine the least amount of money it will take for the teachers to put the list away for another contract cycle. For them, that's much cheaper than actually fixing and supplying the schools and classrooms. There is usually a number that will make it all go away again and that is management's focus of typical teacher contract negotiations. That might not be so easy in Chicago this time around.

The era of using "future dollars" as the enticement is over. They can't get away with promising bigger pensions anymore, so now it's either cash on the barrel or actually doing the job they were elected/hired to do. If it takes having it written into the teachers' contract, sobeit. CPS is one screwed up school system, but that's not because of its teachers.

These Two Things Are NOT Incongruous

And Then A Step To The Right -OR- But It's The Pelvic Thrust That Really Drives You Insane, Let's Do The Time Warp Again

Let's Do The Time Warp again and again and again and again.

This may be hard for you to understand, but it's gotten harder for me to reframe the obvious or put a fresh angle on the same old same old. It was far easier when we first began the steep plunge into OPPOSITE WORLD, but that's been 32 years fergawdsakes!

Twasn't it cute when our wee little ones took their first halting steps into OW? No, not particularly. Coming as they did after the unsatisfying four year ball of confusion that vainly attempted to come to grips with a solid decade of Nixonian deception, debauchery and Ford forgivery.

All of these things are much like the other. Math and memory join truth and justice on the scrap heap and the Opposite World truth keeps marching on. It helps not a whit that decades into this shit some people began to see the light. For every sudden epiphany by prominent, but unapologetic former zealots of Right-wing propaganda,
feigning shock and disappointment that they were so gullible, hundreds of craven devotees to the flock of St. Ronnie have stepped up to perpetuate the lies and detach the consequences from the actions.

I'm not naive, but I am optimistic enough to think that sooner or later we'll have to reconcile accounts and pay the tab. A series of long overdue cleansing enemas won't fix everything, but it'd be a good start.

The Irony Age? -OR- Shiny Baubles

I should probably entitle this missive: "How I Spent My Summer Vacation", but that would require mundane details that matter not; to anyone but me. When last I published, I didn't know I would be taking this much time off. Suffice to say the time was not misspent. We went places, we did things, we visited friends, we saw some stuff, we came back. Things were much the same as when we left.

If you're reading this, and have read any/some/all of my past posts, you might appreciate my perspective that taking time off from the seeming dominance of inane, untethered, soul-less arguments over how we should or should not be living was/is and will always be the only sane approach. My absences prove, to me at least, that my attendance and attention have ZERO effect on the course of discourse.

While there is personal bemusement at the repetitive, incessant claims that if you're not part of the solution; you're part of the problem, it also stands that those making those claims the loudest are absolutely the whole of the problem. It's their game. It's the whole of their philosophy.

My input is largely unwanted, unwelcome, summarily unheeded and wholly unappreciated. Is that a problem for anyone but me? When the debates and discussions return to matters of substance instead of the distraction d'jour, I will heartily join in.

Until then it is pointless to attend, participate or spectate the third-rate sideshow activities. Our "fights" aren't even in the same zipcode as those we need to be fighting. This is the same tactical advantage that's been exploited for decades by forces of evil, Southern Strategists, Palinites, Strict Constitutionalists, NeoCons, the spotlight stealing opportunists who gravitate to centerstage for the party of God. Their lies make me long for God's smoting phase.

I'll be around more, I promise. I've been trying to square a few ideas without much luck. I think I understand what's going on, but I'm damned if I can explain it. What has me stymied is WHY it needs explaining anyway.

An Important Document That Will Not Be Read By Decision Makers

In the ongoing 30 years and counting "War On Education", regardless of the reality within our schools, teachers have been scapegoated. Teachers' Unions have been demonized and clevernesses have replaced sound thinking in our Ivory Towers Playdough Fun Factories. A common attack is that teachers, through their unions, have not tried to help matters. They have been portrayed as short-sighted and greedy and PAMPERED? Because this IS opposite world, the truth lays 180° from where all the fingers are pointed.

The Schools Chicago's Students Deserve

The deck is stacked against parents, students, teachers and anyone who genuinely cares about the future of education. The house (and Senate) always wins?

It may not be fair to say that the CTU document won't be read by lawmakers and policy setters. They may actually go through it with a fine tooth comb, looking for the nits they can pick. What they won't do is UNDERSTAND.

Transitions, Transformations and Other Ts -OR- Long Time Gone

I live in Opposite World. Whether you admit it or not, -whether you gain or lose by the shifts and alignments- You do too. While I haven't fully come to grips with this all-encompassing positional challenge, I've adapted my lifestyle within the not-so-friendly confines this reality imposes. By most measures, I'm doing okay. My immediate surroundings are hostility free, but lurking, pretty much all around, events are unfolding that could make further adaptations difficult.

I find myself wondering how many times, across the arc of history, people have experienced the challenge of accommodation to power elites? How many times they lessened their own lives due to powerlessness? How many times they sought kindred to fight back? How often they won? How many more times they lost? How potentials have always expanded and contracted based upon seemingly small and arbitrary changes that weren't fully explained and/or comprehended. OR HUGE and BLATANT changes that rock worlds for decades.

Isn't it, when being brutally honest, all just the same repackaged, reformulated, re-framed, bush-league bullshit foisted upon people too busy or powerless to fight back? Then, when the impacts are experienced by a critical mass, what should have been a vigilance and maintenance program from the last go-round becomes a much deeper, wider conflict? Hey, how `bout that. It is! It was and has mostly always been these ways.

No matter the clever disguise, trumped up diminishment of freedoms and prospects; "for our own good", because somebody else knows better, or more clearly sees the boogeymen they conjure and create for consumption; people suffer until heads roll. In the aftermath of rolling heads comes chaos and a tiny window of opportunity for things to get somewhat better. or a much larger portal for things, acutely, to get exponentially worse. One's lot in such lives is to grin, bear it, pray safe passage and find one's joys wherever possible.

Have we been grinnin' and bearin' and prayin' for long enough now? Isn't it finally time to damn the consequences and admit that Reaganomics was, indeed, Voodoo Economics, that punished the many for the reward of too few? Would admitting and taking the first steps at correcting a terrible mistake really be the end of us all?

What's a body to do?

Reprise:

You say you're unhappy???
You blame it on me???
I can't make you happy.
You don't listen to me!

Titles From The Draft Folder -OR- Distracted? Who Me?

Figure It Out -OR- Around & Around We Go. Where We Stop Nobody Knows

Are You Occupied? -OR- Are We Just Being Jobbed?

Wither Thou Goest -OR- Hey, You! Tread On Them. Over There. See `em? THOSE people!

Perseverant Bastards -OR- Paved Paradise, Put Up A Monument To STOOPID.

Crossing Thresholds -OR- What's In A Number?

Bozos & Their No-Nos -OR- Selling Shit

Still Waiting -OR- Memory Holes

I can't seem to flesh out, or finish, a thought these days. Four years and 1000 posts have evidently taken a toll. So, for the nonce, I'm going to slip back into the restraints and observe the fluffy clouds as they drift across the sky. I'm going to immerse myself in abject obliviousness to the newsfotainment assaulting my tenuous grasp on sanity.

The above titles are variations on a theme that stretches all the way back to 2008 1968. The world's never gonna yield to my way of thinking. I don't control a lever that large. I remember. These days, that's a HUGE disadvantage. After forty-five years, I'm a "tween" again. The cool kids still define how things shall be. They were shallow and scary then. They still are.

Titles/lyrics in the relational database:

"Five to One Baby, One to Five..."

"There's just you and me and we just disagree"

"We may never pass this way again."

"Said the straight man, to the late man. Where have you been"

Fear not, odds are something will catch and hold me. In the meantime, there are projects and stuff to occupy my days. Hmmm, occupy? Why does that sound so familiar?

See you in the streets...

And I Ask Myself, How Did I Get Here? -OR- Do We Owe Our Soul To the Company Store?

Rats in a maze? All you are is Rats in a maze?

Sure seems that way sometimes. When we stop to think on it at least. Whose idea was this?
Who came up with the game? Who came up with the rules? How have the rules been changed? When were the rules changed?
WHO changed them? Or are things the same as they ever were? Same as they've always been? Who arbitrates which rules apply to what and when they do or don't apply?

It seems to me that the things we should rightfully point to with pride, are things we did together. Sure, some people got rich along the way, but we accepted that as a tolerable cost to pay in the pursuit of happiness; towards a more perfect union. And sure, the rich have always needed to be shamed into doing the right thing, though now they seem to have developed an unhealthy shame-resistance that might even be deemed short-sightedly arrogant, but REALLY? They keep the Gold Mine, we get the shaft?

So what happened? Could the Mayans' ominous prediction of a planetary flip-flop have been more metaphorical than scientific? We're talking pre-Columbian Mesoamerican timekeeping here. Without benefit of leap years and accounting for other variables, mightn't the date for this phenomena been off by a mere 30-50 years? Isn't that well within the margin of error for projections spanning seven or eight millennium? Did they simply see the apocalypse as a societal occurrence wherein Up was Down, Good was Bad, War was Peace and Pizza was a vegetable??? Welcome to Opposite World.
Crab a chair, set a spell... See the game as it is.

The signs of opposite world are everywhere. This guy used to be the symbol of conniving sloth attached to shiftless and lazy ne'er do wells. Now he's the poster-dude for the Gordon Gekko set. Yeah, okay, a little thin, but what did you expect. When I saw this Crazy Train leaving the Ronald Wilson Reagan Memorial Roundhouse, I withdrew a sensible philosophical distance to watch the madness unfold. Outside; looking IN. Now that Wimpy's the character most like the ruling class, it's only a matter of time before he gets his inevitable comeuppance. Probably not today, maybe not even tomorrow, but it's undoubtedly nearing the tipping point. The incongruity, just like the Dude, cannot abide.

While I admit that this approach will likely come back to bite me in the ass, the hide back there is thick with experience, so I'm not too worried. That too shall pass. I have some skills. They were once even marketable. Except for job related minor injuries over the years, I've not over-burdened the health care system. My entanglements are few, my needs are small. I have some and I'm prepared to do with even less. Frugal? Short-sighted? Poor planning? That I have not amassed a medium-sized fortune to perpetuate a certain, approved lifestyle? Yeah, that too.

I feel good. Much better than I look to some. I take amusement from the sturm und drang that drives the masses. I don't fear much. I know the outside and it's a relatively comfortable environment. I risk. I scoff at those who think the future can be bought, or that their place in it is a sure thing. Odds are much higher that you are one of us. If not today, then soon. The excluded. You think it won't happen to you? Because you're playing by the rules? Whose rules? Do you have them in writing? Are they worth the paper on which they're written? Really? Have you not read much history?

"Don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."

Bll Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, Tucker Carlson & Andrew Breitbart Sat Down to Dine? -OR- Incongruity? Only $2500.

Breitbart's Last Supper?
Who knew? Andrew Breitbart, Tucker Carlson and other Carlson invitees sat down to dinner, prepared and served by Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. Prof. Ayers details the circumstance, process and experience for posterity.

I'll admit that I haven't looked for Wingnuttia's stammering clamor for a special prosecutor to indict Bill and Bernadine for "wet work", but I can't imagine they wholly passed on the opportunity.

Besides which Tucker Carlson survived? More fuel for replicant theorists?

Breitbart podcasted about the occasion: “We were exposed to the two most sophisticated dinner party-throwers in the world…This was their battlefield and they couldn’t have been more charming…I think I’m going to try and reach out to Bill Ayers and try and figure out if I can maybe do a road trip across the country with him—him and me—and he can show me his America, and I can show him my America, and maybe we can film it and let people decide. Because I’ve got to be honest with you, I liked being in the room with him, talking with him.”

That road trip was never a likely prospect, but it’s no longer even a distant dream or a far-out possibility—a few days after our dinner Andrew Breitbart died suddenly outside his home at the age of 43, too young.

Life—short or long—always ends in the middle of things.

Trudat!

Driftglass goes there. The squishy middle?

Anticipating the fallout from the Centrist Circle Jerk Panel held on April Fool's Day's Press The Meat w/ Joe & Mika, DFB, Captain Obvious and the Norman Lubloff Choir...??? WTF???
TV Guide: Panel: Joe Scarborough moderates with Tom Friedman, David Brooks, Jon Meacham, Fmr. Rep. Harold Ford (D-TN) and Mika Brzezinski.
Such an auspicious, objective, clear-headed, fact checked bunch eh? It was probably stellar Sunday Morning Fare. I really shouldn't piss all over it since I could not bring myself to watch it. Then again, I've no wish to watch looped reruns of MSNBC's Lean Forward spots either which made watching UP with Chris Hayes such a tedious balancing act. I've opted to not watch it LIVE anymore, so I can now FF past the urge to run a metal skewer between my ears.

These are the folks who are going to "help" us answer the question of what has gone so terribly, horribly, no-goodly, very badly wrong?

TimeFuckin' Out Already!

I mostly feel like I live in an occupied country. My life and activities take place in some gray zone of detachment; and I PAY for the privilege? Outside the bubble. A sometimes amused, mostly incredulous place. I wave my arms, scream and shout at the folly, but it neither notices nor heeds the warnings.

Maybe I should start holding dinner parties for the bubblers too? Nah, I have those damn metal skewers and don't resist temptation well.

Hypocrisy and Irony, Together In Perfect Harmony -OR- You Too Boys!

"Hey folks, trust me I'm a historian! This is YOUR BRAIN on our brand of politics..."

Dulcid, haunting melodies for the terminally tone-deaf, A.D.D. addled suckers referred to as the average Reproblican voter?

When Mr. Frothy Lube and Mr. Serial Adulterer are indignant that Willard's reviser-in-chief would say that Reproblican voters are easily manipulated chumps who are more than willing to disremember anything that conflicts with the latest revised talking points? When that pure hypocrisy gets dutifully glossed over by the alleged LEFT-WING National Media who report it as a legitimate opportunity for questioning Willard's conservative bona fides? When the underlying lying of the last thirty year's opportunistic parasites shilling for their Sugar Daddies conservative movement's shilling to cover up the wholesale looting, liquidation, pillaging and "creative" destruction of this country's commonweal and freedoms?

The Reproblicans have relied on the etch-a-sketch memories of their voters since 1968. Forget that Tricky Dick was a McCarthy cheerleader and serial LIAR. Accept that he was a reformed Rat-fucker who had moved beyond his criminal predilections. Cambodia and Watergate NEVER HAPPENED! Forget that St. Ronnie ran on the premise that Carter's budget and spending were OUT OF CONTROL and that he ALONE could get rid of the fat and waste! Accept that tripling the size of government and debt made Reagan a fucking saint and the greatest preznit EVAH!

To be a good reproblican you have to accept that everything that has happened since Reagan put the pedal to the metal and scrapped the brakes and safeties, has been what is GOOD. The bad is STILL because of the Dirty Fuckin' Hippies.

Shake, shake, shake.

Give me a fucking break. Will ya? We've never been TOO liberal. Everything blamed on the liberals was gutted, twisted and transmogrified long-prior to delivery. All the creamy filling sucked out and diverted to deserving loyalists, apparatchiks and the underwriters of the faux causes. Designed and operated to provide the least societal benefit for the greatest privatized profit. The shared sacrifices and lifetime patriotism of generations, pilfered by the "right" kind. The erudite class who "earned" it the old fashioned way, by buying off the referees.

When they're always so busy, eagerly pointing fingers, to distract their etch-a-sketch brained sycophants from their empty rhetoric and personal uglinesses. You do not need to believe them. Take them at their word? Yeah right.

Small Town Charm -OR- Primary Day in Paradise

Here in these inner-ring suburbs of Chicago, Proviso Township, Crook County, Illinois, life is good. The lights are on, the heat works, there's food in the fridge, pantry and freezer. There's some money in the bank, our mortgage isn't underwater and there's an abundance of stuff to do. We have two grown children who are mostly self-sufficient, self-reliant and self-confident. They're in no rush to give us grandchildren. The list of blessings goes on to include great neighbors, a cadre of good friends that includes tolerable, even likable, relatives. I certainly can't bitch about my life. Today will be the seventh glorious weather day in a row with temps near or above 80°. Flowers are blooming everywhere and everything is greening up nicely.

Of course, that doesn't stop me from worrying, contemplating and angering over the shrinking and wanton destruction of this habitat. We have it good. Timing is everything? We settled. We live within our settlements. Our needs are modest, our ambitions aren't overreaching. I feel that our expectations are realistic, but far from realized or assured.

The assault on this way of life has kept things interesting for sure. The incessant demands that we should be doing this and thinking that, supporting this and opposing that, and that not doing so constitutes an unacceptable non-conformity that violates some unwritten code to which all the "cool kids" dutifully conform? Well that's just stoopid on face, completely ludicrous thinking in general, impractical and unenforceable in practice, but the assault still escalates. More often than not resembling Jr. High for pettiness.

The primary election was held yesterday. For the first time in decades there was not a Lipinski on my ballot. Instead, I was able to cast a vote for a non-blue-dog democrat or his hopeless challenger. Not that it would matter, or be needed by Congressman Danny Davis, who cruised to an easy win, it still felt good.

The race for our state representative (IL-7th), twelve hours after the polls closed, is still too close to call with just two precincts left to be "fully" counted. Technical glitches prevented the electronic counts from being counted. The race, between Emanuel "Chris" Welch and Rory Hoskins stands with Welch holding a THREE VOTE LEAD. I'll be checking "MY" voters again today. First to verify that they did indeed cast their ballot and secondly to get feedback on their experience going to the poll.

As small-town politics sometimes does, this race got ugly. Early and often. Welch is currently the president of our High School district school board. Hoskins is a village commissioner. Welch is slick and smarmy. Hoskins is quiet and un-flashy. Welch touts connections and clout, his homegrown roots and his "experience". All of which were put under the microscope by a local newspaper of the Sun-Times News network. Their series of articles disclosed that Welch is THE stereotypical Crook County politician who used his position to play the stereotypical Crook County games.

He hired friends and relatives along with the friends and relatives of other power politicians. He played up his "experience" running a large urban school district while downplaying that district's place at the bottom of the academic pile. He had signs everywhere. He even put Barrack Obama's name and the 'O' logo on his signs to give the impression that he had the President's endorsement. He passed on appearing at candidate forums organized in by various community and civic groups in the district. He conducted his "campaign" with glossy direct mail fluff pieces and conveniently timed mailings from HIS school district.

Mr. Welch contended that the negative press he was receiving were "hit pieces" aimed at a popular black man. The paper reported on his cronyism, fund raising, "legal" activities, his use of clout and connections to project and protect his image.

In a district of 100,000+ registered voters, 11,875 (so far) votes have been counted and Emanuel "Chris" Welch is ahead by THREE votes. Provisional, Absentee and Military ballots remain to be counted.

Welch and his "machine" failed to deliver. All the power players who lined up for "their guy" failed to deliver.
They may have, once again, fooled just enough of the people for just long enough, but I have to say that this race has helped restore my faith that change and progress CAN compete with the Proviso Way. I sense that even if this turns into a victory for the status quo, they've lost far more than they can possibly gain by backing continued smarm, corruption and licentiousness over competence and non-entrenched loyalties.

In the final analysis, this is a huge day for progress, win, lose or draw.

Outside Looking In -OR- Keep On Knocking. Keep On Rocking. Keep On Truckin'.

I'm weary. Oh so weary. I can't keep a coherent sentence, let alone string several together to form an argument for or against anything. Nothing but spittle and foam form. There's just too much debris. The wreckage is piled up, loose, shifting and unstable. As much as I'd like to talk of better ways and better days, I can't focus for the storm. It sucks up and spits out everything in its path.

I feel sadness for my species. We cannot afford to keep getting dragged away from our common interests to argue over the same old repackaged, reformulated or reframed bullshit that has always halted progress. And make no mistake, that's what's going on.

The wedge issues being driven never change. What has changed is the wedge manufacturing industry. What has changed is the number of people who derive their living from wedges. It's 2012 and we're seeing and hearing "serious people" debating women's reproductive rights, women's privacy rights, corporate "personhood", public education, the RIGHT to organize and bargain collectively, child labor, immigration, who we should bomb next, whether "too big to fail" was a Dem or Rep enabled scam, whether the New Deal and Great Society programs were necessary? Went too far? Whether voodoo economics ever happened? Really? Why? Because it's good for the newsfotainment affiliate of the wedge industry.

Most of all, we suffer the complete lack of any mention whatsoever that the actual Left, in general, and the Dirty Fuckin' Hippies, in particular, have been correct all along. Instead of EVER admitting such a thing, every manner of distraction is called on to avoid truth and any hope of reconciliation.

War, whether "shootin" or cultural or mythic, really IS unhealthy for children and EVERY. other. living. thing. Peace IS the answer. Peace is strength. Peace is stable. Peace is cost-effective. It's called Civilization for a reason folks.

You wanna discuss that? You wanna debate that? Sorry, it doesn't sell soap. It's got no pop. No snap. No sizzle.
It's not naive. It is a core pursuit of every decent society. So what does it say of this society that it's not up for discussion?

People all over the world are taking to the streets for PEACE and Justice. Spring is here. The streets await.