Dirty Hippy Lawyer

"Union Maids" (1976)

2012-02-12T17:09:00.001-05:00

Met the people who made this movie shortly after it came out. Interesting folks and the group they belonged to was not beloved by the college history professors in the Dayton area because of the previous movie they made about Patterson the guy who founded NCR.

2012-02-10T14:14:00.000-05:00

Somebody will indeed do it sooner or later

This post started by my reading alicublog and being disappointed in both the essay and the comments to the essay. Followed that by reading Greenwald and then going over to Lawyers, Guns and Money where I read a comment on the Greenwald essay and then to read the comments on that (there are over 800 comments on Greenwald's essay, I can't bring myself to even start reading them).

Too much inside baseball? Maybe, at any rate the commentators at alicublog, people who I consider to be fairly knowledgeable and progressive, were cheering the fact (they said) that Obama was lying about his beliefs concerning gay marriage. They think that it is a good thing. I mentioned that I was kind of queasy about that kind of bald faced lie (if that is indeed what it was), and was politely lectured to. I was told that it was just necessary, don't you know. It is a good thing. At least for Obama at least this time.

Well I can certainly believe that Obama is lying since I think that he has lied more than any other president that I have ever known in my lifetime. I will admit that it is possible that Nixon may have done it more, but since I never believed anything that son of a bitch said, I never paid any attention to it so I can't say how many actual lies he told.

Still to those people do not seem to know or perhaps care just how corrupt they have become.

As far as LG&M that is a different story. The commentators there are rabid partisans, exhibiting what Greenwald calls tribalism. For most of them it is simply impossible for Obama to do something wrong. So the when it is pointed out that under the current law and executive policies Obama (or the president, if you will, whoever it may be) could claim that congress is aiding Al Quida and have them all indefinitely detained, in theory without explaining what the evidence is, the response is outrage.

Oh well perhaps I read a little too much Roman history in college.

Fine Whines, Why Do You Ask

2012-02-09T21:25:00.000-05:00


Knowing more than I want to about the inside of a dog's knee right now.

And this is more or less what it looks like inside right now.

I've been very over whelmed recently. I've kind of taken it out by remaking the visuals on the blog on a daily basis, a slight exaggeration, but not much.

Flying down to Florida to be with my Mother on Monday. This was going to be a vacation with my wife, but it hasn't turned out that way. Our chow has had to have ACL surgery. Actually they don't call it that on a dog, but that is what it is. She is the third dog I've had that has had to have this surgery, it is the fourth surgery. One knee on the first chow, both knees on the pit and now hopefully just one knee on this chow.

Took her to Med-Vet in Columbus last Tuesday. Got her there at 6:00 a.m. Then came back here to an all day custody hearing which didn't happen because one of the parents is deaf, doesn't use a regulation sign language and the interpreter said we would need two interpreters. So that has all be continued for about two months.

The vet called and said the surgery went well, but our dog was "feisty" and we could certainly take her home that night which we did. She was nuts from the anesthetic and not very happy for the next thirty-six hours. A mean drunk. It turned out that the cost to us by bring her home was cut by $500.00. There were times that Tuesday, that I think I might have paid them twice that to keep her. However, as she came out of the anesthetic she got to be more and more like her old self.

Now, according to the vet we will have to limit her activities for six weeks. Some chance of that. We have her on a long lead in the house and a short lead when we take her outside. She is not a happy camper. She feels fine and doesn't understand why she can't run and jump. She can run and jump we just are not to let her do it. The St. Bernard is freaked because she isn't being allowed to play with him. Good god I should have kids it might be easier. Thank god also, for pet insurance.

Unfortunately I have to go to Florida to visit with my mother who seems to be deteriorating mentally. She refuses to bathe and refuses to wash her clothing because neither she nor the clothing are dirty. She eats chips and sweets and won't eat balanced meals and refuses to leave her condo. We have a person coming for two hours five days a week, who is cleaning her clothes and getting her healthy food, but at this point it looks like it will be assisted living, sooner rather than later, while she can still do it. What that means is that we will have to get her up to Ohio some way and it looks like there is a good shot that I will have to be the one to make the final push to make her do it. Well, as I told my wife it is just practice for me later on.

Oh yeah I see we're screwed on the foreclosure fraud settlement. Boy is that a surprise. Well it is kind of since I expected the AGs of California, Massachusetts and New York to hold out for something better.

Everything Old Is New Again

2012-02-01T19:28:00.000-05:00

This is an incredible read.

The Mighty Stef - We Want Blood

2012-01-26T09:33:00.000-05:00

a

How about a little protest?

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

2012-01-21T18:16:00.002-05:00

Wednesday we went to a showing of the American version of Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Go with caution from this point forward since I do go into detail concerning the differences between the two movies and the book.

The American version was very good, although some different from the Swedish version. Mara Rooney, the girl who played Lisbeth was more waif like then Rapace, but in the end I think just as good. There are some things the American version has in it that the Swedish version doesn't and visa versa.

The rape scene was less violent in the American version and the retribution scene was different. There is no dildo used by the rapist in the American version, at least that we are aware of and when Lisbeth returns to exact retribution and justice she brings her own dildo and uses it rather than getting the one he used on her out and using it on him. Which I think makes her retribution look a little less like old testament justice, which if you think about it is meant to contrast, I think, with the very sick minds of the serial killers and their Bible verses justifying their killings. Lisbeth's actions are obviously justified, particularly when one knows her entire history and relationship with the authorities.

Towards the end after cutting down Mikael she asks him if she can kill Martin in the American version. Then as she chases Martin his car blows up before she can do anything, which is different than both the other movie and the book. (Wrong about the book, although she did, I think, cause his death in that he purposely ran headlong into a truck while trying to escape her.) Lisbeth actively participates in the killing of Martin in both the others, but not in this one. This changes things, not so much that it ruins the movie, but it does change things. In both of the others Mikael is the one who has the more conventional morality even with all his sleeping around. He does not approve of her assisting in Martin's death or even just letting Martin burn to death. Having her ask permission of him and having him give it changes this dynamic and gives him more authority then either the book or other movie gave him. I wonder if this wasn't an attempt by Hollywood, to make the movie a little more conventional. You know somehow the girl needs the big strong guy for something even if it is only the moral authority to go out and kill.

In the Swedish version Lisbeth chases Martin on her motor cycle without a weapon and wearing the helmet that that doesn't allow you to see her, it makes her a kind of other worldly avenging angel, even though she exists in an otherwise real world (no matter how horrible). And you know that when she catches him she will exact retribution weapon or no. In the American version she chases Martin, but doesn't put on her helmet and has the gun all of which makes things more realistic, but once again makes her less of a force of nature.

One of the most important symbols in this version is the bridge which is the only way on or off the Island of the Vangers. It seems to play an important role in this movie. I think that one of the themes that was mostly lost in both movies was the contempt Larsson has towards the capitalist class. Oh well, you can't have everything.

Still after saying all this I did enjoy the American version. The actors are excellent and in some ways it was closer to the book: the ending, Mikael's daughter and her religious belief and how she not Lisbeth turned him on to the Bible verses. Also, Lisbeth's employer and her first guardian are in this movie a little more, which should make them more interesting in the second and third movies.

Fuck Him and The Horse He Rode In On

2012-01-19T22:18:00.003-05:00

A letter from the dick who is one of my senators. The really liberal one. Fuck Him.

Dear Mr. Couch

Thank you for sharing your thoughts about legislation to combat online infringement and digital theft.

Last Congress, the Senate considered, but did not pass, legislation entitled the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA). The aim of this legislation was to assist the Department of Justice in tracking and shutting down "rogue websites." These sites provide unauthorized downloads, streaming, or direct sale of copyrighted material. Similar legislation, entitled the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property (PROTECT IP) Act, was recently introduced in the Senate. The PROTECT IP Act narrows the definition of "rogue website" in an effort to target only the most egregious purveyors of digital theft and counterfeit crime.

In an age of advancing technology, it is critical we have laws that protect internet users from unfair, deceptive, or fraudulent marketplace practices. Too many consumers today purchase goods over the internet that may pose a significant threat to their health and wellbeing. For example, a consumer may unknowingly purchase counterfeit prescription drugs online that contain incorrect amounts of active ingredients, and thus pose a serious risk to ill individuals.

Additionally, illegal file sharing and unauthorized copying of digital material prevents musicians, producers, filmmakers, software designers, and many others from reaping the fruits of their labor. Such activity has the potential to stifle artistic creativity and compromise electronic innovation. Ultimately, intellectual property theft costs our economy billions of dollars and can result in hundreds of thousands of lost jobs.

However, I have also heard from individuals with concerns about the scope of this legislation, as well as its First Amendment implications. I take these concerns seriously. Should this legislation come before the full Senate for a vote, I will keep your views in mind. Thank you again for getting in touch with me.

Sincerely,

Sherrod Brown

United States Senator

UPDATE: So I sent another email to my liberal senator and I told him the above was pompous, condescending and insulting among other things. Then I punched send on his web page and the next thing I knew .............. well lets just say I'm not sure it actually went through and I suspect that a second message of the same sort if they actually got the first one, would be a little less than convincing.

Internet

2012-01-19T20:15:00.000-05:00

I posted yesterday and I didn't think about the little brag I have at the top of the page: Banned in China.

Its true, I found out that this blog is banned in China. I found out when I posted a remembrance of my friend Larry and tried to get a friend of ours who was in China to read it. She told me it was blocked.

So anyway given what PIPA and SOPA would do to the Internet and what would happen given how much I link to, this blog would definitely be banned in the U.S.A.

Whatever

2012-01-18T12:03:00.001-05:00

Am I wrong in posting today, blackout day? I meant to post yesterday in honor of the late not particularly lamented Gary Gilmore, but I did not. I would assume that I would be in trouble if either SOPA or PIPA were currently in force.

I am having a problem getting myself into posting for much of anything involving politics right now. Although it looks like Ohio will have a "Heartbeat" Constitutional Amendment on the ballot so there will indeed be something to at least work against. Or perhaps work with the Electronic Freedom Foundation. I have actually been wondering just how long it would take the politicians to realize that the Internet can be real irritating and to do something to try to gut it. I figure this will continue to happen yearly. Eternal vigilance, etc.

I do slide over and read various blogs about the presidential race sometimes, but mostly I am looking for snark and humor, not information. I have a hard time getting excited about what horrible things Romney, or Gingrich or even Paul might do if elected since they are not going to do a lot that Obama didn't do already and won't do in the future if elected\. With the exception of course on his current position on LGTB issues, which costs no banker any money.

This is combined with my belief that the people who are ruling us all, all over the world are not very bright sociopaths. Austerity and more austerity and when that doesn't work then more austerity. This is happening in Europe in what are described as democracies. Although technically they are something else, since none of the political parties seem willing to do what the people want them to do. Also, none of the political parties will do what works, just to show, I guess that they can't be accused of scrounging for votes. Iceland as always excepted.

In American the democrats are shocked, just shocked that republicans won't vote for a jobs bill and extended benefits for those who are in the bottom half of society. Ideas the democrats didn't really come up with until they had lost the ability to control things. Mean while we all agree that the military must not be cut at all because if we do we might be invaded by Costa Rica, I guess. Or China, who really doesn't want to invade us they just want to sell us more shit.

Everything Old Is New Again

2012-01-04T08:51:00.001-05:00

From Lawyers, Guns and Money.

Although you can get it from the I.W.W. here

A Little Follow UP

2012-01-03T12:57:00.001-05:00

This is just too good to pass up.

A sort of follow up to yesterdays post. The piling on on Greenwald is still going on. Now as I (very) briefly peruse the comments I see that we are very angry with Paul, not because of his (quite correct) positions on endless war, drug war, indefinite detention, or total surveillance state. We are angry because of his method of getting to those positions. We will of course not discuss the positions themselves, nor will we discuss how "liberals/progressives/leftists" are able to support a president who takes the wrong side on all those issues.

One of the more interesting attacks on Paul is on his position on the drug war. Apparently his position is not to be considered because he wants to let the states determine the drug laws. As opposed to the current guy who wants to continue the drug war nationwide. Some how this makes Paul's position not serious I guess.

Otherwise, the complete ability to refuse to deal with the issues themselves, but rather allow the discussion to deteriorate into discussions of whether or not Paul could really be elected or whether or not he could accomplish his major positions if he were elected is more important then a discussion of the issues and why it is that the "progressive" community is able to support a guy who is nothing but a Wall Street Whore, or as I have began to think of him as a kinder gentler softer fascist.

I guess I should say that I find most of Paul's positions horrible in the extreme, but the idea of placing a flaming reactionary who believes in certain things that most "liberals" claim to believe in opposite a guy who played a liberal on TV and then demanding that "liberals" justify their support of the TV liberal is entertaining. Of course they managed to refuse to engage in the merits or lack thereof of the positions and charge off in several other directions ignoring the issues.

Why Glenn Greenwald is Not Serious

2012-01-02T09:53:00.000-05:00

Generally I don't write these kind of posts, or maybe I do but I forgot, however I got a little pissed off today. Read Greenwald's thing about Ron Paul and how he is the only person taking certain positions that go against the entire establishment both "left" and right. (One really must put "left" and "liberal" in quotation marks when referring to our political/pundit class, not so much with right or conservative.) Its a brutal take down of Obama and what Greenwald calls tribalism from a real liberal perspective (no need for quotes here). There is more (much more Greenwald is not known for his brevity) I suggest reading the whole thing.

I, in cruising the web later went to Lawyers, Guns and Money and they had a take on the whole thing that essentially, and I do think I am being fair here (read them), accused Greenwald of supporting Paul, ignoring Paul's horrible positions of women's rights among other horrible positions that Paul takes on other things like civil rights. alcicublog also had something about it.

The comments at all the sites seemed more than willing to ignore the original argument: mainly that Paul forces discussion of the various issues he raises into the main stream and deteriorated into, but Paul wouldn't do what he said if he was elected and/or he is just a bad person concerning civil rights and women's rights and/or he couldn't do what he said and/or ........... In other words a horse race or this is my hero and I'm sticking by him (Obama) because he is just dreamy (OK that last is a little snarky, but why not its my blog?)

Given that I figure that most of the people who read these blogs are better educated and more informed then the average citizen (showing my prejudice here) this kind of response is kind of depressing. OK major depressing.

Oh well.

Crosby, Stills and Nash - Almost Cut My Hair - Madison Square Garden, NY...

2011-12-26T10:44:00.003-05:00

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So this has the line in it "musta been cause I got the flu for Xmas." Kind of appropriate for Xmas this year.

A Christmas Carol For The Rest Of Us

2011-12-24T09:54:00.000-05:00

Ken Russell - The Devils

2011-11-29T13:08:00.000-05:00

Women in Love - 1969.

2011-11-29T13:05:00.000-05:00

Well in keeping with the current stuff on this site and to see if it is the computer or me that is the problem. Plus of course in honor of Ken Russell.

Its Time

2011-11-26T19:08:00.001-05:00

McCabe & Mrs. Miller

2011-11-19T18:21:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about this movie for some time or at least the end. Well I guess that is the point. So who are you? The blind townsfolk, Warren Beatty defending his little capitalist empire, or the thugs?

What is Perfect After All

2011-11-19T13:44:00.001-05:00

I started to write at another location that if Obama was re-elected the things would not be getting quite as bad quite as quickly, but they would be getting as bad eventually. Perhaps the republicans would eviscerate us, but the democrats would merely slit a vein and hang us up to let us bleed out. I'm not sure about that any more they are both out to bleed us dry. Why wait?

Now with the more or less simultaneous raids on the various OWS encampments. None of which were assisted or coordinated by any federal government agency at all. Add that the medical marijuana busts along with our militaristic foreign policy and what just is the major difference again? Oh yes, forced private insurance, with no provisions for abortions.

And yet still people are defending the bastard in the Oval Office. I've been wondering around a few of the more "main line?" blogs. Balloon Juice and Lawyers, Guns and Money. The pure hatred of most of the commentators at Balloon Juice concerning OWS and when that is not right out there then their not particularly well hidden contempt for the demonstrators is breath taking. Their disdain for the people who are out there doing something is depressing. A great deal of the anger at the OWS crowd seemed to be because of the way they dress. Same sort of stuff that they say about the hippies and anti-war people from the 60s and 70s. God I guess that war will never end. "If people would just dress nice and act like ladies and gentlemen then the powerful will listen to you and you will be able to sit down and reason together." That is the reason the anti-war crowd didn't end the war sooner back in the day and that is why the powerful won't listen to the OWS people today. Well I guess it is a way to deny their actual powerlessness and to avoid blaming their betters.

I can understand how people who have put all their belief into a party and system that have completely let them down now feel the need to cling to those people and that system even more as that system basically kicks them in the teeth (or nuts as the case may be). Clinging to their god and party I guess. Where their god is Obama.

New Toy

2011-11-12T10:15:00.001-05:00

Still on the front edge of the learning curve. Had to download this through my other computer. This is the Caravaggio[?] in Columbus.

A new toy. As a veteran I decided to spend the holiday in a way that truly is a celebration of the reason We Fight. Essentially I bought some crap from China that full fills my serious need for More Shit That I Don't Really Need.

In short I got a tablet with a pull out key board. (If I mention the makers ASUS will I get a kick back do you think?)

Well we also went into Columbus to the Art Museum to see an exhibition about Caravaggio. I say about because there was only one Caravaggio (which some but not most art experts do not think is a Caravaggio). The rest of the paintings were by people who were heavily influenced by Caravaggio. It was interesting, but a little surprising. I guess I should have read the on line description a little more closely. Still since I do not know that much about Caravaggio or the other painters I was not disappointed and I learned quite a lot.

2011-11-09T13:30:00.001-05:00

So election results in Ohio, not shabby.

My wife and I worked the phone banks on the anti-2 campaign. Kind of interesting. Since I wasn't the one who organized the thing, I thought it best not to point out to the people running it that they were using Verizon. I wonder who decided that and why? An example of how Americans seem to be simply unable to see beyond the immediate.

We had a couple of interesting calls. The best being the teacher my wife got who immediately told her: "I'm a teacher. I don't live under a rock. I know the issues and I don't need you to tell me." My wife's response was to say: "Sister Marie? Is that you? I thought you were dead."

The results of the election (I only voted on the issues, I knew nothing about the people running for local office. My wife's god father has retired as mayor, so I don't have him to vote for and the only other person running locally whose name I know runs a great restaurant down town that is just great so I did vote for him. Does this make me a bad American?) would be something that I think might cause the president and his minions to question just about everything they've done since he's been in office. That is to say that Ohio defeated the anti-union bill with about the same percentage as they passed the anti Obama Lets Us Give a Shit Load of Money to the Pharmacy, Insurance, and Various Other Health Care Industries With No Oversight bill.

But I am sure that the villagers who run the democratic party will not be able to figure out this simplest of conclusions. I mean after all they were unable to figure out what happened in 2010. Hell they were convinced they were brilliant both before and after they got their asses handed to them on a platter.

Oh To Be in Prague Now That Winter Is Near

2011-11-04T21:24:00.000-04:00

I think I need to use as my mantra the saying at the top of this blog: "I used to be disgusted now I try to be amused." Thanks Elvis.

In reading about the Greek crisis I have a difficult time believing that the Greek people will permit the government to call for a referendum and then call it off to go with what the vast majority of the people do not want. But there you have it. I completely expect this to happen now and to go through with only "some" violence by the hot heads (do I need more quotation marks?).

This is the kind of thing that makes me feel that our own little Occupy movements will peter out and amount to nothing. No violence no real bad manners because if either of those things happened then the Occupy movement would be discredited in the eyes of ............. just who exactly? Those who matter I guess.

If there is violence it will be crushed with massive amounts of paramilitary police power. Boys and their guns as we recently saw here in beautiful Muskingum County Ohio, give them a chance and they love to use them.

At any rate we have seen this same scenario play out in multiple third world nations over the last thirty or forty years as the IMF comes in to rescue the economy, starves the people and makes sure that some of the oligarchs and none of the foreign investors have to take any kind of a loss.   Wellllll, I guess we are all third world peasants now.

I was in discussion on a post on Lawyers, Guns and Money about the referendum a few days ago (its two or three or more pages back not worth going to any more really).   The original post was basically simply suggesting that the powers that be thought that a referendum was a little too much democracy. The original poster kind of disagreed with them. The comments were interesting: too much democracy many said, things would be really bad for the Greeks if they defaulted on the loans others said. Essentially: TOO SCARY.  And of course, it is the Greeks' fault they essentially deserve this out come. At least I think that was the implied conclusion. It was suggested that the Greek government was able to hide its finances from the poor deluded bankers.

Well now the finance minister jumps from his hospital bed and rushes to assure (I originally wrote insure, calling Dr. Freud) the German and French money men. And the world is made safe for a few more days for our rulers.

Time to defenestrate.

Beautiful Ohio

2011-11-02T13:01:00.000-04:00

The new homes I suspect.

A second post about my "home town or really county." Muskingum county has determined to close the county home. This is so even though the citizens passed a level last year to maintain the county home for five years. A new county commissioner has taken office and his position is: "The county should not be in active competition with private nursing homes" this is of course a conclusion, not an argument. This is assisted by a nursing home owner who has fought for a couple of years in court to decertify the county home. I suspect that there has been more going on here for longer then I have been aware, since several years ago the county moved all of the clients out of the country home that was owned by the country and into a building only leased by the country.

My wife volunteers at the county home and she has been told that last time the patients were moved several died (merely because of their age and they couldn't deal, well I guess that is the way the cookie crumbles, and sorry for your.....death).

There is an argument that there are enough beds in the country to take all of the old people, so no big deal. Fungible elders, widgets if you were. It matters not what will happen to those who will occupy the beds, nor what will happen to those who have made friends. After all they are money to the private owners so if they made friends at the county home (which incidentally is an incredibly well kept place and staffed with very dedicated workers) and their friends can't come with them. Fuck 'em they'll be dead soon enough anyway.

(An aside the old country home had animals living in the home, they were not allowed in the new one.)

The second interesting thing that is going on here (rumor has it) is that the very same county commissioner has determined that it is time that a creche be placed on the court house lawn again, after several years of not having one there. An interesting position, and one as an atheist I really don't give much of a shit about, except putting only a nativity scene without other symbols of the holidays is something that the Supreme Court has frowned on in the past.

On the other hand dealing with these rural politicians who seem to think they are god can be interesting to say the least. Back when I worked for legal aid we were continually running into towns and cities that would turn off the city water or gas service to a residence without notifying the actual person living there that was going to happen. Now the interesting thing about that is that there was a Supreme Court case which said that notice had to be given. That case came through the 6th Circuit (it covers Ohio) and was pretty clear. There were several District Court cases from the Southern District of Ohio that said they same thing, including a couple that had been filed and won by my legal aid.

So I would go to meet with the law director and some of the city councilmen and perhaps the mayor and I would bring my cases and say see: All you have to do is give people notice and give them a couple of days to see if they can come up with some money (normally the slumlord would have stopped paying at that point and that is why the water was being shut off). In addition, if we actually filed a case in federal court then the client would not only be entitled damages but legal aid would be entitled to attorney fees. In every single case they refused to enter into the agreement and we were forced to sue and we always won. The law be damned.

Beautiful Zanesville, Ohio

2011-11-01T20:11:00.002-04:00

Too painful to put up photos of the dead.

Anybody there? Is this thing still working?   1,2,3,1,2,3.

Having several briefs due in the last month and the stuff going on around here that I feel that I should write about, but it is too painful so I haven't written.

I had met Terry Thompson, but I didn't know him. However, I did know several people who did know him. Many years ago (well over the statute of limitations, thank you) friends of mine and I were into the consumption of various pharmaceuticals. They seriously considered going into distribution. So they went to talk. They came back and made what was perhaps the most intelligent decision of their lives and decided not to go into distribution. Mostly because the female friend told me that she realized that her boyfriend of the time would have gotten them either killed on in prison for a very long time within six months. However, she remained friends. Whenever there were busts around town, busts that made the front pages and busts that allowed the cops to puff out their chests, flying squads from the state. They never reached him for serious stuff.

Many other friends knew Terry in other ways and knew that he and his wife cared for and loved all the animals out there. She was heard screaming: "They're killing my babies" when the killing went down. Yes I know that he was charged with animal cruelty, but he did not (from what I saw of the court records) and speaking with people involved in the case, ever think he did anything wrong and he certainly did not harm the big cats.  There was both less and more there then most people cared to find out after the holocaust.   I was told that he raised his own cattle to feed the cats.

I need to add something right here. The allegations concerned whether or not there was enough water let out for horses and dogs. His defense was that he put food and water out in the morning and it was gone by the time the animal control people came by in the afternoon. Whatever the truth was the judge allowed him to serve his time on house arrest so he could take care of his animals.

I am told that the police had No Other Choice last month. It Had To Be Done. Perhaps, but what I've seen of cops over my life time and here, I will withhold my approval on that. I will go further, I sincerely doubt that the slaughter was really necessary, but that cops with their assualt rifles need to use them every once in a while.

They said that he let the animals out and killed himself. Perhaps. I've also seen people with serious anger and depression issues do things that I cannot understand. My first thought was that it was a murder and then the animals were let out to cover things up.

Some how one thinks that things could have been done differently, reached back only a little bit and changed things. Crap.

My Weekend So Far

2011-10-09T10:35:00.000-04:00

A three day weekend here in Ohio. Columbus Day. Well at least it is three days for bankers and lawyers. I'm not sure about schools, nor the post office.

Went to a writers conference yesterday here in town. It is put on once a year by the writing group my wife founded. She withdrew from the group after the last conference because she didn't want to keep running it, and wanted to spend more time with her family. That and the fact that there were internal political struggles going on. The same kind there eventually are in any small group and she didn't want to do that kind of fighting with people she liked. Unfortunately, since she is friends with most of the people who are "running" the group now and they talk to her regularly she can't completely avoid the stresses.

At any rate the conference was moderately interesting. One of the main stresses was that the person who was in charge of getting people to speak refused to deal with anyone else and got only people she wanted, which meant that the entire conference was directed to character development and sales until one of the other people move in and added some different speakers. Which as one can imagine led to some very cool relations between members of the ruling junta. Unfortunately, the one who screwed up the original invites to speak resigned and then unresigned and now insists that she will absolutely control who speaks next (if there is a next) year. The other members "don't want to make her mad." I wonder if the other members of the Politburo had the same feelings about Stalin?

I think I've said it before, but just offer middle level writers lunch and a place to hussle their books and they will role over and do just about anything. No need to pay them in money. Just food and a table to put their books on.

The number of writers there who are proudly announced christians and the number who are or were preachers of one real denomination or another, is amazing to me. Perhaps it is just where I live. One of the former ministers, Robert W. Birch even has a series of erotic novels.

From there we went to a concert of Blood Sweat and Tears that is part of a concert series my mother-in-law gets us tickets to every year. Generally, the concerts are very good particularly the classical ones. In this case however the band (the name of which is apparently owned by some business entity completely unconnected with say any real creative artists, since none of the original members are in the current group or for that matter even mentioned) was not how you say? Good. It was its own tribute band. I was a little surprised at how weak they were. But not all that disappointed since in my opinion they were not that cool when they were "cool."

Place Holders

2011-10-02T12:31:00.001-04:00

Wow, its been fifteen days since my last post. And to be honest the only reason I'm probably posting right now is that I've got to start working on a brief.

I got a new sweeper: A Shark. I have a difficult time sweeping the carpets as my father would sweep the house whenever he came home from work, no matter how late. Every day that I lived at home. Every day. However, with eight cats and two dogs a guy has gotta do what he's gotta do, particularly since my wife can't because of her handicap.

So anyway the sweeper is one of those bag less kind and does a hell of a job. Unfortunately, I wasn't thinking and I kept emptying the full container into the waste about six or so times. Well, with my allergies and the cat dander floating upward...... I now have an allergy attack to match any I've ever had. Which makes it that much harder to work. On the plus side the carpets are cleaner than I've seen them for some time. In fact I now see stains that I didn't know were there and I will have to be shampooing it here shortly.

My wife and I went into Columbus yesterday and went to a religious book store. Since it is not something I'm particularly interested in I was just kind of wondering around. One of the employees asked me if I needed any help and I said: "No thanks, I'm with the cripple." The store employee did not seem to see the humor in it.

Finally, went to see Jackson Browne on Tuesday (thanks Sue and Keith). Just Jackson Browne a keyboard and his seventeen guitars as my wife said. He was great. The concert was wonderful, except for the fat chick in front of us with the Iphone who had to have taken about fifty pics. Now since all he did was either sit at the keyboard or sit in a different chair playing one of his guitars I'm not sure what she thought she was preserving, but preserve she did.

Well OK, back to work to see if I can win one for a change.

Racist?

2011-09-16T09:49:00.002-04:00

I finally figured out linking to Hulu which turns out not to be hard at all. I will say that after watching Moore, his statement seems more dumb than racist to me, but then I'm white.

I'm home this morning and I think I'll see how blogger works today. The last post had a number of problems that I just couldn't figure out, including a back color on the writing that I finally had to completely do over from scratch, different size and font writing that I also couldn't figure out how it happened. But at any rate there is: a poor thing, but mine own. (It appears that if I copy from google docs. and paste here that has an effect on the formatting, so that is one thing.)

OK this has been going on with both computers for some time I will hit the Enter key and just delete the previous paragraph, very irritating Try again. Then some sort of interference and I had to emergency shut down the computer. Yesterday, it just shut down itself.

It appears that Michael Moore has said a terribly racist thing, quoting Bill Maher who is also a bad person and not worthy of out respect. That is Moore said : "I went into the polls voting for the black guy and what I got was the white guy."

Is that racist? It is an interesting question and I must ask my black friend what he thinks.(Is this comment racist enough for you?)

Balloon Juice with Angry Black Lady led the way followed up by Ta-Nehisi Coates at TNR.

After thinking about Moore's statement, I can certainly see it as racist. It assumes that all black people because of generations of being screwed over by the white ruling classes would not in fact identify with that class, but rather identify with the abused and under classes of whatever race. But what the statement presumes is that all African Americans should react in the same way to oppression. It denies the individual the opportunity to be an individual and a prick and screw over those who haven’t made it to the top once they do.

The commentators are interesting, particularly at TNR since there are a number of those there who are more than happy to bash Moore and call into question everything he has done. He isn't, what? One of us? I don't know. None of them managed to hop into the Way Back Machine and go all the way to 2008 to remember how hard Moore worked for Obama and how much energy he put into that campaign.

I made an abbreviated version of my comment above at a comment thread at Lawyers Guns and Money and was accused of being a racist (or at least harboring racist thoughts myself) because I cannot imagine a black person being part of the ruling class. I guess the problem is that there are a lot of racists out there who hate Obama because he is black. (And let's face it he is black under the strange rules that apply in this country as to the pigeon holing of people into racial categories. The fact that his mother was white and he was raised by white grandparents for a large part of his youth doesn't count.) That those of us who hate Obama because he is incompetent and and owned by Wall Street, can be tarred with that same racist brush.

Well, it may be racist. And since I voted for him assuming that he was someone who would be different, I guess that makes me racist. I kind of thought he would be more like Martin Luther King rather than Barry Goldwater. Perhaps I didn’t look far enough beyond his skin color to see a paid up member of the plutocracy.

More frustration

2011-09-14T21:11:00.004-04:00

So I went to Lawyers Guns and Money to get my fair share of abuse. Once again Lemieus is arguing that the presidency is in fact very limited in its powers domestically and that what Obama did with his health care legislation was all he could have done. Lemeius’s posting is in response to Atkins at Hullabaloo.

This defense of Obama by Lemieus and other is always that Obama didn’t have the votes for something that he never tried. Why didn’t he try it? Because if he had tried it he would have lost and then it woud have been a disaster for the democrats and progressive politics in general. This argument works for everything apparently: the stimulus for instance could not have been bigger because then it would not have been passed and things would be really badright now. It goes on and on.

These arguments are nuts. Among the very first people Obama appointed were Summers, Geither, and Emmanuel. What does that tell one? That he had progressive goals? None of Obama's policies in my mind were ever developed as anything other then massive wealth redistribution upwards to the rich.

Well that is what he did and he did it such a ham handed fashion that he gave the country back to the republicans just two years after his “land slide.”

I like to think of Obama as the 1919 Chicago Black Sox or if one wants to be more generous as someone who rides to work every day on the short bus

Of course the other response to this entire argument is that it really doesn't matter if Michelle Bachmann is president, if what they argue is true.

UPDATE: I went back and commented on Obama's choices of Emmanuel, Summers and Geither as his top advisers as far as economics and domestic matters went. Pointing out that these should have showed us all just what Obama was about and that his real goal was to transfer money into the hands of the wealthiest. One person pointed out that was OT, which is more or less correct, although I would now think that in fact it really isn't since LG&M argument is that Obama was trapped by circumstances into do what he has done with most of his domestic stuff. This would indicate that is just what he really wanted to do.

However, what was more interesting was at three (I haven't bothered to go back since last night, so it might be more now) people said that really those were the people that he needed to choose since he needed people who had the expertise in Wall Street and had the Street's confidence. I did ask if they were sure that Krugman wasn't available, but that was really just snark. The more I think about it the more I think that it is impossible to have a rational discussion with people who think that way.

Obama appoints two people (more but let's talk about only Geither and Summers) one of whom let the crash happen on his watch the other of which was working for those industries that caused the crash, not to mention that Summers has his own issues with equality of the sexes. In other words Obama dug deep into the effluvium of the ruling class to get his most trusted advisers and these posters are cool with that.

ONE LAST DAMNED UPDATE AND THEN TO WORK: I did make the mistake of going back and reading more comments. The arguments seem to be that he couldn't have done anything else and these were the best people he could have really gotten. That's it. And if I believe anything else, even for a second then I just do not understand what goes on in the real world.

If the argument is that a president (black or white) other than Obama couldn't have done more and gotten better people than it is bullshit. If the argument is that Obama couldn't have done more or gotten better people then I'll buy it.

All Righty Then

2011-09-11T09:09:00.000-04:00

Obligatory 9/11 Post Because I would Be A Traitor If I Didn't

2011-09-11T09:05:00.000-04:00

This isn't the guy? Are you sure?

Happy 9/11 Day. Does that sound just weird?

We could have gone in an taken out the people responsible for the whole thing within a year, but we choose to invade another country and began (accelerated?) the destruction of our own country and what was left of our own ideals instead. Although to be honest I'm thinking we were so far gone by 2001 that there was no going back and people just started to notice after a while.

Let us not forget that the president we had in 2001 actually lost that election and there were no real protests when he was appointed by his dad's buds. Not that the other guy was any prize winner.

So we continue in Afghanistan because we can't leave (yet), we try to continue in Iraq because we can't leave, we will probably be putting money into Libya because NATO can't leave and they have their own economic problems and since they are marginally more intelligent than us they are going to insist that we help them out financially. I guess it is possible that the Libyan oil will pay for it, hahahaha.

So although he is now dead Bin Laden has pretty much accomplished everything he hoped to accomplish after all, so I guess somebody should be celebrating.

Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned

2011-09-09T20:48:00.001-04:00

Darrow with the McNamaras

Three posts in a row about books, I must be really depressed and trying to avoid the world.

So this time it is Clarence Darrow: Attorney For the Damned by John A. Farrell. Fortunately or unfortunately I wasn't able to avoid the current world with this book. Since Darrow represented labor in many of his major cases and since the book tells one about the era that saw his most important labor cases.

I've said before that these kind of books, biographies or histories and even historical novels not only tell about the period written about by the author, but also about the period the author is living through. That is certainly the case in this book. The first part of the book deals (after the childhood stuff) with Darrow's involvement with the labor movement and his defense of various labor leaders. The Pullman strike leaders. Most famously Big Bill Haywood and the murder of the former governor of Idaho, Steuenberg. He got blowed up by a guy who claimed that he was hired by the Western Federation of Miners, of which Big Bill was an officer. He negotiated for the boys who worked in the mines for a shorter work week. He was every where and involved in many of the most important labor battles.

Right up until he was charged with jury tampering for trying to fix the McNamara's trial in California. He beat that rap, but he essentially stopped being a leading attorney for labor.  Not so much because he was accused of jury tampering, but because he pled his clients to the bombing of L.A. Times.  By so doing seriously damaged labor's cause.  The description of Darrow's trial and the antics of his defense lawyer Earl Rogers was fascinating. At varoius stages of the trial they had to find Rogers and dry him out so he could continue. Times sure was different.

Darrow was in his middle 50s at that time, but went on to cases he is most remembered for now: the Loeb Leapold Thrill Murder and The Monkey Trial.

He also defended Dr. Ossian Sweet during this period. The Doctor was an African American charged with killing a white man in Detroit while protecting his home and family after he moved into a previously all white neighborhood. Of course the labor cases and this case do not get the press the famous two get.

All the while representing crooked politicians, gangsters and just ordinary people getting divorces, or shooting the spouse in court as one of his client's did.

One of the things the author spends time doing in the book is justifying Darrow's taking money making cases: the crooked politicians and gangsters. I guess one has to do that for the civilian; almost any attorney understands, you go where they pays ya and you try not to cross whatever moral line you may have. The one area that people do not cross over to the other side though is in labor law, you are either a lawyer for the workers or a lawyer for the bosses, still.

I would guess that anyone who isn't a criminal defense attorney would look a little differently at the number of pretty obviously guilty clients Darrow got off. I'd also guess that someone who isn't a cynical radical would look with disdain at a lawyer who knowingly allowed jurors and witnesses to be bought. The point the author makes (and I agree with) is that Darrow knew the system was already bought by the big money boys (sound familiar) and he was not above what he considered evening the scales in some of the very high profile labor cases he handled.

One of the unending positions Darrow had was his absolute opposition to capital punishment. Some of his last cases were for poor men who had been condemned to death. He was able to prevent their execution.

I had always thought of Darrow as a trial attorney and he certainly was that, but he took a large number of cases (both ones he had tried and ones others had tried) to the appellate and some times state supreme court level and often won them there.  Having lost a number of appellate cases recently, I am certainly envious.

This book has access to a number of documents which were not previously available. People seem to be convinced that Darrow, or someone working for the defense at least bribed jurors in the Haywood trial.   Serious questions remain about the McNamara charges. It is probably true that by delaying some of the gangster cases and crooked politician cases Darrow gave his clients (with out his "knowledge") the ability to assist witnesses with their memories. Darrow is definitely not a person the main stream bar would embrace if he were practicing today.

I am not so naive as to think that the sort of things Darrow did and fought against are gone, not so. I do think that the ruling class of the bar would make sure that any attorney accused of what Darrow was accused of wouldn't long be practicing today. Still, he was usually on the side of the angels. And always fought for the little guy, unless he really needed the money and even then never fought against the little guy.

I really liked this book. Although reading about the late 19th and early 20th centurys does not take one away from what is going on today.   In fact the similarities are striking. It just reinforces the belief that as they say justice is a constant struggle.

Dos Passos and Hemingway

2011-08-30T12:55:00.004-04:00

Went to Florida and because of a mix up with shipping I didn't have my computer for most of the time I was there (carried my ereader though). Flew down for the first time (flying that is) for many years. Went to help my mother after surgery, turns out it was unnecessary. Still that's where I was for awhile, so.............

I read Hemingway Cutthroat by Michael Atkinson a mystery that takes place during the Spanish Civil War with Hemingway trying to find out who murdered this guy he knew, Jose Robles. John Dos Passos gets him involved. I thought the book was nearly completely made up, but it turns out that the murdered man was real and that he was a friend of both Hemingway and Dos Passos and was one of the reasons that Dos Passos began his turn from the left to his later position as an asshole. In looking up stuff about the book for this post, it turns out that the incident was more or less as it was depicted in the book, I think.

I'm a sucker for mysteries and a sucker for a book(or movie) that drops famous literary names (or movie star names, Errol Flynn was there). Perhaps that's why I liked Woody Allen's most recent movie.

Dos Passos doesn't have the major role in the book, that is of course Hemingway. Hemingway up, Hemingway drink, Hemingway get laid, Hemingway drink some more, Hemingway get drunk, people try to kill Hemingway, Hemingway drink, Hemingway try to get laid again, Hemingway drink some more, Hemingway do some detecting, Hemingway drink.

This is the second novel by this guy with Hemingway as a sleuth trying to find out about the murder of a friend. The first one being Hemingway Deadlights which many of the readers said wasn't as good as the one I read. There is also the thing that Hemingway Deadlights takes place in 1956 while this one is in 1937, so I thought it would be better to read them not in the order they were written, but in the order they theoretically occurred at least.

But, if I didn't say it I recommend Hemingway Cutthroat as a beach book. Something to get one's mind off Weimar as farce this time around. A point in history where things certainly appeared as bleak as they do now.

Another Book Report

2011-08-18T09:53:00.001-04:00

WITH SOME LATER ADDITIONS

I've just finished reading Grant Moves South by Bruce Catton. It is either the first volume of a two volume history of Grant in the Civil War or the second volume of a trilogy of Grant in the army. I have the trade paperback and on the cover it says: PART ONE OF THE CLASSIC CIVIL WAR STUDY OF GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT. However, inside on one of the early unnumbered pages there is a Publisher's Note that explains that they had published Captain Sam Grant by Lloyd Lewis the first volume of a three volume biography of Grant. However, Lewis died before the publication of that book and Catton was brought in to "finish" the trilogy. Although, I am sure he did a great deal of his own research.

This book is a biography of two living beings really. It follows Grant from his re-enlistment at the start of the Civil War until the capture of Vicksburg, and it also is a biography of the Army of the Tennessee, one of the greatest and most successful armies in American history. Catton moves effortlessly from descriptions of Grant and his personal battles and relationships to a description of the Army as an almost living thing with a character and life of its own independent of Grant but also interconnected with him in a special way that made them both great.

Captain Sam Grant was published in 1950. Grant Moves South was published in 1960 and the final volume of the trilogy Grant Takes Command also by Catton was published in 1968. I have the final volume in hardback and it also has a similar Publisher's Note inside, but no claim on the cover. On the other hand I have seen the cover of the trade paperback on Amazon and it has a similar claim (PART TWO, etc.).

I've read several of Catton's books including the Army of the Potomac Trilogy and This Hallowed Ground his one volume history of the Civil War, and his Centennial History of the Civil War. But I read them, more or less when they came out. It looks like I got these books also close to the actual publishing dates, but I didn't read them then. I think that I was interested in stories of battle and not so much the analysis of Grant's character or the descriptions of just what had to be done by a commanding general to deal with the logistics of the army or the politics of slavery and cotton. Now that sort of thing fascinates me.

I am sorry that Catton died before Ken Burns' PBS series. I think that he would have made a good counterpoint to Shelby Foote, since they both wrote about the war from the perspective of the average soldier, even in this book whose main character is the (in all probability) greatest American soldier. In all his books Catton wrote from the perspective of the Northern soldier while Foote wrote from the perspective of the Southern soldier.

I had forgotten how eloquent Catton was and reading him now was a pleasant re-introduction to that eloquence. His explanation of what the war was really about and the way that was expressed, haltingly in an incomplete and almost crippled way by those in the war is incredible.

One example of this is Catton's discussion of Grant's famous Order No. 11 banning Jew from his department. He points out that cotton trading, corruption and the place of freed slaves in society at the time were inexorably related. and all were involved in the issuing of that very order.

[R]elated not merely because cotton was common to both of them, but because Grant and most other men were children of their time and, without thinking, used derisive words denying human dignity to whole groups of people whose right to claim human dignity was what was chiefly at stake in this war. [Grant] could thoughtlessly say "Jews" when he meant scheming fixers who would have sold their own mother for gain, and he could say ""Darkeys" . . when he meant pathetically displaced men and women who were struggling upward to the point where people might recognize their decency as human beings....When he wrote his Memoirs Grant chuckled mildly about the frontier schoolrooms in which, as a child, he had been taught over and over again that "a noun is the name of a thing." He was grappling with the names of things now, and the grapple was like Jacob's, wrestling with the angel, for the names were important. Far ahead of him . . . dependent in a strange way on this very campaign, there might be a day when people of good will, like himself, would use no abraded epithets but would simply talk about human beings.

I think of the time of the writing and publication of this book, which was at the high point of the American republic and early days of the civil rights movement where American ideals seemed finally to be about to be realized in the then and now has to have impacted the writing and the outlook of the writer in this work.

I really can't recommend this book highly enough for its style and for its explanation of the development of what for want of a better words the American character. Grant was central to the development of that character and was as good an example of what an American could be, could become and the very limitations on that character.

Poli Sci 101

2011-08-14T11:23:00.000-04:00

The president really doesn't have much power.

Also, the majority party in congress really has no power either. It is only the minority party that has the power unless the minority party is democratic, then the minority party has no power.

Therefore, if the republicans gain power they will have absolute control and be able to do many bad things. The democrats really do want to do something, but they can't, because a couple of years ago they only controlled the House, Senate, and Presidency. Now however they can't do anything because they only control the Senate and Presidency, but the republicans control the House so the democrats have to do everything the republicans want. Which they also had to do when the republicans were also a minority in the House.

Therefore, if you do not vote the democrats back in and allow them to control both houses of congress and the presidency the republicans will do bad things and then things will be really bad, even though the democrats really can't do good things when they control everything.

I posted this at Slobber and Spittle and I liked it so much I expanded it and then posted it here.

Dear Leader Has No Real Power

2011-08-12T10:51:00.002-04:00

I drifted by Lawyers, Guns and Money the other day. I think and I want to be fair, they were strongly arguing that the presidency is not as powerful as it appears, at least on domestic matters. Their post was in response to a David Sorita post at Salon and commented on at Slobber and Spittle.

At any rate the argument being made on moderate liberal blogs, like LG&M, (for want of a better term) seems to be that Obama has done the best he can given the way this country's national political system is structured. I made the point that in that case we shouldn't fear a Michelle Bachmann presidency.

It was then pointed out to me that it will be different if Michelle Bachmann is elected, she or I assume whatever republican is elected, will have iron control over congress. So to.

The point I feel needs to be made is that Obama had a chance to make some real changes upon his election and for a few months there after. Once he had shown what he really was, which isn't much, then there was not so much of a chance of anything even remotely resembling hope of change coming out of him.

If the argument is that he didn't want or isn't bright enough to do more than he is doing, that seems to me a different argument then that he doesn't (or at least didn't at the beginning) have the intrinsic power to make major changes and yet that seems to be the new defense of Obama from moderate liberals.

It is I guess possible to think that all his problems come from his desire to appear bipartisan, but if that is the case then his desire for bipartisanship is pathological and nearly certifiable.

Various Stuff Before I Start Cutting Wood Again

2011-08-07T10:41:00.000-04:00

Not been doing much about writing this week. My Mother had to have serious surgery on Wednesday. Well, the surgery was to correct a serious problem, a seven centimeter aneurysm on her aorta, but the surgery itself wasn't apparently major She is in Florida with two sister-in-laws and one brother. I'm going down later this month. The thing was found by accident when she went in to have x- rays for her back pain. It turned out that the pain was being caused by the pressure of the aneurysm on her spine.

At any rate the surgery took about an hour through the groin area, micro, I guess. Out of the hospital by Saturday and back home. Now if we can only get her to do something about her one eye (cataract which can be easily fixed, and then something about the fact that she is deaf as a stump, something that can also be easily fixed by out patient surgery) she'll be as good as a 75 year old. I think eight-nine is the new seventy-five, isn't it?

I was drifting over the net and completely forgot that yesterday was the anniversary of Hiroshima: Happy Nuclear Power Day.

Then I went to Executed Today a site that I "enjoy" starting my day with. Kind of, oh I don't know, just interesting. And found out that apparently there was a time in our history when a president did not feel able to go to war without congressional approval. Now I do admit that we were apparently getting ready to kill each other at a rate we hadn't before considered possible, but still it is an interesting factoid, isn't it?

I have little or nothing to comment on the S & P downgrade with the two trillion mathematical error. Still, I am kind of a little bemused by it all. I am still reading as much as I can find out about economics, but perhaps the guy I work with said it all: "Learning about economics right now, is as useful as learning about hydrology while you are going over Niagara Falls in a barrel."

I find it interesting that S & P is still considered an organization that has any relevance at all to anything at all in the economic world. The other thought is how is it that these private corporations have the power to say whether or not a government's bonds are safe. Added to the fact that since these corporations are licensed in the U.S.A., these guys should be concerned that today they could be dragged from their homes and kept in prison until they decide that they rating is going to be AAA.

We live in strange times. Obama is not a particularly smart guy, but given the fact that he is surrounded by mental midgets, he appears relatively impressive. I guess, I personally don't think so, but then I knew that there were no WMDs (an acronym I hate) before we invaded Iraq.

I kept expecting the Media to recognize just how stupid Bush and his advisers were, but didn't happen. My thought is that they are all so inbred at this point, that they are something like sheep in the intelligence field. But with nice fluffy wool because that is apparently what they are bred for. Not only that but I suspect that they actively seek to keep out those who see things clearly and are more intelligent then they are because smarter people in positions of power are a threat to the ruling class.

As for their supporters generally, as they say half of the population is of below average intelligence. Then there are those who simply feel a kind of need to tug at their forelock when their "betters" pass by. And there you are. A few outsiders are let into the class (Obama again) but they are the types who believe (or should I say BELIEVE) in the system as it is. The same thing went on during the middle ages, but they had the advantage of continuous wars and disease to regularly cull the ruling classes and allow new blood in and even that didn't work for ever.

Guy Maddin - Sissy boy slap party

2011-08-02T20:32:00.001-04:00

You know I'm thinking that this is just what we saw happening in Washington.

Happy You Are Really Fucked, And Nobody in Power Gives a Shit Day

2011-08-02T12:40:00.002-04:00

I guess my problem, any more, with the kind of thing I have been for the most part writing about is that it tends to get old:

AVERAGE PERSON SCREWED AGAIN, MONEY GIVEN TO THE WEALTHY. BOTH POLITICAL PARTIES ARE BUSY FUCKING YOU OVER!!!!!! FILM AT 11.

I guess that one needs to point this out over and over and hope that on the hundredth or four hundredth repetition it will click in the (for want of a better term) average voter's head. But it does get tiresome after awhile.

I realize that we aren't the only country that this is happening in, but that doesn't make it any better (except of course for the misery loves company aspect). In the latter part of the Twentieth Century we were told that democracy (or republican with a small r government or representative democracy) had won the day. Now it becomes obvious that it didn't matter. We can elect anybody we want and they will just do whatever the ruling plutocracy (it looks like everyone else is linking to Matt Tabbi, so I guess I will too) wants them to do. Then they will explain that: well couldn't do anything else, but the other guys would have been much worse, don't you know? And the vast majority of voters will buy it. Christ.

Now various "liberal" blogs are telling me: "It could have been worse. After all they only cut off your left hand it could have been your right." Although, I am kind of happy to see that Digby has seen the writing on the wall, and appears at least for a day to have quit her "if only Obama understood, if only Obama was a better negotiator" bullshit.

UPDATE: The news just gets better and better for our overlords. Apparently they have convinced most of the democrats that the real problem is the deficit and we need to cut spending. Then them jobs will just appear. Perhaps we really do have the government we deserve (although to be completely honest I don't think I have the government I deserve).

Geezus

2011-07-31T19:16:00.001-04:00

So I am wondering around the Internet and what do I behold, but the end times. As somebody said, I'm going to be really pissed when the end comes not from the rapture, or a giant asteroid, or nuclear holocaust, but a god damn debt ceiling economic crash the final parts of which are ushered in by a second rate bag man for the Wall Street bankers, people we've been warned about for over a century.

I guess we just didn't listen. I'm waiting for a little while and then I think I'll drift on over to some of the Obama, Obama, sis boom bah, rah, rah, rah sites, that I offered to apologize to when Obama saved SS and Medicare and Medicaid and ask if they would consider apologizing to me. Although I have had a short discussion with a guy on Facebook. I know him from law school and the Guild and he asked me "Who would you be able to support other than Obama?" Obviously, I'm not going to vote for Bachmann or for that matter any of the sociopaths from the other party, but then why should I vote for a sociopath from the party I used to consider myself a member of? In fact that attitude is just the one the democrats are counting on according to Greenwald today. I have no doubt. The other half of that is the blame will go to those who refuse to support the people who are screwing us right now, rather than the people (Al Gore/Florida anyone) who participated in the screwing. Always blame the victim never the never the victimizers.

So any way what I had started to write about isn't at all what happened in the above two paragraphs. Because, what I was really interested in writing about (well when I'm trying to forget that my world is falling apart around me through no fault of my own) is books or rather books and book stores. We went to Columbus this week and I spent the morning in trainging and then we had planned on going a dropping by some friends a couple of places one can only find in a big city and one of the Borders since they are closing. Went to one that I remembered and it was closed tighter than a drum we later learned it had been closed for a couple of weeks. So we ended up going to another store and just kind of drifted around. I hate to admit it, because I think I lose my leftist cred, but I like Barnes and Noble. Although I do like local book stores and little places like that.

Where I grew up was mostly small towns with no real book stores. Although one could get interesting paper backs at drug stores back when I was a kid. Got Taras Bulba in a drug store, another had The 20th Maine. The library would allow me to check out anything I wanted from the time I was about twelve so I could get their entire stock and since they had many of the major 20th Century American writers I got to read Hemingway, Faulkner, etc.

Definitely not the cover that attracted me.

One of the more interesting stores that sold books in Van Wert was the Hospital store. It was located down town and people would bring in what ever and the store would sell it and the proceeds would go to the Hospital. People would dump off old books there. I got a copy of Sartor Resartus there. They also had a number of paperbacks and back in the 50s and maybe the early 60s the covers of the paper backs were kind of risque, to put it mildly. The cover did not necessarily accurately reflect what was inside. Which brings me to how I became acquainted with Graham Greene. I had heard of him, but wasn't really familiar with him. I had seen the screen version of The Quiet American on the late show, the one with Audie Murphy. So my understanding of Mr. Greene's politics was possibly a little off. At any rate I saw a copy of The End of the Affair in paperback. One can imagine what the cover looked like. Boy was I shocked to find out it was the story of an incredibly depressed non-believing Catholic and his love for someone who might have been called a saint.

The Catholicism didn't bother me and I identified with the depression, so I ended up reading most of his novels and a great deal of his non fiction work and found out that I also identified with his politics.

And that is it for today I guess.

Tending My Garden

2011-07-29T19:48:00.000-04:00

Wow, over two weeks since my last post. I haven't really been interested in commenting on the on going debt ceiling crisis, since no matter what happens it is going to be bad for the vast majority of people around these parts, including me and mine.

I have a difficult time finding different ways (that would even interest me) of saying that our rulers are scum and sociopaths, who might not be very bright. Although I'm not sure about the bright part, I am sure about the scum and sociiopath part. If (as I believe) their goal is to crush the average person, they do not care if they have more money in the absolute sense of more hard numbers, that is $20,000,000.00 rather than $30,000,000.00, but rather they want more money in the relative sense of they've got a higher percentage of the wealth than they did last year or week. I remember the English movies I would see years ago that took place in the early part of the 20th Century where five pounds was half a years salary for a worker. But the distance between the monied class and the rest of the country was much greater than then now. Now everybody gets more money, but the difference between the wealthy and middle class is narrower. Or at least it was until a few years ago.

Our government is set up to be a republic, or a democracy, or a represetative democracy. It doesn't matter what you call it, it isn't any more. It is amazing that a large majority of people could want something and the ruling class just says nope even though, theoretically we do elect them and they are our representatives, but they clearly do not represent us. Unfortunatley, years of propaganda and now months or weeks of even more intensive propagand from our rulers have apparently begun to convince people that we need to cut the buget and government spending to make more jobs. Even though it has never happened before in the world nor is it happening in Greece, England, Protugal, Spain or Ireland right now. And when we spent when we apparently had not enough money to do so (See New Deal, WWII) we spent our way out of a depression.

I had a discussion with another attorney a couple of days ago who absolutely believes that inflation is a greater danger then what is happening right now. When I pointed out that some inflation is a good thing and that at any rate inflation is incredibly low right now, he didn't even hear, I don't think. A point I made was that we need a real stimulus to put people to work and then those people could pay taxes to cut down the deficit if that is really what he wanted, he argued that we shouldn't be paying people to be building things like bridges and railroads because people had no money so they didn't need bridges and railroads because they were not going to go anywhere, because they had no money. I do not think he was trying to be funny. Apparently, the New Deal and World War II never happened.

So I continue to build bookcases. Perhaps another this weekend. If so that would be four. Or perhaps I should tend my garden.

This is kind of how I feel when I think of what influence I have on the assholes in D.C. On the outside looking in.

Let Us Trust and Change Our Position As Our Leaders Instruct

2011-07-15T10:39:00.001-04:00

If Obama gets his grand bargain then the rest of us are screwed, but if Obama doesn't get his grand bargain then the rest of us are screwed.

Now I see that the Obama deadenders have for the most part completely changed their position on these debt ceiling discussions. Originally, they were making fun of those of us who were raising a stink about Obama putting Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security on the table for cuts, because "He would never do that, dummy!" Since, it now appears that he does in fact want to cut benefits their new position is: "Well its not that big a deal and any way its been done before and you didn't complain then." When Clinton did it I did indeed complain, but it was with a telephone call rather than through the computer. I'm not sure I had a computer, or if I did I am almost positive I didn't have one at home. For quite awhile the internet was only through dial up. For a long time in the city I lived any internet was long distance.

So there too. I am still an idiot for not trusting our Dear and Glorious Rulers to rule well and in our best interests. They have done so well for us in the past.

Shock Doctrine

2011-07-14T13:17:00.000-04:00

We are ruled by not very bright sociopaths. Well, if one considers "we" as the human race as a whole and not just the U.S. I heard today on the B.B.C. radio news that Italy is going through the same things that Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland have all gone through. Cutting budgets, cutting stuff for the workers and middle classes and paying off the banker's debts.

Further, I heard the reporters interviewing, for the most part, the very wealthiest who explain that this is all good. There were a few interviews with workers and union people but the most amount of time was given to the wealthy, as was the last word. I guess that in an emotional way since Italy is being ruled by a quasi-fascist party, it shouldn't be experiencing as much cognitive dissonance as say Spain or Greece, with their socialists. Not that that makes the end result any more comfortable for the the people who are getting screwed, but still I guess it is something to help warm one over the Sterno fire.

I would guess that one should think of this part of the great mandala of life. You know in cruder language: what goes around comes around. We have allowed the bankers in the IMF do just this to the third world for decades and watched as their tiny safety nets were destroyed to permit the bankers to make big buck, so when it comes back on the first world (say who is the second world any way?) there is a certain justice there. Except of course, our real rulers do not suffer at all.

As far as the budget ceiling talks in D.C. are concerned, for the most part, people who are writing about them seem to feel a need to take what is being discussed by the people there as some sort of serious discussion of what needs to be done economically. Even many of those who a few months ago argued that we need more deficit spending, are now discussing the relative merits of the various cutting spending and raising taxes proposals. The end result is going to be that the economy goes (further) south, no matter whose proposals are accepted and put into place. I guess one could talk about it in a kind of horse race or football analogy, but not as far as the merits. Since no position in these discussions has any merit.

Although, I guess if one views this as a kind of global implimentation of Shock Doctrine then I guess one could see the merit of the thing, if that is one is indeed a sociopath. Destroy, destroy, destroy.

Please Take This Farm

2011-07-13T14:40:00.002-04:00

It looks like more and more (although Taibbi certainly doesn't deserve the quotation marks) on the "left" and even some on the "right" are commenting on what appears to be Obama's absolute desire to move the country further and further to the right in these budget talks. On the other hand I'm not sure that will translate into votes and certainly, if a bat shit crazy republican is elected in the next election it will be the people who refused to vote for him or work for him who get the blame. Not the guy himself, who has lost the confidence of his natural constituency (although it appears as though his natural constituency is actually Wall Street), though giving away everything that the working and middle classes want and need.

I was thinking today as it was being explained to me on another blog how Obama's brilliant negotiating style has brought us to the this point, which is apparently just where we should be at this time. He is threatening to cut Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare (now, now, not slash it just cut it you know, you understand the difference right). At any rate at this point while we are next, apparently, to defaulting on various government obligations Obama is letting the other side know that he is willing to cut the basic social safety nets in this country for the right kind of deal.

Now if he is some sort of liberal/progressive or even moderate then the kind of negotiation he is doing is a negotiation style with which I am not familiar. I've been a lawyer for over twenty-five years. Before that I was part of two different unions and participated in several contract negotiations. I've also participated in several different seminars and trainings which dealt with how one engages in successful negotiations. No where did I ever hear that one starts out by giving away the farm at the beginning, unless of course one's ultimate goal is to actually give away the farm.

I am not particularly glad that I can in fact recognize this, because I am going to be burned just as badly as the idiots who continue to insist that he really is trying to protect their interests (assuming that those individuals are not the top 1% then they are not idiots, but realists). Actually, I'm in worse shape because I can see it coming and so I suffer from both the fore knowledge and the actually impact rather than say Balloon Juice, etc (no linky today) who do not see it coming and when it does hit will still have know idea that their hero did it to them and their children. So I guess in one way ignorance is indeed blis.

Happy Monkey Trial Day To You

2011-07-10T20:28:00.000-04:00

Well happy Scopes Monkey Trial Day. I saw the movie Inherit the Wind while in high school, I think and become absolutely fascinated by Clarence Darrow and that trial. Later I found out that the authors of the play kept it off the stage for a few years so they would miss the McCarthy nastiness. Still later I learned that the ACLU had given lists of their members to the FBI during that same unpleasantness.

So the movie and the ACLU kind went down hill in my mind, but never Darrow. I still am nearly totally impressed by him even with the new "evidence" that he really did bribe juries in some of his labor trials. That movie and the books I read about Darrow were probably a major influence on my choice of professions (well, OK Perry Mason was on TV every week while I was growing up, and who wouldn't want to be Raymond Burr with a secretary like Della Street back then, or for that matter now?).

I read the book Six Days or Forever by Ray Ginger when I was either in junior high or a freshman in high school. I got to meet Ginger's ex-wife Anne Fagan Ginger when I was in law school, when I was going to NLG events. I never had the nerve to ask her about her ex-husband (I didn't know they'd divorced then) and his writing. It was probably better that way.

At any rate that book Six Days or Forever, started me reading about Darrow and I went on to read Irving Stone's book Clarence Darrow For the Defense. That book introduced me to Darrow's other cases and particularly to his defense of various labor leaders and his involvement with the early unions. An eye opener for a teenager who was growing up in republican mostly rural Ohio in a moderately conservative family.

So my politics can be directly blamed on: Clarence Darrow by way of Robert E. Lee (the playwright not the general), Jerome Lawrence, Ray Ginger, and Irving Stone. I am a perfect example of why there should be greater censorship of what children are allowed to read and see and some sort of limitation on what books are permitted in the libraries of this great country of ours.

Woodworking 101

2011-07-09T22:11:00.000-04:00

I am sure that there are studies out there that can explain how people think about their heroes and the very clay feet of those heroes, which they don't actually ignore, but rather deny the existance of, but gee.

One can make the point again and again, that Obama has failed to deliver on almost every level (except for more wars of course) and still people respond by telling me that I do not understand how politics work in this country and he can't rule by fiat (except apparently in foreign policy and war, but not actual military rules, go figure).

When one points out that in fact Obama got almost everything he asked for and pushed for in his first two years. Or that he did in fact enter into secret negotiations with the pharmacy industry, hospital industry (oops Oxford comma is no more I guess) and the insurance industry, after saying he would never do that. Or that he has from the first hired and kept around him either minions of the banking industry or people above minion status, when there are at least two Noble Prize economists who are Americans who were recommending different policies. Well, (other than questioning my ability to form a complete sentence since and think, there seem to be several incomplete sentences up there) one can wonder how his defenders think.

I would think that it is one thing to agree that we have got to help billionaires make more money so this is what needs to be done by golly, but it is quite another to argue that Obama is trying to do progressive things, and is really doing the best anyone could expect. When all the anti-progressive things he is doing are pointed out people still tell me I just don't understand American politics. Or FDR wasn't that great a progressive either. It is an amazing situation, when people continue to back a guy who clearly doesn't give a shit about them.

I may have mentioned before (but am too lazy to check) the discussions about Grant and the Civil War on a couple of comment threads in Salon. One commentator kept putting up "facts" that with a couple of minutes of Googling were shown to be completely false. I'm not talking things like Grant was a corrupt president, but things like: there were more slaves in New York state in 1860 then in any other state (it takes little time to go to the census for 1860 and find out that New York was a free state, therefore there were no slaves). People kept responding with the actual facts and this (these?) people (person?) would just put up another piece of false information. Until the inevitable: I'm tired of arguing with you, post. Of course that is a little more obvious than the people who simply insist that You Don't Understand. Or alternatively that apparently neither hear or read you, but engage you in debate while ignoring the specific information one puts out there.

Imagine that you are at a movie and there is a kind of wavy fade out and then another wavy fade in.

This is more or less what I"m doing without the religious figure

Well, I'm back from doing some manual labor this afternoon, I started to build a bookcase. Some fun. I built several back in my hippy days, but none recently. My friend David Cohen and I once built one on a wall of a friend's place in Yellow Springs. The reason I remember it so clearly (well the incident, not exactly the specifics) is that we would go over to her place on a Sunday morning and when we arrived she would immediately bring out the weed. After we smoked some it seemed to us a good time to have a great home made breakfast and look at the wall and imagine what we were going to do. It took about a month until David refused both weed and food one morning and started to actually build the thing. It took about two hours to finish. Good times.

One last thought, kind of my own, but she says it much better than I have. This is scary and incisive and I think she is right. If she is, it explains everything that is going on. He wants to destroy the America we all grew up in.

Bits And Pieces

2011-07-07T20:33:00.002-04:00

So, once again I am really happy that I do not have cable and get all my news from the inter tubes. I had no idea who Casey Anthony was until about ten days ago. I wondered what the people on Facebook were arguing about.

To be completely honest I did watch the Simpson trial and I was probably the only middle aged (at the time) white guy who wasn't on his legal team who thought he didn't do it.

I was also privileged to watch a couple of minutes of Nancy Grace in the deli. I understand that her fiancee was shot. After watching her I suspect that he took the bullet on purpose.

So now all over Facebook people are posting shit about remembering little Caylee, if I may call bullshit. Run after that shiny bubble while your country disintegrates around you. Although, perhaps that is the way one should be right now. Let's face it is it really worth actually watching while one's country burns itself to a crisp? Well at least they are doing it all over the world, and we did not name one of our political parties "Socialist" and then get to watch them give their country to the banksters. Well we get to watch our country being given to the wealthy, but at least it isn't being done by people who call themselves socialists.

So now it appears as though Willie Nelson's plea bargain has been rejected by the judge. It is important to imprison people for smoking weed, in order that we may show the world that we care, about something or the other. An asshole prick judge wants to get her name in the paper and I'm sure she will. Plus we can watch this for a few days and see what happens while Obama sees what more the boys in the back room want.

I have seen people argue that Obama's position on DOMA and DADT show that he really is one of us, one who wants to see progressive things happen. My response is to point out that neither of these positions costs any of Obama's big money boys any money, nor does it put any money in the pockets of people who need it. As far as the "repeal" of DADT I say that Obama managed to do it in about the ugliest way possible and in fact it still isn't done (although apparently the 9th Circuit, may have decided other wise). I'd suggest that Obama stepped in at the last possible moment and managed to delay what had been a quick and sure thing. I'd also argue that Obama gave the military in essence a veto over what should have been an enactment of a civil right by either the executive and or the legislature (of course the legislature went along). WTF, if I may, and I think I may.

I need to get busy on that screen play that will make me half a billion, since a million isn't enough any more.

Lucky Me

2011-07-01T09:18:00.002-04:00

Oooopsie we make booboo.

So it looks like I'm lucky and didn't do any posts, that I can find at least concerning the (former) head of the IMF and his little rape problem in New York.

It is a good reminder never ever to take the word of the prosecution in any matter. Always wait until further evidence comes out. If the reports are correct (another big if) it looks as though the alleged victim may have a few problems with honesty. That doesn't make her allegations untrue, but it does mean that the case is much less than the slam dunk it originally appeared to be a first blush.

At this point then one is back to arguing about the weight of the evidence. In other words, why would she lie about this when she has an asylum request pending? Why would he actually try to rape her when he has access to so many without forcing anyone?

Although, if the prosecution actually does go through this and either dismiss or amend to a misdemeanor, it says a lot about what they think of the strength of their case.

Other stuff being why is the head of the sex crimes unit "retiring" right now and why is this coming out right after his replacement was appointed head of the IMF? Inquiring minds want to know.

A P.S. NOT AN UPDATE: I'd forgotten that the guy was staying in a hotel room that cost $3,000.00 a night. That was one of the reasons that I was so wishing that he was guilty. I figured he should be guilty.

REAL UPDATE: Although this is another point of view, which perhaps I should have considered a little before posting above. Apparently, the victim's attorneys still insist that the forensic evidence is consistent with rape and not consensual sex. But, as you say Cujo, it will be pretty difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt at this point.

One and a Half Cheers for Democracy.

2011-06-26T18:45:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking about this post since I woke up yesterday and found out that New York has legalized gay marriage. It might be my general morose outlook on life, the fact I've been sick for about three weeks, or my accurate view of things. On the other hand I see that Whiskey Fire kind of beat me to it.

My thought was and still is that the powers who control the world, at this point do not give a fuck about you and me and are unable to see further than their next dividend check, or pay out from the Koch brothers (with the possible exception of Iceland if we are talking only about Europe and North America.

The recent victories in kind of ending DADT (that I'll believe when I see it actually happen, that is more than the harrumph and more or less meaningless votes in congress) and now gay marriage in New York, cost our rulers nothing. At the same time Coumo the Younger is set to seriously injure the workers and middle class (such as is left) in the Empire State he has a shinny new prize that he will give all us liberals. Of course, in Ohio all we get is the financial fuck you without even the shinny bauble of some social progress.

The problem with pointing this out is that it seems as though I'm saying that the right to marry is not important and we shouldn't care about it. Once all this is said though, we come back to the fact that this is very important and a recognition that there should be no second class citizens in this country. This is particularly important when one looks at the Rove strategy of the 2000 election of getting anti-marriage equality amendments on various state ballots to bring out the red necks to vote again' them and in passing vote against Gore too. Even last year when the Iowa Supreme Court Justices were thrown off the court in an anti-marriage equality backlash. So this is indeed, a big fucking deal.

But I've just watched today Inside Job the movie about the financial melt down in 2008 and beyond. I think that it is a better movie than Michael Moore's Capitalism a Love Story. Mainly because Moore was unable to bring himself to really do any criticism of his man Obama. Inside Job is definitely a movie I strongly recommend, it makes the melt down and derivatives completely understandable.

There are a couple of things that make it worth while. First it was enjoyable was watching a few of the important economists come to the realization during the questioning that the guy asking the questions wasn't the kind of namby pamby soft ball inquisitor they were used to. None of the questions were particularly rude, but he did follow up. In particular Frederick Miskin a former member of the Fed who seemed to stutter a lot when asked direct questions and Glenn Hubbard who seems pretty upset when asked about being paid for among other things a report he wrote for the Icelandic Chamber of Commerce.

Which leads to another issue, or perhaps it is the same issue in a different light, and that is that most of the economic professors seem to be bought and paid for by various Wall Street firms. I'd guess that the response to that is: Of course why not, shouldn't they get what the politicians are all getting? I guess I'm a little naive here. My thoughts on the matter were that good economics professors could make money investing, because they should now when to get in and when to get out. But that is not true. The amount of wishes can make it true economic thought is truly scary even after the crash, well that and the who could have known defenses.

Gottcha Two Minutes of Hate Right Here

2011-06-23T13:07:00.000-04:00

Perhaps this is a little too inside baseball, but there you have it. I've been drifting around and reading some of the sort of progressive sites. Although to be fair they may more properly be called democratic or anti-republican sites. Places like Balloon Juice and Tbogg at Firedoglake have provided some interesting commendatory, in the sense that crap is interesting, I guess.
Tbogg is straight forward: no matter how bad Obama is the other guy (whomever he or she may be) is so much worse that, you've just got to vote for Obama, and I guess work for him also. Not a position that I believe in, but at least one whose point of view I understand (perhaps because that was my position on Clinton, Gore, Kerry, and finally Obama in 2008). In fact Tbogg is very explicit in the cut off the nose to spite, etc., position.

But the posters on Balloon Juice are, to me at least, more interesting. Because they (or at least Mastermix and ABJ) have come out with the total and complete Two Minutes of Hate thing about Firedoglake and Hampsher in particular.. First accusing them of being in the pocket of republicans, second of being racist, third of being in it only for the money, and always of being liars whenever they attack Obama. Larded in there are arguments that FDLis also incompetent politically, so there too, but that isn't the important stuff. It is necessary to insist that FDL (and at other times Greenwald) are evil and that they are motivated by racism. If not just racism they are in the pay of the right wing, or both. Essentially, they simply do not deal with the merit of any arguments against Obama and his policies, they simply skip that and go directly to..........well as I said the Two Minutes of Hate.

Kind of sad really. I came to a conclusion after thinking about the Tbogg post for some time. I am not going to work for Obama and in all probability not vote for him either, but it doesn't seem worth while to seriously debate the True Believers (well except perhaps for my own entertainment). My position is that you go right ahead and you work your little heart out and then if he gets re-elected come and tell me how he couldn't do anything but gut Social Security and most of the other "safety nets" in our society. I will have the admittedly thin gruel of having been right.

A Hiccup

2011-06-20T20:37:00.000-04:00

We lived in a hiccup of history I think. I was born in 1946 and in reality it was the beginning of the explosion of the middle class. We would all go to college if we wanted to. My uncle did, he was the first in either family. Right out of the Army. My Dad learned to fly and bought his house on the GI Bill. He never graduated from high school, but ended up middle management in insurance, quit that and formed his own business (something he had also had shortly after he had gotten out of the Army). He had worked in a factory for about three days my Mom told me, but couldn't stand it.

I went to college, off my version of a GI Bill, a little stingier than the one my father's generation had, but still enough to take me through a good state school and with enough left over to party on. One brother went to college on loans and with my parents' help then joined the Army as an officer (I was in the Air Force, an enlisted man, I worked). He got out and we both went to good law schools at the same time. Both graduated the same year, 1983. But I do think that was right around the time things started to go really wrong. Or at least when I started really notice just how bad things were going. Reagan was in and I remember telling my girl friend that "They could run the country with 25% of us out of work, and they think it would be better that way." Of course the push had been on since at least Nixon, but it wasn't as obvious at least to me as it became with Reagan.

My third brother inherited the business, but the other businesses they sold the nuts and bolts to were going out of business themselves or in reality moving out of the country, so nobody to sell the nuts and bolts to and the business goes out of business.

My brother the other lawyer worked for high priced law firms on the wrong side, and maked major amounts of money and goes back into the Army and quits a colonel in the reserves and gets a job. Finally with a mercenary firm working for the government and becomes a vice-president, where he was until three days ago when he was laid off one year short of the time he could have retired from the Army.

Of seven nephews and nieces, three are without jobs and not because they want to be, one is still in school, so I guess she would count as not having job and two have jobs. Neither of my brothers have jobs nor do their wives, and they are all from six to twelve years younger than I am.

We came from a working family and we all worked (although to be completely honest I never really wanted to) from at least the time we graduated from high school and some of us sooner. We are all relatively intelligent (although again my brothers seem to think that we just need to be a little more self reliant and then we will get all the good things the republican Jesus promises). We are all fucked even the ones of us who still have jobs.

My Saturday

2011-06-18T21:23:00.002-04:00

Into the big city of Columbus for a Quilt show for the wife, reading for me, then the Gay Pride parade for both of us followed by Indian food. Question from the wife who worked in a Hare Krishna kitchen for three years: "Why does Indian food which is so cheap to make cost, so much in a restaurant?"

The fun thing about this parade was that she marched in the first one in Columbus thirty years ago. The other fun thing about the parade in Columbus is that we stumbled on it last year (she has been living outside Columbus for some time and had lost touch with the gay community there) when I took her up to the Quilting Show for the first time, and the people at the show said that there was a parade outside, but we could just ignore it, which of course made us more interested.

This year was much better than last year and the anti-parade was less interesting. All around a good thing.

Joint Marshalls, the sign says it all

UPDATE: I've been told that bible schools and church camps no longer have the kids do drawing and such of Noah because of the rainbow motif, apparently they are afraid that the kids will catch the gay. And for some strange reason it brings this to mind:

God gave Noah the rainbow sign,
No more water the fire next time.

Whatever

2011-06-17T14:58:00.001-04:00

I read the news today, oh boy. if Firedoglake is correct AARP has thrown its weight behind destroying what is left of the American "safety net." It is another example of the way an organization is able to gain power for a purpose and then the managers essentially sell out their people. With the exception of a few unions, I think that every progressive organization I am familiar with has done that.

I don't mean to imply that AARP is or ever was progressive, but its purpose was to lobby for the elderly and to support their needs. It has become little more than a corporation that has a lot of things to sell old people. And another lobby for the corporations.

I move on and see that the Greek prime minister is "shaking up" his cabinet because of the riots against the austerity programs his old cabinet put into place at the direction of Rulers of the Universe. There is of course no indication that there is going to be any change in the austerity programs. Which I guess is another example of the old saying: "in a democracy the people do eventually get the government they deserve" being wrong.

Our government is busy throwing around its dick in ways to further the wants of our personal ruling class, there is no cost benefit analysis that involves any rational evaluation of our nation's needs, but rather if there is any, it is one that involves the needs of the corporations who really run this country. There may not be even any remotely rational cost benefit analysis at all. Look at all the stuff all around concerning the world wide caliphate that is just around the corner, which will be caused by the alliance of the liberals and Muslim fundamentalists.   Our excuse for continuing to bomb the Afghans, I guess.

I also see that the president's people have decided (not that I mean to imply that they have just decided) that the Austrian School knows how to handle recession and depression and Lord Keynes is just silly. I'm really not that well educated in economic issues although I've taken a few courses, so I may be over simplifying things, but what the hell. The 30s in the United States never happened, WWII never happened we never spent ourselves out of a depression with a lot of deficit spending which we they mostly paid off with huge taxes on the wealthiest. Never happened, doesn't work. It is as if these people are jumping around with their fingers in their ears going nah,nah,nah I can't hear you. They have decided what they need and in order to give lip service to the idea of democracy, they dress it up in a dress.

Of course there are books that argue that what happened really didn't happen it was all an illusion. Crap.

Right at the moment the only country I can think of that is any different is Iceland, but then they no longer have anything we really want, so they are allowed to go their own way. There may be the other problem (as far as our government is concerned) of the people being highly educated and so relatively impervious to our bullshit.

On the other hand this gives me a chance to segue into a brief movie review of Jar City, an Icelandic murder mystery I saw last night after another blogger on Balloon Juice recommended it and Netflix was streaming it. Like most of the mystery movies and mystery books from that part of the world that I have seen it is bleak and depressing and very good. (For a long time I thought that all Australian films were good since those were the only ones they exported to the U.S., but I was younger then.) I understand that they are in the dark for six months out of the year so I guess I can understand that they are a kind of brooding race. But in any case it was good and none of the people in it have to pay their bankster's bills for them. And it gives me a reason to post the trailer and a kind of way to end this rambling:

Sick and Movies

2011-06-11T18:53:00.001-04:00

Still sick and I feel like I'm either Camille or Doc Holiday.

Watched The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest last night and today. I'd seen them before and I liked them, but wanted to see them again. I've read all three books and it was interesting that certain scenes that I thought were in the movies weren't there, but some how I'd incorporated them into my memory of the movies. I mean they were so clear that I actually saw the actors who played them in the movies in my memory.

After watching the movies it occurred to me that if this was a movie about the United States right now it would end with Lisbeth beeing being stripped down naked in a psychiatric hospital and all the staff of Millennium would be in prison. Pretty fucking depressing.

More Blah

2011-06-08T09:54:00.001-04:00

I tried to put this picture on three different ways. It wasn't the picture, it was me. Perhaps it is a good thing that I'm not in the office trying to keep my clients out of jail.

Day three of the kind of buzzed sinus infection week. Started antibiotics on Monday and I really don't feel like I'm much better. Are sinuses good for anything other than becoming infected and therefore causing me to spend money on my doctor and pharmacist and the large pharmaceutical company that makes my drugs? So essentially I'm being attacked by a neo-liberal corporatist disease.

I am my own metaphor.

Oh Hell Why Not

2011-06-06T20:44:00.002-04:00

So while we obscess about this:

This goes on, on a daily basis.

And nobody even remembers

And their little tax issues which have been getting more and more interesting.

Welcome to the Battle of Fredericksburg Fun Ride

2011-06-06T17:17:00.001-04:00

Maybe I've been reading a little too much about the Civil War, but I am starting to compare Obama with at least two of the commanders of the Army of the Potomac. McClellan or Burnside are my first choices. McClellan because of his obvious empathy for the South and his inability to follow through when he had the ability and power to end the thing. Or perhaps Burnside because of his idiotic continuation with a policy long after it was clear that policy should not be forced even though it might have been successful when originally planned, but is now not worth it because the other side has figured out how to prevent it.

There is a real growing fascist movement in this country, that chooses not to call itself fascist because it understands that word is not accepted anymore, even by people who happily would identify themselves with all the ideals and tenants of fascism as long as it is called something else. These are the people Obama likes best even if he isn't an outright fascist himself (and his stance on assassination of Americans, the Patriot Act, his attacks on whistle blowers and permanent war are certainly in line with a fascist world view).

So perhaps I should hope that he is only as incompetent as an Army of the Potomac commander.

UPDATE: Well if this story is accurate then perhaps the correct historical analogy is the nineteen century czarist secret police.

The People' s Front

2011-06-05T20:33:00.000-04:00

Drifting around and found an interesting critique of Christopher Hitchens criticism of Noam Chomsky which attacked Hitchens for attacking Chomsky and attacked Chomsky at the same time. Very confusing. I started out with Lawyers, Guns and Money and then followed their link to the article attacking Hitchens which also managed to take a swipe at Chomsky. Now these were all by left leaning writers, you under stand and there were some interesting swipes at Chomsky including one poster who suggested that Chomsky was probably no more right in his linguistic theories than he is in his political theories. I find that an interesting comment since I would expect that it really would be impossible to criticize Chomsky's linguistic theories if one was less than an expert in the area, something the poster never claimed.

I did go to Chomsky's article which seemed to me to raise issues that I am not sure I buy into, but isn't really all that off the wall. It is short and an easy read. The gist is if you can drop 80 Navy Seals into a little compound to kill a guy who has in essence no protection then why can't you just capture him and bring him back for trial, since that is what we did with the Nazis. There is also Chomsky's point (actually more of a suggestion), which is I suspect the thing that really irritated people, that Osama might have just taken credit for someone else's operation and perhaps wasn't the mastermind at all. Now we all "know" that isn't right, but then it occurs to me that the only reason I know that is because that is what the government and bin Laden told me, and I know for sure that I can't believe one of them and I doubt the other one.

I sincerely doubt that Chomsky is always right, but I know he has been right a lot more than he has been wrong. So why are these leftist/liberal/progressive types attacking him? Perhaps he really is a member of the Popular Front for Judea.

Just a Belly Laugh

2011-06-05T17:37:00.001-04:00

Memorial Day

2011-05-30T09:06:00.001-04:00

Memorial Day Again. I've always liked this part of the movie Battleground. Perhaps it is a little hokey, but still it says something to me about what might be, or at some time in the not so distant past, was considered our kind of Shared American Religion. Don't believe it? Drive around the middle American states and look at the county courthouses built at the end of the nineteenth century and tell me that those are not a sort of temple built to a civil religion. Of course, that weird kind of civil religion excluded anybody who wasn't Christian or Jewish (or white), but it was still a big tent. It was also more of a kind of aspiration than a reality, but there you go that is mostly what life is after all.

People get all mushy and talk about the "Heroes" who are "Defending Our Way of Life:" freedom and democracy, don't ya know? It is impossible for most to accept that World War II was the last war we actually fought for some of those ideals (even though our most important ally was the Soviet Union, hardly a bastion of freedom). We have fought for nothing but Empire since WWII, with the possible exception of Korea. We have openly fought more than eight "conflicts" since WWII, including those three we are now involved in. I can't even begin to count our proxy wars and secret wars since the end of WWII.

As far as "heroes" are concerned, by the current definition which defines hero as everybody who ever served in the military I'm a hero. No bloody likely. Although as I get older my younger self becomes more and more heroic in my mind, but then I would guess that includes just about everybody.

So each soldier's death is a personal tragedy for the dead and for the family, but those deaths, all of them since at least 1953 and perhaps since 1945 have done nothing to preserve our or anyones' freedoms. I would like people to know and accept that, but that is a little much to ask, I guess.

More Not Politics and From Here To Eternity

2011-05-29T12:01:00.002-04:00

One click in. Thanks Slobber and Spittle.

So at any rate in my attempt to alienate the two or three people who actually read what I rite. We picked up and watched the movie From Here to Eternity the other night. It had been years (decades?) since I had seen it last and my wife never had. It held up very well. Since the novel even as it was originally released was quite a bit too explicit for the movies it was interesting to see how they did it. No V.D. as we used to say it, nor S.T.D. as is the current acronym would have it nor any whores. But still the writing and acting are so good that I cannot imagine another version ever being made. The acting of the five main characters (and Fatso Judson) is close to perfect. The writing, given the limitations of the time, is as good as one could, I think get. Debra Kerr and Donna Reed both play against type, so that casting increases the impact of the movie for those of us who remember particularly Donna Reed as the perfect mom.

It started me thinking about other movies from books which haven't been remade because they are so good. The Maltese Falcon, I think. Which incidentally was the third version of the book to be put on film. Gone With the Wind, perhaps although the book and the movie are so racist that I can't see it being remade is just for that reason alone. But to be fair the movie is as good as it gets if you look at it as just movie making, and ignore the accepted racism of the period, although I no longer am able to do that.

I suggest the T.V. version of Dicken's A Christmas Carol with George C. Scott, but I suspect that will be remade again and again no matter how perfect one version is just because for some reason they seem to think the story can be improved on for the movies. (Looking this up on Amazon, I see there is a Jim Carey version, I'll pass, thanks.) Although the Scott version follows the book nearly page for page. There are constant remakes of Call of the Wild and The Great Gatsby, but those all "improve" on the book, so none of those are much good. With the exception of the Clark Gable version which is so far removed from the book, that the movie stands on its own. I'm told that the James Dickey version is true to the original book, but I have not seen it, and I'm sure that won't prevent it from being remade.

I'm probably showing my parochialism limiting myself to American movies of novels written in English, but there you go. My ADHD or ADD (now called something else, I guess) kind of limited my ability to learn foreign languages (or at least that is my excuse and I'm sticking to it) and I seem unwilling to put forth the effort now.

No Real Politics

2011-05-23T09:01:00.002-04:00

Just finished Gore Vidal's Lincoln and I'm starting James Jones' unexpurgated From Here to Eternity plished in ereader form by Open Road Media. I wonder if Vidal writes as he does naturally or he gets there with massive rewrites? I read somewhere that Fred Astaire would not let anyone watch him practice: "Never let 'em see you sweat."

The question about Vidal was brought about by reading Jones and the different styles of Jones and Vidal. Jones does not seem to have that same ease with language that Vidal does. And since I've just read Williwaw I think that the comparisons are fair since both of these books (Williwaw and From Here to Eternity) were written at around the same time and when the authors were about the same age, and Williwaw does have that apparently easy facility with words.

I thought I had read Lincoln when it first came out, but now I'm not sure, there is so much in it I don't remember. The book is fascinating for its depiction of the mature Lincoln and his political skill and the politics of the time, which from what I get from the histories of the time is pretty accurate. A Civil War book with no (or almost no) battles. One sees what the people who lived in Washington, D.C. saw, and little more. We see Grant and Sherman when they visit Washington, and not in the field. The politics are what are important to Vidal.

Well at any rate, now I'm trying to figure out how to load a Barnes and Noble ebook The Hammer of Thor onto my Sony ereader. For the most part when there is a difference in price both Nook and Kindle are cheeper than Sony. Also, and this is the first time this has happened, I've been looking for a good book about the Norse myths and there are more than a few that are on Kindle which are not on other ereaders. First attempt a failure, but will try again. Thank god for Google.

Current politics are simply too depressing. The nursing homes in the area have combined to put the county home out of business, because to quote the CEO of one the county home doesn't charge enough. Then there is this from one of the Common Pleas judges in town. I had thought that he was one of the least bad, well perhaps he is the least bad, but what does that make the rest. Not that the FOP is a model of a progressive union, but still. Back into my paper worlds (or perhaps some more Charlie Chan).

Interestingly enough could not find a photo of Vidal writing, also most of his pics were of him in more or less "dressed up" outfits. Jones the opposite, and most in worker or casual clothing.

Picture and Words, Not Mine

2011-05-15T10:27:00.000-04:00

Stolen from Down With Tyranny from a post the rest of which I don't agree with, so I'm being petulant and only linkingto the site.

Bah Humbug

2011-05-11T11:58:00.002-04:00

Things are too much with me near and far. For some reason this article pushed me over the edge. Or perhaps just further over the edge. I have no desire to help anybody or vote for anybody in the up coming elections, although maybe that is their (you know: them, those, whatever) plan.

We had a friend over for about four days after she put her adult daughter into rehab. Very frustrating. The friend would explain to us how she had to watch and control everything her daughter does in order to keep her safe and off the drugs. This is the third time the daughter has been arrested and at least her second (I think more like fifth or sixth) time relapsing. The mother insists that the Court "must" do certain things and if she just tells the judge, well he will understand.

Luckily, she lives about 130 miles away so she ended up with another lawyer in her home city. The guy did a great job for her daughter on her first charges getting her a great deal, and now the daughter may have screwed it up. It is of course, not the daughter's fault, but rather the guy she was with. Having some experience in that area both professionally and personally I tried to explain to the Mom the way things are and simply couldn't get through to her. One of the counsellors at the rehab asked her how that was working for her. My friend thought he was rude.

The one fun thing was that she brought her four or five pound chihuahua with her (well it would have been more fun if she had house trained her dog). Watching my 180 pound St. chase her dog and then her dog turn around and chase the St. was hilarious.

I'm disappearing into the written word again, trying to run away from the here and now I guess. I love my e-reader, although I might have gotten a Nook if I knew what I know now, but the Sony is great. I downloaded Gore Vidal's Lincoln which was just released in e format (if it is available on one e format, it is usually available on all of them). Then last night I downloaded James Jones' From Here to Eternity. Of course, From Here to Eternity has all the original four letter words and the homosexual bits put back in. I also see that there appear to be several of Faulkner's novels coming out in e format within the next week. That and finding both Canadian and Australian sites which have (what are in those countries) books that are out of copyright and I am in hog heaven especially when one combines them with Gutenberg.org.

Not my guy, but pretty much the way it was.

Grant

2011-05-04T09:21:00.001-04:00

I was reading this article in Salon about Grant and then I went to the letters section and was quite interested in several of the letters there.

One person wrote that there were more slaves in New York than in any of the southern states at the time of session. I didn't slide across that until later and it was even later that I looked it up. It is not hard to find just Google: slaves in New York in 1860, or even easier the 1860 census which is on line. It turns out that there were no slaves at all in New York in 1860 as New York was a free state. Interestingly enough no one caught it and responded.

Other people started to post things that then people were responding to. One said that both Lincoln and Grant owned slaves while Lee and Jackson and other confederate officers didn't. Others said that Grant had refused the surrender of Vicksburg until July 4th thereby causing unnecessary civilian deaths and that Grant had refused to exchange prisoners after a certain battle even though Lee wanted to. Now these were in addition to the usual arguments concerning Grant's allegedly more corrupt administration and his profligacy with the lives of his troops (these arguments although I think they can be refuted are positions that can be defended, albeit not well, in my opinion).

The interesting thing in so many of these arguments is that with really little research on can find out that these points are simply not true. One can read the battle field notes between Grant and Lee about the wounded on that battlefield. One can read the histories of the Vicksburg campaign and see that Pemberton was the one who chose the day of surrender. One can fairly easily check out the histories and see that Lincoln never owned slaves and that Lee did own slaves as did most of the southern commanders. One can see that Grant was given a slave from his wife's family and that the Grant's freed the guy even though they were in hard times and it would have been financially better to have sold him as far as they were concerned.

So the question is why make these points? It can't be because the people really care about the truth. So what is it? It is I guess possible that they are just lazy and heard bogus stuff when they were in high school or a second rate history department at a second rate university and don't feel like looking it up. But then why do they continue to defend these positions?

No Question About It

2011-05-02T11:54:00.002-04:00

Lives In The Balance?

2011-05-02T08:16:00.002-04:00

Am I just too cynical? Why don't I completely believe the United States Government when they say that they killed Bin Laden and then that they buired his body at sea?

Ok, an update, in lower case, but why did they bury him at sea within a couple of hours? I assume that if he (Osama, not Jackson Browne) doesn't show up on a video going: "Na, na, na, you missed" in a couple of weeks then he is probably really most assuredly dead. Still there are the Elvis sighting to consider. Can we look forward to a movie in about twenty years called The Boys From Lahore?

No Stay

2011-05-01T20:49:00.000-04:00

Ok in answer to my own question. Why does the right keep attacking no matter what democrat is president even when the president is one of those nice republican lites: Carter, Clinton, or Obama?

Because they can. If they push they will get more and more and when they get more they want more. They are kind of like my dogs. If I give them a treat, they don't say thank you and lay back down they come back immediately looking for another. Like the wolves after that sledge.

Now, the question then becomes, if it isn't some super secret cabal, why do the democrats keep giving them these treats?

Top Down Bottoms Up

2011-04-30T18:55:00.001-04:00

The difference between the way the democrats treat their activist base and the way the republicans treat theirs is the difference between an activist base that is more or less built from the ground up and a base that is more or less built from the top down.

The republicans power structure built theirs, the most recent and obvious example are the tea parties, but they aren't really the first, from the top down. Where are the tea party protests now that the wealthy aren't busing in the half Gould would have been paying to kill the other half? More or less no where.

For the most part the democrats base has been built from the bottom up. The most obvious examples are unions. Although they have been, from what I can tell, mostly corralled, still they are to a degree outsiders and are not completely directed by the party elite. The general rule is that the democratic base is built from the ground up and therefore must be denigrated by the powers that be or must be domesticated, (which is what has happened to the groups in the veal pen). .

Now this isn't to say that the republican fat cats are always going to get what they think they are going to get. The German conservatives were sure that they could control Hitler, after all.

Pointless Blathering

2011-04-29T22:37:00.003-04:00

Here I am reading how people are attacking Obama because of the "sins" of his father. And pointing out that his father apparently fornicated with white wimmens. AND WAS A DRUNK. Pretty shocking and exciting. Which of course helps prove that the attacks on Obama are all racially motivated.

I've been thinking about that and I have to come down on the side that some of the attacks are racially motivated, some of the attacks simply use race as a vehicle to attack him for other issues, and some are combinations. I really do not see these attacks as any worse than those on Clinton. I really don't. Now when one says that then one has to acknowledge that the attacks on Clinton were about as vile and full of lies as any could be. Obama is accused of being a (kind of) foreigner, since no one can deny that his mother was a good white American girl and a communist anti-American. While Clinton was accused of being a murderer, thief, drug runner, and communist anti-American. Incidently, does anyone really believe that Michelle Obama has been treated worse than Hilary Clinton?

Why the right wing engages in these insane attacks on two presidents who were and are nice conservative republicans is beyond me. It does remind one of the attacks the right waged on Roosevelt while he fought to save capitalism. So while I can see a historical precedent, I still cannot for the life of me understand the minds behind it. Unless these minds simply want to live in a world that has all the same rules that applied to the French aristocrates under Louis XIV.

A follow up thought is that at least Roosevelt was liberal or progressive, where as Clinton and Obama are simply corporate bag men, so it made even less sense in the 90s or now.

Banned In China

2011-04-29T19:36:00.000-04:00

I have a friend who is in China teaching. She is also a friend of Larry who I posted about. She asked me about the funeral and I gave her a link to this blog. She tried to pull it up and found that it was blocked. So I am now banned internationally.

On the other hand perhaps I shouldn't be that excited since I'm also banned in the Coshocton library.

Fuck

2011-04-29T08:34:00.002-04:00

Blogger insists on putting at least 3 and perhaps 4 lines between paragraphs and no matter what I do to remove them those lines stay in place. Any body know what the deal is. I go to the html section and deliete the div stuff there, but there it is when it is published.

Good Bye Larry

2011-04-28T19:18:00.010-04:00

So, Larry's funeral was today.

He died on Easter Sunday, the viewing was on Tuesday, his youngest daughter's birthday was Wednesday so they decided to wait until today for the actual funeral. He will be cremated so there was no procession to the cemetery. After the lunch at his wife's church we came home and slept for two hours. We were exhausted.

I think that the reason we were so exhausted was the sheer amount of raw grief that was expressed by so many at the funeral. The intensity was frankly surprising. I did not realize how strongly I would feel, myself.

Larry was sixty-five and he had been sick for several years. However, he rally started to go down hill rapidly just about three months ago. There were the trips to Cleveland for more radiation and chemo and then the very rapid decline which started about three or four weeks ago.

Larry's was the only bicycle shop in town for several decades so anybody who rode seriously, or who had kids who had bikes that needed fixed knew Larry. Also, since Larry was the world's premier procrastinator they would get to see him much more than they had at first expected or for that matter wanted. As one of his friends said today she started to work for him about thirty-five years ago on the restoration of the bike shop and that restoration is still going on today. Three hour lunches were not unusual and if you drove by the shop and saw the sign that said back at 2 you knew that meant 3 and if he wasn't back by 4, that meant that you should come back the next day sometime after 10 when he might be there.

Larry looked like your traditional red neck, but once you started to talk to him you realized that he was a guy who was not easily pigeon holed. He loved blue grass and they played it at the funeral with his brother in law playing a lap dulcimer and another friend playing a banjo, with blue grass recordings playing in the back ground other times. The banjo player told us he wasn't sure he could make it through, but he did.

Larry was a Quaker, but his wife is a more main stream Christian and the service was a combination of the two with people being encouraged to share their memories of Larry. One of the first people was a woman he had hired to work on the restoration at his shop and on the bikes. She was sixteen at the time and had been told that girls were not permitted to take shop in school because. He gave her the keys to his shop and his pick up and tools that were not those one would think of as being, well safe and told her to go to it. One of the last people to share was another girl who has been working at his shop recently, she is African American and does not look at all traditionally feminine in any way, but rather androgynous. When she started working for Larry she had been about to drop out of high school, now in larger part because of Larry's encouragement she is in collage.

I was unable to speak. I have been going to his shop more or less frequently, as I said for almost twenty-five years. When he said he was thinking of closing down last year I told him he couldn't because I would have no where else to hang out. When we first got our St. Bernard we had Larry watch him and the St. loved to go and hang out at the bike shop: "What happens in the bike shop, stays in the bike shop."

I think that people were surprised that he died, he was one of those you just expected to be there. So there was that terrible shock, even though we should have all known what was coming.

I don't know where I'll hang out this summer.

Any News?

2011-04-27T22:28:00.004-04:00

So anything interesting politically happen today? According to a secret source here is the real skivvy on Obama's birth, not that anyone would care. My theory is that this all has to be good news for McCain. Or at least I find it difficult to believe that Obama has done some political thing since his election that isn't stupid or ham handed. On another comments section someone suggested that Obama was neither naive nor stupid, hmmm. No it didn't seem like a multiple choice question. Still in terms of his political competence I vote for not, but I could be completely wrong.

I do not think that this is a completely racist thing. I think that there is a serious racist component to the entire thing, but look at what was done to Clinton. Body count, personally putting cocaine on the planes in Arkansas (or was it taking it off), killing Vince Foster, stealing millions in an real estate scheme. So far what has been done to Obama doesn't seem a whole lot worse, or am I confused? We live in stupid times.

Bits And Pieces

2011-04-27T08:58:00.004-04:00

I'm sitting at home waiting for more "weather" to come in. Sun shine, blue sky's right at this point, but the weather man says that severe thunderstorms will come in later today. It caused me to think about my first St. We had her from 1962 or 3, until about 1974 or so. If truth be told she was really more my Mom's dog than any ones since she was home with her the entire time we had her.

At any rate Pammy (the dog, not my Mom) was absolutely terrified of thunderstorms. So terrified that we ended up getting her what I now think were Quaaludes from the vet to knock her out when a storm approached. She would try to crawl under anything she could find. No matter how low to the ground it was. Combine that with her constant panting and you can well understand how much we wanted to knock her out.

To get back to where I started, back then of course, there were no weather satellites, no 24 hour weather channel, no Internet to get news from and quite frankly the weather was not as reliable as it is now. So when people would visit and Pammy would start freaking out they would invariably ask us what was her problem. We would tell them there there was a serious storm coming in an they would just as invariably laugh and tell us we were crazy. She was never wrong though.

My second though is something I put up in the comments to the last post and it is this: Who could have thought that Richard Nixon's presidency would have been considered a golden age of presidential decency? The thought was brought on by Obama's telling us that Manning is guilty of breaking the law and then having his people explain that isn't really what this Constitutional Scholar really meant. Nixon when he said something similar about Manson at least had the decency to say that he had "miss-spoke," which at the time people derided as a kind of untruthful response. My goodness how we have declined. Of course until the worst president of modern times until the one who succeeded him, who would have thought that a happy admission of approving torture would be heartily approved by the general populous and all of our rulers?

Last night I went to the viewing for my friend. Once again I was shocked at how emotionally drained I was after the whole thing. Of course, I wasn't nearly as drained as his family I think. The funeral will be tomorrow because his youngest daughter's birthday is today. How sad.

Obama Fucks Us Again, No Just the Constitution.

2011-04-25T13:54:00.001-04:00

Oh hell why not, damn I am sorry I voted for him.

Three Briefs and A Funeral

2011-04-25T12:34:00.009-04:00

Three briefs and a funeral. Or to be more accurate three briefs and a slow death.

A good friend of mine was diagnosed with prostate cancer about three years ago. By the time he was diagnosed it had already metastasized into the bone. He had had P.S.A. tests every year for several years and each year the numbers had come back high. His doctor told him not to worry and I do remember him talking about it at one point. Well, it looks like he should have worried. (My wife knows of another guy that the same thing happened to.) I wonder what the purpose is of either the tests or the doctor in question? I do recall that he asked me why, when he first found out. He said that he had done everything he was supposed to do, and it still happened. I still feel guilty, since I've done nothing that I am supposed to do (except not smoke tobacco, but that was because I needed the money for alcohol and more serious drugs).

At any rate by the time he was diagnosed it was already terminal. He took a very aggressive stance and some experimental treatment and I think it bought him about two good years. Then this January or February things started to go south. He got to where he couldn't walk and they found spots on his spine. Those spots were treated with radiation and then chemotherapy. About mid-way through the chemotherapy treatment he became so sick that he had to be taken to the local hospital (he was being treated at the Cleveland Clinic for this last round). That was about three or four weeks ago. He had an infection and they stopped the chemo because he was too weak for it. From there it was down hill the entire time with little or no up swings. by last weekend he was clearly beyond making any decisions about his own life or even understanding what was going on. On Sunday afternoon he died.

We've been up to his room almost every day since he was admitted. We didn't make it Sunday because when we went up there the nurses were doing something and we told his son that we would be back later. Before we were able to go back his wife called and told us that he had died. I doubt if it would have mattered he did not recognize anyone on Saturday although he did recognize me on Friday when I walked in.

Tonight I drove by his bike shop a place I've hung out more or less off and on for twenty-five years. He was a terrible businessman, but a great guy. If you took your bike in to have it fixed there was really a fairly decent chance that you might get it back before the end of the season, if you were lucky. I was shocked at how strongly I felt the loss.

One of his old friends had simply not shown up at the hospital, saying it was too difficult for him. I've heard other people say things like that in similar situations. I wonder just how that works? I do not perceive that one has any choice in these things. There are things that one does because that is what one, in fact has to do. One does not have a choice, I would think.

During this I was also working on three different briefs, not something I particularly like to do. I was finally able to complete the last one Sunday (also) and that will be filed today. So I am kind of tired and I think that maybe I can start looking at what I normally look askance at. Like Obama convicting Manning before trial. Some fun.

More LIberal Whining

2011-04-13T15:54:00.007-04:00

I kind of got side tracked by reading a Greenwald piece and the president's speech (where the president didn't say that he wanted to destroy Social Security and The Great Society, but did say that we gotta fight them deficits and by golly cut spending on what are miss named entitlements, and we gotta figure out how to do something about Social Security so go for it congress).

What I wanted to write about was the frog in the water thing and how right now republicans are fairing very poorly in the polls, mostly because they are seen as obvious assholes who clearly want to destroy the working class as opposed to democrats who are as far as I can figure out viewed as either incompetents or girly boys (or boyey girls) and while they don't really want to destroy the American middle class just can't help themselves.

Which brings me back to the point I have made before which is that perhaps I should change this over to a fiction blog, at least I wouldn't be raising the same points over and over, or perhaps I would. No wait that isn't the point, the point (which isn't original with me) is that there is no real point in voting for either of the political parties at this time. (Was George Wallace merely a head of his time?) (Dimes worth of difference anyone?)

So I figure that given what the republicans are doing and how they are pissing people off the democrats will be back in, in 2012, whooeeee. If I may, the frog after getting a sneaking feeling that something was going on leaped from that slowly warming pot into the boiling one, now he wants out and the only place he can think of going is that simmering pot, which will feel mighty cool, for awhile.

Unfortunately I do believe that eventually in a democracy (or republic for that matter) we do get the government we deserve.

Fuck Him

2011-04-13T12:21:00.004-04:00

So I've been thinking that when one (or at least this one) reads or hears something that this one thinks is brilliant, it means one of two things:

First, it is an concept put forth in a way that makes me look at an idea of subject in a different way. Sort of" "Wow, I never thought of that before, kind of thing." I was reading an essay about sex by Gore Vidal back in the 60s or early 70s when he said something to the effect that apparently the only two men who could live together in Washington D.C. without being accused of being homosexual were J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson. Suddenly, the entire concept of America's treatment of homosexuals and the way the ruling class treats their own was brought into a focus that it had never been for me before.

Second, is the one where I see something that agrees with what I've been thinking or saying and I say "Boy is he right on the money." Like Greenwald today.

I've been saying in various ways, that Obama is getting just what he wants to get. I am a little confused about why he is doing it in such a ham handed way, but if the poll numbers Greenwald sites to are correct, with the vast majority of voters of all stripes in favor of the budget cuts, then perhaps it isn't so ham handed after all.

The arguments are all the same: this is all he can do, this is a conservative country, republicans are going to be so much worse. The best response to the last point was that as a country we are going to hit bottom and end up laying in our own vomit in the gutter sooner or later so it might as well be sooner so we can start on that 12 step program. The best response to the first point is that he made deals to gut health care reform with the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry and hospital industry before the negotiations ever really started and he tried to keep those deals secret. No response really matters to Those Who Must Believe.

I still go to my Fake Progressive sites to see what they are saying and they are good at attacking the right wing and the real nuts, but then. Recently Angry Black Lady (who I refuse to link to anymore) has become more fun since she seems to be insisting that all (and perhaps I am just miss-reading her) who criticize Obama are racist and secret Hilliary supporters.

So apparently the president promised to do not really bad stuff, or at lest not as bad as he could have promised, but then when does a promise mean anything to him.

I should Not Be Permitted to Care for Any Living Thing

2011-04-11T21:32:00.005-04:00

An interesting weekend to say the least.

I decided that it was finally time to trim the chow. I got the table out, the arm on the table. the clippers and the scissors and got ready to groom her.

Things went rapidly down hill from there. The arm slipped while I was using the scissors (I was never able to use the clippers, couldn't get them to go through the under hair) and hit me on the head, which started me bleeding. I cut the same ear of the chow that Van Gogh took off which started her bleeding. I then at some point managed to cut her in the chest. The chow has been surprisingly forgiving, but will not allow anyone within ten feet of her if they have anything at all in their hand.

Washed the St. the next day which wasn't so bad because even though he acts like he doesn't like it he seems to enjoy the feeling when it is done.

Geez this on top of putting dog flea stuff on a cat so that I had to wash her with Dawn to make sure I go it all off her so she wouldn't go into convulsions. I have not had a lot of success with the animals in the last couple of weeks. Of course I would guess that they are not particularly happy with me either.

How Did This Happen and Why Is No One Responsible

2011-04-03T10:40:00.006-04:00

(I am sorry that most of the images of Obama as incompetent are from right wing sites)

In thinking about how people think and operate, I was thinking about folks I work with who simply seem unable to accept when they do something wrong. That is you can point out that this is not right and that this needs to be re-done, but they simply never seem to acknowledge that they may have been the cause of the problem. Not only that, but they seem to continue to keep on doing whatever it was that they did wrong in the first place. You've got to get in their face and confront them in what in the end is for me at least an unpleasant way to get them, not to acknowledge that they made a mistake, but to at least not do it that way again.

Having been brought up to believe that everything was my fault (I'm still not sure that if I would have sent just one more email to the president, perhaps he would have dealt with Health Care Reform in a different way). I've heard people who are this way blame it on a Catholic upbringing, but since mine was Presbyterian, perhaps I can blame it on the Scots.

Which brings me around to Obama and the democratic party generally. The obvious result of their policies and tactics was to more than decimate the party's representatives in Congress (double that at least if you accept the Roman definition) and nearly destroy the state and local parties. Now we know that Obama and the rest have decided that they did nothing wrong, not because of what they said, but because they keep on doing the same things in the same way.

How does that work do you suppose? My first thought when I lose anything no matter how weak the case, is to wonder what I've done wrong. So how does this other mind set work? I have no idea. I don't think that this contradicts what I've been saying for the last couple of days. I would think that a politician would want to maintain power not matter who they thought their bosses really were. I would think that they would want to make sure that they looked like they were doing something right, if only to confuse the rubes.

OH Fuck Again

2011-04-02T18:57:00.005-04:00

Trying to work and not as successful as I'd hoped. Well that is ok, it has to be done by 4:00 p.m. Monday, and since my secretary or administrative assistant is less than stellar it will be done sooner, but not much sooner.

Which gets me around to Greewald's piece today comparing Kevin Drum's touching trust of Obama with Britney Spears' touching trust of Bush the Stupid. Interestingly enough they are completely the same. "He is oh so wonderful and oh so right and I am just a little toad." I had quit reading Drum years ago when he decided that Iraq II was a good idea. I also haven't read Mother Jones for some time, not so much because of political reason, but just because I got bored with them (and because they hired Kevin Drum to write for them which to be fair to me did call their political acumen into question).

Greenwald still insists that his vote for Obama was reasonable even now given the alternative, I think. I think that is crap. My vote for Obama was wrong and I should have known it at the time. I think I did in my heart of hearts, but I was afraid. Now it is clear beyond belief that McCain might have been temporarily worse, but there would be the possibility of an end of that shit in sight and a possible end of the current hegemony of our corporate rulers simply because things would be so obviously bad, and a real alternative might be offered. But such was not to be.

I did go over and read the article by Drum where he explains that it would not be politically possible to intervene in the Ivory Coast or Nigeria, but doesn't bother to explain why. I did skim the first thirty or so comments and they were very depressing. They were either conservatives, so called liberals telling us that Obama really is one of us and he can only do so much, or just kind of sad.

Greenwald's position that he still thinks that he was right to vote to for Obama and the comments in Mother Jones make me think that perhaps I was right yesterday after all. Oh incidentally, Mother Jones has called and wants her name back.

Elected (Kind Of) Dictators

2011-04-01T10:36:00.007-04:00

Don't want to sound too EMO, after all. My personal motto is: "I'm not a nihilist for nothing." [Thanks Sue].

So why did Clinton say what she said to the congress critters? Why did she tell them that no matter what they did Obama and his minions would not consider it binding on The President?

I mean there was no real possibility that the congress would have voted to do anything other than SUPPORT OUR BOYS (and GIRLS) OVER THERE. Is there? So what is the deal, after all?

I suspect that the deal is that there is a constant movement towards a totalitarian (or at the very least a seriously authoritarian) form of governance which will place all power in the hands of one person. Well it will seem to be all power, whether or not that will turn out to be the case, or if the real power will be in the hands of the oligarchs who really run things is another question. (Well not really a real question, I mean we all know the answer, but I do like the way that sounds.) The owners of the banks, the Wall Street folks and some few others. Although, given the howls we heard when Obama bailed out GM and Chrysler there is still going to be some sort of battle for position amongst those who own the businesses that own America. I would suspect that in the end the assholes battling among themselves will assure that any large corporation that actually has real workers who really make things as opposed as workers who play with monopoly money, and who get paid decent money (i.e. unionized workers) well either be destroyed by the others or be forced to destroy any workers organizations.

There will of course be squabbles amoung them, the oligarchs, and if history is any guide there could be violent struggles amoung them. But in the end it will be a battle amoung our rulers and we the hoi poli will be allowed to do the fighting and bleeding (although, to be honest, in this country for the foreseeable future there will probably be no real fighting as in blood being shed, we are too comfortable).

So at any rate as is made clear in the Greenwald essay there have been groups pushing for "The President is Really King" theory of government for decades at least. It is easiest to do it in matters of foreign policy and war. It will only be a matter of time before it starts happening in matters of domestic policy. That will be because the grid lock will start to be seen as a problem, even by the Villigers. Now there are many ways to fix the gridlock we have in the congress right now (simplist is of course get rid of the filibuster), but that isn't going to happen. We saw that at the beginning of this session. No individual senator wants to lose any of his power. Eventually it will all be taken away and some president's horse will end up voting with the rest of the senators although at least in that case it will be the entire horse.

What I see going on with our more or less elected officials is that those in "power" in the House and Senate (mostly the Senate) have managed, in protecting their personal power to the extent that they have, made themselves look largly ineffectual in their ability to accomplish anything (although obviously not in their ability to prevent anything from being accomplished). Peop;e are already sick and tired of it, it is only a matter of time before the rulers get tired and do something about it.

No Voting For Me In 2012

2011-03-24T18:41:00.004-04:00

Well fuck, I just got a response from my "liberal" senator Sherrod Brown, as I say it doesn't look like I'll be voting in 2012.

After I send him an email asking essentially WTF (without the swear words) is up with his signing on to this letter to Obama talking about using the Cat Food Commission's recommendations to reduce the deficit I get a reply telling me that just like a family the federal government must cut back in hard times, that he has co sponsored legislation that will prevent congress from getting automatic raises which will save $80 million dollars over TEN (yes 10) years and finally that he had voted for something called a sense of support for a balanced budget amendment (something I guess I should have known) for the Constitution. (I tried to copy the entire letter into blogger, but it would work and I'm not up to typing the whole thing over).

Now this is a guy who is considered one of the more liberal members of the senate.

It is as if the 1930s and 40s never happened. The truth of the matter is that we did indeed spend ourselves out of a depression with massive deficit spending and federal tax rates that were at 94% for the top marginal tax brackets. Although it does seem as though we have a larger deficit in standard dollars that we did after World War II. None of that matters, you can yell until you are blue in the face and they will look at you as if you are speaking Urdu in Dallas.

I suppose the other thing that should piss me off is that my original letter was clear enough on my position, he clearly had something come up in one of his assistants word checks that said deficit/budget or something like that and then sent the standard "Hey I am also a tea bagger" letter.

So I guess happy times are here again.

Another Kind of A Book Report

2011-03-22T22:15:00.009-04:00

Sometimes I write something so many times in my head, that I think I've really written it down where it is possible for other people to see it.

In looking back over my previously posts for the period that I could have done it I don't think I've mentioned the book I read about the great influenza epidemic of 1918-1919. I had read a few things about the epidemic before, but the book The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John Barry was the most in depth of anything I've ever read about it. It is kind of a strange history since he spends at least half the book giving the history of medicine in the world and then in the United States up to that point. It is a description of the development of medicine and its change into a truly scientific profession. Which hadn't occurred, at least in the United States until shortly before World War One. It is interesting in one way because the climax of the story, the epidemic, was not in the end really defeated so much by the heroic doctors or their new scientific discipline. Instead it just burned itself out like most plagues in the past.

One guy Barry really doesn't like was Woodrow Wilson and the system of crushing dissent that he put in place for running America during World War I. As he describes it and if truth be told as I've read about it in other places, it was a nearly totalitarian system of enforcing compliance and ensuring that there would be no dissension and no overt opposition to the war. The system that booked no bad news about the war helped ensure that the epidemic would spread more easily and quickly, since newspapers were forbidden to write about it for the most part and people who talked about it and its danger were often reported to the authorities as unAmerican defeatists.

Kind of interesting at several levels. First, is that Wilson was from Virginia originally and did believe in the Lost Cause I suspect. What makes that interesting to me, since I've just read them, is that Grant in his Memoirs mentioned several times how much more difficult it was for the North with a free press to prevent anti war sentiment from being spread, while the South, which Grant insisted, had a censored press was more able to limit such dissent (something Grant seemed to envy). I wonder if Wilson learned this at his father's knee?

Second, is how most people were willing to agree to this kind of suppression. When one grows up reading the books I have read, it is hard to remember that these books were written by the people who were being suppressed by the vast majority of this country and who were more than willing to go along with the government's crushing of dissent. One always, I suspect, imagines himself as standing up against the kind of oppression, In the situation as it is coming down how would one act, I wonder? Or to be honest, the question I am most concerned about is how I would act.

Third, I suspect that Obama is licking his lips in the hope that he will be able to use the Espionage Act that was passed at the behest of Wilson to crush dissent during the First World War to smash Wikileaks and imprison Assange and Manning for life. I am sure he would like to get around to screwing with us lesser types too.

I went over to one of my fake progressive blogs just to see how the comments were going there or perhaps to get my fair share of abuse. Although this time I did manage to avoid commenting, for which I am vary proud. However, they were ecstatic about the arrests involving the people protesting Manning's condition. And of course once again Manning's imprisonment really isn't that bad and the people protesting weren't really hassled that much. Oh yeah, Daniel Ellsberg isn't that great a guy and what he did wasn't all that brave. There was also a massive justification post for Libya, but I'll leave that for another time.

Wow, these are people who claim to be liberal or progressive. I would guess that they would be the ones who if they lived in Germany in the 1930s would insist that National Socialist did have socialist in its name. Or in the alternative, those who lived during the First World War and would report their neighbors for not being enthusiastic enough. Worker bees I guess.

Bits And Pieces

2011-03-20T17:24:00.004-04:00

Oooooh! New toys, gotta use em.

A couple of things. I got in my inbox a couple of new comments on the Angry Black Lady post of March 14. Since that is about a week ago, or an eon in blog time, I'm wondering why they posted. It appears as though one wants to take umbrage at my terming what is happening to Manning as torture. The other one is insisting that it isn't happening.

In retrospect perhaps I shouldn't have used the word torture, but merely said that what is being done to Manning is an attempt to destroy his personality and force him to say anything his interrogators want him to say so that they can get him to confess to any thing they want and implicate Assange.

Secondly, I went to an essay in Salon that claimed that we have a coalition of the not so real. Then for fun I went to the comments many or whom insisted that just because the vast majority of the air strikes have been flown by the U.S. is because . . . . . . . well since we have more stuff than anybody else we should of course be the people who are using it and now that we have spent a decade of funding for NPR (not that I think they deserve it any more), or heating oil purchases for the poor, we will certainly quit and let the rest of to coalition do it. So there mister smarty pants.

I wonder why everybody hates Muammar so much?

You Say Libya I Say Lybia

2011-03-19T21:50:00.006-04:00

Actually Iraq, but remember good times, good times.

I'm starting this tonight and then perhaps it'll go up tonight and perhaps tomorrow.

At war again. And all over blogastan people who claim to be liberals are blathering on about how bad a person that Qaddafi is and how wonderful the people opposing him are. As opposed to the people in the Sudan, or the Ivory Coast, or Bahrain. Hell Libya isn't even where we should be if we want to protect the most people.

People in serious blogs who want to be taken seriously will go on and on about how well you know maybe this time things will be different and after all Qaddafi really is a bad guy so you know. You Know? This way if this works out, not like the others then they might still be listened to down the road, and if it doesn't work out well then they voiced their concerns right at the beginning dontchano.

I don't have to worry about that since I am not taken seriously by the two and a half people who actually read me to begin with.

However, there are some upsides to this (see even I am not immune):

First, perhaps this time we have finally found a third world Muslim country that we can beat and get out living only a minimal number of (our people) dead. Hell it could happen.

Second, there seems to be the advantage that it is impossible to spell Gaddafi's name incorrectly. I've seen it spelled at least four ways with both a G and a Q as the first letter . Blogger spell check gives you Qaddafi, Qaddafi's and Gaddafi's, but no Gaddafi.

Third, I tend to misspell Libya and when ever I do it gives me the giggles like a 13 year old in sex ed class.

If you stack these things up against the for sure facts that we are now responsible for the dead that come out of this and that we cannot afford to keep our social systems working, but we can afford to spend millions (at least) bombing other people to shit, in order to replace an unstable dictator (who dresses badly and rules an oil producing country with someone who will not be so unstable) I'm sure you see where on balance we could not not go to war.

Oh by the way, who else remembers that just two days ago we were arguing about whether or not we should be supporting a no fly zone. Before anything starts we ramp it up.

Tell Me Why People Are Such Assholes, Again?

2011-03-17T08:23:00.004-04:00

As I think I've mentioned before I am a member of a (euphemism alert) 12 Step Program (I think that should be capitalized, but I'm not sure). We have what are called Steps (totally unnecessary to know what they are for this piece) and Traditions (only the fourth one is necessary for this piece).

4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups

or (euphemism) as a whole.

There are two groups which meet in this church. I found myself part of the "leadership" (for want of a better word) of one of the groups. We have decided to put on workshops to help people complete the steps, which most people who come to these meeting do not manage to complete, ever.

The other group (or at least a couple of the members, both groups probably have a total of seven or nine active members together; of which five are in our group) has decided that we have broken traditions and they must do something about it. Although, it appears as though their main activists do not hold any positions at all. There have been threats to disrupt our meetings which requires more or less constant vigilance and the ability to go and confront people who might come and try to disrupt our meetings. Mentally exhausting.

They have managed to splinter their group within a fairly short time of deciding that they had to do something. They have driven one officer completely out of the 12 Step Program and another one out of their group. They had a three and a half hour meeting which alienated even more people who are relatively new to the program. Still those who are left can be, or at least seem to be, I'm not sure which, physically threatening. Actually, there is really little or nothing they can do officially, since the workshop has been adapted from one that has been given for more than a year all over the country. In addition since groups are autonomous when letters are sent to the World Office the response is: We understand your concerns, but you must understand that since each group is autonomous we take not position on this matter. Or words to that effect.

All groups seem to function in a spirit of comity until you get to know them and become involved in the way they are run. Politics is the name of the game where ever you are. It further seems to me that what ever you are involved in there is some one who is sure that they know what the rules are and that they are the one to enforce those rules, and for some reason they are always able to get followers. And then they are always able to get those followers to follow them into some sort of battle, even if it is only metaphorically a battle.

I Don't Know What Is The Matter With Me, Oh Wait. Yes I Do.

2011-03-16T13:02:00.008-04:00

I've been hesitating to write and been thinking about things in my head, but I keep coming back to the same ole same ole. I would like to accomplish something before this toil of tears, etc. Another attorney in town just died suddenly "only" 78, which it turns out is a lot younger than it was ten years ago.

On the other hand I live in a WTF!!! world.

I keep looking around and seeing things going down hill. It might be the reason I choose to write about Grant's Memoirs last time. Would that I had a facility for end of the world humor. I could at least parlay that into some real money.

News that it looks like the polling in the various districts in Wisconsin show most of the republicans running ahead of the democrats is simply more of the: "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." Or: "I can hire half the working class to kill the other half."

Yesterday deciding to kill some time between clients without doing any real work I went cruising my "Fake Progressive" folder. I was looking to see if any of them had chosen to comment on Obama's firing of Crowley and his: "Oh well, if the people who are doing the torture tell me it isn't torture, then I guess it isn't. Is it Prof. Yoo?" statement.

I really didn't look that hard, but I didn't see anything except on Angry Black Lady who attacked Greenwald for as far as I can see bringing that point up and not others. Therefore directly leading to the loss of massive numbers of democratic office holders and the destruction of unions. Plus there are other people he just doesn't care about.

I commented, something I really shouldn't have done, and the response was interesting to say the least. However, the last one that I saw before posting here was a person who commented that they really couldn't bring themselves to believe that Obama approved Manning's treatment. That is incredibly sad.

Well, I made a second mistake and made some more comments. It makes, I expect no difference, but I sometimes cannot help myself. I find myself accused of defending Greenwald, something if he chooses I'm sure he can do all by himself. What interests me more is the way that the people there defend Obama or I as suspect they think it: Dear and Glorius Leader, and deny that anything is happening to Manning that isn't just okey dokey. And that apparently any criticisms of Dear and Glorious Leader are the cause of all evil that happens to his True Followers.

UPDATE: This will also probably prove that I am only trying to ape or defend Greenwald. I suspose I shouldn't have gone in on a post that was attacking Greenwald, but what caught my eye was the absolute refusal to hold Obama to any kind of standard at all, other than He must know what is right. Or perhaps, He does it therefore it is good and right. Therefore, STFU.

The other interesting line of "thought" if one can call it that, is that Obama doesn't have the time to think about this, even though he had already answered a question at a press conference which showed that he clearly know and had spoken to people about it.

Book Report

2011-03-09T07:25:00.007-05:00

So much has been going on personally dealing with my Mother, taxes, various incompetents around me, two briefs that are due (actually past due, but I got continuances), and the second part of an eviction action, the damages part. The eviction thing was set for a hearing on money damages tomorrow, but my clients filed for bankruptcy which stays every case everywhere which involves them. The thing wasn't so much the stay, but the fact that neither my clients nor their bankruptcy attorney bothered to mention this to either me or to the court until yesterday even though the bankruptcy had been filed about a month and a half ago.

Through all this I've been reading Grant's Memoirs. Down loaded it for free from Gutenberg.org, for my ereader. I've read abridged versions of them before, but this is the first time I've read the unabridged version. It is even a little more interesting because I also got Twain's Autobiography for Xmas and it begins with a description of the publication of the Memoirs.

The abridged versions I've read cut out the parts that are the most fun, and concentrate on his versions of the battles. I'm not saying that those are not fascinating, but the discussion of the abilities of the various generals and the politics involved in the war and the early chapters about the Mexican War in particular are both fun and fascinating.

The first thing that comes out is the very dry humor of the guy. He mostly makes fun of himself. At one point stating that he joined a charge against the Mexican Army which just happened to be ordered while he was visiting the front (not a place where his orders took him) because he did not have the moral courage not to. At another point, at the beginning of the Civil War, he continued an advance because he again did not have the moral courage to stop and try to figure out what other thing he might do. This second incident was the one where he got to the location he thought the enemy was to find the enemy had fled and realized that the enemy commander was as afraid as he was. Something he said that he never forgot. There are several other points, particularly in the early parts of the book that are quite funny.

At other points he makes very clear that he completely understands that fighting a war as a democracy is much different than fighting a war as a kingdom or dictatorship. His explanation of the Vicksburg campaign and the reasons he fought it the way he did is as insightful as any I've ever seen as to what needed to be done and how this kind of war had be fought. He understood that for the Union to win the Union had to completely defeat the Confederates. The Confederates only had to keep from losing for long enough to tire out the Union and they would win. Something that Lincoln also understood, but not I think Stanton or Halleck, nor for that matter most of the other earlier commanders of the Union Armies. Grant was quite clear on this. He thought both Stanton and Halleck "timid" while he, Sherman, and Lincoln he clearly thought were not "timid."

His explanation for why he crossed the Mississippi and cut loose from his base of supplies is straight and simple. There had been a number of Union reverses, the republicans had lost the mid-terms to mostly anti war people and conscription had, of necessity, just recently been instituted in the North. His choice was to retreat to set up a secure base and then advance on Vicksburg or do as he did (against it might be stated every one's advice, even Sherman the only general, I think he didn't criticize at some point). In other words, he had to advance and win and he had to do it then.

His admiration of the American soldier was clear and I think sincere. He said that the differences between the American soldiers in the Armies he commanded and the European soldiers of his day was that the American soldiers and the Europeans could both fight like machines, but that the Americans thought and cared about and understood the cause they were fighting for.

The one sentence description of his respect for the valor of the Southern troops which also puts their cause in perspective is possibly the best I've ever seen for doing that kind of thing. The single sentence saying that never had men fought more bravely for a more unjust cause is as powerful as any I've seen in giving the common soldier all the respect he deserves for his bravery, but still pointing out how unjust was the cause for which he fought. He gives no respect to the southern cause, but a great deal to the average southern soldier.

Finally, the prose is as clear, clean, crisp and direct as any I have read anywhere. There are a fair amount of copies of his orders included in the Memoirs and they are clear and to the point. I find myself writing better after reading him (and Gore Vidal).

Now on to Keith Richards' Memoirs.

Work

2011-02-23T22:13:00.003-05:00

Client: You can see from this grade card that my husband shouldn't have our daughter she is getting "F's."

Me: F's? It looks like she's got A's and B's.

Client: Look here an F in grammer.

Me: Grammer, where?

Client: There you see the box.

Me: Oh there?

Client: Yes right there:

GENDER

Odds and Ends

2011-02-16T20:41:00.004-05:00

Down in Florida and every time I come down here and make the turn to go down the street that leads to my parent's (my Mom's now) condo I remember the first time I turned down that road, in the early 70s, and there running beside the car was a wild boar. Now at that same corner there are some doctor's offices, a gas station, a city building, and more offices. I have to continually remind myself how much time has passed.

One of the first times I was down here I went to the local liquor store (locally owned, now there is a large ABC Liquor store in the mall) to buy some champagne for some holiday or the other. We were getting some Moet and the guy told us his story. During World War II he and a platoon that he was part of had liberated the baron (?) Moet and had spent the next week or so drinking and partying at the chateau. Since then (up to that time) he and he figured all the other guys in his platoon had gotten a case of champagne from the baron (?) each year for VE day. The guy had a nose that looked like he drank at least a case much more frequently than once a year.

I finished Screening History by Vidal. Although he is a wonderful writer, in the end his vision is incredibly dark and depressing. Essentially, his argument is simply that the United States is owned by a ruling class. If you are lucky enough to be born or to be adopted in one way or another into that class you can, if you choose, decide to run the country no matter what the rest of us want.

He has argued for years that we live in neither a real democracy nor a real republic. Rather it is a true oligarchy of power and wealth. Of course, like any oligarchy that expects to last more than a generation it does find it necessary to let in the odd sycophant (hi Misters Obama and Clinton) in and their families, after all there is enough money to go around, if you count around as the top 5% or so. He would I think agree with my frequently made point that the democrats will fight to the last to keep abortion safe and legal for the wealthy woman.

Political Arteriosclerosis

2011-02-14T16:07:00.010-05:00

Arteriosclerosis of the political mind.

I do need to watch what I'm doing and what I'm writing. I've been reading two books skipping back and forth between them. Lost and Found by Alan Dean Foster and Screening History by Gore Vidal. I've also just finished reading Williwaw also by Vidal.

Lost and Found treated me to some very interesting nightmares last night, but reading Vidal is much more dangerous. I end up attempting to write like him and since I possess neither his wit nor his facility with language the results can sometimes be a little less than inspiring.

I continue my attempt to differentiate between my own deterioration and hardening of my very own arteries and those of my country and its people no matter how young.

Today the local paper's headline (as it will be every day this week) told us about speed week, but never fear the secondary headline assured us that the president is "Chipping Away at the Deficit." On the other hand the republican's do not think that he has screwed the middle class enough and demand more cuts to what we laughingly call social services in this country.

I remember as a conservative teenager who was very interested in politics reading the rants which appeared in my local rural paper (a real paper at the time) about how the deficit was destroying our country and how it needed to be cut back and the country needed to be run as a business. Else we would be doomed. It came to me at the time that we were (then) the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world and had gotten that way while running a massive deficit. So began my economic education. I have been provided no facts that might cause me to change my mind since then.

In the meantime the right whose mindless twaddle merely clogged some minor blood vessels in my childhood seems to have managed to completely block the major arteries to the brain in my senior years so that we now all live in a kind country controlled by senile dementia.

On the Road Again

2011-02-13T20:03:00.004-05:00

Scary Brown Guys Doing Scary Stuff

Out and about. Down in Florida and using an unsecured Internet from some condo around here. It claims to only have about a fifth of the connectivity possible, but it is faster than then mine at home. Hmmm.

Following Egypt and the strange goings on, not in Egypt, but in America's reaction to it. Today apparently we are happy with the democratic revolt as evidenced by the military over throwing Mubarak to replace him with, who? I'm a little behind, are we still backing the 25 year secret police and torturer as the last best hope for democracy in Egypt? I've been following the whole thing by reading headlines in the various newspapers that are on sale next to the Interstate in Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

Interesting points (or in reality should I say point) of view. In Daytona the secondary headline of the local Sunday paper was that Israel felt safe with the Egyptian Army taking control. That says it.

Egypt and the revolts in Egypt and the other countries in the region are pretty much the most important things going on in the world right now. I keep thinking of the revolts of 1848 and 1968 and wonder if this will be another round of very brief liberal flowerings followed by generations of repression and reaction, or I guess not. At least I don't get paid a lot of money to say things like that. I'm just a hick from the middle of the good old U.S. of A. who has never been there so I have to rely on the news media to tell me what is happening and we know that the news media mostly make up what is happening. Hell, they mostly make up everything about Egypt.

I mean isn't Egypt a county that is moving toward the middle class life style we are all aspiring to be a part of with a mostly free, although slightly (ever so slightly) authoritarian government which the people when given the opportunity are happy to vote back in? Or is it all hooey?

I kind of feel the way I feel when people try to get me into a discussion of a film or book that is very controversial and I haven't seen or read. Like say The Passion of the Christ. Of course in that case I guess I could have seen the movie, but I really didn't feel like it.

So as far as I know it is entirely possible that the entire thing only is a fiction designed to raise my gas prices.

The one thing I can say for sure is that the reaction of Americans is something to behold. Listening to NPR last week on the way to work I listened to a woman who claimed to be a student who had been in Egypt for only a couple of weeks when the revolt broke out. He area of study was middle eastern studies. She was desperate to leave and was waiting at the air port for a plane out to anywhere. How sad. Had I been in her shoes at her age there is no question that no matter how stupid it might be I would have stayed there and watched history unfold. What could she teach if and when she gets her degree?

There was another NPR commentator who seemed to be surprised that the demonstrators would stay in the streets even though it was possible that their pay checks for that week might not be available.

Mostly of course, it was how this might affect the American Empire, although no one called it by that name. Empire is not a word that is used in polite society. We are merely worried that the people in Egypt might not be mature enough to elect a government that would adequately protect the interests of the average person and hold those in power to the same standards as the average citizen.

Not Quite There Yet

2011-02-07T14:23:00.002-05:00

I Am Just Tired Some Times

2011-01-25T15:31:00.004-05:00

I honestly do not know why I engage in these comment wars at various neo-liberal blogs. Just now I have been enraged concerning the treatment of Jane Hamsher and David House. Not so much their treatment per se, but rather the simple out of control use of power by the military and by the government in denying a visitor to David Manning and thereby continuing and intensifying his torture by his jailers.

Interestingly, the guy who "runs" or at least started Balloon Juice is, himself enraged. Angry Black Lady, a poster and the majority of the commentators on his site, want to blame Hamsher and House. (There are also a not insignificant minority of commentators who have already convicted Manning, but that is for another post[or not].)

The problem seems to be that Jane came out opposing Obama Care and called out Obama on his lies concerning his promises. Now she can do no right.

Another problem is that these people have so invested themselves in Obama and the democratic party that they cannot even begin to seriously criticize them.

For the record she and House were stopped because, according to the marines, her license plates were out of date and she did not have proof of insurance. Given the fact that apparently she drives House to visit Manning regularly, and they have accepted her proof of insurance before that is a bogus claim by the marines. If her plates were indeed out of date, they would only have been by a couple of days and it should not have entailed holding House past the visiting time. Further, there is no one arguing that the cops didn't tell them that their orders were coming from on high.

Yet, even raising these points multiple times simply doesn't matter it is just that Jane Hamsher is so......you know. Kind of icky and not in the in crowd. There were a few who did start eventually insist that they just attack Jane because she is so not cool, and that she isn't you know, you know? Well one thing I do know is that she is braver than any of the commentators, myself included. It is clear at this point that the government is determined to destroy anyone who is connected with Manning and WikiLeaks and will violate all sorts of treaties, laws, and rights to do so. Yet, for so many of the people writing about it, the important thing seems to be that Jane Hamsher is a bitch and is self aggrandizing (interestingly enough the second complaint was made and probably still is made about Jesse Jackson).

Oh yeah, mandatory Greenwald link, who the commentators and posters at Balloon Juice make fun of because he uses too many words.

Drugs

2011-01-04T19:57:00.003-05:00

Heard in the Court House today:

Client: I should get a better deal. I wouldn't do things if it wasn't for this drug problem. Nobody knows that I've got this drug problem, if they did they'd be more sympathetic to my problems.

Me: Every god damn body in this Court House knows you have a drug problem. Derelicts using the public restrooms know you have a drug problem. It is just that nobody cares.

Client: Your fired.

Inside Baseball

2011-01-02T09:23:00.006-05:00

So like I got into a big argument with a couple of bloggers about the Assange rape charges. In fact it (the argument and response not the case itself) is a kind off strange example of incest (I think, at least that is the best metaphor I can think of) I was in an argument in the comments on one blog and then find that the next day the blogger has another essay on Assange. He links to another blog and I turn out to be linked on the second blog to an argument I made on the first blog (which linked to the second blog which then linked back to the first blog, or actually my comment on the first one). Interesting, to say the least.

Well, I was accused of being a "fanboi" and a fanatic, not I think the same thing although I'm not sure (that's on the second blog, on the first one I was accused of being a not very bright 14 year old). My crime, (which I may be mistaken about, although I don't think so) is to doubt the story of the women accusers and to raise the spector of assumption of innocence as far as the accused is concerned.

The second blog makes the point that if I am arguing for a presumption of innocence for Assange, then I should also grant the accusers the same presumption. That is therefore, I have to completely forgo an opinion in the matter. Perhaps, but I don't think so. Although perhaps I shouldn't phrase my argument in terms of "presumption of innocence."

I do think that I can make certain assumptions about things, by viewing how the world works and just what is going on here. Like Officer Leaphorn I don't believe in coincidences. Assange and WikiLeaks have been the recipients of incredible attacks by the powers that run this world, I do not have to go into them, but they are extraordinary and beyond anything I have ever seen.

I suppose I should admit that I hope he isn't guilty, although I would think that would be obvious, but perhaps not. At any rate up to this point we have the allegations and the blanket denials and that is about all. No I really think it is. We have police reports, but those are usually simply raw data which can't be relied on. It is possible that I may find my mind changed as the evidence comes out, but for the time being I'll go with my experiences in this world and the knowledge that my government is capable of anything, and that there are people who for whatever reason will be willing to do this government's dirty work. And I will not treat them as equals in terms of whose story I should believe at this point, and it isn't the story of the accusers.

UPDATE: I think that an argument being made is that "rape is different." And therefore a person who files a complaint of being raped should not be held to the same standard as others who claim to be victims of a crime. Internal inconsistencies in a person's statements and actions are some of the things we use to help us determine whether or not to believe what people say. Therefore, if one throws a party for a guy she said raped her several days prior to the party, or if she scrubs her twitter and blog accounts of favorable comments made about the rapist after the alleged rape then this should not, apparently be taken as an indication that she may not be telling the whole truth about the crime itself. At least not as far as these alleged victims are concerned.

The point I'm making is that the defenders of these women are not requiring the same kind of consistency they would require of any other alleged victim is concerned. It is a kind of infantilization of these women and a variation of the "children don't lie" meme that was around on child abuse cases some time ago. It works quite well for the reactionaries who run our government here, as they can use the natural sympathies of liberals to do their work for them.

Barack Obama's New Year's Resolutions

2011-01-01T10:53:00.005-05:00

This came from a super secret unnamed White House source because he (or she) just wants to look like they are really important to themselves and to the person they leaked the stuff to without getting blamed for it, if he (or she) gets caught and it back fires:

1. Try to really act like I give a shit about anybody who makes less than a million a year.

2. This year really look like I know how the fuck to negotiate at the same time I give everything I claimed to want away before negotiations really start.

3. Keep all secret deals with various industries and corporations secret for at least six months after I make them so I can screw the general populace before any of those fucking bloggers find out.

4. Start another war that I can really call my own.

5. Convince the rubes that I'm trying to save Social Security, while I cut it some more.

6. Shoot a man in Yemen just to watch him die.

7. Squish those Assange and Manning fuckers like bugs.

8. Give even more tax cuts to the most wealthy while I continue to convince the rest of America that it really is for their own good.

9. Get Wall Street and the rest of big business to yell really loud about how they are being destroyed by my socialist policies so the average democrat will really think I'm doing something.

11. Get down on my knees and thank god that "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."

I Hope You Had A Happy War On Xmas or The Holiday Of Your Choice

2010-12-28T12:52:00.004-05:00

NOT THIS YEAR

I'm back at work after Xmas. (I just can't help myself, I need to keep fighting that war even if it is all over for the year. Incidentally, I live in the heart of Ohio in the middle of the bible belt and all over the place there are "Happy Holiday" signs. What is the matter with hill billies don't they take the war on Xmas seriously.)

At any rate I am over whelmed with work as I always am after Xmas. I think that perhaps I expect to be hit by a meteor during the Xmas break and therefore I don't have to be prepared for the week after. Unfortunately that has not yet happened. If it does, I expect that it will only happen when I am all caught up on everything. So, there is another reason not to get caught up.

A felony jury trial on the Eleventh and a Brief due the same day. Major custody matter the day before and here I sit writing in this blog. It might be a country and western song.

Bleth

2010-12-23T09:37:00.006-05:00

Coming back after comparing Obama to Martin Vanger and the liberal interest groups to unnamed victims of the guy, and seeing that the republicans "convinced" the democrats to cut the health benefits for first responders to 9/11. It reminds me of Bush cutting veterans benefits shortly after or just before the start of the Gulf War. Perhaps I shouldn't have limited my analogy to merely the democrats and the liberals, perhaps I should have expanded it to include all the ruling class as Martin and the rest of us as the nameless victims. Kind of like Charlie Brown and Lucy but with more sexual innuendo.

I've been thinking for some time about writing a bit about "facts" and how they are not very powerful, strong or important, but are in reality pretty delicate, then Digby and Krugman both beat me to writing about it, however I do insist that I thought about it before I read either of their essays. The most interesting thing about it all is that the "facts" about HCR are already being distorted less than eighteen months after everything went down badly. Now it is in the interest of the ruling class to insist that the liberals or leftists held up reform and therefore made it worse and what it is today and caused the massive democratic losses in the last election. Not that Obama screwed around trying to placate the republicans and big business and caused the massive democratic losses, which is what happened.

Perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised, given that we are coming up on the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, and the defenders of the lost cause are again insisting that the war wasn't about slavery, but rather the South's desire for freedom and economic issues not involved with slavery, when all one has to do is go to the actual session documents from the state legislators, to see that is a lie. Or for that matter I can remember when that was a real issue in history departments around the United States. It had been accepted popular and mostly professional history that slavery was not the primary cause of the civil war. It took the Civil Rights Movement to change that (temporarily apparently).