More Blah

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.

I'm Drowning Here

Mental illness affects more than just those with the disease. This may seem like a simple concept and it is until you've got someone next to you who is having a serious break down. In a small office of three people two of whom have to be popping in and out several times a day to go to court and to check things at the clerk's office, when one of those two has a serious break down then the other has to more than double up.

It becomes even more difficult when the alleged professional who is treating the sick one, decides that that person can come back to the office and work half a day, but can't got to court and needs to be carefully monitored by the others in the office. The tension, to coin a phrase, could be cut with a knife.

I am simply exhausted, I nearly pass out every night at 8:00 p.m. and my gout has started to act up again. I had my first experience with it about three or four years ago when I was going through another period of intense and unusual emotional turmoil (that time of my own making). If you haven't had gout it is lovely. Imagine that one large strong man holds one of your feet up and another one smashes the large toe repeatedly with a sledge hammer for about two hours.

Right now the mentally ill person is driving the narrative and is completely controlling the play. I cannot for the life of me figure the position of the doctor, does she not under stand how a law office functions, particularly a law office where the attorneys are both trial lawyers and got to court frequently? I suspect not. Most everyone is in denial to a greater or lesser degree, including me who just hopes it will go away.

Trying to do much of anything is nearly impossible.

Arggggggggggggg, Again

So I've been writing this post (not not this post, but another which I am not yet done with) for three days and I am still not done with it. The real problem with it is that it is not particularly insightful, but it is long. And I'm still not done, and I might decide not to post it once I am done because I do not like it much right now.

I think I need to go into erotic science fiction.

My Friend Roman

I've been thinking about my feelings about Polanski and I think I have realized why I feel as I do.

First, I am almost always happy when a criminal escapes the clutches of the law.

Second, I think that this guy has lived 31 years without, as far as we know, reoffending.

Third, during those 31 years he has lived a productive and creative life.

Then I have some thoughts on why some people seem to hot to punish him, people who wouldn't be so hot for punishment in other cases. Most progressives thought that the various members of the Weather Underground who were arrested decades after their crimes should not have gotten the kinds of jail time most of them got. Yet these same progressives seem to be more then willing to hang out to dry any other progressive who is busted for a sexual transgression (see Spitzer, Gov.).

Also I really do not see the conservatives or the MSM running around calling for the arrest and trial of the people like Bush and Chaney and their minions who authorized and micro-directed the operation of our own rape/torture rooms. Although, that is more of a shout out about hypocrisy, rather than about Polanski. But it is a simple point that a man who apparently committed one rape is hunted with relish, while a several men who committed multiple rapes are simply given a pass. Real progressives, for the most part get a pass on this one.

At any rate that's where I am now, but I may have more thoughts later about the crime itself. It is difficult to write about it with any kind of a balance, without coming off as sounding like a rape apologist.

Help

So I've finished bills for the week. I feel like I'm that Russian woman in a sleigh being chased by the wolves. Unfortunately I think I've thrown out all the family members I can so the wolves are closing in as we speak.

Yeah I know that this could be connected to those banker and credit card bills hanging fire (OK dead because of the opposition by and ownership of the congress by the credit card and banking industries). Also, could it be my fault? Well when one looks at the amount of interest which seems to be increasing by the second, hmmmmmmmm.

Just Fucking Depressing

Now this is depressing (Matt Taibbi by way of Glenn Greenwald). On the other hand it does seem to explain a lot of things about where we are in this country concerning protests. It also, for me, explains why I felt so uncomfortable at the tea bagger here.

There is something really wrong with what is going on right now in our government and the way the president and congress has chosen to rescue the banking system from drowning while essentially leaving the middle class and un[under]employed to swim out on their own. If they can.

The suggestion that we have finally become a true peasant society doffing our hats at our betters while attacking each other seems pretty accurate to me. Sad really.

The Supremes

Well this is just kind of depressing. I had been kind of following the case a little, but I'm not surprised that it looks like the court will up hold a strip search for ibuprofen. I mean who would have thought eh?

My entire professional life has been spent with a court that has gotten more and more conservative, and let's face it, it started out that way. Growing up with a Warren court kind of gets you to expect something decent and good from the people who sit there. Hell look at Warren and Brennan one good republican and the other a conservative democrat both appointed by a good republican and some of the most progressive people ever to sit on the court.

No one appointed by any of the presidents since Johnson has been as progressive as these guys appointed by Eisenhower.

Dictionary Good

Euphemism, the god damn word I was looking for to use in the last post was euphemism. Damn it.

Torture Memos

Wow just wow.

And in addition Obama has promised not to prosecute the guys who actually tortured. I'm sorry I meant used harsh interrogation techniques.

At the same time some 89 year old guy who has lived in Cleveland for about 50 years or more is within inches of being deported to Germany for crimes, if true, are significantly less serious than our harsh interrogators who are getting a pass on being promoted to federal judge, apparently. All these people should lose their right to practice law---for ever.

Some More Tea Party Fun

An update. Since I got to the party a little late I did not hear correctly the name of the featured (or at least the one who talked the longest, while I was there) speaker. It was James Patrick Johnston, DO. You can look him up, but he is a real ot job. Apparently a member of the Army of God amoung other things and a person who wants shira (ops I mean biblical) law.

Although, that would explain his internal consistancy in his speech. Since I actually listened to him and heard him advocate not just lower taxes, but essentially that people needed to be prepared to give up their social security and all sorts of other things paid by taxes including public schools. He was a good speaker, but I'm not sure the folks there internalizing just what he was demanding.

Cliff Eagleson just, I think, confused people there. There was a little something about the Illuminati, the Masons, and Blackwater. Then after about five minutes his talk was done.

Unfortunately I missed Jeanette Moll, who I am sure was interesting.

Local reporting put the number at about 300, but I'm inclined to think a little less then that, but why quibble.

A whole bunch of relatively poor people who want the taxes lowered on their betters although they do not see it that way. Somehow they think that their taxes are going to be raised. I could not be our media that have given them that idea, could it? Essentially the 20th and 21st should be repealled was what I took from the speakers.

A lot of people believe that their children and grandchildren will need to pay this off and are opposed to that. Of course, if the economy continues to expand, as it has done then the pay off will happen alot sooner than expected. When ever I hear the argument about not having our children pay of our borrowing, I wonder about the generations paying off WWII. If you pay for something right now that will benefit us all now and benefit the future generations then it seems to me that it is not a bad thing to borrow to spend the money now. To maintiain a good society whether through a war or an economic bail out has got to have a benefit for the future generations and I would think that the future generations wouldn't mind paying off those debts if necessary.

UHHHH

OK, it's time to learn a little more about this here bloggy thingy. I r not too bright.

Forty years ago my father put in an answering machine for his business which he was now running from our home (answering machines being somewhat new at that time). My grandparents called while we were gone and got the answering machine. When we got home there was this message on the phone: "Curtis, Curtis are you there? David (my grandfather) he won't talk to me I can't understand it. I can hear him. Curtis?" I don't think they ever figured out it was tape.

Some days I think that maybe I have the same relationship to the computer.

Ok Then

So I sent Senator Brown a fairly nasty email because he voted in favor of the bail out. I got a nice response from Senator Brown, about how it wasn't the best, but it was the best blah blah blah over 200,000 Ohioans have lost jobs this will blah blah blah. The people who know best (i.e. the ones who got us into this mess) say that this is what we must do to get out of it. Well those are certainly the people I would be listening to. Wouldn't you?

I never thought that I would be so continuously amazed at how an incompetent light weight can scare the shit out of, well 75 yesterday, supposedly intelligent senators. How can he scare them so much that they vote against their own re-election interests? I mean let's face it the rhetoric here was the economic version of the 2002 "Saddam's nuclear mushroom cloud" shit. Proven not true then, no reason to believe it now, that I can see. In fact, these people continuously lie and continuously get caught and continuously suffer no consequences. No wonder my petty theft clients wonder why they can't get away with it: These guys lie and steal a country and get rewarded for it. My guys lie and steal a purse and go to prison.

Of course, we know that it is very difficult to get beaten if you're an incumbent in a congressional election. And you can be sure that the campaign money is not going to go to those who voted against that bill. Still, 2006 was not a dream. Even more when you get people emailing and calling at rates of 200 to 300 to 1 you would think that more elected officials would listen and the vote would at least be close.

There is that and the fact that there are quite a few economists who think that the bail out is crap. These are not no where guys, they are heavy hitters. So if you did vote against the bill you would have cover if you needed it later.

This vote is most irritating when you see so called progressives voting for the bill instead of trying to get something into a bankruptcy bill. Now the right says they will veto it if certain things are provided the middle class. If that is true then they most not see the actual bail out as necessary if they would scuttle it for that. Or hell, buy out the individual mortgages and sell them back to the middle class folks at a reasonable rate. No bail out the banks bill. No it was obvious that there was little if any consideration of anything to help out the middle class. Just more bucks for the wealthy.

Perhaps we are now living in a post democratic democracy. You can be sure that wherever we do live now a days, it isn't a representative government. It appears that it is neither a democracy or a republic.

Where do we go from here? Well since the 2000 election was stolen -- no question. The 2004 election was quite possibly stolen. So I'll be damned if I know.

Nihilism as a working philosophy doesn't seem to provide much of a positive basis for political action. Quite frankly, I'm at a loss to figure out what to do next. I'm a kind of a half empty sort of fella. On the other hand I do remember thinking that there wasn't all that much difference between Bush and Gore. Ok so we are all permitted one spectacular error in judgement (not counting first marriages).

Damn Scarlett.