Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Working Class Hero
 |
| Mitch McConnell R-KY Senate Minority Leader |
Brain burning factoid:
Senator McConnell's personal fortune is estimated at $32,756,000 in 2009.
In 2008, the median household income in Kentucky was $41,489.
More of this...
MORON-FIREBREAK!!!!
Maybe this is how it will end.
A faction of the Tea Party will go to war with the John Birch Society, and so on, and so on...
The conservative host is gradually diminished by warring viruses.
Article here.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Oh crap...a montage
Her voice, delivery, and its modulation, sounds digitally generated—one word at a time.
Also, too.
Updated:
I'm not the only one that thinks Palin is auto-tuned...or something.
Sarah Palin, or Hal 9000?
The Hostage Taking Builds
Senate Republicans will create a recession unless Democrats agree to Medicare cuts.
McConnell is pissed that his Republicans backed themselves into a corner over Ryan's plan to privatize (destroy) Medicare. What do you do?
Threaten to crash the global economy unless Democrats make cuts to Medicare too.
Fetid ratbastards (including any Democrats that fall for it).
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Advanced Know-Nothingism
 |
| Virginia Foxx, (R-NC)* *Not photoshopped...really. |
The House has passed legislation that would bar teaching health centers that receive federal funds under the new health care act from using the money to teach abortion techniques.From here.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, the sponsor of the measure, says she wants to make it “crystal clear” that taxpayer money is not being used to train health care providers to perform abortions.
Maybe eliminating science entirely from school curriculums would be the more effective approach? Oh fuck...nevermind.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
The Republican Hostage Crisis
 |
| Iranian Hostages, 1979 |
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., told reporters Monday that if Congress passed an emergency spending bill to help Missouri's tornado victims, the money would have to be cut from elsewhere in the budget so the disaster relief funding wouldn't add to the deficit.
On Tuesday, a day after his remarks, a key House subcommittee did just that. The Appropriations panel approved by voice vote an amendment to a measure funding the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other Department of Homeland Security programs for the 2012 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.
The disaster aid package would be financed by $1.5 billion cut from a loan program to encourage the production of fuel-efficient vehicles. That means the new spending wouldn't add to out-of-control budget deficits.
From here
Unbelievable...ratbastards.
Updated: More.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Day Trip
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| Joan Snyder Big Blue Two, 2010 |
Today I'm driving down to see a Joan Snyder exhibition at the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University.
I spent some time there back in the 80s for graduate school—it will be interesting to see New Brunswick after so many years. Revisit my 20s self—one room apartment, studio all-nighters, chicken kabobs, Foodtown, and lots of cigarettes.
NB was a rather scary place at 3:00 am when I'd invariably run out of smokes—forced to dodge a handful of unhinged nightstalkers to get to the train station news stand for a pack of Camel Lights.
Good times when you're 24.
 |
| The art cell, New Brunswick, NJ 1985 |
Monday, May 23, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Post-Rapture Sunday Soundtrack
I didn't know the Ramones covered this Chambers Brothers song.
h/t Balloon Juice
Also...more fucking cowbell...much more.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
The Scammed and The Grifted
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| "When does Lee Greenwood come on?" |
From here.
Read the comment section of the linked article...pretty funny.
Where Are My Magic Beans?!
 |
| Tom Tomorrow |
What the fuck do I know...but I think the administration has convinced itself that they need to keep the liberal Democrat stuff hidden until the second term. Then, in theory, there will be nothing—reelection—to prevent Obama from receiving the mantle of a progressive president.
If so, it's too clever by half.
Saturday Soundtrack
Attention:
Today is the "Day of Wrath."
Avoid driving at 6:00 pm PST (9ish on the East Coast).
(Actually, I love this Gregorian Chant.)
Holding On (to nothing)
"As psychologists will tell you, fear of loss is more powerful than the prospect of gain. The struggling middle classes look down more anxiously than they look up, particularly in recession and sluggish recovery. Polls show they dislike high income inequalities but are lukewarm about redistribution. They worry that they are unlikely to benefit and may even lose from it; and worse still, those below them will be pulled up sufficiently to threaten their status. This is exactly the mindset in the US, where individualist values are more deeply embedded. Americans accepted tax cuts for the rich with equanimity. Better to let the rich keep their money, they calculated, than to have it benefit economic and social inferiors."
From here.
Over the last decade, the elite strategy to reinforce indebtedness with stagnant wages, targeted inflation, and cheap credit has destroyed the middle classes' ability to mobilize and look up. Sadly, for much of the middle class in America, this phenomenon is both economic and racial—or more to the point, when it isn't economic, it becomes racial.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Of course, the DFHs* made them do it
"A five-year study commissioned by the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops to provide a definitive answer to what caused the church’s sexual abuse crisis has concluded that neither the all-male celibate priesthood nor homosexuality were to blame.
Instead, the report says, the abuse occurred because priests who were poorly prepared and monitored, and were under stress, landed amid the social and sexual turmoil of the 1960s and ’70s.
Known occurrences of sexual abuse of minors by priests rose sharply during those decades, the report found, and the problem grew worse when the church’s hierarchy responded by showing more care for the perpetrators than the victims.
The “blame Woodstock” explanation has been floated by bishops since the church was engulfed by scandal in the United States in 2002 and by Pope Benedict XVI after it erupted in Europe in 2010."
*Dirty Fucking Hippies
Why Jimi, why?
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Monday, May 16, 2011
Stubby-Fingered Vulgarian Demures
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| The Trump |
He is stubby-fingered.
I thought it was just a liberal smear...huh.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Good Grief
 |
| Callista Gingrich |
I would argue for leaving wives and husbands out of the fray of political contests—even when the contestants are unctuous grifters—but she really makes me uneasy.
The next election will destroy my will to live.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
"America's Greatest Threat Took Out Osama bin Laden"
Red State Update
"Everything's a conspiracy when you don't know what the hell is going on."
Updated:
Another one.
"Hippies!"
Monday, May 09, 2011
Sunday, May 08, 2011
America Goes to Art School
David Lynch's Twin Peaks
There has been a lot of television made in the years since David Lynch's series aired—some of it okay, most of it standard fare—but I would argue nothing as creative and current as Twin Peaks was in its time.
What is most striking to me about the series now, is how it transformed the television viewer from a casual consumer of predictable narratives to one engaged by the director's craft. The attention Lynch gave to the interiors and transitions from scene to scene, made them as important as conventional character framing and narrative outline. Viewers grew to process the narrative noise and fake leads with the same intensity as the real clues to Laura Palmer's mysterious death.
David Lynch, who is also a painter, rather quickly had people looking at a television program differently than they had before. The viewer wasn't simply involved in unlocking a mystery that unfolded in the center of their TV screen, they were also scanning the entirety of the screen—foreground, middleground, and background. Viewers were seeing their televisions for what they actually are—two dimensional framing devices—each frame carrying visual information that was either useful to the narrative or not.
The game, and the fun of watching Twin Peaks, was to view it as a crime mystery while simultaneously tracking Lynch's dark humor (and obsessiveness)—from his choice of chotzkes to grand exterior shots—we were delighted with the artifice and fakery of his television.
Updated:
I failed to mention the music Lynch used throughout the series—it was always clear which mood it was designed to set—but that transparency invariably made you doubt the response.
A post-modern puzzle.
Updated again:
Oh why not?
Saturday, May 07, 2011
Dave's Derby Soundtrack
A friend's soundtrack suggestion for The Kentucky Derby (an hour or so from post time).
Also...from the same album Sticky Fingers—a favorite.
Updated:
Love this one too.
A Diversion
AMC is currently replaying The Rifleman on Saturday mornings. While I remember watching when it aired originally—from 1958 to 1963—I didn't know until recently that the first few episodes were written and directed by Sam Peckinpah.
With classic 50s narratives that focus largely on self reliance and the rugged individual, it remains surprisingly liberal.
Also...the opening sequence is both hilarious and wrong.
With classic 50s narratives that focus largely on self reliance and the rugged individual, it remains surprisingly liberal.
Also...the opening sequence is both hilarious and wrong.
Friday, May 06, 2011
Why is this true?
 |
| From Crooks and Liars |
Republicans, who are always in spin mode, seem to actually believe this graphic. Why?
Thursday, May 05, 2011
A Hoosier Horror
A late entry in the race to the bottom currently being held by Scott Walker and Rick Snyder.
He'll do a lot of common sense conservative damage before he announces his White House bid in 2015.
Get ready Indiana.
Updated:
How could I forget to post his name?
Mike Pence, of course.
eecchh...
 |
| A sanctimonious dullard wrapped tightly in a punch-me face. |
He'll do a lot of common sense conservative damage before he announces his White House bid in 2015.
Get ready Indiana.
Updated:
How could I forget to post his name?
Mike Pence, of course.
eecchh...
Exclusive: Get Yer Dead Guy Pics Right Here
Sorry...just kittens.
Like the corporate media—clamoring for the release of the OBL snuff photos—I'm whoring for page views too.
Like the corporate media—clamoring for the release of the OBL snuff photos—I'm whoring for page views too.
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
Work-life Soundtrack
"...what you fear the most will meet you half way."
I prefer the Victoria Williams version—couldn't find a good video.
From Sweet Relief: A Benefit for Victoria Williams.
Also...
Shudder to Think
Monday, May 02, 2011
Now What?
Updated:
Can we begin to dismantle our destructive—and self-defeating—posture in Afghanistan and Pakistan?
Sunday, May 01, 2011
Instant Death
An Eddie Harris cut from 1972.
He used to come to Louisville a lot in the 70s—played in a tiny club just off Main Street.
The powerful Compared to What with Les McCann.
He used to come to Louisville a lot in the 70s—played in a tiny club just off Main Street.
The powerful Compared to What with Les McCann.
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