No time to think, less to write, so this is right off the top of my head.
Food Fights. Those are the words that come to mind when I think of this year’s political campaigns. I remember 2006 being similarly acrimonious, but honestly, this year is worse. It seems like there are nothing but attack ads. Even the nice-nice “Hi, I’m blankety-blank and I want to be your blank” ads have a poison pill embedded in them for the opposition. The California gubernatorial race has descended to an exchange of “He’s a liar!” and “She’s a whore!” in something reminiscent of my junior high lunch room. The New York race is, if anything, even more surreal in its nastiness. I’m anticipating a crush of toxic direct mail in the closing weeks – lookout, mailbox!
Imperial Prerogatives. There has been a lot of reporting on Pakistan the last couple of weeks. Their military closed a crossing to U.S. convoys on the Af-Pak border in response to a range of disagreements, not least of which are disputes over U.S. and NATO (essentially U.S.) incursions into Pakistani national territory. There is a kind of impatience to the reporting, communicating the administration’s and the military’s frustration with Pakistan’s failure to adequately support their seemingly endless war in Afghanistan. It’s reminiscent of the official line during the Vietnam war, when American officials would complain about “sanctuaries” in Cambodia and Laos, while they confidently flew devastating bombing runs out of their own “sanctuaries” in Thailand and elsewhere.
This week starts our tenth year in this war, and we seem – if anything – farther from the end than we were when it started. We are more than seven years into Iraq, and now appear to be fighting in Pakistan. Where does this end? Does anyone still think that we are accomplishing anything besides investing in generations of people who hate our guts? That fact is already manifesting itself in Iraq, where the new legions of Al Qaeda fighters are internal refugees, disaffected and ready for revenge. Our dismal performance in the wake of Pakistan’s recent disastrous floods – barring refugees from the sanctuary of one of our air bases; failing to press our military helicopters into disaster relief operations; and some say worse – will gain us the love of very few survivors. This war itself is a disaster, perpetuated by us. And it is one we have the power to end.
Summers Out. Larry Summers is off to make more millions consulting for the investment banks he defended in the White House. High time, too.
luv u,
jp
Okay, so we don’t have any Domage. What the hell are we supposed to eat up here in the middle of nowhere? NO MORE CHESSE-BASED SNACK FOODS! I’VE HAD IT WITH THAT GARBAGE! (Hopefully the Cheese-It people don’t read this blog – I’d hate like hell to loose that endorsement money.)
Okay, so here I am in deep space, sitting back, strumming on my beat-up Martin, waiting for someone to open a can of something edible, and I start hearing alarm bells. My first thought is, “Meteor storm!” The very thought sends Marvin (my personal robot assistant) into the automatonic version of cardiac arrest. He scrambles to a random control panel and starts throwing switches. Expecting the worst, I don the nearest empty beer ball and hold my breath. The alarm sounds again. Out of the galley walks Lincoln with a microwave burrito. Cancel red alert. I SAID CANCEL!!! Thank you.
Not your monkey. It’s the economy, stupid, to be sure, but what about the economy? If a generalization can be made about the past three decades in U.S. economic history, it’s that the rich have done extremely well and the middle class and poor have lost ground… lots of ground. Someone no doubt has shouted “class war!” already, but friends, there has been a class war underway for thirty years now, and it’s being waged on us. And frankly, we’re losing. Part of the reason for that is that we are atomized, disorganized, and at war with one another. We are encouraged to be so from the moment we become aware of the world around us.
Hold it right there. Neptune can wait. I’ve got some mail to answer. Here’s the first item:
plan to create. How do you look in an orange vest?) Rather than talking about what’s in the document, let’s look at what they didn’t put in there… but which they advocate none the less:
Sunday evening, 6:37 p.m. – Mitch Macaphee test-fires the main engine on our ramshackle space craft; the one that will supposedly carry us to many a far-flung rock venue in the galaxy. Based on what I heard, I have my doubts about this vehicle. It took Mitch about fifteen pulls of that rip cord to get the thing smoking, and that’s about all it did… smoke. No lift. Matt just looked on and shook his head. I saw that and shook my head. Whole lot of shakin’ going on ’round here.
has come to despise that thing, as he does any object that resembles a pot. Fortunately, he’s on wheels, so no matter how large he gets, we can push him along. Or pull him behind. Do plants breathe?
What is the tea party movement, after all, but the hard core of the Republican party conservative base? Chris (Lambchop) Hayes made this point on Rachel Maddow’s show the other night. Think about it for a minute – even at his nadir of popularity, George W. Bush could count on the unquestioning love of 25-30% of the country. This country is home to more than 300 million people, so that 25% adds up to 75 million people. Based on their rallies and their primary returns, the tea party appears to be a subset of that block – more like Glenn Beck’s 10% vanguard. These are people who loved Bush/Cheney, supported both wars they started, ate up the tax cuts, blamed Katrina on the victims, and called Obama a terrorist during the McCain campaign. “He’s a… an Arab,” said the crazy lady at one of McCain’s rallies, searching for the right epithet. From the moment of Obama’s election victory, these people have been screaming to “get their country back.” My question is, “back” from whom? The people who voted in the last national election? Screw that.
Well, we’ve attempted to do everything that needed to be done in preparation for our trip to the stars – readying Big Green for our upcoming interstellar tour ENTER THE MIND 2010: THE ULTIMATE BIG GREEN EXPERIENCE. We’ve dotted every “t” and crossed every “i” (or every eye, perhaps). So many details to be considered. Much of it, on this type of outing, is best left to the scientists. Questions like, “There’s no air in space. How do we breathe?” Not sure we’ve got that little detail worked out yet, but sometimes you can’t solve every problem prior to lift off. Sure, I’d like everything to be perfect and set out in a straight line. But that’s not always possible, my friends. Sometimes, good enough has to be good enough. Good enough?
ITEM: Sandwiches. Space is a very inhospitable environment, full of hostile creatures, obstinate club owners (same thing), and the total lack of sandwiches. That’s right – Space is chock full of no sandwiches whatsoever, so you better just pack yourself some… and pronto. 
Job one. The president has been speaking a bit more forcefully about the economy in recent days. That is good, but not good enough. We need a deeper, broader commitment to the notion of full employment in this country, and to back it up with some appropriate action. Various T.V. pundits blandly claim that there is little government can do, but I disagree. The fact is, government has to take steps to provide incentive to industry to employ workers in this country. They could start with procurement. The entire Federal Government, including the Defense Department, should require all contracts to be fulfilled with U.S. labor. If we need it, let’s build it here. We’ve got the skills, the money, and a workforce more than ready to do the work.
Greetings from the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, a combination squat house, launch pad, recording studio, interstellar refugee center, and – now – dance studio! You heard me right. Sure, sure – no one in Big Green can dance his way out of a paper bag; this much is true. But needs dictate actions in this corner of the universe as well as in yours, and damn it, we need money to get this tour off the ground. So….. dance lessons. Administered by Marvin (my personal robot assistant), as it happens.
Why are we so short on cash? Please! Aren’t we always? Think of the expenses we need to bear. Just keeping ourselves in Cheesits and crepe paper is enough to bankrupt any tycoon. And then there’s Anti-Lincoln’s odious absinthe habit. (Now I know why he spent so much time at the theater.) We’re just pouring money down the rat hole every day of our lives. And those rats are living pretty large, my friend, pretty large. Of course, now they have to share with our tour manager, Admiral Gonutz (ret.), who needs cash (and lots of it) to provision our ramshackle interstellar space craft.