Wow, what a week. I had to laugh at NBC at one point, trying to pivot between the papal visit and the Boehner resignation. So much news, so little air time! Nothing the mass media loves more than information overload … you can hear the squeak of joy in their voices. Not sure where to start, but I’ll dive right in and let’s see where we go.
Carson’s law. Am I alone in thinking that Ben Carson is a truly creepy individual? He’s way too quiet, for one thing. And when he does talk, he says stuff like this response on Meet The Press to a question about the importance of a president’s faith:
DR. BEN CARSON:
Well, I guess it depends on what that faith is. If it’s inconsistent with the values and principles of America, then of course it should matter. But if it fits within the realm of America and consistent with the constitution, no problem.CHUCK TODD:
So do you believe that Islam is consistent with the constitution?DR. BEN CARSON:
No, I don’t, I do not. I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.
Consistent with the constitution? What faith is “consistent with the constitution?” What exactly are these “values and principles” that he’s talking about? Anyone supporting Carson on the notion that he is not a politician is suffering from a severe delusion. This is just pandering of the most cynical kind. It happens that most of the Republican electorate agree with Carson – that’s not an accident. The famous neurosurgeon may not know a lot about most things outside of his medical discipline, but he does know how to read a poll.
Boehner out. I haven’t heard his reason for stepping down, and I’m not sure I’m interested, but my guess is that he doesn’t want to negotiate another government shutdown confrontation, which is plainly on the horizon, fueled by the ludicrous uproar over these heavily edited Planned Parenthood sting videos. This must certainly go down as one of the least productive speakerships in the history of the republic. That may not be entirely a bad thing. Sometimes when Congress gets a lot done, it’s terrible for the country and the rest of the world (like the bipartisan vote for the Iraq invasion). A more effective speaker may have delivered on more of the Republican caucus’s priorities. So … we may miss you, Boehner. We’ll see.
Papal stances. Glad to see the Pope praising Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton in his remarks to Congress. (Martin King and Lincoln as well.) Christ, if he weren’t the Pope, I expect the entire southern delegation would have marched out of there whistling Dixie.
luv u,
jp
Ever get down on your hands and knees and beg a potato to get fat? Ever shake your fist at an apple because it shriveled on a stick? Yeah, me neither. But if I had, those would be in the memoir, for sure. All we have are pointless stories of low-grade adventures that any plain clothes musician in the northeast could probably top without even trying. Maybe that’s Big Green’s true calling: giving other bands something to feel good about. (At least we’re not THEM!)
The thing is, you need to listen to their rhetoric. They’re talking about “illegal immigrants”. They’re echoing the applause lines of our own crackpot politicians. No surprise, because we’re witnessing the same experience on our own southern border. People fleeing from the neoliberal aftermath of our bankrupt Central America policy, starting with support for decades of regressive, kelptocratic Mexican governments to our serial interventions in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and elsewhere, pouring into this country in hope of a better life. And we’ve got freaks like Donald Trump calling them rapists, murderers, etc., and not just him. Those Hungarian xenophobes? Turns out, they are us.
Imagining Henry Kissinger trying out for the Monkees back in the late sixties, like Charles Manson did. Hanky’s Monkees, it might have been called. Or perhaps not. (This stemmed from our recollection of an earlier episode when we pondered whether or not Davy Jones might have been killed by primate poachers.)
I think the part that’s most flabbergasting is the level of hysteria over the Iran deal. You expect to hear overheated rhetoric at an event that features Michelle Bachman and some dude from “Duck Dynasty,” but this was way the fuck over the top. Ted Cruz suggested that the Iranians, once they have acquired the nuclear weapon they so LUST after, will blow it up off the coast of the U.S. to create an electromagnetic pulse, shutting down our electrical grid and killing MILLIONS! What. the. fuck. What a fantasy! And this from a sitting Senator.
Song: Up On The Bridge – Another Sulu number, one that chronicles his career fall and rise with the ebb and flow of the Star Trek phenomenon.
Right, so … Barry let Gulf oil start drilling in ocean recently freed up by the effects of burning hydrocarbons, but that’s okay, because he renamed Mount McKinley and talked about how we’re not moving fast enough on climate change. Yeah, no shit, Mr. President – there’s an obvious solution to that, of course. Stop dragging your own damn feet. Obama’s efforts to address the impending climate catastrophe are progressing so slowly that those glaciers he visited seem speedy in comparison. He should have named that mountain “Denial-ly”.
The danger in this is that we have developed a political economy around this practice of perpetual elections. One leg of this stool is the pay-to-play culture of political fundraising. Office holders are spending increasing amounts of their time with potential donors, dialing for dollars and addressing $10,000 a plate dinner crowds. Another leg is the media feeding frenzy that attends every twist and turn of the competition. Plenty of news to be served up, with lots of red meat. And then there’s the ad revenue, in the billions of dollars, ultimately.
We’re thinking about another interstellar tour. Now that Pluto is a better-known venue, that seems like a good place to start. Easy to find for our regular audiences. Small, yes. Cold, certainly. And a certain lack of amenities. But Big Green is a decidedly plain clothes gig, man. We don’t kowtow to the suits. That kind of thing is what we call “weak sauce.” We’re sticking it to “the man” – especially Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who has apparently entered some kind of beatnik phase. I think he’s been watching reruns of Dobie Gillis. Or Gilligan’s Island, perhaps. He’s rocking a mop top just lately – not sure where he’s going with that.