If you believe that the Katrina clown car was Obama's fault, you could be suffering from Obama Derangement Syndrome.
I guess it needs to be said. Deranged = bad. Bad for the country, bad for our communities.
Of course the irony? Any criticism of the President Who Shall Not Be Named (PWSNBN) was "PWSNBN Derangement Syndrome." Any criticism at all, no matter how trivial or deserved. "Treason to criticize PWSNBN during a time of war," they said. "Unpatriotic" they said. "America haters" they said.
I dunno about us as a collective society. Ya know what I mean? Have we all gone raving mad?
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Trial by Crazy
Note to self: yes, I may enjoy the occasional drunken or semi drunken explosion of a diesel bomb (ahem, not a drunken diesel bomb ... although yes, the bomb is in a distilled liquor bottle, but technically, I am the one who is drunken, not the bomb). But, apparently, should I have the misfortune of being in any way near or involved in a massive blast, I must make sure I don't own anything remotely incendiary.
Why? Because we live in a world where being a little off, being a talker and enjoying watching things blow up makes you a suspect. Now, I don't know that he is not really involved, but was arrested on May 10, during that time he's spent 6 weeks in a police mental facility and is being detained now (in segregation). The DA says he has not seen compelling evidence that the guy is responsible for the fertilizer plant explosion. Really? You lock a guy up for 3 months, paste his face everywhere as a person of interest in a major disaster, and all you got is "possession of pipe bomb materials"?
Um, aren't those not too hard to acquire household materials? Now, having a pipe bomb is illegal. But materials?? For example, permanganate -- wikipedia says "Potassium permanganate is typically included in survival kits: as a fire starter, water sterilizer and for creating distress signals on snow."
To many shades of Richard Jewell here.
You know, we really have to do better. Demand better from law enforcement, from news organizations, from ourselves. Putting this guy in jail for three months for a pipe bomb (but guilt by association for the fertilizer plant explosion) is ridiculous. Enough already.
Why? Because we live in a world where being a little off, being a talker and enjoying watching things blow up makes you a suspect. Now, I don't know that he is not really involved, but was arrested on May 10, during that time he's spent 6 weeks in a police mental facility and is being detained now (in segregation). The DA says he has not seen compelling evidence that the guy is responsible for the fertilizer plant explosion. Really? You lock a guy up for 3 months, paste his face everywhere as a person of interest in a major disaster, and all you got is "possession of pipe bomb materials"?
Um, aren't those not too hard to acquire household materials? Now, having a pipe bomb is illegal. But materials?? For example, permanganate -- wikipedia says "Potassium permanganate is typically included in survival kits: as a fire starter, water sterilizer and for creating distress signals on snow."
To many shades of Richard Jewell here.
You know, we really have to do better. Demand better from law enforcement, from news organizations, from ourselves. Putting this guy in jail for three months for a pipe bomb (but guilt by association for the fertilizer plant explosion) is ridiculous. Enough already.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Because we will not insure everyone, this woman died of thrombosis. Because we allow the rich to convince us our country was founded on greed, this is who we are becoming.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Some things suck. At Calculated Risk, one of the comments is:
And, you have the Enrondian cycle where the shareholders get skrewed while the high level employees of the company walk off with their cash, and there is no fucking justice and no law to indemnify them and make they whole.
I am hating the current social order. The social contract has been lit on fire by so-called conservatives, who are perfectly happy to let everyone outside their ivory towers fucking starve or go to debtors prison.
Change is coming--literally, climate and energy change, but also political change. Change is usually tantamount to bloody insurrection. I worry about my kids, my siblings, myself. And those bastard Democrats are either fucking worthless out of weakness or politeness or corruption. At least I know the Republicans are morally corrupt, so it is easy to see their motives.
Yup, it's all about getting mine and saving myself right now. God help us.
John Stark writes:
A mortgage fraud investigator of my acquaintance once said, "If a borrower is caught defrauding a lender, the borrower goes to jail. If a lender is caught defrauding a borrower, he might have to give some of the money back."
And, you have the Enrondian cycle where the shareholders get skrewed while the high level employees of the company walk off with their cash, and there is no fucking justice and no law to indemnify them and make they whole.
I am hating the current social order. The social contract has been lit on fire by so-called conservatives, who are perfectly happy to let everyone outside their ivory towers fucking starve or go to debtors prison.
Change is coming--literally, climate and energy change, but also political change. Change is usually tantamount to bloody insurrection. I worry about my kids, my siblings, myself. And those bastard Democrats are either fucking worthless out of weakness or politeness or corruption. At least I know the Republicans are morally corrupt, so it is easy to see their motives.
Yup, it's all about getting mine and saving myself right now. God help us.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
One of the favorite allegorical nations for our country is the Roman Empire. It isn't a perfect fit. Mark Twain once said, history doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme.
Rome's "Crisis of the Third Century" could well rhyme with USA's "Crisis of the Twenty-First Century." From some stalwart Wikipedia historian,
GW Bush has done a pretty good job of knocking down the pillars of government--by infesting its offices with ideologues intent on drowning government in a bathtub. What exactly did they think was going to happen in the vacuum that they left? They literally destroyed the government and infrastructure in Iraq, and they figuratively destroyed it here. Literal anarchy in Iraq, figurative anarchy here.
How bad could it get? Say McCain, or Romney, or Clinton, or Obama, become president? They all say they will make "changes." Yet, are any of them likely to have the will or capacity to change the momentum of the course that the Bush Administration has set? What are they going to do about the Iraq conflict, privatization of societal institutions, destruction of civil liberties, reduction of capacity by the public to participate in government, and lack of will to reign cannibalistic capitalism (the wealthy feeding on the poor)?
This is where my political bickering fatigue takes hold--I am not going to waste precious resources in screaming fights about which person to elect to move the deck chairs around on the Titanic.
Rome's "Crisis of the Third Century" could well rhyme with USA's "Crisis of the Twenty-First Century." From some stalwart Wikipedia historian,
In the 3rd century, however, the Empire underwent military, political and economic crises and began to collapse. There was constant barbarian invasion, civil war, and hyperinflation.
GW Bush has done a pretty good job of knocking down the pillars of government--by infesting its offices with ideologues intent on drowning government in a bathtub. What exactly did they think was going to happen in the vacuum that they left? They literally destroyed the government and infrastructure in Iraq, and they figuratively destroyed it here. Literal anarchy in Iraq, figurative anarchy here.
How bad could it get? Say McCain, or Romney, or Clinton, or Obama, become president? They all say they will make "changes." Yet, are any of them likely to have the will or capacity to change the momentum of the course that the Bush Administration has set? What are they going to do about the Iraq conflict, privatization of societal institutions, destruction of civil liberties, reduction of capacity by the public to participate in government, and lack of will to reign cannibalistic capitalism (the wealthy feeding on the poor)?
This is where my political bickering fatigue takes hold--I am not going to waste precious resources in screaming fights about which person to elect to move the deck chairs around on the Titanic.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
My roommate has a brain tumor.
It's all well and good to think that you are appreciating life. Then, you see daily, how short life can be. Suddenly, you feel gifted beyond imagining that you have time to see the world and be a part of it. My roommate struggles with his brain tumor. Everyday it takes a little more of his reality away. He has had two focal seizures in two days, and a grand mal seizure within 7 days. Lord almighty, if I only believed in a finite universe I would be in trouble. I don't, but I cannot pressure him to think ahead, to the next life, or the next level.
Instead, I am feeding him bratwurst and potatoes. We will toast to the small increments of life tonight, that calculus of living time in which we exist.
But, my heart aches. So much world, so little time.
It's all well and good to think that you are appreciating life. Then, you see daily, how short life can be. Suddenly, you feel gifted beyond imagining that you have time to see the world and be a part of it. My roommate struggles with his brain tumor. Everyday it takes a little more of his reality away. He has had two focal seizures in two days, and a grand mal seizure within 7 days. Lord almighty, if I only believed in a finite universe I would be in trouble. I don't, but I cannot pressure him to think ahead, to the next life, or the next level.
Instead, I am feeding him bratwurst and potatoes. We will toast to the small increments of life tonight, that calculus of living time in which we exist.
But, my heart aches. So much world, so little time.
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