Random Barking: Climate Denying Potato Edition

Knitting Trees For Africa

• Let's keep this short and to the point: When you're monstrously wealthy, every day is a good day. Also fun!

• This isn't much, I know -- but it could have gone a completely different way if I'd been in the mood. Be thankful I didn't spend 1,500 words on tapeworm sushi.  

• The Good News is, before a replay of the dinner scene from the original Alien occurs, you can take your dog's worming pills and get clean.

• Remember -- ask your Dog for the pills, first. Politely. Don't take what doesn't belong to you just because you have opposable thumbs.  

• Oh, and Shutdown Ends! Bait and Switch! Bait and Switch! Yay!  And we know Majority Yertle The Turtle will keep his word. Unless, you know -- not ever. USA! USA!

• And, we will have to watch this happen all over again before February 8!

• Will America's Other Party ever learn?

______________________________

 MEHR, MIT MEHR:  Still in that place.  But: Woof ! Muss Sein. Es ist so.

_______________________________

Mad As Hell And, Y' Know, Mad As Hell

Unless Of Course There's Free Cable In It For Us 

When I'm alone, and things are getting me down, I can always suffer weight gain, gross disfigurement, have urges to Make Time with girls, engage in cross-dressing, and dance with pom-poms. Just so you know. This is Murrika, after all, where our ability to debase ourselves is the crowning glory of our civilization.

Yes, it changes nothing. That Other Pig is Murrikan Leader. He says he is Not Racist. He says not crazy but stable. He says all is Fake, and my head goes into its Third Reel.  I mean, it's not like he's Alan Watts or something. The earth is facing an unthinkable series of environmental catastrophes, the dying species don't even get they're being taken out of the Big Parade, and Our Wealthy are doing everything to keep their soft lives and privilege as long as possible -- at the expense of everyone else, of course.

And when It Is Too Much and we come to this crazy-place in our Dog brain, we sit down and refuse to move -- until our request, that everyone will now please to dance the Rhumba Charleston until we can get a grip, is granted.  So, everyone get with it. Shake that thing. Thank you.

_____________________________________________________________

Galatically Stupid Is Our Buddy

One Year

Before we begin, here's a perspective you might consider : The physical remains of a Bronze-Age human were found on a glacier in 1991. He was dubbed 'Ötzi The Iceman'. He had died in the mountain pass where his body was found (between current-day Italy and Austria) roughly 5,300 years ago. 

Use the link; go look at this man's reconstructed face. Let me repeat: He Died Five Thousand, Three Hundred Years Ago. He died at least 3,000 years before there was Greek civilization, or a Roman empire. 2,000 years before the Pyramids of Egypt were built.  

He lived and died four thousand years before the Buddha was supposed to be alive, and at least 2,300 years before either Jesus or Mohammed were supposedly doing their community service. Consider that.

Also consider: he was discovered because the glacier, which held and moved his body, was melting.

________________________________

Where we were, before November 8, 2016. Compare in your own minds with where we are now.

• Climate Breakdown:  The effect of human life on the planet's ecosystem continued. There was no way to know if the Paris Accords, if put into action, would have a measurable effect on dampening trends in global temperature, precipitation and extreme weather. Some critics complained the accords did not go far enough; others that it was too late to reverse climate effects, no matter what we do. However, the planet's political representatives (including the United States) had committed themselves to an agreement, and that was no small feat. But, it's just a few paragraphs of language, unless and until legislated into action.

• The upward flow of wealth, to Those Who Have from Those Who Don't, continued in 2016. Important people being paid large salaries released reports detailing what a bad thing this is, which were tut-tutted by many (Inequality; must do something about that). Anyone born in the United States in 1980 -- the generation which should be in its prime, income-producing years -- has a 50/50 chance of making less than their parents. The top eight wealthiest persons in the world have more collective net worth than 50% of the human race (See "Panama Papers" below). That's a ratio of  1 : 437,500,000,  if you're curious. Or, not.

• North Korea and the Kim-Jong Un regime continued development of nuclear weapons, and an ICBM delivery system capable of hitting the United States. The North claimed to have successfully launched a submarine-based IRBM in August, 2016; two test launches of surface-based IRBMs/ICBMs in mid-October apparently failed.  North Korea had also conducted three underground nuclear weapons tests -- one in January, and twice in September, 2016.

• China continued to spread its influence. Chinese companies made large acquisitions. Foreign currency reserve money (i.e., USD) flowed out of the country.  Development of the "one Belt, One Road" initiative begun in 2014 continued as a strategic direction. Tensions continued in the South China Sea with Japan and the United States over islands China had 'enhanced', expanding China's definition of territorial waters into what the U.S. sees as open shipping lanes. Encounters between naval vessels and aircraft were tense, and the possibility of an 'incident' seemed likely.

• War in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen continued. Russian military support for the Al-Assad regime had allowed Syrian government forces to retake territory from rebel forces in the north of the country (in particular, the brutal retaking of the city of Aleppo), and from the so-called Islamic State. In Iraq, the IS still controlled large areas, but counteroffensives by U.S.-backed Iraqi and Kurdish forces had begun in 2015, and by the fall of 2016 the Islamists were in retreat. 

• In Turkey, a military coup in July 2016 against its increasingly authoritarian leader, Racep ("Kiki") Erdogan, failed, resulting in curbing of civil liberties, censorship, closing of any media critical of the Erdogan government; mass firings of civil service employees suspected of being sympathetic to the coup, and summary arrests. 

• Saudi Arabia executed a Shia cleric who had long been critical of that country's Sunni majority in January 2016. One result were violent protests held at the Saudi embassy in Tehran, Iran (where the Shia are in the majority). The Saudis closed the embassy and severed diplomatic relations with Iran -- all this is related to the ongoing war in Yemen -- where since 2015, rebels backed by Iran have tried to overthrow a government supported by Saudi Arabia. 42,000 people have died. In August, 2016, talks to end the conflict collapsed, and Saudi airstrikes -- which have terrified local populations -- continued.

• Great Britain's citizens voted for 'Brexit', 52% to 48% in June 2016. The Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron (who called the vote to silence critics, believing it would result in a victory to 'remain' in the Union) resigned. Implications for the rest of the EU weren't immediately clear, but weren't positive. Conservative Theresa May (a diehard 'Remain' supporter), was chosen as new PM and barely able to maintain a right-wing coalition in Parliament against tremendous pressure from the Labor Party and its leader, MP Jeremy Corbin.

• France elected Emmanuel Macron, a Centrist, in a May 2016 election which pitted him against the far-Right Nationalist Marie LePen, 66.1% to 33.9%. This was seen as a bellwether of nationalist, anti-EU and fascist-leaning politics in mainstream Europe, and LePen's failure was seen as a defeat for those extremist viewpoints. What Macron as a 'centrist' would do with French internal and economic policy? well, that's a different matter, c'est non?

• Roderigo Duerte was elected President of the Philippines in May, 2016. A populist candidate, Duerte instituted a ruthless campaign against drug dealing in the country, utilizing vigilantes and police, leading to reported thousands of murders. Duerte also hinted the Philippines' would be ending its long-standing relationship with the United States, and its troops would have to leave the country by 2018.  He made clear overtures to the government of China as a new ally, and made headlines by referring to then-president Obama in a public speech as a "son of a bitch".

• The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) had been in negotiation since 2009. It was an American-led vehicle, providing leverage for the U.S., and 11 other Pacific Rim nations, to determine how trade in the Rim would be conducted, and was clearly aimed at containing Chinese economic influence (that it would also become part of a network of prior, similar trade agreements which provide, uh, 'rewards' to the usual large financial interests was obvious but ignored). The TPP was not popular among many politicians in the U.S., Right or Left; even so, then-president Obama hoped it would be ratified by the Congress in lame-duck session before the end of 2016. Good luck with that.

• In April 2016, the "Panama Papers" were released in the media,  over 11 million documents dating from the 1970's forward which detailed how a long list of wealthy clients of a Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca, used offshore shell corporations to move and protect income from taxation. The documents were copied by an anonymous whistleblowing employee of the firm, who initially provided them to a German newspaper. Almost no one was surprised, including the governments which had been potentially defrauded of tax payments.

Left out here are mass shooting episodes in America (the Orlando, Florida nightclub attack) and continued police shootings of unarmed people in urban cities. There were the July Bastille Day terror attacks in Nice, France, and also in Germany by lone attackers. There was resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock. Anton Scalia died in his sleep ("Whales weep not").

The existence of gravitational waves, created by the collision of two black holes trillions of miles from Earth, was confirmed. Hundreds of the oldest footprints of our ancestors (in fossilized mud, some 19,000 years old) were found in Africa. People found Ube on their doughnuts, Poke holding their veggies and fish, Raclette scraped on their eggs, and "fairy bread", in the year since November 8, 2016. 

____________________________________ 

After the 2016 election: I'm going to agree with Ian Welsh on this one. It is no bed of roses, but

... I say that we are moving out of an era where problems could only be solved if they made someone a billionaire and are moving to an era where we will be able to start actually fixing problems that matter. This is a high-risk period ... But unlike in 2009... we now have some real reasons to hope along with all the baked-in catastrophes we’ve had handed to us. 

Oh, yes, Trump. Yeah, he’s bad, and he’ll be bad for a lot of people, but I am not worried when it comes to the big picture because he’s ... far too incompetent.... Someone competent, running on actual right-wing populism, say, Bannon with charisma, could well have turned America into a fascist state for two generations... [Trump's] failure provides a clear warning of the danger and may discredit those policies.

Trump's behavior, which we can count on to be consistently erratic and polarizing, is an important factor in how near-term events (say, three to seven years) could play out. Put simply, Trump is his own worst enemy.  He's already proven it.

His behavior galvanizes opposition and identifies alt-Right extremist conservatism with his own Batshit-Crazy, galatically-stupid incompetence. A more competent mendacious person might do real damage to America, and the rest of the world -- so in a way, we got lucky with Wonderboy. His inherent nature is our best friend, just now.

This isn't to say that if he were about to be indicted for -- treason, perhaps -- Trump might not do something which had maximum Shiny Object value in the media as a distraction. And his target(s) would be (like immigrants, like the Dreamers, like the women he bragged about groping) someone who couldn't really hurt him, couldn't really fight back.

It's important to remember that Trump's closest political advisors, his go-to guys, are all general officers, whether they wear a tie and a blazer or not (Rex Tillerson isn't part of that team, but they seem to get along). Someone made the observation that we've already had a military coup, and no one noticed; if we're lucky, it's only half-wrong.

________________________________

Our old-order politics in America, with the two parties serving the Usual Suspects, is no longer viable. Something will replace it -- the what, how and when, we don't know. It may be pretty and joyous, or not.  Change will continue -- and, we're only one year into the Occupation, and haven't yet seen how crazy it can get. We need to remember the past, and we need to remember the future.

________________________________

Things, in their relative way, abide: Here's my only solution, just now. Imagine standing in some specific place in the world, one you hold close to your heart. One you can close your eyes and all your senses light up at the memory; see, smell, feel, hear that place. Imagine being in that spot for one year.

The wind blows; birdcalls come and go; clouds appear, thunder and rain, and then pass; night falls; the great bridge of stars appears and twists on its axis above you, until the next sunrise -- and all of it 365 times, passed in an overarching quiet which ignored your presence, as if you were simply an element in that landscape. A rock, a tree, a lost Quarter.

Now open your eyes again and remember that during the year since last November, in all it's terrible beauty; despite everything; your place stood, full of change but rooted, exactly so. Consider that.

____________________________________

One More Voice

The Beaver Speaks For His Kind

(Photo: William Ploughman / NBC)

Never did I ever think I'd be grabbing quotes from Davey ("Bucky The Beaver") Brooks, unindicted war criminal, but these are strange times.

Bucky is really an old-line conservative, out of Kristol, by way of  Buckley and Podhoretz. Like many pundits of any political stripe, he supports the status quo (ultimately, rule-by-the-0.01%), but from the Right. He's carved out a niche in Right wingnutostan as the voice of traditional conservative values; a reading of his columns in the Paper Of Record seem to indicate his perfect world looks a lot like Saskatoon around 1958, as Bucky was born and raised North Of The Border.

While many pundits frequently hedge their bets, while the contest for a Republican candidate ground on, Bucky sided with that party's old-line leadership in declaring Trump a menace, and said plainly This Is Bad when Wonderboy became the nominee.

Still, for the sake of preserving a Republican party, through the summer he tried to find some silver lining in the sow's ear as Trump faced off against She in the clash of worlds. With the election, Bucky was as stunned as the rest of us, offering jumbled conservative credos that amounted to a 'How Can This Be Happening??'

Wonderboy, Speaking To A Room Of Dishonest Lying Haters (Photo: Andrew Harnik / AP)

Bucky is one bellwether of mood among status quo conservatives. Not long before the inauguration and America's renaming as Trumplandia, he said plainly that he wouldn't take a Trump presidency lying down.  And after watching the 77 unscripted minutes of Wonderboy's free association press conference yesterday, Bucky typed:

I still have trouble seeing how the Trump administration survives a full term. Judging by his Thursday press conference, President Trump’s mental state is like a train that long ago left freewheeling and iconoclastic, has raced through indulgent, chaotic and unnerving, and is now careening past unhinged, unmoored and unglued.

Trump’s White House staff is at war with itself. His poll ratings are falling at unprecedented speed. His policy agenda is stalled. F.B.I. investigations are just beginning. This does not feel like a sustainable operation.

One way or another, we're all feeling this. Bucky, on the other hand, is a well-known right-wing cheerleader with impeccable (for those people, anyway) credentials -- and even he is verbalizing the same WTF and "this can't end well" which we're all feeling. And, what next?

On the other hand, I have trouble seeing exactly how this administration ends. Many of the institutions that would normally ease out or remove a failing president no longer exist.

There are no longer moral arbiters in Congress like Howard Baker and Sam Ervin to lead a resignation or impeachment process. There is no longer a single media establishment that shapes how the country sees the president. This is no longer a country in which everybody experiences the same reality.

... The Civil Service has a thousand ways to ignore or sit on any presidential order. The court system has given itself carte blanche to overturn any Trump initiative, even on the flimsiest legal grounds. The intelligence community has only just begun to undermine this president.

President Trump can push all the pretty buttons on the command deck of the Starship Enterprise, but don’t expect anything to actually happen, because they are not attached.

So far as the USA goes, this is a good description of the internal political landscape as of February 17, 2017.  However, this ignores the possibility of something -- an external threat, but most likely something happening within our own border -- to change the game.

We're one terrorist (or false flag) incident away from Wonderboy -- insecure, narcissistic, child-man led by Stevie Bannon -- declaring a State Of Emergency and locking the country down. It will be a massive overreaction designed simply to match the paranoid, delusional world Trump and Bannon inhabit, a "War Of The Worlds" radio broadcast -- the results of which will be impossible to predict once it's been put in motion. At that point the nation will find all the buttons on Trump's command deck are fully connected and operate very well. 

_____________________________

MEHR, MIT MEHR VON BUCKY!  On this evening's PBS New Hour -- following a segment showing interviews with Trump supporters and critics in Bellville, and Austin, Texas -- Bucky made a few observations [warning: paraphrased quotes].

"What's at the core [of the divide between Americans]? Why is the chasm so wide?  Is there some cultural or racial divide?  Whether it's some identity politics thing or something else... that's the world we're in."

Bucky said he saw Trump's news 'conference' performance as "mildly deranged", then questioned what of substance Trump was actually doing. He noted that relatively few of the total number of presidential appointees had actually been made. "On the substantive picks, he doesn't have nominees [in place]... nothing is happening."

Asked if he believed Trump was 'mildly deranged', Bucky made a trademark non-demurral demurral: "I'll walk that back a little... he was 'unmoored'... he's not speaking as a president giving orders and leading the American people... [his] attack on the press... saying that they are enemies of the people... [that's] to take [direction] right out of the fascist playbook..."

Trump's actions "offends 65 to  70 per cent of the American people," Bucky added later. "It pleases 35 per cent of the people," he said, noting that the Republican leadership was not in any hurry to put distance between themselves and Trump "anytime soon. Among Republicans, 82 per cent support Trump, a higher [percentage] than Reagan got."
 

Finally, Bucky said the Republican leadership are "living in a hermetically-sealed universe, as are the democrats; so they're going to [support Trump] even at the risk of electoral downfall..."

And that's Jenga.

_____________________________________ 

Make It Fun

Don't Drive Angry

Be The Hat.  Be The Hat.

Puxatawney Phil, The Groundhog, saw his shadow today in Blegsylvania. We therefore have three years, and three hundred fifty-three more days of bottom-feeding Fascisti to go.

It beats having to experience this day in Murrikan history, over and over and over. And over. With Little Jeffy Spicer, Mr PotatoHead, lecturing the whole Earth about how bad and wrong, and wrong and bad, it and everyone in it, is.

____________________________

Do All The Rubes Have Tickets?

Ein Mensch Ist Kein Tier

Denn wie man sich bettet, so liegt man
Es deckt einen da keiner zu
Und wenn einer tritt, dann bin ich es
Und wird einer getreten, dann bist’s du.

As you make your bed, you must lie in it
No one else makes it so, only you
And when someone kicks, it will be me
And when someone gets kicked, it will be you

--  Kurt Weill / Bertold Brecht; "Meine Herren, Meine Mutter Prägte",
(aka, 'Denn Wie Man Sich Bettet') from Rise And Fall Of The City Of Mahoganny (1931)

This week, a person with no mainstream political experience will be elevated to Chief Executive of the Federal government -- a businessperson who easily displays his prejudices through a spiteful, narcissistic, adolescent public character which no American now living has ever seen in an elected official at that level.  No one knows what to expect, but the level of apprehension is palpable.

That display continues, and the apotheosis of such a person to that powerful a position leaves many people around the world profoundly uneasy. His inauguration  this coming Friday is expected to be a gaudy show, a celebration of triumph for, as someone once said, "decayed roués with dubious means of subsistence and of dubious origin ... vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds, escaped galley slaves, swindlers, mountebanks, lazzaroni, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, [and] pimps...".

His continuing display of ignorant bile has caused a number of leading Democrats to state publicly they will refuse to attend some or all inaugural events -- in particular, the swearing-in ceremony. There is certainly going to be some level of public protest. If things get ugly, it will be very public.

_________________________

A friend noted over the weekend that an earlier post appeared to suggest turning inward as a response to recent political events -- that we might ignore raised voices or emotions and instead focus on a balance with a wider universe. That we keep family and friends close, and reduce our connections to only those things which nurture us and are necessary.

We live with one foot in the Cosmos and one foot on our dirty linoleum floor. Any insight I possess about what to do while we're there is subjective. I may have my own answer to a basic question -- What Do We Do Now? -- but it only applies to me. It's ignorant and rude to assume a personal understanding is a universal constant. If there's consensus in a larger group that everyone believes essentially the same thing, that's a different matter.

Some time ago a friend mentioned that the Dalai Lama was allegedly asked by a person who just bumped into him (at a hotel, or some public venue) what he felt the central tenet of Tibetan Buddhism to be. The Lama is supposed to have replied, " ' Just do your best.' "  I'm not a Buddhist, but I take the Lama's observation to suggest that Existence is too complicated for any person to say why they Are, and what the end results of their thoughts and actions will be. Be kind; act with compassion. Do the best you can. I'd like to aspire towards that, so; works for me.

As a comparative comment on purpose and values (and in his case, resistance), Albert Camus believed the fact of humankind was the only justification for right action, of a demand for a better world. 

I continue to believe that this world has no ultimate meaning. But ... it has no justification but man; hence he must be saved if we want to save the idea we have of life. With your scornful smile you will ask me: what do you mean by saving man? And with all my being I shout to you that I mean not mutilating him and yet giving a chance to the justice that man alone can conceive. (Resistance, Rebellion and Death)

That works for me, too.

_________________________

America is about to collectively leap off a cliff into unknown political, and social, territory.  I don't believe it's a time to turn inward; we need to listen to the voice in the pit of our stomachs which is saying Fuck this; I vote No; you don't do this crap in my name, and we need to act. Collective is good -- in fact, it's essential -- and while I don't believe in passive resistance, I don't favor violence because I know where that goes.

It's a real conundrum, deciding how you live your values. Everything I read on the Intertubes seems to be some variation on "This analysis will explain why we lost" -- more circular argument between Hillaryites and Bernieites and Masters of the DNC over who was right and controls that party, or academic analysis about what the election means in a Marxist or Other context. I'm sure that will make a number of people feel better, or at least useful.

The sense I get is of a vast, collective indrawing and holding of breath, as we wait for something to happen. The problem is, that Thing already has happened.  Now, we have to do. The discussion needs to be around what.

___________________________

Friday We Went Into The Night And The Gnashing Of Mandibles

Hope You're Not Expecting Profundity, Or Good Government.

At the end of another week I remind myself:  We don't have it that bad, relative to... a whole lot.

Huh? You want the list, Yo? Well, to start with --- we didn't have to endure physical torture (though watching Il Duce's minions in confirmation hearings on CSPAN2 is pretty close); we didn't have to survive a Russian airstrike; we didn't have to wander in -20 F temperatures outside Belgrade; we aren't dropping to the living room floor whenever we hear popping we know is gunfire. We have enough money to buy things we do not need (as we are compelled to do by training which begins in infancy), and enough food to be overweight (Mildly. Let's not get carried away here).

We're fairly safe; live in neighborhoods where there are over ten different varieties of honey for sale, for fuck's sake; and we don't have to pay the police to leave us alone.  It's a good bet our children, if they commute home from school, will actually get there alive and unmolested. And when The Dear Leader To Come appears on teevee -- tubby, bloated, "Huge" -- we can shut the fucking thing off and not be compelled to perform some act of obeisance.

Yes; there's much I personally do not have.  But because of all the above, I am grateful. Really.

________________

What's Goin' On

Oh, what's goin' on
(What's  goin' on)
Yeah, what's  goin' on;
Oh, what's  goin' on
-- Marvin Gaye / "What's  Goin' On" (1971)

My public service is jury duty.

Why -- is something special happening today ?

This Way, America

No, Over Here.  What The Hell Is Wrong with You?

 Joseph Beuys / 1974 Performance Art, I Like America; America Likes Me (aka, "Coyote")

The Why Of Dog
It was a typisch day here in Downtown America.  Over at the Soul Of America, I was directed to a story about David Bowie, which contained a photo of what appeared to be a Dog dragging a leper / vagrant / symbolically-wrapped human around. We worked it through Skynet the Googlegerät. One thing led to another. And here we are in the Future, as always happens in America.

Beuys flew to New York, picked up by an ambulance, and swathed in felt, was transported to a room in the Rene Block Gallery. The room was also occupied by a wild coyote, and for a period of 8 hours a day for the next three days, Beuys spent his time with the coyote in the small room, with little more than a felt blanket and a pile of straw. While in the room, the artist engaged in symbolist gestures, such as striking a triangle and tossing his gloves to the coyote. At the end of the three days, the coyote, who had become quite tolerant of Beuys, allowed a hug from the artist, who was transported back to the airport via ambulance. He never set foot on outside American soil nor saw anything of America other than the coyote and the inside of the gallery.

______________________

Coherence

Gentlemen, the people at home cannot understand either of you...
-- Elaine Quijano, CBS News, to Kaine and Pence

2016 Election Forecast:  Clinton 75.3%,  Trump 24.7%
-- fivethirtyeightdotcom

My friend; clear your mind of Cant.
-- Samuel Johnson

 I AM PART OF YOUUU !!!! (rabbitandmouse, 2006)

____________________________

The First Whorehouse In Space Will Be Built By The Bold
During his hour-long announcement of the SpaceX Mars colonization plan, CEO Elon Musk didn’t say where exactly Martian colonists will live once they arrive on the planet — and how exactly they’ll survive given the harsh environment. Musk seemed particularly unconcerned about solar radiation. “The radiation thing is often brought up, but it’s not too big of a deal,” he says...

SpaceX’s goal is to build [its] transport system [to Mars], like building the Union Pacific Railroad. “Once that transport system is built,” Musk says, “there’s a tremendous opportunity for anyone who wants to go to Mars and create something new or build the foundations of a new planet.” People will be able to go to the planet and build “anything from iron refineries to the first pizza joint.”
--  Alessandra Potenza and Loren Grush, The Verge, September 27, 2016

Ironically, this is also International Space Week.

____________________________

Not With A Bang But A Food Fight
As most everyone knows, the ending to Stanley Kubrick's 1964 anti-war black comedy, Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb has Strangelove (Peter Sellers) emerging from his wheelchair and taking a few steps, then a montage of atomic bombs going off.

However, that wasn't the original ending. Kubrick initially envisioned 'Strangelove' as a drama, based on a British novel, "Two Hours To Doom", about an accidental nuclear war.  He was introduced (oddly enough, by by Peter Sellers) to Terry Southern, an American expat writer living in London; Southern saw Kubrick's project as a vehicle for dark comedy about the end of the world, and the two co-authored the script ("I intended to make a dark comedy", Kubrick later said of his film). Sellers, a friend of both Southern and Kubrick, was cast to play three separate, believable characters (originally, four -- spraining an ankle kept Sellers from playing Major "King" Kong, and Slim Pickens was offered the role). 

In the original ending of the film, Dr. Strangelove stood up from his wheelchair, only to fall flat on his face. Meanwhile, General 'Buck' Turgidson (George C. Scott) noticed Russian Ambassador de Sadesky (Peter Bull) taking pictures of "the big board", and tackled him -- only to have the Ambassador throw a cream pie at him from a nearby buffet table.

Turgidson ducked; the pie hits President Muffley (also played by Peter Sellers) instead -- and the entire War Room erupted in a gigantic food fight. Finally, as nuclear war engulfs the world, Muffley and the Russian Ambassador, having lost their reason, end up sitting on the floor and playing with the litter of thrown food like children.

Ironically, Strangelove was being edited around November 22, 1963, the day President Kennedy was assassinated. In the scene as filmed, President Muffley is struck with a pie and Turgidson announced, "Our President has been struck down in his prime!" Because Kubrick considered the action too close to actual events (and the actors appeared to be enjoying themselves a bit too obviously), that ending had to change, and Kubrick was in a bit of a fix. As the legend goes, Spike Milligan (He of the UK's famous Goon Show) was talking at the same time with former fellow Goonie Peter Sellers and learned about Stanley's dilemma. 

Milligan is supposed to have suggested the ending we're all familiar with: Strangelove standing up from his wheelchair ("Mein Führer -- I can walk !!"), followed by footage of one nuclear weapons test after another, accompanied by a soundtrack of British singer Vera Lynn singing a well-known WW2 ballad, "We'll Meet Again." Kubrick's film editor, Anthony Harvey, put the footage of the original food-fight ending with other cut scenes, which were afterwards misplaced and lost to history.

George C. Scott In The Lost Ending To Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (1964)

( One of my favorite things about Strangelove is Peter Sellers' ability (as Strangelove) to crack up Peter Bull, who played the Russian ambassador. The next time you see this classic, during scenes with a medium or long shot of Strangelove declaiming from his wheelchair, keep your eye on Bull.

The Two Peters: Peter Bull (Left) As Ambassador de Sadesky,

and Peter Sellers As Herr Dr. Unwirklichlieber, In The War Room

Do Hold It Together, Old Man.

(Sellers was a genius at creating characters, and Bull can't help but be affected. He tries, but at some point just can't hold it in any longer -- again, the film's editor, Anthony Harvey, managed to save the take and splice in the next shot just as Bull is about to lose it.  According to film lore, Sellers was even able to get the redoubtable Sterling Hayden to crack up.)

____________________________

Ain't We Got Fun

Global debt has hit a record high of $152 trillion, weighing down economic growth and adding to risks that recovery could turn into stagnation or even recession, the International Monetary Fund has warned.

In a worst-case scenario the IMF also fears that a wave of populist politics across the US and Europe could send globalisation into reverse with protectionist policies hitting international trade, investment and migration, sending the world plunging into a prolonged period of stagnation...

“At 225% of world GDP, the global debt …is currently at an all-time high. Two-thirds, amounting to about $100 trillion, consists of liabilities of the private sector which can carry great risks when they reach excessive levels,” the IMF said in its fiscal monitor.
--  Tim Wallace, Business Writer; UK Telegraph Online October 5, 2016

"Among 'developed' nations, the United States has one of the highest rates of child poverty on the planet...  Only Romania has a higher rate than the U.S. ...  More children live in poverty -- grinding, soul-destroying poverty -- in America than in Latvia or Bulgaria, two nations few Americans can even find on a map."
--  Motivational Screensaver

Wealthiest ZIP Codes In America (Clicky For Ubernormous Graphic! Spass! Nett!)

____________________________

Hello Yes

Is This Dog?

About

“Yes, This is Dog” (also known as “Hello, This is Dog”) is an image featuring a black Labrador anthropomorphized with the caption as if it is answering the telephone. The photograph originated as a still from a 1984 Serbian film, 'Pejzaži u magli' ("Landscape in the Mist"), which involved teenagers, sullen attitudes, beer, Communist authorities, and a Dog (If it didn't have a Dog in it, we wouldn't watch it). The phrase and image have been remixed into a variety of different photographs, often including other animals in similar situations.

_________________________

MEHR, MIT HUNDE:   Even Dogs fail, but we try really, really hard. We hold nothing back. We track some things indoors, but principally we leave it all out on the field. We are Total Dogs™, operating at FCC regulation level (Full Canine Capacity). 

When we do fail (and by whose yardstick, I'd ask), it's mostly spatial-coordinate stuff, timing, and functional navigation of the world you people created:  Don't take us to the Sahara, the Oso Flaco Dunes, or Mars. What we lack in the sort of precision that would put us on-field in the Olympics, we make up for in heart. It's that simple.

And it beats that stuff you humans are up to.

© Joey Alison Sayers, 2016

_________________________

Your Summer Vacation

Don't Go There

_____________________________

Historic

Satiety

Go Ahead, Tubbo.

MVOHC:  Did you watch the Democratic convention?
DOG:  No.
MVOHC:  You watch the Republicans, but not your own party?
DOG:  I'm not a Democrat, ______. You know I'm not.
MVOHC:  But this is historic. A woman is being nominated for president!
DOG:  Uh-huh.
MVOHC:  You -- are just a hater.
DOG:  I watched it for five minutes, literally. I saw Al Franken burble about She enough to make me never want to watch him do anything again, ever. I'll watch Sarah Silverman because she's hot. Politically deluded in a profound way; but, hot.
MVOHC:  Je-sus. What do you want in this election? What?
DOG:  I want what everyone in America wants: Buy a five-pound bag of Oreos -- take it into a dark room; close the door, throw a blanket over me; assume the fetal position, and eat until I pass out.
MVOHC: I don't want that.
DOG: Oh, sure you do, one way or another. I'm just not willing to fool myself into believing that my desire for Stimulation and Satiety is really about some higher altruistic principle. I like my hypocrisy without a water-back, thanks.
MVOHC: Good luck with that.

___________________________

Random Barking

Casual Cruelty To Animals

(Apologies to Tom Ridgeway / asdfmovies)

__________________________________

Who You With?

Which Side Are You, Yawn

As a Dog, when I'm not reading, writing, doing art or sticking my nose into women's crotches (and it's a real plus for our species that we can get away with that, and in public, no less), I'm looking at things.We see a lot more than you think.

One item which pops up frequently on the Intertubes in These Days is a banner advertising graphic for Hillary The Inevitable !  showing a black-and-white photo of the Candydate, grinning, with her slogan-and-logo (which someone noted is very similar to a UPS ad campaign), shouting, "I'm With Her".

No. I'm not with her.  A lot of people are not "With" her.  I'm with these people, and if you'd like to post any of these in your own little slice of Blogtopia, feel free:

At the Soul Of America, another handy link to Ian Welsh recently reminded us that in the minds of some, the world is created for the wealthy and the powerful, and that you and I exist to serve their interests as chattel, as consumers of things, and to provide them with momentary amusements as they play The Great Game in pursuit of More.

A man like Obama or Bill Clinton (or, in the future a woman like Hillary Clinton) is far more likely to ruin your life than Osama bin Laden ever was. Bill Clinton pushing through Welfare “Reform” harmed millions of the poorest weakest people in America. The repeal of Glass-Steagall allowed the financial crisis to happen.

Unless you are an oligarch, or a retainer who is on the gravy train, people like Clinton, Obama, Blair, Cameron, and Thatcher are your enemies. They are a direct threat to your well-being, welfare, and even life.

The first thing anyone who wants to be realistic about politics and power needs to realize is this fact. They are enemies.

And they are. We should be voting for poets, painters, musicians, performers and Populists.

_______________________________

MEHR, MIT DENKMAL: It is soul-grinding beyond words to have to vote for The Lesser Of Two Evils.  It's an admission that Reagan's Shining City On A Hill, the High School civics class view of America and the world is manifestly untrue. It forces people to confront the realities of the Company Town we live in -- that we are not a nation defending the principles in our founding documents; we're the paid help for Lords and Masters whose names we'll never know and whose faces we'll never see.

We knew this already, of course, but Ya can't fight city hall, kid -- the dichotomy couldn't be acknowledged. You can live with cognitive dissonance, but you don't sleep well. You're less civil in traffic, more anxious for no apparent reason. Then, after the financial Crashes of 2000 and 2008, more people understood that dissonance both intellectually and emotionally, and that makes things even harder. The popular media reinforces cliches about wealth, corruption and power (I just finished watching True Detective, Season 2; a perfect example).  

And on this Memorial Day weekend that cognitive dissonance can be hard. After WWII, a war against militaristic fascism (and yes, let's keep Gravity's Rainbow in mind as we say that, Slothrop), we fought "other" wars. Far from bleeding and dying in a noble cause, people you actually knew, even you yourself, apparently did so less to protect American citizens from an enemy, and more to provide a better position at a bargaining table for the interests of a few megacorps, and a handful of sociopathic, hereditary-rich halfwits.

The power structures that run the planet are too powerful to change. Nothing short of a a Zombie Apocalypse, a global pandemic or thermonuclear war, will dismantle them. Their predecessors were threatened by the Reformation, the English Civil War, revolutions in the 18th and 19th centuries (in particular, the American and French) -- and because democratic political structures promised an evolutionary change, TPTB believed they could be controlled and reluctantly accommodated them. 

The story of Western politics has been a struggle to maintain and expand concessions forced on the ruling elites. Since 1945, Western political leaders have been bought -- and so cheaply --  to serve long-term interests of those elites, while pretending to be guardians of Democratic Principles.

Hillary is just another Emptysuit front person for The Powers That Be, and having to vote for her is a Kulturschande. It's a visible symbol of our collective dysfunction as a nation -- whose leaders mouth platitudes in Hiroshima but kill with drone strikes, allow torture; place its citizens' communications under mass surveillance; and push trade deals which allow global capital the power to ignore any laws it finds inconvenient. 

Having to vote for Hillary is an admission that we're powerless Rubes and Sheep -- that Business as Usual is the best we can hope for. One more step towards Orwell's image of a boot, trodding on a human face, forever. 

But what makes casting that vote soul-grinding is, unlike Orwell's Winston Smith, a large number of us know history. We know that it could be different, that we could do better. It's one reason Sanders' campaign, even the promise of one from Elizabeth Warren, enlivened so many people, Left and Center (and, from a much different perspective, why Trump appears popular with the Right). 

We need a rebirth of real Democratic principles in that party, or a third political party, to represent the People in that ongoing struggle against the few who control so much. And on this holiday, if anyone were to ask what I served or fought for, it's that Americans, and others, have some kind of Puncher's Chance in that fight. 

That, and for Absent Friends.

________________________

All Aboard For Somewhere

With Stops In Soiled, Illusory, And New Normal

'Overturned School Bus';  © Gregory Crewdson (Clicky ! Tasty And Fun !)

_____________________________

Random Barking: Reposting Friday

The World Is A Box Full 'O Bad Crazy Weekend

• ...looking for A Way Out.  It's Friday in Berlin, and someone remembers that without people who follow, the Leader is just another guy with a funny moustache -- or a weasel who lives on his head; or a thin woman with short, dark hair; or a chubby one with blonde hair.

Because of the perceivable growth of Germany's Afd of late, particularly as measured in last Sunday's elections in three German states — which had been dreaded but expected — much of the discussion I see & hear is similar to what's being written & said about the Republican Primary in the US — and particularly, in the case of the former, the voters' influence.

Most talk has had to do with how to stop the rise of fascism, and ... includes by default of context how to go about changing the minds of the people in a movement. The corresponding discussion in the US seems largely focussed on Donald Trump himself. It expands beyond that only in how it objectifies his followers with something akin to a couplet of consequence: "Look what he's letting them do!"  "Look what he's making them do!"

What these discussions do not do is soberly acknowledge that all of these growing gatherers will exist tomorrow, no matter what happens to Donald Trump or the AfD. 

• Meanwhile, in downtown Beltway, people who know the Village must be destroyed in order to save it (yes; I understand the pun and irony in using that old bromide, here) are lining up for a confrontation with... themselves.

The seminal event in the crackup of the Republican Party is not the rise of Donald Trump as their presidential nominee, contrary to popular opinion. It was the overthrow of John Boehner as Speaker of the House. That showed the power of the forty-odd members of the House Freedom Caucus, and their incompatibility with the GOP establishment and the compromises required by divided government (or for that matter, math).

The change in leadership at the top has not bridged this divide. Despite months of happy talk, the Freedom Caucus rejected Paul Ryan’s budget resolution, likely leaving the Republicans with ... the continuing irreconcilable differences between conservative factions. Trump will not be able to fix this either; only a purge of one side of the party or the other would.

The Freedom Caucus essentially wants to control government from a base of 40 members of the House, with only a few allies in the Senate and no president willing to agree to their demands. They want to defund Planned Parenthood, balance the budget through massive spending cuts, dismantle government healthcare programs, and overturn every executive order of the past eight years, regardless of not having the two-thirds support in Congress that would be required currently to override Obama vetoes and make that happen.

Conservatives had to beg Ryan to take the Speaker’s job. His prescient leeriness stemmed from seeing Boehner put in the impossible spot of rounding up votes for routine government functions. And absolutely nothing changed when he received the gavel.

• As an older Dog, I have nearly a 1-in-4 chance of living in poverty within the next 15 years (it would be much less if there was a Mrs. Mongo, but). In the near term, I have a 16.5%  (close to one in five) chance of ending up in the same situation within the next five years. Want to know what your chances are?  Go here and spin the big prize wheel, Me Droogies.

• What happened to John Titor? Bet you don't even know who that is, Pilgrim.

• If you were the Annie Liebovitz of North Korea, you could be in constant jeopardy: See the wonderful photoshoots of Kim Jong Fatboy, XBox Terror of the Korean Peninsula.

• A wonderful map showing the distribution of the only humans who matter High Net Worth persons around the globe, along with a guarantee you will not be among them (if you are, Please Burn In Hell). You will find this fun and informative.

• Hot, bad, and anything you want, (as it is said) for those who do. Try your might and main against the really smart kidz in the room, and win the coveted Tub Of Slaw.

_________________________

In A Just Universe We Are All Safe And Loved

But We Are Here

Yesterday a friend and I went to look at an assisted living community for her 86-year-old father. The facility's marketing person was friendly and low-keyed. The place itself was comfortable and clean; the average age of a resident was 83, and the men and women I saw seemed generally content and would easily engage with you if you stopped to talk with them. To live there in a small, one-bedroom apartment, would cost roughly $5,000 per month even without the range of assistance.

Later, my friend and I took a drive to another facility; it was a place her father could afford, but wouldn't feel comfortable in. She wanted to make a point about exclusivity. 

The place we went to was a 'community' run by a private corporation, like a suburb of single-story homes built within the past twenty years, all newer versions of the kind of GI-tract-style home built in 1948 which I had grown up in. It was on the top of a set of hills, surrounded by manicured lawns and trees, a cross between a park and a country club. 

We went into the community's main building, and walked through their dining area -- a broad room with tables and booths, actual silverware, fresh linen and bright napkins, good carpeting and dark, aged wood paneling; the place looked like the interior of a yacht club. The people in that room also seemed content, but in a different way -- they seemed dressed more formally for Sunday brunch than the people in the other facility; or, perhaps it was just me.

On the way out of the building, we stopped to look at an album with information about the residents -- "...after graduating from Stanford, he lived in London..." "was an officer in the U.S..." "...met his wife while working for the World Bank..." "...undergraduate degree at Yale...".  Most of the John Cheever short fiction I've ever read came to mind for a moment.

When we drove away, my friend said, "If you're accepted to live here, the entry fee is that you give the corporation who runs it about a million dollars. It's a loan -- they get to use that money for whatever they want. When you die, your heirs get the full sum back, but with no accrued interest.  And while you are living here, you pay about $10,000 a month for one of these homes. More, if you need assisted living," she said. "He could, but my father doesn't want to live in this kind of place."

"This is what the one-per-centers get at the end of their lives," she added. "And most of us won't even be able to afford the (first) place we looked at today."

I looked back at the place as we drove away -- at how clean, how quiet, orderly; how rich it seemed. It's one thing to intellectually consider how much better the Owners have it than the mass of the world's population. It's something else altogether to see it. 

I went away thinking about wealth, about inequity; about what Senator Sanders has been saying from The Stump, and the business-as-usual babble from Hillary The Inevitable ! I thought about things going on in the world outside Our Great Country, and about human suffering and history. 

___________________________

That led me to my usual blog-reading this morning, and I came across something that resonated.

One way or another, on a daily basis all of us struggle against the inane malestrom of useless human thought: con-artist commercialism, incoherence and illogic masquerading as clarity, and Exclusive and All-New ! that smothers human consciousness like a wet tarp. It does nothing to illuminate the landscape for other travelers or feed the soul.  And the Intertubes, a vast place, simply amplifies the prevalence of all of it (I'd include this blog in that list -- this is just a nighttime bus stop somewhere in the big middle of somewhere, or nowhere).

But -- one excellent thing about the Intertubes is, like other forms of communication, you may occasionally break out of the crazy Bardo-world of Amazon and Beyonce, CNN and Endless Living Through Twitting, and find yourself in a place where the sun is warm and the fields are green and open, the ocean is wide and blue, and people tell you the truth in complete sentences.

This bit of clear thinking (and you should read all of it), courtesy the Soul Of America, where there are cats.  I had to pass it along: Please consider.

If we had a society where everyone lived well whether they had a job or not, then we could make pure utilitarian arguments about employment. But when employment is required for people to be able to live decently, or even live at all, such arguments lead to treating huge masses of people as disposable, and consigning them to awful lives.

Again, this might be ok if we lived in a scarcity society, but we don’t. We produce enough food to feed everyone, we have the ability to house everyone, and so on... “Everyone should have a decent life, and that shouldn’t be contingent on whether they can make money for a billionaire.”

The economy and corporations exist to serve people, not the other way around. When they do not do so, the problem lies with them...

The core of any decent system of ethics, and thus of any political and economic order, is Kant’s maxim that people are ends, not means. When you forget that, you inevitably descend into monstrosity.

  --  Ian Welch, "Pure Utilitarianism and Capitalism"; Blog, March 5, 2016

MEHR, MIT ANGST AUS MITTELSTANDE: Rereading this post, I'm reminded how lucky we are to be able to focus on these kinds of issues, in a Western culture with cutting-edge technology. Which is another way of saying it reeks of middle-class stuff.  Guilty.

___________________________

Random Barking: Last Salute

Empire

"Gibraltar"; Artist: Charles Pears, 1930, For The Empire Marketing Board

I spotted this image on the Tom Clark blog, via The Soul Of America, and was immediately captivated.

It has everything -- balanced design elements (the Golden Mean at work), balanced and complimentary colors; images of The Family, the Power Of Worldwide Empire (Sing, "Rule, Britannia", right now. You know who you are), and being on holiday -- which suggests both financial and job security; a pleasant interlude in a sunny and pleasant life.

Sadly, when this poster was created, England had been virtually bankrupted after the excesses of the Great War (World War One to you), and was busily being kicked to the curb by the Depression ("Thanks awfully, America!  I say; we certainly didn't see that coming! Bit of a surprise!"). The Empire was fading and in the great unwinding of national self-determination that followed WW2, all the 'Pink Bits' on the map would have to be replaced by different colors.

Here in Aremica, our own Empire is slowly fading, except in the minds of persons like Herr Trumpi. The Kochbrudern don't care; they're rich. The rest of us don't care because we're too busy texting. When we're purchased by Commie Red China on eBay, no one will notice until Google is shut down for 'maintenance'.

__________________________________

Judgement At Nürburgring

Give Up Your Arbeitsbruden

The New York Times reports that, in an attempt to be seen to "get to the bottom of its emissions-cheating scandal", The Volkwagen Group has "pressured [Volkswagen division] employees to tell what they know" and announced an amnesty program for any informants who would come forward.

In a letter to employees ... Herbert Diess, chief executive of the division that produces Volkswagen brand cars, said people who provided information would not be fired or face damage claims. Mr. Diess cautioned, though, that the company could not shield employees from criminal charges.

The offer applies only to union employees, covered by collective bargaining agreements, and is not available to managers or executives, or persons chosen at random on the street. The offer expires at the end of November.

The interviews with potential snitches informants persons who had knowledge of 'past practices' are held in an abandoned aircraft hangar at an undisclosed location in the Ruhr.

INNOCENT ARBEITER No. 1: "I only followed orders. Workers on the assembly line were told to install emissions sensors which were nothing but blank tabs of plastic. No sensors were put in at all... What? No, I never did these things myself, you understand. I only saw them being done by others. Will you give me this Amnesty in writing, please?"

INNOCENT ARBEITER No. 2: "... the emissions filters were just cloth bags, filled with CheeseWhiz. They forced me to do this. It was the only way I could get a promotion. Do I receive a reward for my confessions?"

INNOCENT ARBEITER No. 3: "I changed the code in the software package which operated the emissions detectors. Each time the car was mounted on a test machine, the software sensed this -- and the auto sound system would come on, playing Heino, singing 'Liebe Mütter' at 320 Decibels. This upset the emissions technicians so much that they would do anything to get the car out of their shop.

"I don't know why anyone should be surprised by this -- 'It's a massive conspiracy; a wholesale defrauding of governments and consumers; harm to the environment', blah blah blah. Doesn't anyone get it? Corporations do not care about anything other than profit. They will do whatever they want in order to get it. Period.

"You going to put that in your report? Nein? Imagine my astonishment."

_______________________________________________________