Fleet Week

Kiddietown welcomes the Big Boats. Time to fire up the VCR and perform the annual viewing of Der Blaue Engel mit Marlene Dietrich und Emil Jannings.

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We Are Saved

Everything's Gonna Be All Right. More Or Less.

Frequently, I'm accused by the three people who read this blog of cynical, abiding and excessive negativity (The Superintelligent Parakeet won't comment; he just blinks, very slowly; and Mista Charlie, Phd., hasn't yet weighed in). But, hey -- there's a good bit of "Looks like it's all gone to hell in a plastic shrinkwrap" out there just now.

Then comes news of a New Paradigim event which changes everything we know. A new day dawns. Perspectives shift; hope returns, and we believe all will be well because of it. At least, if you're an exceptionally wealthy, pudgy white male.

The Guardian UK tells us all about it: And it's Made In USA, home of Viagra, "Lil' Boots" Bush, Gouvenour Le Placard Perry from the Nation state of Texas ("Our healthcare system is takin' care of it,") and the BSD's of Wall Street.

To paraphrase Mary Ellen Mastrantonio's character in James Cameron's The Abyss: "With everything that's going on in the world -- you people focus on a penis transplant???"

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Judgemental Day

Dude; Where's My Personal Space
 

© Dan Steiner 2014.  Click To Enlarge!  It's Easy, And Fun, Too!

 On March 29, 1976, The New Yorker ran a cover graphic by illustrator Saul Steinberg (1914-1999), "View Of The World From 9th Avenue", which depicted in graphic terms the importance of the rest of the world from the relative perspective of those living in a specific New York City neighborhood.

It wasn't a new concept in illustration; there are examples of similar 'maps' in what passed for cartoons in England and Europe of the 17th and 18th centuries, and America in the last quarter of the 19th. But it hadn't been used in so long that when Steinberg resurrected it, the idea was 'fresh' again (True in Art as well as Life: No New Thing Under The Sun).

Steinber's 1976 Cover: Click On Image To Englarge -- Easy! Fun!

In the years that followed, the concept Steinberg played on visually (human tendencies towards insular, 'Our Crowd' snobbery, and to see where you live as the center of the known universe) was seized on by other artists, who spun off similar maps of their own regions or towns. A variation on this idea is the map of a geographic or urban area, with legends to describe the denizens of various neighborhoods, and/or the activities which go on there. These maps are generally heavy on Irony, Snark, and full-on Sarcasm. 

So, with that in mind, the fabulous infographik people at JudgementalMaps ("Your City. Judged.") created a site for graphics types, who specialize in observing local and regional Snark, to offer their pictorial contributions -- and in particular, this San Francisco map created by Dan Steiner, where Dan describes my area of The City [Nob Hill] as "Horrible People".  

I'm not one of the wealthy (I just use one of their zip codes; you should see the join-our-exclusive something / Black-Amex-Card blind solicitation mailings I get), but those who live in this area are mostly clueless, brittle, demanding and entitled.  So I'd say, from my low-to-the-ground Dog's perspective, Dan is spot-on.

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Friday News: Bush Fails To Save Brother

Man Falls Into Sinkhole
(As seen on CNN)

 (Cibble News Network) -- "The ground just swallowed him up."

A Florida man fell into an 'economic black hole' that opened suddenly beneath the bedroom of his suburban home, calling out to his brother for help as he fell, a fire department spokeswoman said Friday.

"I heard a loud crash, like the economy failing after almost a decade of deregulation and a lack of enforcement," the man's brother, Jeremy Jeb Bush, told CNN affiliate WFTS. "I heard my brother screaming and I ran back there and thought it was Osama bin Laden, or our mom's Beautiful Mind, or something. My old lady turned the light on and all I seen was this big hole, a real big hole, and all I saw was his mattress."

Bush frantically tried to rescue his brother Bush, standing in the hole and digging at the rubble with a "Chang, The 3,000-Year-Old Warrior" lunch box, until police arrived and pulled him out, saying the floor was still collapsing.

"I thought I heard him holler that he'd been lied to by his friend Dick, and that I should help him by runnin' for President in 2016," Bush tearfully told  reporters.

But rescuers can't go into the hole to check -- it's too dangerous. Authorities say they worry the hole is still spreading and the economy house could collapse at any time.

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Sandy Hook

Observations By Others

 (Photo: AP, via The New York Times)

There are no real words for what happened in Connecticut, yesterday. There is plenty to say about how it happened.

I overheard someone at work (a classic gun nut owner who believes Negros persons of color will overrun his part of the planet) observing that "this [presumably, massacres committed by unstable individuals with firearms] is the new normal".

On PBS' The News Hour, a professional psychologist asked to comment said (and I'm paraphrasing) that "It's important to say... this kind of tragedy doesn't happen every day... that schools really are safe places."

I reject the first comment. The second remark made me think: This fellow doesn't go to many Inner City schools, then -- massacres with 27 dead don't happen every day, that's true; but there are shooting incidents, and kids packing, and metal detectors, and education occurring against a solid backdrop of poverty and violence, every day. 

The psychologist on News Hour was, I thought, trying to suggest themes parents might pass on to reassure their children (Don't worry, Timmy; It Can't Happen Here) -- that planes can crash, but the odds of going down in one, or having one crash on top of you, are hugely in your favor. And largely, that is true.

But planes do crash. Ships sink. Trains collide and buses plunge. Whenever that does happen, there are NTSB investigations, reconstructions and root-cause analyses. There are discussions with engineers and manufacturers about what to do to lessen the chances such a tragedy doesn't happen again.

Only in cases like Sandy Hook does our national debate begin and end with, "Guns don't kill people; the people using them do". And that's it -- Pilot Error, essentially, is the public finding; and any other meme is just filler in the media. That, and people repeating, "It doesn't happen every day." 

I'm sure that fact is a comfort to the extended families of twenty children, who died because they were shot with high-powered handguns. Twenty children.

I grew up around guns. I've owned firearms; at various times because I was required to carry them, but afterwards had no sane reason to keep them. I don't want them in my home.

We live in a world of high anxiety, and there are persons who want to exploit those feelings of danger, threat, and imminent disaster:  Gun manufacturers, and their lobby, the NRA, are at the top of the list.  Mike Huckabee and the rest of his fellow Xtian evangelical ilk; there are 2012 World-Enders, predicting massive earthquakes and crustal displacement and 'coastal events', and ultimately few survivors.

There are White Power fascists, and Survivalists, and the people who manufacture and sell them freeze-dried food and plans for bunkers to shield against the EMP bursts from North Korean-launched warheads, detonating high above the USA.

What happened in Sandy Hook yesterday has happened before -- in Columbine, in Denver; In Virginia; in a mall in Seattle last week; at a Dairy Queen in the Northwest. There may not be massacres, but annually there are many multiple-victim, firearm homicides in America.

And they will keep happening, until something changes about how firearm ownership and possession is discussed, and regulated, in this country. 

The debate is not about Operator Error.  It's not about something that happened "over there" in another city or state. It's about twenty dead children.

Along those lines are two, other very pertinent observations -- one, a part of the discussion at TPM Prime (Subscription Required):

Memekiller:  ...for me, it's all about the NRA. I'm anti-NRA, not guns, and am offended by the strangle-hold they have over our politics. And I'm angry that Democrats have ceded the issue, only to have the NRA, if anything, put twice as much effort into unseating Democrats and Obama who, if anything, loosened rules on guns ...

... And the gun culture the NRA fosters... Would the prevalence of guns be as frightening without the culture of paranoia and conspiracies they perpetuate? It's not just about freedom to own a gun. The NRA culture is a cult of xenophobia and insanity. They don't seem to be aiming their message at responsible gun owners so much as the disgruntled and those prone to paranoia. They are less about developing an advocacy group than they are about assembling a well-armed militia of the mentally unstable.  

And the other, at The Great Curmudgeon :

Broken

Our discourse, that is. Fortunately, we have DDay trying to repair it.

Just to pick at random, here are a couple headlines at the Hartford Courant site just from the past 24 hours: Woman Shot, Man Dead After Standoff In Rocky Hill. Armed Robbery At Hartford Bank, Two In Custody.It’s not that school shootings like this are abnormal. They are depressingly normal. The fact that there were no shootings in one day in New York City recently was seen as a major achievement, which shows you how desensitized we have become to gun violence as a normal occurrence of daily life.Just a reminder. The NRA is an industry lobby for the gun industry. The industry that makes consumer products largely designed to kill people.  Not deer. Not rabbits.

People.   

by Jay Ackroyd (@jayackroyd)

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Will Ann Ever Ride Horses Again?

Still In The Buh-Buh-Bubble

I Just Really Like This Graphic.

It was surrealistic; Marcel Duchamp could have written the script:  Mitzy, arriving at The White House for lunch with the Once and Future President Of The United States, Barack Hussein Obama. The pair photographed shaking hands in the Oval Office -- Romney a textbook image of awkward discomfort, Obama at ease, hand-in-pocket casual. It was bizarre; What did these two people have to talk about, really?

This was followed by a Washington Post article which underscores how badly out of touch, how In The Bubble the Republicans were -- and specifically Romney, his wife Ann, and Little Paulie Ryan. All of them were served Kool-Aid by GOP pollsters, and had been drinking it for months.  Reality arrived on election night.

In a conference call with big-money donors after the loss, Romney claimed he had failed to win because of "big promises" made by Obama and the Democrats of entitlements or social program spending to specific constituencies -- Hispanics, African-Americans; 'the youth'. It wasn't because the message the GOP delivered during the campaign -- that they were the party of wealth, godliness, racism, homophobia and Good-Ol'-Boy southern power -- was so out of touch with... well, Reality.

At nearly the same time, one of Romney's campaign advisors quipped that Romney had carried the (Republican-defined) true middle-class voters, so by inference had actually 'won' the election. He hadn't failed. He hadn't really 'lost', and the Republican Party was really strong and a reflection of real America -- because the People Who Mattered had all voted for Mitzy. Simple! Wasn't it?

Now, Romney is in seclusion in San Diego -- not far from San Clemente, where another bitter Republican loser nursed his wounds, after being forced to resign ahead of an Impeachment for conducting a criminal conspiracy from the Oval Office. His wife, Ann, is heartbroken, and just can't make herself ride the horses again (These are rich people, remember. They can afford to buy, house and keep horses).

“Is [Romney] disappointed? Of course he’s disappointed. He’s like 41,” adviser Ron Kaufman said, referring to former president George H.W. Bush. “Forty-one would hate to lose a game of horseshoes to the gardener in the White House, and Mitt hates to lose. He’s a born competitor.”

Comparing the contest between Romney and Obama this past year, with an image of GHW Bush vs. the 'White House Gardener' is telling, given who Romney believes he is -- and who the GOP perceives Obama to be... because Romney is an elite multimillionaire with extensive property, investment holdings and Cayman Island accounts, and you're not.

That was really the crux of the election just past, and the Right is utterly gobsmacked to have lost -- not just the Presidency; they lost in most of the hotly-contested, controversial Senate and House races. The American voting population rejected their message.

The Right has been living in a Cloud-Koo-Koo Land of evangelical wishful thinking and Troglodyte hubris since the mid-1990's, and on the night of November 6th, that collapsed on itself again -- as it did in November of 2006, and again in 2008. All the bizarre, self-serving sore-loser comments made by Rightist pundits, the screeching of the Lard Boys and Little Mikey Wieners, ever since only serves to make that clearer.

If Romney had won, the next four years would have etched the divide between  people like Mitzy and Ann and The Rest Of You even deeper into American society -- and Romney would have presided over that with gusto, because he truly believes in that kind of social stratification as the natural order, something ordained by god.

Which is why, after the majority of the American people voted No to this notion, Mitzy is having such a hard time adjusting.

Meanwhile, back in Oz On The Potomac, President Boner and President Yertle The Turtle and President Graham and President Cantor are saying they will not play nicely with the evil illegitimate Socialist up the White House what thinks he's Prestident. 

They intend to force Obama to give them what they could not win at the ballot box by dint of typical Rethug behavior -- bait-and-switch, outright lying, threats, and posturing for the cameras. Little Rupert's Fox is ready to support all this by repeating those same lies over and over, 24-7.  And all this is standard operating procedure for the Right, though these same tactics didn't work in the months leading up to the election. 

In November, the Republicans lost because they only saw what they wanted to see. So far, they haven't really admitted to themselves that they did, in fact, lose the election in a very fundamental and substantial way -- that the very 'Republican Brand' may be heading for extinction.  The reasons for that loss don't seem to have made any difference to the Republican Congressional leadership -- but, clearly, like Mitzy, they have Bubble problems of their own.

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At Night They Still Dream

Summer Of Lube

Zombie Reagan, With Makeup Malfunction, Speaks At Safe Distance From Cheering Crowds 

ZOMBIE REAGAN: There is no RHUNGAAAAARRRR --- no height so difficult that we cannot NAR NAR NAR NAR --- as Americans. We  have always met our great challenges together. And eOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO each time we have met them, those challenges have become our greatest triumphs. Arroo.

America's best days are ahead.  A head. (Stops)  Eat head good. Arroo. [Applause]

The Good Old Boys who cling to power in the GOP are even more worried than they were before. With less than six weeks to the election, after pouring out millions in SuperPAC money from Addled Sheldon, Fat Karl, and the Koochy-Kootie Koch Brothers, the fortunes of The Mittster seem, if anything, to be dwindling. 

The Good Old Boys sit around with a bottle of Scotch, singing forbidden, old songs like We Hired Smedley Butler To Do In FDR, and share the incomprehension that even with millions of dollars in teevee propaganda to sink that Socialist Boy up the White House what thinks he's the President, the peasant masses don't seem to be responding.  They're nothing but goddam sheep, the Good Ol' Boys say; How come they ain't doin' what they're told?

Mitzy: "I'm Runnin' Against A Socialist And A Dead Man!"

They're troubled by the fact that Mitzy, their candidate, has turned out to be a stiff, overpriced corporate haircut with the human warmth of a used-car salesman and the appeal of week-old Eclair slathered in Vaseline.  His teammate, Little Paulie Ryan, isn't much better -- Paulie can't wait to use Austerity to make Americans "feel the pain", like the Spanish, and the Greeks. The Good Ol' Boys make jokes about Paulie's ears (Look like the doors hangin' open on the Lincoln Continental we shot Kennedy in! the Boys roar), but the laughter is hollow and doesn't last.

They slip into an uneasy, drunken sleep. But as they toss and turn, they still dream that dream: That a Zombified Ronald Rayguns has returned from the cold, cold ground with a burning determination to lead America and consume the flesh of anyone who gets too close. It doesn't matter; He Is Reagan, the Saint, their only chance for victory. And, hell; he still looks pretty good; hasn't even been dead that long.

Obligatory Gratuitous Photo Of Laurie Holden

The whole thing seems fraught with peril. After all, Ron went after that camerman at his first press conference after appearing (Feed him Bill Clinton! The Boys roar). But some of them have watched "The Walking Dead" (and part of their dreams involve Laurie Holden; shame on them); they believe they know how the Zombie Reagan can be handled.

The Proto-Candidate, Getting A Little Too Close To The Paparazzi For Comfort

After weeks of intensive conditioning that involves a hot dog on a length of string, and the best embalming techniques money can buy (Get those boys what kept Lenin lookin' so good all them years! the Good Ol' Boys roar), Zombie Reagan appears more or less his old self for the cameras -- except, of course, for spontaneously attacking living humans and an unfortunate tendency to blurt out random, nonsensical sounds.

As a precaution, those working most closely with the deceased, reanimated former President coat themselves with an industrial lubricant. Should Zombie Reagan get his claws on them, they easily slip out of his grasp and behave as if everything was normal until Reagan calms down.

A camaraderie develops between the Zombie Reagan's closest handlers; they refer to this election season as the "Summer Of Lube", and few of them suffer more than semi-permanent psychological damage. And, if anyone is bitten, they've already signed waivers which allow their immediate decapitation, and destruction of their heads.
  
There's a full-court press to get Zombie Rayguns in front of the public. He appears (on a remote teevee feed) as a guest of Dancin' Dave Gregory on MSNBC's "Meet The Press":

DANCIN' DAVE: But, sir, you are dead, are you not? Do you see that as a handcap in running for the Presidency once again?

ZOMBIE REAGAN:  Well, David; there you go ANNNNNGHH; there you go. There. Don't go there.



 DANCIN' DAVE: I'm sorry, sir, but it is an obvious point. Let's move on to the economy. 

ZOMBIE REAGAN:  The American people deserve better, David; I recall WUH recall in 1982 how difficult things were for so many. But we stayed true to our faith in ourselves. And by standing - stirring - staining SUUUUUUNGHHH well; there you go. It was hard and TASTEEEEE but we stood firm and the crisis passed. And as long as UMMM DINGEE DINGEDOOO, we can do so again, David.

DANCIN' DAVE: Sir, David Brooks wrote in the New York Times this past week that your late run for the presidency has a "moral odor" about it; are you splitting Republican votes? Are you a better candidate than the actual party nominee, Mitt Romney?

ZOMBIE REAGAN: Well; David, if I could just get in a room alone with Mr. Romney for five minutes, we would emerge united. It would mean victory for the Republican party, and for HURNGGGH America. I keep telling people I'd WHUUUH ARRNG! ARNG! but it seems some of Mr. Romney's people are resistant to that idea. We'll continue to hope for that dialog before we get too close to the Election. And I would like David Brooks, eat. Brooks

DANCIN' DAVE: We're facing an unprecedented situation, approaching a 'Fiscal Cliff' in January of 2013. What will you do, sir, to prevent that? Do you have a plan? Will Americans have to feel pain before things are better?

ZOMBIE REAGAN: Well, yes, David. But REEEEEEEEEN for a moment. Then it's morning again, forever. Arroo.

DANCIN' DAVE: We'll be back with Cardinal Norman Wasserstein of the Archdiocese of New York to join us in a moment.

Soon, The Great Debate between President Obama, Mitzy, and the Reanimated and Hungry Ronald.

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Mitt Romney And Paul Ryan

Be Very Very F'ing Afraid


The Candidates In Tampa: Mitzy (L) Getting SuperPAC Donations;
Little Paul Ryan (R) Looks For Austerity From The American People

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Zombie-Eyed Granny-Starver For President

Little Paul Ryan, Five Years Old

Mitzy chooses someone to save him. And The Krug Man weighs in on Little Paul's Austerity Plan, insofar as the DizneyChannel News will allow him.

Because as America has its version of the Taliban, so we have our versions of Europe's Die Eisenkanzellerin Angela and "We Must Have More Austerity" Osborne. And, at the head of that pack of fools is Paul Ryan.

[Ryan said to John Huntsman during the GOP prmaries] “This is, by all accounts, an age of austerity for this country. A jobs crisis. Also a pending crisis in Washington. I wonder what specifically you would do to say to Americans, "These are cuts I'm going to make in federal spending that cause pain, that will require sacrifice?"

Later he asked [Huntsman]:

“Governor Huntsman, name three areas where Americans will feel real pain in order to balance the budget?”

He asked a third time:

“Three programs that will make Americans feel pain, sir?”

Later he asked Rick Santorum:

“Senator Santorum, same question: [Name] Three programs that would have to be cut to make Americans feel pain, to sacrifice, if we're going to balance the budget.”

If America elects Mitzy and The Prince Of Pain (or, if the Rethugs pull another Fat Karl's Ohio and steal the election), we deserve everything about the Feudalistic, grey and Oligarch-ridden future we will get.

The only problem is, I don't see the Democratic party as being any less Bought by The Masters Of The Universe™. They're just more willing to maintain the polite fiction that everyone else on the planet is every bit as good as the ten thousand or so persons whose wealth and influence rules the Earth.

The Rethugs want to take your money and give much of it to the 1%; curb-stomp you because they enjoy it; then rub your face in the mud and bellow out a cry of 'victory' because Life is for Teh Strong, don'cha know.

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Newt?

'My Plan Maintains Our Dignity'


Ethel -- That Thing's Standing Out On The Wing Again. And He Keeps
Looking At Us. (Courtesy of this little Tumblr thing, "Newt Judges You")

Today is Florida's Rethuglican primary, pitting Randyman™ against One Of America's Richest Politicians © -- and followed, of course, by the Harold Stassen (What? Oh, for pete's sake; look it up) of the Rethug world, Ron Paul, who will be handing out little black plastic UN helicopters to supporters -- which, due to his sensitivities around issues of race, Ron will refer to as "ebony".


Mitzy Thrills The Crowd With His "I Can Beat Obama" Face, Borrowed
From The 'Judge Doom' Character In "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"

And, all America™ is thrilled by the level of campaigning shown by the Rethug front-runners -- a sex addict, and a stiff, utterly clueless Wealthy Person.

Randyman is widely expected to have been outspent by America's Richest Politician ©, and Florida is sinking under the sheer weight of rhetoric showing Newt to be a Randyman, flip-flopping liberal crazy person who shot a man in Dallas just to watch him say, "Better watch what you do with that squirt gun, mister". Mitzy, on the other hand is saying I Am One Of You!! You Are One Of Mine!! I Paid For You -- I Own Youuuuu!! over and over, until led away by his handlers.

How many days is it until Iran gets attacked? And who in the name of anything held sacred in human history names their child "Newt"?

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Nur In Amerika

Wir Einen Neues Blog-Kategorie Eröffnen!

Sie wussten, dass wir in Amerika verrückt haben (you knew we were nuts over here), but we finally made a decision to highlight it in the same manner as major media outlets the world over. Warum nicht? Es gibt so viel davon.


CNN-Site (Klicken Für Grosser Graphik -- Leicht Und Spaß!)

For example, a focus of CNN's website is in highlighting an endless parade of videos and short articles on wacky mix-ups, and mall shootings, and that special brand of religiously-fueled intolerance which America specializes in. Their business model is based on a little titillation, a little news, and a little That's Amazing, America! videos of cute puppies and babies and kids beating the crap out of each other at school.


Little Rupert's 'News' - Note: As Herman Cain Disappears, Huckabee Quietly Reappears (Klicken Für Ein Grosser Graphik Zu Sehen -- Leicht Und Spaß!)

Little Rupert's Fox 'news' does the same thing, except they add a definite fascisimus right-wing twist. Where CNN presents the Crazy as part of the passing show, Little Rupert's Fox defends the xtian religious and Tea Partei babblers and Austerity economists because that's what their business model is based on -- that, and defending the bullies in videos where kids are beating the crap out of each other at school.

The Right-Wing scramble to find a candidate to run against Barack Obama in 2012 goes on -- often called "The Murdoch Primary", as the support of Little Rupert's NewsCorp (the media mouthpiece for the Right in Europe and America) tends to be one of the key factors in which candidate climbs to the top of the swine herd.

Today, Herman Cain's candidacy completed its self-destruction as Herm announced in Atlanta that his campaign was "suspended". Almost immediately, Little Rupert's Fox started mentioning the xtian fundamentalist ex-governor, Mike Huckabee (see the image above).

I would guess that means Newt Gingrich hasn't understood Little Rupert's Personal Fat Boy Fox 'news' editor Roger Ailes when he said Götz von Berlichingen [Our English-speaking readers can use a search engine to catch up]. Once Newt has puckered up, perhaps Little Rupert will give him a bit of favorable coverage.

In any event, we'll be turning this cyberforum into arenas of terror and shame for the superintelligent Parakeet and all three of our European viewers, via updates on the massive fun and merry mix-ups that come with life in Amerika. Viel Spaß Für Dich -- because you are there, and don't have to experience it here.

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