Random Barking: Tears In The Rain

Still Crazy After All These Years

So we don't believe that life is beautiful because we don't recall it; but if we get a whiff of a long-forgotten smell, we are suddenly intoxicated, and similarly we think we no longer love the dead because we don't remember them -- but if by chance we come across an old glove we burst into tears.
-- Marcel Proust

In My Head, The Theme To (The Original) 'Magnificent Seven' Plays, but The Dog grows old. Physically, mentally and spiritually (at least one of these three categories are very subjective) I am doing better than most of my chronological peers, but I am now officially, by government standards, old.  I was already that in the eyes of the Kiddies of Kiddietown (bless their tiny white cotton socks), where The Olds are treated by degrees as Replicant life forms; hideous, useless eaters, grown in vats.

Some days ago, The Girl Who Refused To Be Mrs Mongo (the heroine of yet another unpublished Steig Larrson novel by that name) took me to a seaside restaurant in an All-White enclave by way of celebrating. There was a view of The Bay, and the venue was architecturally pleasant -- but the food was oddly muted, not quite tasteless, reminding me of the old Woody Allen joke about his mother, "running the chicken through the deflavorizing machine."  I enjoyed the wine, though, as Dogs do, and The Girl and I discussed politics.

GIRL: Well, I voted. For Hillary -- and don't tell me about how much of a tool she is.
DOG: This election puts everything that's horrifying about America's political structure and our culture on display. Forget Trump; but I can't vote for her.
GIRL: But it's simple: you vote for Clinton, or you get something even worse.
DOG: So, choose between the lesser of two weevils?
GIRL: This is going to make me crazy. If Trump gets elected --
DOG: He's can't. It's simply not possible. Clinton is already elected. That should make you feel better.
GIRL: Okay; let's just drop it. What did you mean about ' two weevils'?
DOG: A bad Captain and Commander joke, but it applies to this election.

Over the weekend, I re-read an article by Laurie Penny about the DNC's Convention this year which made me want to puke, endlessly, like Ron sicking up Banana Slugs at Hogwarts after a spell gone bad.  Then, I read:  

... Al Franken... chants “Hillary, Hillary.” Fuck that guy. He’s not helping. The only way this could get more embarrassing is if they wheeled out Paul Simon to sing Bridge Over Troubled Water. Which is exactly what happens next. 

Now, before I say what I’m about to say, I want you to understand that I have been a fan of Paul Simon and his work since my father first played me the Greatest Hits when I was six years old.

... Outside, an epic summer storm is breaking over the Democratic Demilitarized Zone like the world’s laziest metaphor. ... I spend an hour sheltering ineffectively outside the Wells Fargo building [where] an independent internet journalist wearing a giant crystal pendant and no shirt starts explaining how he’s hoping for a Trump presidency to usher in the coming collapse of civilization.

Paul Simon's Greatest Hits, Etc., was released in 1977 (meaning Penny was born at roughly the same time that I was participating in America's geopolitical containment strategy in Southeast Asia), and I remember the cuts "American Tune", and Kodachrome, and Still Crazy After All These Years well.

But I could walk it back farther than that. It was here that I had a Proustian moment, stumbled across a forgotten glove: I knew Simon and Garfunkle when they were brand, spanking, never-before-heard new -- Sounds Of Silence; Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme; 59th Street Bridge Song, Feelin' Groovy; Bridge Over Troubled Water, El Condor Pasa; Bookends and Mrs. Robinson brand-new.

I listened to them with my now long-gone High School friend, JJ, while stoned on pot in the basement rec room of his house, the doors locked and the blinds drawn because, you know, pot was illegal. JJ's tastes in music were more reflective than most of the stoners in our small town, which leaned heavily towards Cream, Butterfield Blues Band, Spirit, Creedence Clearwater.

(JJ also introduced me to Zappa and The Mothers Of Invention -- and to Leonard Cohen. Wherever you are, buddy; for that, I am grateful.)

I listened to them outside the U.S. on a PX-purchased TEAC reel-to-reel, and in a string of apartments afterwards -- until the day I stood in an elevator and heard a version of "Feelin' Groovy" by Montovani or 1001 Strings oozing out of the Muzak -- and thereafter found myself listening to Bowie, the Stones, and later (Gott; Hilfts Du Mich) the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever and the BeeGees' Odessa album.

The TEAC R-to-R is still around, in need of repair; but the SNF and BeeGees albums are long gone. Some day, we'll say the same about Trump and Hill-o, and about America; and it will also be said of us.

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MEHR, MIT HUNDE:

STONE: Aningaaq. Is that -- is that your, is that your name? Aningaaq is your name?
ANINGAAQ: ["May Day? Aningaaq. Aningaaq, May Day?"] (Laughs)
STONE: No, no, no. My name is not Mayday. I’m Stone. Dr. Ryan Stone, I need help. [Dogs barking]  Those -- are dogs. They’re calling from Earth.... Woof, woof; yeah...
ANINGAAQ: (Laughs) ["Woof, woof ! May Day? Woof Woof Woof!"]
STONE: Yeah... Aningaaq, make your dogs bark again for me, would you please? Your dogs. Dogs, you know. Woof, woof. Dogs.
ANINGAAQ: ["Dogs don't sound like that -- they go, Aooooo!"]
STONE: Aoooooo. Woof Woof. Aooooo!
ANINGAAQ: [Aooooooooo!]
STONE: Yeah... Aoooo... Oh; I’m gonna die, Aningaaq. I know, we’re all gonna die. Everybody knows that. But I’m gonna die today. Funny, you know, to know that. But the thing is; I’m still scared. I’m really scared. Nobody will mourn for me; no one will pray for my soul. Will you mourn for me? Will you say a prayer for me? I mean, I’d say one for myself, but I’ve never prayed in my life; so. Nobody ever taught me how.

-- Sandra Bullock (Stone), Orto Ignatiussen (Aningaaq), Gravity (2015)  

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Ruh-Roh

Who Cares 

 Oh Get Real: Na Gah Happn

Apparently, She, The Expected One, has a new teensy email problem. More information as events warrant,  but it's doubtful it will have any affect on the manufactured outcome of this Thing we're involved in (oh; choosing the Emptysuit.  Got it).

Ironically enough,  this new fresh crisis for Hill-o resulted from an investigation into the cybersexual escapades of Herr Wiener,  husband to Huma Abedin, one of Hill-o's top aides: apparently some emails from She related to the investigation into HC's private email server were found on Abedin's laptop. 

However, reality asserts itself. Let's face it; unless She has been forwarding copies of the Single Integrated Operational Defense Plan for North America to Kim Jong Fatboy, or the lurking ChiCom menace, the bad bad Iranians or even Sad Vlad, The Putin; or unless she's been moving tons of Blow and scores of underage Hoors around on military air transport, She has it in the bag.  She has for months.

Whew. For a moment there, I thought, you know, this was real news. But that would mean if there was any violation of law there would have to be, you know, real consequences.

(This would be a nice moment to put on the "Passerella Di Addio" by Nino Rota, the theme to Fellini's  8 1/2, a musical interpretation of humanity's ultimately absurd and overblown sense of itself.)

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MEHR MIT EINEM NEUES GEDENKEN: What if it's just a false-flag? A moment of panic for those who believe that Trump has any chance whatsoever.  A late change to the script.

This is Theater, folks. This is Caramel Popcorn level teevee. This is the change in the middle of the third reel, when the heroine is gravely threatened ("Like an 18-wheeler smacking into us!").  And, in keeping with the National Narrative, Little Hillary will push on bravely, fighting the Good Fight against the evil the evil the evil who have always had it in for herself and her Saintly Bill-o. 

And, She will triumph, going On To Greater Glory and to become Our Leader.  Her victory, just that much sweeter. And all America will go Yay! Party!  Roll credits. Buy a T-Shirt on the way out of the theater.

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MEHR, MIT DER POLIZEI: Hill-o has responded this new news by demanding that the FBI reveal all: "Come and get me, Coppers!!"  Apparently, DOJ officials warned FBI Director James Comey not to send a letter to Congress announcing news of the Abdein emails, and the Campaign of She has trumpeted that Comey, a conservative Republican, is attempting to influence the election by doing so.

Comey had apparently told Congress in July when delivering testimony that he would keep them informed of any new developments and so (at least according to the Politico reporter who just appeared on PBS' Weekend News Hour) was compelled to send the letter (earlier, I'd said he was not; silly Pooch, me). 

But if I could ask Comey a question, it would be: What is the point of this, Stupidhead?? Donald Trump is not going to win. He never was. The election is over, already.

Turn up the Nino Rota, please.

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Everybody All Around The World

Gotta Tell You What I Just Heard

Hillo Points At You. Trump Karaoke -- "New Ork, New Ork"

In my normal commute, padding home with a detour for Dog Training, I walked past a libation house with a big scree teevee tuned to CNN, the McNews of the airwaves. A blonde woman was interviewing a man; the big-font headline on screen bellowed, "TRUMP REDUCES CLINTON'S LEAD BY THREE POINTS".

I snorted. This election has been over for weeks, if not months. But it's important for this contest to fit neatly into Our National Mythos, to sell the idea that She is the underdog here, who had to fight fight fight. It's critical that this contest be seen as a cliffhanger -- so close, this race; you must be worried, be very worried -- will Little Hillary, our First Girl Prestidental, ever walk again? Will She and Bill-o know True Happy once more? Whom will we be at war with next?

Gosh; did I wonder. Where had this headline I saw on the street come from? And, would the fiction of The Close Race be shared, in echo-chamber fashion, by Our Glorious and Independent media? Here's a gander at today's early 'top news stories', the headlines, and the next-largest headline-font stories:

• Time-Warner's CNN:  "Tightening Race"  (Most wildlife gone by 2020?)

• Sumner Redstone's / National Amusements Corp.'s CBS: "Poll Finds Clinton's Lead Over Trump Is Dwindling"  (Kim Kardashian tick-tick-ticks off '60 Minutes' viewers)

• Walt Disney Co.'s ABC:  "Trump and Family Preview Path To Victory"  (First Lady Campaigns With Clinton For First Time)

• The Roberts Family Trust / Comcast's NBC:  "How Would A Contested Election Work? Five Things To Know"  (Hacked Memo Reinforces Worst Perception Of The Clintons)

• JeffBezos' WashPo: " 'War On Women' flares anew -- only this time it's inside the GOP"  (The next chapter of globalization is unfolding at this Chinese billionaire's factory in Ohio)

• Verizon-AOL's Huffington Post:  "Reid Warns: Constitutional Crisis"  (Conservatives Push To Block All Hillary Court Nominees... 'Let The Supreme Court Die Out, Literally'... Senate Down To The Wire)

• Paper Of Record: "Some Trump Voters Warn Of Revolution If Clintons Wins" (Seats Of Power: In official Washington, office space projects authority. Tag along as we go behind closed doors into inner sanctums...)

• Little Rupert, Jimmy The Fish and Lack Lan's Newsy-TruthiCorp / Fox News:  "Fox News Poll: Clinton Leads Trump By Three Points" (Major Backlash After Amy Schumer Did That Thing She Did -- Something All Humans Will Recoil From)

Oh -- so that's where the story originated. No surprise there. And what was it Amy did?

But, I have to agree -- Trump has managed to increase his popularity by three points, nationally...   Go have a look.  Wake me up when it's over.

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MEHR, Mit Geröll:  In answer to a question; yes, a "big scree tevee" may be an LCD monitor up to 42 inches, together with a large, sharply-angled slope of alpine gravel. They're very expensive, and generally only available in Switzerland, southwestern Austria, and the Himalayas.  The bar I went past with all that in the window must be doing really well.

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:

Participation Is Complicity

Choose The Form Of The Destructor

Bloom County; October, 1988 (© Berke Breathed)

HC: So I bet you're wasting your vote on Jill Stein.
DOG: [Affectless Stare]
HC: Seriously; are you gonna vote Stein?
DOG: I'm not voting.
HC: You're kidding.
DOG: No. My vote doesn't count, and I refuse to give the current electoral system and this election in particular any legitimacy. And even if this were an election between two different candidates, it wouldn't matter. I would've voted for Bernie, but even that would be misplaced nostalgia for Old Days that really never were.
HC: [Pause] But it's a historic election. The first woman President.
DOG: I'll manage to live with myself.
HC: Fuck you.

[I should mention: These conversations, between a True Believer Of The Cult Of She (HC), and myself (Dog), have actually happened in the depths of corporate America where I dwell, and are not entirely a parody of encounters between a Hillaryite Colleague and The Pjoepf at his Place O' Labor, as occasionally chronicled over at The Soul Of America.]

In the long-ago land of 1988, an impossible time before many of you were ever born, there was another Pestidential contest, between Blue-Blood Owner "Poppy" Bush (father of Greasy George, the Peevish Dullard; son of Prescott Bush, who reportedly supported an attempt to overthrow the U.S. government under that socialist, FDR), Vice-Pestident under Saint Ronald The Dim -- and Michael Dukakis, the much shorter and also stiff, less animated Governor of Massachusetts in the era before 'Der Mittster', Romney.

America's economy had been stuttering in that 1988.  There had been an actual double-dip Recession in 1981-83 under Saint Ronald (as the early waves of globalization began eliminating the steel industry, and moving manufacturing offshore). But Ronaldo El Magnifico, conqueror of Jamaica, performed that famous Voodoo Economics and made it all better.

Then, in 1987, the Iran-Contra Affair became public knowledge -- something Poppy had direct involvement in -- and later that year, the largest single drop in the U.S. stock market on October 19, 1987.  Saint Ronald could not run for a third term, and was tired. There were disquieting stories that he seemed... uh, different... distracted, and that Nancy was being kept closely in the loop on whatever Ronnie needed to do as Our Leader.

The 1988 election was a spirited contest, which resulted in Poppy rousing himself enough to say, "Read My Lips: No New Taxes", and Mike saying in response to a question that Americans want "Good Jobs At Good Wages".  Poppy was known as "The Wimp".  Mikey, much shorter, was known as "The Shrimp".

Except for the fact that the economy seemed to be tanking again, enthusiasm for the election seemed lackluster, manufactured. Many Americans were understandably confused at having to choose, for leadership of the American Ship O' State, between an old-money, ex-DCI at CIA, Skull-n-Boneser with some involvement in drugs-for-arms and Latin right-wing death squads, or a Governor whose greatest achievement appeared to be taking a short joy ride in a tank for the benefit of the press.

Berke Breathed, observer of the American scene, beloved humorist in the vein of Mark Twain and Will Rogers, but wielding a pen and brush (and way better than that patrician Yaleboy, Trudeau), was the author of a daily comic strip, Bloom County, which had a color Sunday supplement (you'll have to look up "daily comic strip" and "color Sunday supplement"; this was before graphic novels and Beyonce and Game Of Tones on DVR teevee).

In October, 1988, before the election, Breathed submitted (in one Dog's opinion) one of the classic humorous commentaries on voting in a Republic where we face Hobson's Choice ("[an allegedly] free choice in which only one thing is offered. Because a person may refuse to accept what is offered, the two options are taking it, or taking nothing"). I shouldn't have to explain how this relates to America's politics, if not Western politics in general.

(If I do, you are not paying attention and so will be surprised when someone suggests perhaps it's time to get rid of the Twenty-Second Amendment, and so enter, by stage Right, President Erwin Rexall. And I get to pee on your leg.)

Opus the Penguin goes to vote, and the result is -- well, obvious, as are all the connections you can see, and many we can't.  The result of participation in this mutant circus freakshow election cycle will be exactly the same -- and for myself, I can't go walking around with The Sign Of The Beast (my head covered in a wad of used green chewing gum) for all to see.

This was originally issued as a color Sunday comic, but no color version exists on the Intertubes that I could find; the amateurish attempt to add a bit of color is the best you can expect for a Dog who has to pick up crayons with his soft mouth parts, and all while at the Place O' Labor™.

(Clicky = Bigger, Happier. © 1988, 2014 Berke Breathed; Washington Post Co.)

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MEHR, Mit Wir Vermissen Opus:

(Clicky = In Einem Augenblick, Ein Grosser Cartoon)

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Happy Crash Day

In The Markets We Prepare For 'Festival'

Trader, The American Stock Exchange, September 29, 2008

The Roaring Twenties, the decade that followed World War I and led to the Crash, was a time of wealth and excess. Building on post-war optimism, rural Americans migrated to the cities in vast numbers throughout the decade with the hopes of finding a more prosperous life in the ever growing expansion of America's industrial sector. While the American cities prospered, the overproduction of agricultural produce created widespread financial despair among American farmers throughout the decade... Despite the dangers of speculation, many believed that the stock market would continue to rise forever.

On March 25, 1929, after the Federal Reserve warned of excessive speculation, a mini crash occurred as investors started to sell stocks at a rapid pace, exposing the market's shaky foundation...  However, the American economy showed ominous signs of trouble: steel production declined, construction was sluggish, automobile sales went down, and consumers were building up high debts because of easy credit. Despite all these economic trouble signs ... stocks resumed their advance in June and the gains continued almost unabated ... The market had been on a nine-year run that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average increase in value tenfold, peaking at 381.17 on September 3, 1929.

...In the days leading up to the crash, the market was severely unstable. Periods of selling and high volumes were interspersed with brief periods of rising prices and recovery. Selling intensified ... [o]n October 24 ("Black Thursday"), the market lost 11 percent of its value at the opening bell on very heavy trading. The huge volume meant that the report of prices on the ticker tape in brokerage offices around the nation was hours late, so investors had no idea what most stocks were actually trading for at that moment, increasing panic...

Obligatory Cute Small Animal Photo In Middle Of Collapse Of Empire

On October 28, "Black Monday", more investors facing margin calls decided to get out of the market, and the slide continued with a record loss in the Dow for the day of 38.33 points, or 13%.

The next day, "Black Tuesday", October 29, 1929, about 16 million shares traded as the panic selling reached its peak. Some stocks actually had no buyers at any price that day ("air pockets"). The Dow lost an additional 30 points, or 12 percent. The volume of stocks traded on October 29, 1929 was a record that was not broken for nearly 40 years... The market would not return to the peak closing of September 3, 1929 until November 23, 1954.  [Wikipedia]

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They Buddies. They Laugh At You, Fit To Bust. Ha Ha Ha.
And, Please Note How Coated Little Lloyd's Tongue Is. Ewww.

The stock market crash of 2008 occurred on September 29.  The stock market, as represented by the Dow Jones Industrial Average, fell 777.68 points in intra-day trading. That was the largest point drop in any single day in history. It was because Congress rejected the bank bailout bill. But the crash had been building for a long time.  

The Dow hit its pre-recession, all-time high on October 9, 2007, closing at 14,164.43.

Less than 18 months later, it had dropped more than 50% to 6,594.44 on March 5, 2009. That wasn't the largest decline in history. During the Great Depression, the stock market took a 90% hit. But this fall was more vicious. It took only 18 months, compared to three years during the Depression. [Kimberly Amadeo, "Stock Market Crash Of 2008", The Balance, September 9, 2016]

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 The top subprime lenders whose loans are largely blamed for triggering the global economic meltdown were owned or bankrolled by banks now collecting billions of dollars in bailout money — including several that have paid huge fines to settle predatory lending charges.

These big institutions were not only unwitting victims of an unforeseen financial collapse, as they have sometimes portrayed themselves, but enablers that bankrolled the type of lending that has threatened the financial system.

These are among the findings of a Center for Public Integrity analysis of government data on nearly 7.2 million “high-interest” or subprime loans made from 2005 through 2007, a period that marks the peak and collapse of the subprime boom. The computer-assisted analysis also reveals the top 25 originators of high-interest loans, accounting for nearly $1 trillion, or about 72 percent of such loans made during that period.

The Center found that U.S. and European investment banks invested enormous sums in subprime lending due to unceasing demand for high-yield, high-risk bonds backed by home mortgages. The banks made huge profits while their executives collected handsome bonuses until the bottom fell out of the real estate market. [Center For Public Integrity,  "Roots Of The Financial Crisis: Who's To Blame?" May 6, 2009]

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MEHR, MIT CURRENT DJIA:  18,232.72   +87.01

This means the broader market has increased by eleven thousand-plus points in the 91 months from its March 5, 2009 low to where it is today. 

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I Lived The Whole Within, And Believed That I Was Free

Sleeping Now, And Dreaming

(Photo By Machine)

We Didn't Make This Part Up
(Stuff in Red is true and happening! in an alternate Universe. Or, you know, not. Trust us.)

Many Americans are With The Giant Meteor. In fact, The Giant Meteor (at 13%) is doing better in a double-blind, America's Home Kitchen Taste-Test poll than Herr Trump (12.7%) [US News And World Report]

Two Of Your Four Jobs Pays For NFL Action

With broadband now classified like a utility, telecom and tech companies, including Sprint, Comcast and Facebook, are increasingly working to make high-speed internet accessible to every American, not just a luxury. The companies are among those that have set their sights on bringing free or cheap high-speed internet service to low-income and rural populations in the United States, spurred by ... the hope of turning Americans who are not online today into full-paying customers in the future, when they may pay a goodly chunk of their hourly wages to these public-spirited corporations in exchange for viewing fantasies of lives they and their children will never be able to lead. ... (NYT)

Not Amused

...Helen Worth, who plays Gail Rodwell in a soap on Britain's ITV, appeared to mistakenly reveal that Ken Barlow, played by William Roache, suffers a stroke in an upcoming episode. The world mourns, and reportedly Her Majesty The Queen is "upset".  (UK Sun. Do not ask us what any of this means, but in The Land Of The Brexit and the Banger, it's a deal.)

Trump Says Potato, Pence Says Tuber

Republican leaders are fighting Donald J. Trump’s allegation that the news media and the Democratic Party and a Ford-sized Wombat are conspiring to commit election fraud. Mr. Trump’s running mate, Gov. Mike Pence, said Mr. Trump would “absolutely accept whatever the Wombat wants.”... (CNN)

My Sweet, Funny, Wonderful Mother

... For some voters, Mrs. Clinton’s harsh remarks about some women who had been sexually involved with her husband, and the thought of Mr. Clinton back in the White House, are loathsome. Mr. Trump stoked that discomfort last week by publicly appearing with several women who had accused Mr. Clinton of misconduct and by bringing them to the second presidential debate. Their appearance apparently did not faze the front-ruiner, Hillary Clinton, who stepped from behind the podium and reportedly barked, "Yahhhhh, bitches!!  Yaahhhhh, bitches!! Who's gonna be President now, hah? Hah??? Wanna get audited?? Wanna go to Guantanamo??" ... (NYT)

' M'eye Talkin' To You? Where's The Money? '

Mrs. Clinton has refused to comment publicly on the Giant Meteor, though she reportedly has said things to Goldman-Sachs in exchange for a big pile of money. (Cheese Star)

I Cast My Vote Upon The Waters

There are 15 states with new voting laws that have never before been used during a presidential election, according to a report by the Brennan Center for Justice. These laws include restrictions like voter ID requirements, limits on early voting, forcing some voters to impersonate Aaron Burr, sing all major songs from Oklahoma! or The Fantastiks!, and complete all fabled Tests Of Strength from Sinefeld's 'Festivus' before they may considered worthy to cast a ballot. 

 Many are making their way through the courts, which have already called a halt to two laws in the past month as "silly" — one in North Carolina specifying that voters may only cast ballots while nude; one in North Dakota which makes it illegal to bring Lutefisk within 5.3 statute miles of any polling station.  Meanwhile, in the People's Fun Republic Of Berkeley, no one who has been Friended on 'FaceBuch' less than 10,000 times will be permitted to vote, and Dogs will be allowed to cast ballots for the first time. (ProPublica)

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What Hat God Wrought

Or If Not A Hat, Then Shorts 

An Der Zweiten Tag vor Weinacht / Mein Frau Für Das Leben /
Hat Zu Mir Geben / Zwei Donald Trump
UND  EIN SCHWEIN INS FLEIDERMAUS KOSTUM
(Traditional / Mongo)

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MEHR, SO LANGSAM:  Current poll results --  GIANT METEOR: 13%; Trump: 12.7%;  She: 87.3%

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And The Winner Is

-- Mr Robert A. Zimmerman of Duluth, Minn.

Obverse Of The Nobel Medal For Literature (Wikipedia / Creative Commons)

Look out, Kid / It's somethin' ya did
God knows when but you're doin' it again
-- Subterranean Homesick Blues (1965)

So many tracks playing in the ol' Brain Radio right now, connected to people, places, emotions.
Congratulations, Bob. This is way better than being asked to claim your Tub Of Slaw.

He is the first American to win the prize since the novelist Toni Morrison, in 1993. The announcement, in Stockholm, was a surprise: Although Mr. Dylan, 75, has been mentioned often as having an outside shot at the prize, his work does not fit into the literary canons of novels, poetry and short stories that the prize has traditionally recognized.

“Mr. Dylan’s work remains utterly lacking in conventionality, moral sleight of hand, pop pabulum or sops to his audience,” Bill Wyman, a journalist, wrote in a 2013 Op-Ed essay in The New York Times arguing for Mr. Dylan to get the award. “His lyricism is exquisite; his concerns and subjects are demonstrably timeless; and few poets of any era have seen their work bear more influence.”

... this is snarky, mayhaps -- but when Them Swedes give the same prize to Laurie Anderson, I'll really sit up and take notice. And, Laurie recently released Heart Of A Dog.

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The Smell Of Dog

Don't Put Your Nose There

Yes; occasionally, we here at Before Nine post about things that have nothing to do with the passing show -- a fine example of which is: over at the Paper of Record, a fine article pimping a recent book (and deservedly so) about the superiority of a Dog's ability to smell stuff.

The book is Being a Dog: Following the Dog into a World of Smell by Alexandra Horowitz of Barnard College's Dog Cognition Lab (pretty astounding there's a lab dedicated to Pooch Science, no?).  The short-form version is, we smell things better than you by virtue of having 300 Million olfactory receptors, compared with the six million you humans possess.

“Take a smell walk with [your dog],” Dr. Horowitz said. “Let them lead the way and smell and linger. Let them sniff each other. There’s a pleasure for owners in letting a dog be a dog, to acknowledge their dogness. They put up with a lot of our humanness.”

I recommend going directly to a 20-minute video embedded in the article, which shows the adventures of Ms Horowitz and her Labrador Retriever, named Finnegan, walking in Central Park in New York City. You'll learn things.

Finnegan, Using His 300 Million Olfactory Receptors (NYT Online)

Here's a tip: although Dogs appear to be attracted to things which smell fairly rank, some things that are truly rotten are repellent, abjured, avoided -- such as politics. It's why we won't vote, man. Never mind the Constitution.

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We're Saying The Same Things

Which Must Be Said, Over And Over, With Fierce Conviction

(An excerpt from Thomas Frank, in The UK Guardian Online: "With Trump Certain To Lose, You Can Forget About A progressive Clinton")

“Jobs” don’t really matter now in this election, nor does the debacle of “globalization”, nor does anything else, really. Thanks to this imbecile Trump, all such issues have been momentarily swept off the table while Americans come together around Clinton, the wife of the man who envisaged the Davos dream in the first place.

As leading Republicans desert the sinking ship of Trump’s GOP, America’s two-party system itself has temporarily become a one-party system. And within that one party, the political process bears a striking resemblance to dynastic succession. Party office-holders selected Clinton as their candidate long ago, apparently determined to elevate her despite every possible objection, every potential legal problem.

The Democratic National Committee helped out, too, as WikiLeaks tells us. So did President Barack Obama, that former paladin for openness, who in the past several years did nearly everything in his power to suppress challenges to Clinton and thus ensure she would continue his legacy of tepid, bank-friendly neoliberalism.

My leftist friends persuaded themselves that this stuff didn’t really matter, that Clinton’s many concessions to Sanders’ supporters were permanent concessions. But with the convention over and the struggle with Sanders behind her, headlines show Clinton triangulating to the right, scooping up the dollars and the endorsement... She is reaching out to the foreign policy establishment and the neocons. She is reaching out to Republican office-holders. She is reaching out to Silicon Valley. And, of course, she is reaching out to Wall Street. In her big speech in Michigan on Thursday she cast herself as the candidate who could bring bickering groups together and win policy victories...

...[W]hat seems most plausible ... is a landslide for Clinton, and with it the triumph of complacent neoliberal orthodoxy. She will have won her great victory, not as a champion of working people’s concerns, but as the greatest moderate of them all, as the leader of a stately campaign of sanity and national unity. The populist challenge of the past eight years, whether led by Trump or by Sanders, will have been beaten back resoundingly. Centrism will reign triumphant ... for years to come.

...Trump loves to boast that he is immune to the scourge of money in politics, that he’s nobody’s puppet, and from his coming ruin and disgrace we will no doubt be told to draw many lessons about how money in politics actually helps prevent the rise of people like Trump and makes the system more stable.

For decades, the Davos set have told us that doubt about “globalization” was a species of racism, and soon Trump, as a landslide loser, will confirm this for them in overwhelming terms.

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